Politics
JUST IN: Trump Nominee Who Vowed To Abolish IRS Is Confirmed As Agency Head
Former Congressman Billy Long (R-MO), who has previously vowed to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, has now been confirmed as the agency’s commissioner. The Senate confirmed Long in a 53-44 vote.
During his tenure in Congress, where Long served from 2011 to 2013, he sponsored a bill designed to abolish the IRS, which is the agency he’s now going to head up.
Long is taking over the agency at a time when it’s going through major changes, including a slew of layoffs and voluntary retirements of tens of thousands of employees. Along with that are the accusations by the IRS that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has mishandled taxpayer data.
The IRS was, up until now, one of the highest-profile agencies within the federal government that was without a Senate-confirmed commissioner. Before Long was officially confirmed, the IRS went through four acting leaders. One resigned due to a deal between the agency and Homeland Security to share the tax data of immigrants with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A second one exited due to a fight between Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“Democrats called for a criminal investigation into Long’s connections to other alleged tax credit loopholes. The lawmakers allege that firms connected to Long duped investors into spending millions of dollars to purchase fake tax credits. Long appeared before the Senate Finance Committee last month and denied any wrongdoing related to his involvement in the tax credit scheme,” The Associated Press reported.
After Long left Congress and launched a failed Senate campaign, Long was employed by a company that distributed pandemic-era employee retention tax credits. This was a program that was ultimately shut down by then-IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, who ruled it was fraudulent.
Prior to the confirmation vote, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who is currently the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles slamming the FBI background check that was done on Long as inadequate.
“These issues were not adequately investigated,” Wyden wrote. “In fact, the FBI’s investigation, a process dictated by the White House, seemed designed to avoid substantively addressing any of these concerning public reports. It’s almost as if the FBI is unable to read the newspaper.”
Several Democrat lawmakers have written to Long and the firms associated with him, explaining their concerns with what they are referring to as “unusually timed contributions” that were made to Long’s Senate campaign committee after Trump nominated him.
Long is not the only pick by President Trump to be in full support of trashing the very agency they are assigned to manage.
Current education secretary Linda McMahon has, on repeated occasions, said she’s trying to put herself out of work by closing down the education department, handing its work over to the states.
