Ah, irony.
Don't tread on me? Get government out of my private life? No new taxes? The Tea Party mantra, right? In the event that you were still under the impression that the Tea Party was a truly populist movement fighting for smaller government, you can forget that. They're the same old culture warriors we've always seen on the far right.
Earlier I wrote about the tax provisions of H.R. 3, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." Should it become law, the Joint Tax Committee's chief of staff told lawmakers, IRS agents conducting audits on women would have to figure out if they had ever used any tax credit or benefit to pay for an abortion.
And if a woman had used any kind of tax benefit or credit to pay for an abortion, she would have to provide documentation that she was the victim of rape or incest, or that the termination was necessary to save her life. Keep those receipts and police reports, girls! As Lindsay Beyerstein writes at TAPPED, "Imagine if every angry boyfriend could call up the IRS tip line and get his girlfriend audited over an abortion."
But here, also from Lindsay, is where the teahadists come in.
The H.R. 3 has 221 co-sponsors, of whom 211 are Republicans. The Republicans hold 241 seats in Congress.
Of the 56 official members of the House Tea Party Caucus, 55 are co-sponsors of H.R. 3. That's right, 98 percent of House Tea Party Caucus members are not just supporting but co-sponsoring a bill that would empower the IRS to audit the uteruses of the nation. Only 87 percent of all Republican House members co-sponsored the bill.
This is the face of libertarianism in America?