Our first reaction was: oh, so he wants to tax members of Congress:
Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa is hoping to stamp out the sex trade by taxing pimps and prostitutes, then jailing them when they don’t pay.
But then we realized we were wrong when we read more:
The Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning approved a bill sponsored by committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, authorizing at least $2 million toward the establishment of an office in the IRS criminal investigation unit to prosecute unlawful sex workers for violations of tax law.
Sex workers could get hard time. And:
The bill’s approval gives the IRS harsh new criminal penalties for use against those in the underground criminal economy. According to Grassley’s office, the majority of the victims of sex trafficking — those who are often smuggled in from other counties and virtually imprisoned in a house set up for prostitution — are girls ages 13 to 17.
“Underground criminal economy”?
Wait: this DOES refer to Congress…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.