General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: My challenge to DU: Cite me an official source that says the Tea Party was "singled out" by the IRS [View all]BlueCheese
(2,522 posts)The fact that about 25% of scrutinized applications were Tea Party ones doesn't mean much by itself. You have to also know what fraction of the original applications were Tea Party ones, or similarly, what fraction of Tea Party applications were approved without review, compared to how many other ones.
As I wrote in another thread, suppose you found out that about 25% of drivers being pulled over in a state are black. Would this be evidence that police are not engaging in racial profiling? No-- you'd have to know what fraction of the population is black. If it turns out that blacks only make up 5% of the population, then you have a problem.
The inspector general's report says that 70% of applications overall pass without review. However, it appears that almost no Tea Party applications made it through without review (they found none in a sample of approved applications). Given that, and the fact that Tea Party terms were on the BOLO list, means that the Tea Party applications were in fact given special, negative treatment.
Does this mean that only Tea Party applications got negative treatment? No, it's possible other terms were also (inappropriately) added to the BOLO list. I would be curious as to what those were as well. But the inspector general report makes it clear that using the organization's name and policy positions as criteria is wrong, and the IRS was wrong to do so.