Not only that, the entire agency gave a third more to Dems than to the GOP.

Tim Carney:

In the past three election cycles, the Center for Responsive Politics' database shows about $474,000 in political donations by individuals listing "IRS" or "Internal Revenue Service" as their employer.

This money heavily favors Democrats: $247,000 to $145,000, with the rest going to political action committees. (Oddly, half of those GOP donations come from only two IRS employees, one in Houston and one in Annandale, Va.)

IRS employees also gave $67,000 to the PAC of the National Treasury Employees Union, which in turn gave more than 96 percent of its contributions to Democrats. Add the PAC cash to the individual donations and IRS employees favor Democrats 2-to-1.

The Cincinnati office where the political targeting took place is much more partisan, judging by FEC filings. More than 75 percent of the campaign contributions from that office in the past three elections went to Democrats. In 2012, every donation traceable to employees at that office went to either President Obama or liberal Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

The IRS officials whose names appear in the IG report are also Democrats with partisan histories. William Wilkins, IRS general counsel and one of the agency's two explicitly political appointees, is a former Democratic congressional aide, lobbyist (clients included the Swiss Bankers Association), and Democratic donor.

Joseph H. Grant, who ran the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division that includes the Cincinnati office, is a former Democratic staffer on the House Ways & Means Committee.

Carney dismisses the idea of some kind of Nixonian plot where the White House was pulling the strings, ordering the IRS to investigate their enemies. Instead, Carney points to a culture that either encouraged or didn't discourage individual IRS employees to give into their personal political biases when policing non-profits and others.

Many dedicated and professional civil servants serve the IRS. But the recent revelations still aren't surprising. If you give people the terrifying power to tax and the right to police political speech, some partisans will abuse that power.

David Axelrod's statement that "government is too big" for Obama to know what's happening reveals a larger truth and frightening possibilities; if government is too big to control, who then is accountable? Liberals have no good answer for this except to advocate for more layers of bureaucracy that would only make the problem worse.

Thanks to Axelrod for advancing an argument for smaller government.