Monday, June 20, 2016

Washington Post Editorial : GOP Congress is unfairly targeting the IRS.... Some statements he made to Congress turned out to be untrue.

The Washington Post defends corruption at the IRS from GOP attacks:
The IRS’s inspector general found that the erasure was an honest, if frustrating, mistake. Still, Mr. Koskinen’s congressional inquisitors charge, he did not confess to Congress when he should have. Some statements he made to Congress turned out to be untrue. The IRS director has a reasonable response to that, too: He did not immediately know the nature or extent of the gap in emails, and once he did, he ordered his staff to attempt to recover what they could.

The GOP Congress has already harassed and weakened the IRS through counterproductive budget cuts. Now Republican lawmakers appear to be doing their best to deter anyone of competence from ever agreeing to lead the agency. The result of a congressional investigation into IRS dysfunction would end up being more IRS dysfunction.

That doesn’t seem to worry Mr. Chaffetz. He has been pushing not just for censure but also for impeachment, which, he told us, “should be a much more common occurrence.” In fact, there is a good reason Congress has not impeached an executive appointee since 1876: It would invite governmental chaos. Federal agencies could not operate with the threat of politically motivated dismissal constantly hanging over those who run them. It is hard enough keeping the top rungs of the bureaucracy staffed by smart people, many of whom could earn more in the private sector.
Really? If IRS bureaucrats could earn more in the private sector they would left along time ago. Does the IRS think people who live on D.C. around poor? Maybe the editorial board should read their own newspaper.