Finding Out, But Slowly

"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it," said Nancy Pelosi back in March, summing up neatly her carefree attitude toward passing Obamacare. Today, USA Today "finds out" yet another feature of the legislation, as recently revealed (or, more accurately, "admitted") by an IRS ombudsman:

A little-known provision in the health care reform law could significantly increase tax recordkeeping requirements and costs for nearly 40 million self-employed workers, small businesses and charities, the IRS' national taxpayer advocate said Wednesday.
This "little-known provision" is the same one knuckle-dragging right wingers noted months ago. But it's nice to see that even the IRS can eventually figure it out and that USA Today will report the revelation.

In comparison, the Washington Post has equal sympathy for the poor beleagured… IRS:

The new federal health-care law may pose compliance challenges for taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service, an IRS ombudsman reported Wednesday.

The agency, which will be responsible for administering major aspects of health insurance finance, is neither structured nor funded to effectively oversee social programs, the National Taxpayer Advocate Service said in a news release.

In the push to pass Obamacare, Pelosi also claimed the legislation would "create 4 million jobs, 400,000 jobs almost immediately." She didn't mention that they'd all be IRS agents.

(By the way: even the left-leaning PolitiFact could only rate Pelosi's job-creation claim "Half True". By normal measure, this means it was totally bogus.)

The WSJ was also on the ball. But as near as I can tell, there's nothing at all in the New York Times about the IRS's report. Nor in the Los Angeles Times. Their readers will have to wait a while to "find out."

Also see: Dan Foster.