Alert

WASHINGTON • Republicans in Congress are pressing hard on the theme of government intrusion. It's no mystery why.

Polls show that many Americans see the federal bureaucracy as too big, too pushy or "doing too much," as even Democratic-heavy groups of women said this month in a survey by the GOP-aligned polling firm American Viewpoint.

This week, the U.S. House intend to sound the refrain of "government abuse" by taking up a series of bills aimed at the Internal Revenue Service and restricting the power of federal regulators.

"You deserve a government that works for you, not against you," Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said in the GOP weekly radio address on Saturday.

The bills have little chance to reach the president's desk, but that has rarely been the point of recent proceedings in the GOP-run House.

In Missouri, Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, invites constituents to share stories of government overreach.

Yesterday, GOP Reps. Jason Smith, of Salem, and Billy Long, of Springfield, held a field hearing in West Plains delving into the government's authority to establish the National Blueways System to boost recreation and tourism along designated rivers.

Earlier this month, the Missourians helped force Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to rescind the status for the White River in Arkansas and Missouri. The government says the designations have nothing to do with regulations or landowners.

Even so, Smith and Long called their hearing: “Stopping Federal Land and Water Grabs: Protecting Property Rights from Washington, DC Edicts.”

Enter Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., with legislation that he says would protect people "who have felt needlessly badgered or targeted by government officials under this administration."

A Blunt bill introduced last week would allow individuals to record conversations with any federal official during investigations or proceedings and make it easier to tape IRS personnel.

As it stands, individuals are allowed only to record conversations with IRS employees and then with the requirement of providing ten days advance notice.

An op-ed Blunt co-authored in the Joplin Globe on Monday with Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., said "people deserve tools to even the playing field and, quite simply, get the federal government off their backs."

The initiative by Republicans fits snugly into the GOP campaign to undermine the Affordable Care Act.

Blunt and Jenkins wrote that people and businesses should be concerned about government intrusion "with the implementation of President Obama's massive health care law looming on the horizon and continued regulatory overreach by this administration."

Read more here.