In the News

The GOP-controlled House has slashed the budget for the Internal Revenue Service's tax enforcement division by $1.2 billion, a 25 percent cut that would mean fewer audits of taxpayers and make it more likely that people who cheat on their taxes will get away with it.

The House approved the cuts by voice vote after little debate Monday night as it took up a $21 billion spending bill that sets the IRS budget.

The cuts reflect GOP outrage over the agency's scrutiny of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status and frustration over the agency's failure to produce thousands of emails by Lois Lerner, the official formerly in charge of the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status.

"The use of a government agency to harass, target, intimidate and threaten lawful, honest citizens was the worst form of authoritarianism," said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., author of an amendment to cut the IRS tax enforcement budget by $353 million. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., followed up with an amendment to cut $788 million more.

The Democratic floor leader on the funding bill, Rep. Jose Serrano of New York, opposed the amendments but opted against demanding a roll call vote.

"The answer is not to cut the IRS to bare bones, because our next problem is that the deficit will continue to grow because we won't be able to do the proper collecting of tax dollars in this country," Serrano said.

The White House had already issued a veto threat on the legislation, saying it shortchanges the IRS, impedes implementation of the new health care law and undercuts the new regulations on Wall St. that passed in 2010.

House debate on the IRS and Treasury Department funding bill will resume Tuesday. A companion Senate measure has stalled in the Appropriations Committee, hung up in part over a looming amendment by GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky aimed at blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing new regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. McConnell appears likely to prevail in the committee, which is stocked with pro-energy Democrats who are up for re-election.

A fight over those EPA rules extended to the House Appropriations Committee, which took up a separate measure funding the Interior Department and the EPA Tuesday morning. A Democratic bid to preserve the EPA rules failed by a 29-18 vote. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., labeled the measure "an ideological dumping ground of short-sided environmental policies."