Aint that the truth.
I like this sentence:For months, the Tea Party cases sat on the desk of a lone specialist, who used “political sounding”
One person did all of this? Bull -—I say Bull Big Daddy.
Mendacity.
I can believe one person was assigned to this. Government inefficiency at it’s best.
What I can’t believe is that management did not know this, condone it, and cover it up. It is the job of the supervisors to monitor this and I am sure they were aware of the problem and realized the “political advantage” of allowing the problem to fester.
If you want to screw someone in a bureaucracy you simply assign inadequate or incapable staff to the problem and the rules of bureaucracy will screw it up. Add in a few lawyers to “give additional guidance” and all of a sudden you have created the Department of Motor Vehicles. Simple - saw it many times in the military with the worst of the necessary offices staffed with civilians who didn’t care.
It’s still a scandal. One thing I will give the article credit for is recognizing the problem foisted upon it by congress. Congress is infamous for unintended consequences with legislation and this is a perfect example. The comments to this article really piss me off. The Tea Party used the same “social” crap that leftists organizations have used for years. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
The job of management in all businesses outside of government is to identify and address problems that are not customer friendly. IRS management failed. We will probably find out the “best and brightest” were not assigned to process these applications and someone in the chain understood the political ramifications of this and condoned it by not addressing the problem and that is the cancer that must be removed and prosecuted.
The worst thing about government is this simple fact - if I took 2 years to submit my taxes I could be jailed. If they took 2 years to process my taxes they can excuse it with bureaucracy. This is the real danger of big government and this case should illustrate to Americans capable of simple analysis why Obamacare will be such a disaster.
They should depose the employees and grill the managers because that is who is responsible. Having GS-15’s and SES career civil servants blaming GS-5’s and GS-7’s is ridiculous. The little people are drones and they are not in a position to understand the big picture management does.
The IRS scandal illustrates the power of a bureaucracy and the danger of putting partisans in charge. The days of career civil servants who act in a non-partisan manner are fading. Dangerous. Very dangerous.