Republicans should just say no to 87,000 new IRS agents

Too many Republicans agreed to a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending deal including full funding for the IRS expansion.

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks. His latest book is "Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy."

This 4,000-page end-of-the-year behemoth is a terrible bill on every level. It will add to the deficit, increase the size of government agencies and contains virtually no offsetting spending cuts. Senate Republicans are also preparing to waive Congress' self-imposed legal limits on government spending -- which, if enforced, would require $130 billion of automatic cuts in the budget. Given that the budget has already expanded by $5 trillion over the past two years, cutting three percent of this excess debt spending should be painless and the first important step to returning to fiscal sustainability in Washington. 

But what is worst about this omnibus spending bill is that it would give the green light to double the size and intrusiveness of the IRS -- which is exactly the opposite of what Republicans promised.