Posted on 01/08/2019 9:37:40 AM PST by Drew68
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) claimed Tuesday that the Trump administration lacks the legal authority to distribute tax refunds during the government shutdown, as the White House says it intends to do.
“Literally, there are $140 billion, approximately, in tax refunds that won’t be able to be sent,” Hoyer said during his weekly press briefing in the Capitol.
Hoyer’s comments came on Day 18 of the partial government shutdown that’s resulted from a partisan impasse over border wall funding. One of the agencies affected by the stand-off is the Treasury Department, which will oversee the issuing of tax refunds as the 2018 filing season advances.
On Monday, the administration vowed that the shutdown will not delay the IRS’s distribution of those payments.
“Tax refunds will go out,” Russell Vought, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters on Monday.
The threat that tax refunds would be delayed was seen as a pressure point — and an advantage for Democrats — in the battle to reopen the government as Trump and Democratic leaders seem to be digging in on the issue of whether to provide billions of dollars for the president’s promised U.S.–Mexico border wall.
Hoyer said flatly that making the payments during the shutdown is illegal.
“The president now is going to order them to do what we think is illegal to do because he wants to act like a dictator,” Hoyer said.
To ramp up the pressure on Senate GOP leaders to act, Hoyer and House Democrats plan to pass four separate spending bills this week targeting some of the shuttered agencies.
On Wednesday, they’ll vote on a financial services bill to reopen the Treasury Department; on Thursday, they’ll bring two bills to the floor, one funding the Agriculture Department and Food and Drug Administration, and another financing the Interior Department, including the National Park Service. And on Friday, they’ll vote to reopen the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development departments.
All of those bills were passed by the Senate at the end of last year, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has refused to consider them this month, citing Trump’s opposition.
Echoing other Democratic leaders, Hoyer on Tuesday urged McConnell to bring the bills to the floor for the sake of ending the shutdown and freeing salaries for hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees.
“These are not our bills, but we want to open up the government and therefore we are compromising by only offering Republican bills,” Hoyer said.
“We’re now going to offer them one by one,” he added. “It’s an opportunity for every American to see who wants to open up government and end this Trump shutdown.”
Democrats working to ensure everyone feels pain, not just non-essential government employees and people on food stamps.
Not a real good hill for the Rats to die on.
A $140 BILLION in TAX REFUNDS, but they cannot find $5 BILLION for a damn WALL?............................
If thePrez is sending refunds, and the Communist house majority gets an Obamite Judge to stop it, who gets blamed? LOL
Then paying taxes is also illegal during the gubmnt shutdown.
Hoyer just killed their own argument, by stating that there is $140 BILLION in TAX REFUNDS.......................
“Not a real good hill for the Rats to die on.”
Any hill they die on is fine with me. I will travel a long way to urinate on their grave.
Snort
Cite the law!
Go ahead, Steny. Sue to prevent Trump from sending tax refunds. Hang THAT one around the neck of your party.
Dems obstructing tax refunds.
Film at 11.
OH NEVER MIND
I dont need the money and anyone who’s solvent doesnt either. Keep it shut down indefinitely.
Non-essential personnel...
I would assume the IRS preparing refunds would be considered essential.
Hoyer is correct in that it is illegal.
There is no reasonable person who believes otherwise.
But most importantly it’s time for the Democrats to experience the frustration of being an observer to a lawless POTUS.
One who enjoys the unqualified support of 40+% of the electorate.
Isn’t Hoyer one of the bigger tax cheats? I would think he’d be the last person to be talking about the IRS.
So democrats don’t want you to get your tax refund? Trump should jump on that tonight.
He just assumed responsibility for all delayed tax refunds. It's on the Democrat Party, now.
Democrats talking disparagingly about illegality is hilarious.
It isn’t the Government’s money, it’s the excess Money the out of control Government has seized from the Taxpayers.
It’s time to end Payroll Deductions.
Fill out your Tax Forms and write a check to Uncle Sugar on April 15th and then make Election Day April 16th.
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