We must invest in the IRS. It’s the only way to ensure all Americans pay the taxes they owe.

Imagine investing $80 over a decade and getting a $180 return. Pretty good deal, right? Now multiply those figures by a billion dollars and you get an idea of how much American citizens will benefit from additional federal funds being allocated to the Internal Revenue Service.

The agency responsible for collecting federal taxes earlier this month revealed how it plans to spend new money from the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping bill that Democrats pushed through in 2022. Republicans who opposed the bill have saved some of their harshest criticism for the part that restores IRS funding, which the GOP has worked hard to strip over the years.

Critics on the right say that starving the IRS protects citizens from an overreaching bureaucracy. They also claim the IRS has targeted conservative donors and organizations over liberal ones, a familiar topic in far-right media. It’s not unusual to hear calls for abolishing the agency entirely, as when Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas campaigned on that idea when he ran for president in 2016.