The IRS—the department that collects all the money that funds everything the U.S. government wants to do—is being slowly gutted. What could go wrong?

For conservatives, the IRS is an old standby for demonization. Multiple Republican presidential candidates have even advocated abolishing the IRS. Left unsaid is the fact that it is the IRS that collects all the money to pay for the stuff that Republican politicians want to do, like wars, and so forth. It’s one thing to talk about starving the governmental beast of its revenue, and grumble about the pain of filling out tax forms and waiting on hold for some bureaucrat to explain something to you; it’s another thing to explain to your constituents why all of their public services are breaking down (because you abolished the IRS—idiot!).

Even without full on abolition, though, the IRS is slowly crumbling. By political choice! Bloomberg today reports on the sorry state of the agency’s ongoing decline: “Since 2010, when Republicans won control of the House, the IRS budget has been cut $1.2 billion to this year’s $10.9 billion.” As a result, the number of IRS criminal investigators (the agents who handle the toughest criminal financial investigations) is down by more than 20 percent since 2011, and expected to continue to fall.

“This brain drain translates to fewer resources to fight tax evasion and corporate frauds.” Great.

To save a paltry $1.2 billion in the budget, Republicans have in all likelihood forsaken many, many times that amount in extra tax revenue that could have been collected had the IRS had the resources to do so. Politicians portray the IRS as the enemy, the symbol of the big bad government, and pretend that gutting the IRS is an act of rebellion against the powers that be. In fact, the people who will be best served by a weak IRS are the rich and corporate criminals.

Way to go, leaders.

[Photo: AP]