Take the Cary man who says he was harassed by the Internal Revenue Service because he was active in the tea party movement. Beginning now, such claims have much more credibility; in fact, now the claimants have more credibility than the government.

Even Jon Stewart admits that. I would link to the comedian’s clip lambasting the Obama crowd over the IRS scandal, but he uses language I’m sure many of our readers would like to avoid. In any case, he admits that now the critics of government on this and other matters have more credibility than ever before.

More important, it doesn’t matter how effective the IRS pressure was. Some apologists say that the IRS audits and hassles didn’t slow down the tea party.

That’s not the point. The threat on its own is in fact even more effective, because it touches everyone and the government doesn’t have to do anything.

Look at it this way: There are NBA basketball games almost every night, and in most you can see the effect of shot-blocking.

Take last night. The Heat smacked down the Chicago Bulls. The Heat blocked 9 shots.

Now, that’s a small percentage of the Bulls’ shots; they took 74. But that’s my point: in basketball, you don’t have to block all the shots, you just have to make the opponent afraid of getting their shots blocked. They hesitate, they shoot differently, or they don’t shoot at all.

In the Bulls case, they apparently decided not to get too close to the basket, where most blocks take place, and instead went to take 3-point shots, which are less often blocked but also less often made. They made only 2 of 17; overall, they made only 25 percent of their shots, which will doom any basketball team. The Heat didn’t have to block every shot; they just had to block enough to intimidate the Bulls and make them change the way they play.

The same is true with IRS intimidation. They IRS doesn’t have to audit everyone. They just have to audit enough people, and be ruthless enough, to make taxpayers afraid of them. It doesn’t matter what happens with any investigation, if, when it is over, taxpayers still think: I’d better avoid donating to this group or being involved with that group because I don’t want to be stuck in a hassle with the IRS for a year.

And here’s the kicker: The IRS will be the enforcement arm for Obamacare. According to Reason.org, the Affordable Care Act “relies on the tax collection agency to both enforce its individual mandate and administer the tax credits the law offers to subsidize the purchase of health insurance.”

So how do you feel today about having the IRS gain such power over the most intimate and important  aspect of your life?

Especially since the evidence is also mounting that Obamacare will indeed be a trainwreck.

It turns out our fearless leaders in Washington want to do the same — for themselves.

Politico reports: “Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.”

Sen. Richard Burr notes how the mandate’s burdens will especially hurt low-paid staffers, but added:

“I have no problems with Congress being under the same guidelines,” Burr said. “I think if this is going to be a disaster — which I think it’s going to be — we ought to enjoy it together with our constituents.”

The signs are mounting, almost every day: Obamacare is going to be ten-car pileup. NC is will advised to stay as far away as possible.

Liberals whined when the legislature and the governor refused to expand Medicaid and set up health exchanges as demanded by the health care takeover, the hilariously misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  (See Senate Bill 4, No N.C. Exchange/No Medicaid Expansion.) But the program is already failing.

Here’s the latest scoop, “Uh-Oh! Building ObamaCare’s Health Exchanges Has Already Cost Double the Expected Amount” from Reason.com: “The Department of Health and Human Services admitted yesterday that setting up the law has cost twice as much as expected so far.”

This doesn’t even mean the project is going well: “A big chunk of the grant money doled out so far went to California. ….[Nevertheless, the] state’s insurance regulators have warned that residents should expect ‘rate and market disruption’ when the state’s health insurance exchange opens.”

Obamacare isn’t full implemented, but some of the programs have already closed their doors to new patients because of cost overruns, for one example. And — big surprise — setting up a system to handle all the health needs of 300 million people isn’t easy.

More details will be in the April Civitas Capitol Connection, which will be going out soon. And just keep an eye on your usual news sources: there’s little doubt there will be many more news stories about Obamacare’s many flaws.

As noted in the Civitas Review post below, the governor came out today in favor of halting Medicaid expansion as long as the program is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars each year. And the legislature seems willing to move on reining in unemployment spending.

Thom Tillis addressed the Medicaid problems in his news conference today. (Medicaid discussion begins at about 2:40.)  He noted that the State Auditor, a Democrat, had found that those hundreds of millions had been churned through a wasteful and inefficient program.

He added that current efforts to stop the expansion Medicaid are more about setting a tone, about setting expectations, at this stage. So it’s a start. But the problem is obvious: If there’s a hole in the bottom of your fishing boat, you don’t dump more buckets of water into it, till you’ve fixed the hole.

And the sudden move to hyperinflate Medicaid has other ill consequences. Look at California, a state that did take the bait and plans to fully implement Obamacare. It will be facing a severe shortage of doctors, the Daily Caller reports.

The Los Angeles Times reports that only 16 of the state’s 58 counties meet the federal government’s recommended standard of primary care physicians, and almost 30 percent of California’s doctors are close to the retirement age — the highest percentage nationwide.

According to the Caller, even one Democrat legislator realized belatedly “What good is it if they are going to have a health insurance card, but no access to doctors?”

Let’s hope our leaders keep their resolve to fend off this disastrous plan.

The Obamacare implementation will be a nightmare. NC is well advised to stay out.

Much the same goes for the federal unemployment boondoggle.

Tim Phillips, national president of Americans for Prosperity, spoke today at the John Locke Foundation. He noted that the state can’t count on the feds keeping their promises. After all, they’ve promised over and over to rein in spending.

As he and we have noted, there’s no free money from Washington. In fact, there’s no money at all. Washington has to borrow 40 cents of every dollar it doles out.

Washington isn’t giving out real money — it’s giving out wheelbarrows of $13 bills, all with Joe Biden’s picture on them. The Old North State should refuse to be taken in by this con game.

“In light of recent Medicaid audits, the current system in North Carolina is broken and not ready to expand without great risk to the taxpayers and to the delivery of existing services to those in need. We must first fix and reform the current system,” McCrory said in the statement.

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