In a new fundraising email, the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF) said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is targeting conservatives in the same way that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status.
“What these leaders are doing to conservatives is no different from what the IRS got caught doing to them this summer,” Senate Conservatives Fund executive director Matt Hoskins wrote in the email sent to supporters on Monday. “They’re using their power to discriminate against people they see as a political threat.”
The fundraising email on Monday follows Boehner strongly criticizing conservative outside groups for urging lawmakers to oppose a two-year budget deal introduced by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA).
Hoskins continued that Boehner had joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in declaring “war on conservatives.”
“John Boehner called conservatives ‘ridiculous’ for opposing the budget agreement that increases spending, raises taxes, and funds Obamacare while Mitch McConnell previously called us stupid ‘traitors’ who should be locked in a bar and ‘punched in the nose,'” Hoskins wrote in the email.
Hoskins also cited the recent firing of Republican Study Committee executive director Paul Teller, who had been secretly working with the outside groups Boehner criticized, as well as the National Republican Senatorial Committee blacklisting Republican consulting firm Jamestown Associates for working with SCF.
“Unfortunately, their attacks go beyond words,” Hoskins continued. “A top conservative aide in the House was fired last week for opposing John Boehner’s budget and Mitch McConnell has blacklisted political firms that work for conservatives.”
