Quote of the day: If Big Louie's at your door planning to realign your kneecaps for the IRS, ask him politely if he's a scammer duping you

"The Internal Revenue Service warned taxpayers yesterday not to be duped by scammers posing as private debt collectors the agency has hired to chase unpaid tax debts."
--start of an AP story by Mary Dalrymple

OK, so now when Big Louie comes to your door with sweet words of encouragement to "pay up the dough what youse owes yer Uncle Sammy, leastwise if youse likes yer knees in one piece," you get to ask first, "But Mr. Big Louie, how can I be sure that you're not a scammer duping me by posing as a debt collector hired by the IRS?"

Meanwhile, IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson [right] has responded to Paul Krugman's rather hostile column in the New York Times the other day (follow the "Big Louie" link above). In a letter to the editors published today, he announces that "when you strip away the rhetoric . . . what remains is a sound program that makes sense in a time of tight federal budgets and increased attention to deficit reduction."

The commissioner doesn't explain how exactly the IRS's recently announced plan to stop auditing rich people's tax returns fits into the grand scheme of "increased attention to deficit reduction." He does, however, assure us, "We will be closely monitoring [the contractors'] performance to make sure that they're following the letter of the law and our own stringent internal standards."

And we all know, if there's one thing this administration is famous for, it's following the letter of the law and its own stringent internal standards. Oh wait, is that two things? Or more like nothing.