If the House wants to cut the spending of the IRS then they need to leverage against that budget, but, don't tell me for one minute this wasn't complete indulgence of the agency for political pandering while the rest of the nation faced The Sequester.
Some of the budget provided to the IRS was to prevent political backlash by a very powerful government agency. The IRS budget is cowardice more so than the agency leadership misspending their budget. It is a strategy to saturate the IRS with monies for indulgence of their power. We saw the same mess with the Minerals and Mining Management. The agency was treated like Astor's Pet Bulldog to keep the government off the back of the petroleum industry. So, Rep. Issa can stop acting as though this is a surprise. The House holds the budget strings. They could have controlled this a long time ago, but, haven't.
Additionally, the leadership of these agencies are oriented to the fact their spending adds to any economic paradigm. Basically, these budgets are also used as government stimulus. So, the government officials making 'Shame, shame," at the IRS meetings, need to point the responsibility at themselves.
Additionally, these conferences are planned years in advance. So, what is being observed actually started long before 2010. The "Shame, shame," needs to stop and the House needs to take up their own responsibility for this mess. Let's face it, if the IRS could be pursued to cater to special interest groups through indulgence this would never be an issue in the first place. All this mess went on a long time before Minerals and Mining Management was found out, too.
The oversight of the government agency spending for necessary conferences needs to have citizens sitting within a panel, too. That is the problem here, it is a closed loop between government and agency without a panel of citizens oversight as well. There are many shareholders within all these agencies and they are not a part of the process that lends itself to this type of exploitation of taxpayer monies.
So, while Rep. Issa is playing "Shame on you" with the IRS he is also not proposing changes that are meaningful.
...Adding to the recent IRS woes (click here) is an upcoming inspector general’s report expected to show that the agency spent an estimated $49 million on at least 220 conferences over a three-year span beginning in fiscal 2010. The House oversight committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on that matter Thursday....
