US President Barak Obama stated that Steven Miller, the acting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) commissioner, had been fired. And do you know why that man lost his job? His organization carried out “inappropriate” checks at the organizations that are connected with the currently opposition Republican Party. (Naturally, I am talking about the US Republican Party, because, according to Galust Sahakyan, the Armenian Republican Party will never be opposition.) On Wednesday, Obama mentioned in his speech the condemnable behavior that was revealed by the report of the Treasury Department Inspector General. “I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS.” In a nutshell, the US President got angry and banged his fist on the table, so to speak. There are at least two interesting facts here. The first is that there is the Treasury Department Inspector General in the US who supervises the activities of that body and reveals abuse. Can you imagine such an office in Armenia? The one who would hold that office would be one of the most corrupted officials in our country. And the second fact certainly is that the “tax chief” was punished for carrying out inappropriate checks at opposition organizations. In Armenia, the opposite is more probable; the tax office would be punished for not carrying out inappropriate checks at some bakery or sausage factory whose owner was allegedly linked to the opposition. And he would be punished more severely, if an appropriate check was unexpectedly carried out at that suspicious man’s business.
That is the difference of the two systems. In one, they encourage freedom of expression, in general and free entrepreneurship, in particular, and all those who impede that are punished. In the other, it is the opposite; they try to spread the government’s influence over entrepreneurship. It is visible particularly during elections; the government’s campaign office clerks approach any small and medium entrepreneur and say that if he doesn’t bring a certain amount of votes, he will be punished. The “punishment” is that representatives of different government bodies, including the tax office, will come and will do everything necessary to have that person’s business closed. The Republicans call it “working during elections.” An entrepreneur has two options here, either to go for confrontation or to submit. However, in the second case, the humiliation he has suffered remains in the person’s mind. And it is quite probable that this wound is so deep that he decides to leave the country, along with his family, a decision that, I think, should not be encouraged or welcomed, but is humanly understandable.
In the case of big business, a bit more complex mechanisms are employed, but the substance is the same. Now is it understandable why the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) cannot be opposition?
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
