Why is everyone "outraged"??

[kentuck]

34. Your post assumes equal scrutiny is a necessity.

I think that is a false equivalency argument that would overlook obvious red flags for the sake of being "fair". That would be unequal protection of the laws by letting some abuse the tax laws for fear of creating outrage.

Yes, Tea Baggers might be outraged. It might look bad. But the IRS has a duty to the rest of the citizenry to do their job. These groups did not deserve "normal" scrutiny.

Yes, the IRS may have been wiser not to group them as anti-tax, anti-government organizations. But, in my opinion, they did it because they were overloaded with work and underfunded by the Congress so they were looking at the best way to do their job. They probably grouped (targeted) "new businesses" and "progressive" organizations also? The only difference was that they received more "normal" scrutiny because they were not all equal. They should not have treated all the applications the same if they thought some were more apt to abuse the system.

The fact that they were breaking the law is more important than whether or not the Tea Party was pissed off and their Republican masters were outraged, in my opinion.