The+IRS+Scandal

The second terms of presidential administrations tend to feature scandals, and the revelation that the IRS was giving special scrutiny to the application for tax exempt status as 501(c)(4) organizations by groups with "Tea Party" in their titles has the earmarks of a nice one.

It also provides us a good story to hang much of this class on, as well as a fruitful subject for your 1000 word report.

A lot of topics we'll hit in the next few days involve this issue, including:

- The delegated powers - The history of revenue collection in the US - The legislative process - how was the IRS established? what is the oversight process? is Congress broken? - The constitutional amendment process - what made the income tax legal? - The executive branch - how are executive agencies organized? What discretion do they have in implementing the law? - The presidency - what control does the president have over the IRS, or any executive agency? - The judiciary - what role did the Citizens United decision have in setting this process in motion? - Campaign finance - what types of controls on campaign finance are constitutional? - Political Parties - the rise of the Tea Party movement - Elections - what are the consequencs of this scandal for 2014 and 2016?

And on and on - this is really a rich subject.

I've already started collecting stories about this on the blog - [|under the label IRS Scandal]. I'll be adding more on a daily basis. Read through what I post and do your own research. I will use the written assignments as ways of prodding you along, but I want you to quickly think of a research topic related to a specific aspect of this still developing story.

By noon May 30th I want you to turn in a research paper of at least 1000 words with at least three citations.

Be sure it is grammatically sound and well written. Make sure it looks good too.