Sixty percent of U.S. voters want to stop the Internal Revenue Service from hiring 87,000 new agents, according to a Trafalgar poll released Thursday.
Democrats last year approved $80 billion in funding for the IRS as part of the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act, which the U.S. Treasury said could be used to hire 86,852 full-time employees over a decade.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said rescinding the IRS agent funding would be the first priority of the GOP in the House, though President Joe Biden said he will veto any bill attempting to do that.
"This reckless bill would increase the deficit by nearly $115 billion over 10 years per an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office by enabling wealthy tax cheats to engage in additional tax fraud and avoidance," the White House said in a statement released last week about H.R. 23.
"If the President were presented with H.R. 23 — or any other bill that enables the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations to cheat on their taxes, while honest and hard-working Americans are left to pay the tab — he would veto it."
Mark Meckler, President of Convention of States, said the new funding for the IRS would hurt low-income Americans.
"During the Obama era, we battled Lois Lerner's IRS over their illegal targeting of Obama's political enemies," Meckler said. "After an incredibly hard-fought court battle, we won and the IRS was forced to pay damages.
"During that battle we had the benefit of help from dozens of people, and donations from many thousands to fuel our effort — but 99% of the American people do not have that benefit. Given recent reports that the IRS is targeting low-income Americans — among the most vulnerable in our society — disproportionately, we know almost exactly how the Biden IRS plans to deploy 87,000 new agents.
"This data shows the public — regardless of party — is overwhelmingly supportive of the measure forwarded by the House of Representatives to get this reversed."
The Trafalgar poll was conducted in partnership with the Convention of States Action between Jan. 9-12 among 1,000 likely general election voters.