‘If you think it’s uncomfortable sitting over there, you ought to be a private individual when the IRS is across from you questioning.”
These words ought to be emblazoned across the entryway of every IRS office in America. They are part of a stinging rebuke delivered by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) to the acting IRS commissioner during Friday’s hearings before the House Ways and Means Committee. Kelly wasn’t buying the idea that IRS targeting of conservative groups was a “foolish” mistake by low-level underlings.
His fellow Republican, committee Chairman Dave Camp, says he wants more hearings because there are many more questions. We might start with complaints that Republicans are politicizing the issue. One way to find out if that’s true is to have the relevant IRS officials answer — under oath — whether letters asking for investigations from, say, our own Sen. Chuck Schumer or the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, encouraged the IRS to do what it did.
There’s also the White House angle. When asked Thursday whether anyone in his White House knew, the president hedged. But on Friday, Clinton White House counsel Lanny Davis said he’s hearing from reporters that Obama’s counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, knew about the IRS allegations for some time before the president said he found out. If true, says Davis, she ought to resign for not having told him.
He’s right. But Chairman Camp had it even more right when he said resignations alone won’t solve these troubles
“This is not a personnel problem,” said Camp. “This is a problem of the IRS being too large, too intrusive, too abusive.”
Amen. We will not have a better IRS until we have a smaller IRS — and a much simpler tax code.