Remember, this is the agency that helped Barack Obama win the 2012 election by targeting conservative groups and it’s been stonewalling congressional oversight ever since. On Thursday, The New York Times ran a sob story that said the ability for Internal Revenue Service to track down tax cheating, fraud and identity theft was severely hampered because of its reduced budget. Tax lawyer and former IRS commissioner Lawrence Gibbs told the paper, “The one thing people ought to agree on is that we should have a revenue system that works and works well. And if we’re going to create a disrespect for our tax revenue system, I look at it and say I just don’t think it’s in our country’s best interest.”

One of the hardest things to do in Washington is actually reduce spending — heck, even just reducing slated spending growth is darn near impossible. And it’s partly because the bureaucrats whine and moan and get “aw-they-just-need-to-operate” stories from the Leftmedia. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress last week that the agency was tolerating illegal aliens’ use of stolen Social Security numbers to file taxes — a clear disregard for the Rule of Law on several levels. Congress controls the purse strings. And while the IRS may threaten that the U.S. government’s ability to collect revenue is damaged, the reality is it’s an agency that needs to be brought under control.