We don’t trust the federal government much anymore.
Since 1958, Pew Research has being asking the question, “How much of the time do you trust the government?” Fifty-five years ago, 73 percent of Americans said they did just about always or most of the time, while 23 percent said some of the time or never.
In 2013, the numbers are reversed. Only 26 percent trust the government, while 73 percent are distrustful.
The precipitous decline in trust began during the Vietnam War and continued through Watergate. We briefly regained our confidence in the federal government after 9/11 as Americans rallied together, but that has faded.
The developments of the last few weeks will add to the cynicism.
Yesterday, I wrote about Benghazi and the apparent failure of the Obama Administration to level with the American people about the attack that left four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, dead. Now, in an unrelated story, we’re finding out that the IRS targeted conservative groups for greater scrutiny.
The IRS scandal has resonated with Americans perhaps even more than Benghazi because anyone who gets a W-2 and fills out a tax form can relate. We all live with a certain amount of fear that we’ve made a mistake on our taxes that will trigger an audit.
Our expectation is that the IRS has no agenda; that as the powerful collector of taxes, as well as the arbiter of the meaning of a byzantine tax code, the IRS will carry out its responsibilities fairly and impartially.
But an investigation by the Treasury Inspector General for the Tax Administration found that the IRS gave particular scrutiny to conservative groups applying for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status. The finding reinforces complaints that Tea Party groups had been making for some time.
According to a timeline from the Treasury Inspector, IRS Tax-Exempt Organizations Division Director Lois Lerner, was told in June 2011 that the unit was more closely scrutinizing groups that had the words “Tea Party” or “Patriots” in them.
However, then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, a Bush appointee, vehemently denied to Congress at a March 2012 hearing that organizations with conservative political leanings were being singled out.
Even liberal columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times had to concede, “Maybe some of the paranoia is justified.”
The outrage is bipartisan, as it should be. From West Virginia, both Democratic Senator Joe Manchin and Republican Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito called the IRS’s actions “un-American.”
President Obama, during a news conference Monday, called the scandal “outrageous” and said he learned about it the same time everyone else did.
According to the IRS website, the agency’s mission is to “Provide America’s taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and enforce the law with integrity and fairness to all.”
The disconnect between the latter portion of that mission statement and the conduct of the IRS means that the next time Pew Research asks the trust question, the numbers may be even more abysmal.