Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation calls on U.S. Congress to investigate alleged IRS targeting

An ‘umbrella’ organization for over three dozen tea party groups across the Commonwealth, the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation, recently called on the U.S. Congress to appoint an independent special prosecutor to investigate the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) alleged targeting of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Not satisfied with this demand, vice chairman of the federation, Rick Buchanan, also called on the U.S. Congress to “strip away the IRS assignment to monitor health insurance status on individual tax returns and cancel all enforcement of the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act provisions.”

In other words, the Virginia Tea Party federation is seeking to politically capitalize on the IRS investigation to further its political goals, even if those goals are totally unrelated to the scope of the IRS investigation and its alleged misconduct. You’re shocked, I can tell.  

As Lowell Feld of Blue Virginia pointed out, if the VA Tea Party Patriots Federation want a congressional investigation into the IRS’s alleged targeting of tea party groups who filed for tax exempt status, they should also be prepared to forfeit their status as “social welfare” organizations, which many of these groups are certainly not. Or if these groups are social welfare organizations, so is the AFL-CIO and the Communication Workers of America (CWA), all the more so because they actually focus on the welfare of society, not just the individual.

But by all means, continue the congressional focus on an issue that American’s will shortly tire of hearing about and an issue which, unless additional evidence is uncovered, won’t directly touch President Obama and unravel his plans for the remainder of his presidency.

By now, the tea party has cried wolf too many times and while its popularity may ebb and flow, when many of these groups are held up to the light of scrutiny, a lot will be revealed that is not attractive to the average American. Such ideas as decreasing the size of government down to primarily military functions is beyond what even many conservative Americans can identify with.

So please continue in your bully pulpit. Tea party groups across the country may find that ‘winning’ is simply the precursor to its own demise.