Congressman Charles Rangel said, “There’s a cancer in Cincinnati.” That is just another example of how our region is taking collateral damage in IRS scandal. The Cincinnati area is being portrayed as a hotbed of rogue, corrupt IRS employees.
We are fed up with this constant refrain, which has been picked up by the media blaming the scandal on local IRS workers. We believe the problem originated in Washington. The Enquirer “fact-checked” remarks at Cincinnati’s national Town Hall meeting on the subject. When will you “fact check” the White House?
When specific groups are targeted by a powerful government agency, it is more than just a “controversy.” When the former IRS head visits the White House 167 times and fails to explain why, it is more than just a “controversy.” When the IRS tax-exempt section director testifies before a congressional committee that she did nothing wrong but then takes the Fifth Amendment, it is more than just a “controversy.”
This is an outright assault on our free speech and religious freedoms, perhaps the most egregious ever. Attempting to dismiss it as random acts of low-level employees here is offensive and beyond reason.
We have proudly run on the Democratic ticket countless times. We each have been elected in campaigns where corruption was an issue: in one case, winning a special congressional election that the New York Times said helped impeach President Nixon in 1974, and in another in response to stories of special deals in setting property values in 1990.
This is not a partisan issue. We encourage Congress to press on with a full and complete investigation of the IRS. We expect the result put the blame squarely where it belongs, and in so doing clear Cincinnati’s good name and reputation. ■
Tom Luken is a former Cincinnati mayor and member of Congress. Dusty Rhodes is the Hamilton County auditor and a former Delhi Township trustee.