Independent of GOP success, politicization chills IRS enforcement
Facundo 23, writing fellow at The American Prospect (Jarod, “Reanimating the Taxman,” American Prospect, https://prospect.org/economy/2023-01-26-reanimating-taxman-internal-revenue-service/)//BB
Aside from Congress hacking away at the agency, there are other ways the agency can be undermined. “House Republicans … figured out [in the 1990s] that if they couldn’t get their really aggressive tax-cutting plans enacted under the Clinton administration,” Gardner said, “short of that, they could hold a bunch of hearings designed to kneecap the Clinton administration’s tax-collecting capabilities.” Gardner continued: “It really put a chill on the willingness of IRS leadership to enforce the law. The public perception was out there that the agency was overstepping its authority.”