A number of GOP states are announcing that they will not comply with Joe Biden‘s latest overreach, and this time it’s not about COVID.
The Republican Party is known by many as the do-nothing party, but lately, many Republican politicians appear to have grown a spine. It all began with the Democrats’ overreach on COVID-related issues, but now it’s branching out into financial policies too.
Several GOP-led states have asserted that they will not comply with the Biden administration’s proposal, which would force banks to provide the IRS with the aggregate transaction data for accounts with over $600.
Biden and other Democrats claim that this proposal is an effort to catch rich people hiding money from the IRS. Of course, if this were true, wouldn’t the amount be higher? Six hundred dollars is nothing to rich people, but it is everything to many Americans.
Here are a few responses to Biden’s overreach by leaders in GOP states:
“I will stand up to this government overreach and protect the privacy of those account holders,” Missouri state treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick asserted. “Turning over their transaction data to the federal government is illegal under Missouri law and a gross violation of Missourians’ expectation of privacy when it comes to their personal financial records. I will not turn this information over to the IRS voluntarily and will fight in court to block any attempt by the federal government to compel my office to comply with this mandate.”
In a statement to the Daily Mail, Arkansas state treasurer Dennis Milligan said: “It would be absolutely absurd for me to turn over their private account data regarding money they’re saving for their loved ones’ future to the IRS, and I do not intend to do so. I would do all I could in my role to not comply with this proposal.”
“The impact this is going to have on community banks, this is like Dodd Frank on steroids. In terms of compliance, a community bank, to be able to be in compliance, to set that type of regime up is just going to put them out of business. So who wins? The big banks win. The same banks that were bankrolling Biden’s campaign in 2020,” said West Virginia state treasurer Riley Moore, adding: “The $600 requirement is absolutely unconstitutional. It’s a massive invasion of privacy; it’s huge government overreach. I don’t think any state should comply with this.”
In a statement to Fox News, Nebraska Treasurer John Murante said: “My message is really simple. The people of Nebraska entrusted me to protect the privacy of these accounts and I am not going to comply with this. If the Biden administration sues me, we will take it all the way to the Supreme Court. We are going to fight every step of the way.”
Moore lauded Murante, stating, “I think it’s great what Treasurer Murante said. I think we should all follow suit in our respective states by not complying with this. If the feds feel like they wanna sue every state that’s not complying with it, then okay. Bring it on.”
Speaking with Fox News, Consumers Bankers President Richard Hunt said: “Now that they have the data, they are going to slice and dice and look into every single transaction of nearly every American. I’m afraid if it does pass it may force some people not to get into the banking system, and we need people in the banking system.”
On September 20th, several state treasurers, auditors, and financial officers signed an open letter to Joe Biden and his treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, which read:
“As State Treasurers, Auditors and financial officers, we are joining together with our local citizens’ community banks and credit unions to express our opposition to any proposal that would require financial institutions to turn over private citizens’ personal bank account information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) if they exceed $600 of inflows or outflows in an account.
We do not believe the federal government should give the IRS the unprecedented and unconstitutional power to peer into law abiding citizens’ private financial accounts. This would be one of the largest infringements of data privacy in our nation’s history and is a direct assault on the financial disclosures of all Americans.”