How many Americans received a mail-in ballot and an IRS letter telling them of benefits Democrats gave them on or about the same day? Inquiring minds want to know.

Everyone loves “free” money, and Democrats are experts at shamelessly redistributing income in a not-so-subtle exchange for votes. This election, the IRS seems to have gotten in on the act by sending a letter last month to nine million households extending the deadline for filing a 2021 tax return another month, all the way until November 17. To entice people, the letter reminded them that they “appear to qualify for a variety of key tax benefits.” In other words, recipients might be eligible for one of those $1,400 checks from last year’s American Rescue Plan, or maybe some of the expanded child tax credit or the drastically increased and grossly misnamed “earned-income tax credit.”

Democrats have campaigned heavily on all of the above.

“With rent, food prices and utility bills up, many families could use some extra cash. Inflation is stressing people’s budgets big time,” reported The Washington Post last month. “If you’re struggling and didn’t file a tax return this year, check your mail.”

All that redistributed taxpayer money caused inflation, but sure, go ahead and check the mail.

Why would the IRS send that letter out in October right before a critical election? The agency says it sent out a “similar” letter in 2020, but that one was only a reminder about the filing deadline. It didn’t contain an extension or reference the tax credits Democrats regularly trumpet on the campaign trail.

Texas Republican Kevin Brady, ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, marveled at the “suspicious timing” of the letter, which “appears political.” He wants an explanation for how this happened. Recipients were chosen largely based on having incomes low enough that filing a return is not required. People who pay little or no taxes and receive benefits anyway are far more likely to vote Democrat.

Meanwhile, there are still nine million unprocessed 2021 returns sitting at the IRS. Maybe that’s why the agency “needs” those 87,000 more employees.

What amounts to politicizing the IRS is nothing new, of course. For example, when $1,200 pandemic checks went out to 70 million Americans in 2020, “President Donald J. Trump” appeared in the memo line. Democrats caterwauled at the time, but only because he was outdoing them at their own game.

Touting redistributed benefits is not the only way the IRS has been politicized either. Leading up to the 2012 presidential election, Lois Lerner and a cadre of deep state IRS players effectively created an “enemies list” targeting Tea Party and Patriot groups for additional scrutiny in order to silence those groups. We can still only wonder if Barack Obama would have won reelection if his faithful minions in the executive branch hadn’t put an elbow on the scales on his behalf.

For all their incessant talk about the Republican “threat to democracy,” Democrats sure do know how to run a banana republic. They use the IRS to silence American citizens, they send the FBI to raid their political opponents and seed collusion conspiracies to undermine them, they deploy the Departments of Justice and Education to squelch the rights of parents who disagree with what they’re doing to children, and they use various other cabinet agencies to determine winners and losers in our economy. Does anyone think they’re above using the IRS to kindly remind voters ahead of an election just how “generous” Democrats are?