A prominent conservative doctor said he was targeted by the IRS after giving a speech criticizing President Obama’s leadership earlier this year.
With Obama sitting on the dais just a few feet away, Dr. Ben Carson slammed the president’s signature health-care program and tax policy during a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in February.
The neurosurgeon said IRS agents came calling in June and asked to review his real-estate records. Then the agents launched a sweeping audit of his finances that concluded he was a law-abiding citizen.
The IRS has come under fire for targeting Tea Party activists and other right-wing groups.
“I guess it could be a coincidence, but I never had been audited before and never really had any encounters with the IRS,” Carson told The Washington Times Thursday.
“But it certainly would make one suspicious because we know now the IRS has been used for political purposes and therefore actions like this come under suspicion.”
Carson, 62, electrified conservative opponents of ObamaCare when he mocked the program during his prayer-breakfast speech.
“Here’s my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health-savings account to which money can be contributed — pre-tax — from the time you’re born till the time you die,” Carson said.
“If you die, you can pass it on to your family members, and there’s nobody talking about death panels,” he said, referring to claims ObamaCare would lead to rationing of care.
“We can make contributions for people who are indigent. Instead of sending all this money to some bureaucracy, let’s put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care.”