Talk:Billy Long

Is this really notable?

During a September 2018 House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing on alleged anti-conservative bias on social media, far-right internet personality Laura Loomer interrupted the meeting. Long began a mock auction chant pretending he was selling Loomer's mobile phone until she was escorted out. The incident generated considerable laughter and applause from the audience.

He got a laugh during a meeting?

Long also participated in the World Poker Tour, participating in professional sanctioned games including the Southern Poker Championship at the Beau Rivage and the Bellagio Cup.[citation needed]

Citation needed, indeed. If you look him up in Hendon Mob database, there is one Bill Long from Springfield, Missouri, who has $6000 total winnings. Either that's his entry or he has no entry and no earnings.

Suggest these 2 paragraphs should be removed.--Petzl (talk) 11:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Agree that the fact that he got a laugh in a hearing is trivial and should be removed (even though it does sound kind of funny). Additionally, the sentence about him retweeting (not even tweeting) a minor comment about Brett Kavanaugh seems exceptionally trivial. (He was a Congressman for 12 years - was that the only time he retweeted about anything?). Unless this retweet had some special importance in Kavanaugh's hearing then please take it out, and/or add other information of significant things he did in his 12 years in Congress. NameNotUsed20 (talk) 18:41, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Worst Person in the World

Mentioning Long's appearance in the Worst Person in the World Segment on the little-watched TV show Countdown is not worthy of a mention in the career section. That such a thing is mentioned is pretty pathetic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.141.155.6 (talk) 22:29, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

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Notable awards

A user is edit warring to include a large number of totally non notable awards Professional Auctioneers’ Association Hall of Fame, Award for Manufacturing Legislative Excellence, National Service Lifetime Leadership Award from Voices for National Service etc. etc Theroadislong (talk) 16:23, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Educational information

Most US congressmen's Wikipedia pages don't contain their secondary school or certificates under the education parameter. For this reason, it seemed appropriate to remove it. Dmh17 (talk) 06:35, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

There's facts, and then there's facts

I made this edit which was reverted (by User:Thenightaway), and so here we are. The edit was to move the phrase "Compared to previous IRS Commissioners, Long lacks experience in the tax industry" down from the lede into the body, and hedge it with "According to CBS News" so its not in our own voice. The edit summary for the revert was "It is a fact".

I suppose. But, "it is a fact", even if proven, isn't the end of the story. There's a lot you can do with facts to throw shade, put ideas in readers' heads, and lead the reader. "Smith is the only Secretary of Energy with a sibling who has been convicted of sex with pigs." "Smith is the only Secretary of Energy to have been expelled from middle school". "Smith has never been declared legally sane by any board-certified psychiatrist". All these may be facts. Do they belong in a BLP? No they don't.

The tax-experience fact, tho, if true, is germane to understanding the entity Billy Long. Is it true? Well, let's see, the article has "Long has recently served as a tax adviser to businesses seeking to employ a controversial tax credit, but, unlike prior IRS commissioners, his background is largely outside of the tax industry, experts noted". "Experts noted", did they? Which ones? CBS doesn't say. It's pretty easy for a writer to wave her hand and claim to just be quoting some vague cloud of unnamed experts. The one direct quote they give, directly next, is "This guy is an auctioneer — that's his expertise. This is an incredibly unserious choice", but that is from Lindsay Owens, executive director of a progressive economic think tank, who is surely biased against Owens generally.

"Long has recently served as a tax adviser to businesses seeking to employ a controversial tax credit". That's being in the tax industry, I suppose, granted short and peripheral, but more than I have. Has CBS indeed checked that there wasn't some IRS head in 1953 who came directly from being a Vice Admiral or something (not all that uncommon actually -- they're looking for executive ability). I don't feel confident enough of that to state it in a BLP. And it's not like Long hasn't spend time thinking and speaking about tax policy. We could be like "Of all previous IRS Commissioners, Long has the longest service in the United States Congress". So why are we throwing shade instead of pointing that out.

I think the real objection here is more toward what Long is being asked to do -- help burn the American tax system to the ground, I gather -- than his qualifications to do it. I mean, I sure don't agree with what he's being asked to do, and I think the guy is a ______ and I hope he steps on a Lego -- or worse. I bet most of you all do to. All the more reason to be especially watchful to be scrupulously neutral and fair-minded when dealing with BLPs like this. Herostratus (talk) 20:06, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

The editor did not engage, and time's up. I didn't remove the passage, but instead changed it to

Long's experience in the tax industry is less than a typical IRS commissioner[3], but his twelve years in the U.S. House of Representatives is the most of any IRS commissioner since at least 1900, commissioners typically coming from other federal bureaucratic posts or private practice.

I don't have a ref for that last part so I tagged for citation needed, but it's true, but it'd be hard to prove without checking the CV of every single commissioner (which after all would be original research) unless somebody's already done that, which, if so, maybe it could be found. But I checked all our artices on commissioners going back to 1900 and only one served in Congress, and that was for six years. Granted, some commissioners don't have articles, but if anyone served 12 years in the House and also IRC chief they'd have an article or I'll eat my hat. Incidentally, one or two IRS Commissioners had even tax industry experience than Long (as in, none), although almost all had some, or a lot. It looks like IRS commissioner is sometimes a straight-up political appointment -- a donor or two, one guy was a party functionary -- altho not usually, and even then the guys all looked to be competent. Whether Long is competent is a different matter and it's not for us to say even if we have personal guesses about that.

I think that Long is an egregious __________ and I hope he steps on a Lego. But he's not the only political IRS head, and he's not the only one with little tax experience, and for all we know he's perfectly compentent, so let's not imply any of that. Generally whats most needed for posts like this is management chops -- one of the IRS heads had been Postmaster General, and shuffling between various departments is not uncommon in many countries. One guy was Secretary of Commerce, and so forth. A number of IRS heads did have very deep expertise in tax matters, true. It seems that these were brought in more when the President wanted to make some serious changes in IRS procedures, not so much when he didn't.

Anyway, per WP:BRD we'll be wanting a good strong argument to revert the edit again. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Herostratus (talk) 04:31, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Corruption allegations

I don't know whether this is a RS or not: https://www.levernews.com/trump-irs-pick-was-just-enriched-by-tax-schemers/ Llajwa (talk) 00:03, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Not for a WP:BLP I don't think. One of the headlines just below is "Zuckerberg Admits Enshittification Is The Point" which he didn't actually admit any such thing or use that term, I wouldn't think. So I can see them kind of spinning facts.

HowEVER, there are plenty of reliable sources saying the same thing: MSN and USA today and also The New Republic which is liberal but maybe OK for facts, plus Politco and others I am sure. So it looks like an established fact good enough for our purposes, and IMO definitely belongs in the article, so long as we just report the facts. Thanks for finding that. Herostratus (talk) 02:31, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

There are some more links that may be relevant and acceptable here in this new notice from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who sits on the Senate's Finance Committee:

https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-blasts-lax-fbi-background-check-of-irs-nominee-billy-long-sounds-alarm-over-court-documents-implicating-long-in-major-bribery-conspiracy NME Frigate (talk) 18:10, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Education

Billy Long did not graduate or attend Indiana University Bloomington, he only attended an auctioneers program which is hosted there:

https://www.auctioneers.org/cai Dmh17 (talk) 16:54, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

 Done & agree – it has been removed from Infobox by Dmh17. Dmh17, your re+ of U. of Missouri under alma_mater was, again, deleted. Please read the June 14 & 15 edit summaries in the revision history including the two summaries re: MOS:INFOEDU & Template:Infobox person#Parameters / education / alma mater. Thanks, Quaerens-veritatem (talk) 01:48, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Quaerens-veritatem I had added Mizzou in place of what was previously there, Indiana University, but I'm ok with the alma mater parameter not being included at all. Dmh17 (talk) 16:40, 15 June 2025 (UTC)