The new GOP-led Congress should wield its power to officially shut down the Internal Revenue System, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said on Monday.
At Heritage Action's 2015 conservative policy summit, Cruz claimed that Republicans should take advantage of their control of Congress to abolish the U.S. government tax agency, The Daily Caller reported.
"We need to pass fundamental tax reform making our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer," he said. "And I'll tell you, the single most important tax reform, we should abolish the IRS."
"The last two years have fundamentally changed the dynamics of this debate [on the tax code]," he continued. "As we have seen the weaponization of the IRS, as we have seen the Obama administration using the IRS in a partisan manner to punish its political enemies."
"In my view there is a powerful populist instinct to take the 110,000 employees at the IRS, to padlock the building, and to put all 110,000 of them down on our southern border."
Ex-IRS official Lois Learner, who headed the IRS division, has been accused of processing Tea Party and conservative groups' for tax exempt status in an unfair manner before the 2010 and 2012 elections, including the IRS who improperly delayed dozens of applications for years, according to an internal audit by the agency's inspector general. Documents show that some liberal groups were singled out, too, Politico reported.
Since the scandal broke in 2013, documents from various agencies and individuals have been requested by GOP-led House committees, with IRS claiming to have spent $10 million in compliance of such requests. But Lerner, who was placed on administrative leave shortly after the scandal broke, and has since retired, remained the focal suspicion of the controversy, repeatedly denying any illegal behavior.
Although Cruz acknowledged that it might not be entirely possible to eradicate the IRS or adopt a flat tax while Obama is in office, he said bold steps could be taken to reduce the power of Washington by simplifying the tax code and reducing the burden of American citizens, according to The Daily Caller.
Citing the GOP's victory during midterm elections, Cruz further stated that the country had rejected the Democratic party's path to economy. "It was the voters saying, 'the Obama economy, it ain't working. We want something different. We want real leadership.'"
"If we simply settle into business as usual in this town and keep growing and growing and growing the leviathan and keep shrinking and shrinking and shrinking that sphere of individual liberty, we will demoralize the men and women who came out in November," he added.
Meanwhile, the Texas senator also outlined an agenda that includes repealing and replacing Obamacare, securing the border, passing the Keystone XL pipeline, auditing the Federal Reserve and taking a hard line against ISIS and Iran.
"Let's lead with a big, bold, positive agenda that says to the American people you had a referendum and you rejected the Obama agenda - there is a better way," he said. "That's our opportunity."
