Turns out the IRS doesn’t bother to keep track of its ObamaCare spending

Certain fictional characters are part of the lore of the Calabrese family, and these include a couple of small-time thieves named Mugsy and Boss. Mugsy is the big, dumb type, and as the Boss is explaining the latest criminal escapade to be undertaken - a home burglary, a jewerly store theft, etc. - Mugsy always protests: "But that's against the law!"

The Boss's quick and predictable retort? "But crooks are allowed to break the law!" Satisfied with this explanation, Mugsy joins in preparation for the crime.

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Anyway, I thought about Mugsy and Boss this morning as I was reading the following report from Reuters. You know that whole thing about defunding ObamaCare? Well, the whole idea is that you make it against the law for the government to spend any money on it. Problem: The Obama Administration is allowed to break the law!

With Congress debating whether to take funding away from the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said in an audit that the IRS failed to account for some of the agency's spending to implement the law. Federal agencies must report their spending so there is an accurate measure of the full cost of government programs. The IRS did not report $67 million in costs the agency incurred for employees who were working on the healthcare law for fiscal 2010 through 2012, the report said. The money was part of $488 million the IRS tapped from a special fund the agency was using to implement Obamacare. "Funding related to direct labor were sometimes inaccurate and not always substantiated by reliable supporting documentation," TIGTA said.

Now I am all for the defunding effort. But if it were to somehow succeed, don't think for a second that would be the end of the story. Remember, this is an administration that shows no compunction whatsoever about declining to enforce laws it doesn't agree with. It's also an administration that is quite happy to abuse the power of executive order to achieve political goals that Congress refuses to back. You think congressional defunding of ObamaCare would mean the end of ObamaCare? The next step would be a constant cat-and-mouse game in which the administration sneaks allocations intended for other things into the health law, followed by congressional investigations and hearings, with the media claiming Republicans are just picking on the president. The point here is not that you can't win. It's just that Democrats don't play fair and never will. You make rules, they find ways to break them. You pass laws that restrain them, they find loopholes and try to appoint liberal judges who will say they did nothing wrong. The battle never ends. That is not a reason not to fight. Indeed, it is all the more reason you have to elect people who never tire of the fight - because the other side never concedes defeat, no matter what. With the exception of Ted Cruz and a few others, that's not the kind of folks we have right now, and that's one of the biggest reasons things are so fouled up. Between a Democratic administration that flaunts the law without shame, and Republican congressional leaders who are afraid to fight, things get out of control pretty fast. Crooks aren't actually allowed to break the law, of course. Unless the people who are supposed to stop them don't think it's worth the effort to try. And in that case, they are.