Collecting Personal Information: NSA Yes, IRS No

• By Charles S. Clark
• July 29, 2013
• comments

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., took to the Sunday talk shows to defend the National Security Agency’s program to collect metadata on domestic telephone traffic.

But he made a careful distinction when it comes to whose fears of privacy violations are more justified, roping into the discussion the data hub being organized by such agencies as the Health and Human Services Department and the Internal Revenue Service to implement Obamacare.

“Here's the problem,” Rogers said on Face the Nation. “So you have this collision of really bad ideas and federal government overreach when it comes to the IRS and this new data hub that they're trying to bring all your sensitive personal information on one side of the federal government, and I have real strong concerns about that as well. This is very, very different.”

The NSA’s anti-terrorist surveillance, Rogers’ spokeswoman Kelsey Knight clarified to Government Executive, “has the most oversight of any other programs. Congress, the judiciary and the executive branch -- that’s a lot of people watching this program making sure everyone’s privacy is protected.” There have been 54 terror attacks uncovered and zero privacy breaches, she said.

What happened with ...

Smoking Gun in IRS Scandal?

• By Charles S. Clark
• July 25, 2013
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A routine White House photo is being circulated that some believe could prove or disprove Republican lawmakers’ theories that high-level politicos directed the Internal Revenue Service to target Tea Party groups in what has been called the IRS scandal.

Last week, chairmen of the House Ways and Means and the Oversight and Government Reform panels issued a statement saying that William Wilkins, the IRS chief counsel and an Obama appointee, appears to have known that a unit in the agency’s Exempt Organizations Division was sorting applications according to political rhetoric.

Conservative media such as The Daily Caller took the theory further with a July 22 piece titled "Embattled IRS Chief Counsel Met With Obama 2 Days Before Agency Changed Targeting Criteria."

On Wednesday, an IRS spokesman denied any involvement by Wilkins, speaking to the Huffington Post in a piece.

That same day, the trade publisher Tax Analysts located the official photo of Wilkins in the Oval Office in April 2012. Turns out he was there for a photo op with 13 other federal employees. You be the judge.

Contest: Make These Bills Rhyme

• By Tom Shoop
• July 23, 2013
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Last week, a bipartisan group of legislators introduced a package of nine bills aimed at making government more efficient and effective. In addition to advocating important ideas ranging from biennial budgeting to bulk purchasing, the authors of several of the bills managed to follow an impressive rhyme scheme:

• The Take the Time, Save the Dime Act, implementing a two-year budgeting cycle
• The Don't Duplicate, Consolidate Act, eliminating overlapping programs
• The Stay in Place, Cut the Waste Act, slashing federal travel spending by 50 percent 

Another measure in the package rhymed in a slightly different manner:

• The No Adding, No Padding Act, removing automatic inflationary increases in agency budgets.

But that's where the rhyme scheme fell apart, with the lawmakers reduced to mere alliteration, repetition -- or no attempt at cleverness at all:

• The 21st Century Healthcare for Heroes Act, combining the electronic health records of the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs
• The Wasted Energy, Wasted Dollars Act, increasing the efficiency of federal buildings
• The Buy Smarter and Save Act, boosting efforts to pool agencies' purchasing power
• The No Budget, No Pay Act, withholding congressional pay if both chambers fail to agree on a budget and all spending bills ...

Hey, Let's Move Federal Employees to Detroit!

• By Tom Shoop
• July 22, 2013
• comments

It's right there in the headline: "Six Crazy Ideas for Saving Detroit."  So it's probably unlikely that many people will take seriously item no. 5 on the list compiled by the Washington Post's Wonkblog: "Move federal workers to Detroit."

"There are about 2.7 million federal civilian workers," the Wonkbloggers note. "If 10 percent of them moved to Detroit over the next decade, that would be an extra quarter-million people. Many workers would bring their families with them, and their spending would create additional jobs in the city."

It wouldn't exactly be a forced march. Under the proposal, new federal employees (to the extent agencies are allowed to hire them these days) would be assigned to agency satellite offices in Detroit, and those already working for Uncle Sam would be provided financial incentives to relocate to Motor City. 

So congratulations, feds: You've survived a lengthy pay freeze, sequestration and furloughs. If you're interested in being made whole, then next stop, Detroit!

An IG’s Political Journey

• By Charles S. Clark
• July 18, 2013
• comments

Inspectors general strive to maintain strict political neutrality, even though they’re appointed by presidents of one party or the other.

So it was eye-opening on Thursday to hear J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, at a disputatious House oversight hearing on the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service, describe his political evolution.

The George W. Bush appointee was addressing accusations from Democrats that his May audit of the tax agency’s improper handling of Tea Party-like groups’ applications for tax-exempt status had left out information on liberal or progressive groups among those singled out for extra scrutiny.

“What they may not know is that I was a page at the 1980 Democratic convention, that I was in the Howard University Democrats,” said George, a 25-year veteran of government. “That was before I saw the light in the 1980s and joined the staff of Bob Dole.”