During consideration of the fiscal 2024 financial-services appropriations bill (H.R. 4664), Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) offered an amendment to strike all funding for firearms and ammunition for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The House rejected Harshbarger’s amendment on November 8, 2023 by a vote of 187 to 238 (Roll Call 625). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the federal government is not constitutionally authorized to engage in domestic law enforcement, as the 10th Amendment clarifies. IRS agents should not be armed with guns, ammunition, or military-style equipment. Rather, the IRS ought to be defunded and abolished. The American people must demand that Congress end the weaponization of the federal bureaucracy, reject all efforts to create a nationalized police force, and work to repeal the 16th Amendment (income tax).
