Steven Miller, the Deputy Commissioner and Acting Commissioner of the IRS, is testifying before the Ways and Means Committee today regarding what the Republicans are terming “targeting of conservative groups” for the 501(c)(4), tax-exemption. Here are a couple things I learned. Steven Miller is not a politically appointed Commissioner. Apparently, the Commissioner is a politically appointed position. Miller was a Deputy Commissioner which means he is a civil servant. In other words, he worked up through the ranks. He is a career employee. The last real Commissioner, Douglas Shulman, was appointed by President Bush and served from March 24, 2008 until Nov, 9, 2012. He was the Commissioner during the alleged “targeting” incidents. The Commissioner before that was Mark Everson. He also appointed by President Bush and served from May 1, 2003 to May 28, 2007. It interesting to note that Shulman retired just three days after President Obama won re-election. However, he did serve during President Obama’s first term. I don’t know why he retired three days after President Obama won but might it be taken as a show of protest to Obama’s re-election or just a quick out to avoided getting fired or perhaps nothing to do with the election at all but I really doubt that a Bush appointee would be very happy with a Democrat winning the Presidency again. In any case, I have yet to hear how a Bush appointee would be “targeting” conservative groups. Do sane folks really think that Obama could pull off this kind of feat? This sounds like yet another case of the Republican Party eating their own in their feeding frenzy to take down Obama and win seats in 2014.

I watched some of the hearings to try to understand how Steven Miller might be approaching this issue. First, he believes he told the truth, when he previously testified to the same committee, even though Republicans were basically calling him a liar today. He stated that the issue he was dealing with at that time and what he thought the previous hearing was about was processing specific applications for 501(c)(4) status of some conservative groups not any internal lists the IRS used to direct claims to specialized agents. He stated he was not aware of any specialized agents that were given orders to deny 501(c)(4) status to tea party groups. Apparently, he was aware of organizational methods the IRS used to direct applications to special agents. Apparently, this is common procedure. Imagine if you were a boss and you had to come up with ways to organize 70,000 501(c)(4) applications with only 200 agents that could handle this type of thing. These are the numbers that Seven Miller cited today. The first thing you would do if you had a database is try to sort the applications electronically by key words. You might have one agent that specialized in tea party or conservative group applications because they would gain knowledge and experience in that particular area that they could use on new applications. You would also have some applications that would go through without further investigations and some that would get flagged for further, personalized attention. You would be looking for scams and frauds that the IRS regularly deals with. Based on previous experience you might have developed some buzz words on the application that would cause the computer to flag it to a specialized agent. So why would it take 2 or 3 years sometimes to process an application? Well, 70,000 divided by 200 is 350 applications on average that one person must approve or deny. It is not so hard to imagine that common data processing techniques that I have described would have to be used. However, let’s take a step back.

If you were an employee and you were told that your job was to approve or deny 350 applications on average for tax-exempt status, would it cross your mind that your employer was severely understaffed? Would your boss also have an inkling about this? Could it be that your boss may have taken this understaffing issue to his boss and received the answer that we do not have enough money to hire more people? In the case of the IRS, it is feasible that Congressional appropriations would be the limiting factor. What if you were Secretary of State and were responsible for multiple embassies around the world? What if, again, you were denied funds for maintaining adequate security for all the embassies? Personally, I think the only appropriate thing to do would be to close down the embassies until and if Congress decided to make the funds available to adequately protect them. I also think the IRS should refuse to process more applications for 501(c)(4) status than they can realistically handle. If political bureaucrats would refuse to do the impossible without appropriate funding of their agencies we would have a lot of squeaky wheels out there that would need oiling. Then, the American people would have to decide if they want to keep cutting government spending or have a functioning government. This is where the battle needs to take place. Unfortunately, when department heads keep saying we will do more with less they are enabling the demise of the government while preserving their careers and not making waves. I believe we need more intestinal fortitude to force these issues to a head. When filibustering was allowed to happen in the silence of Senate backrooms, the squeaky wheels went away while the government was coming off the rails. We need folks in these positions to take public stands, wear out their welcome, and allow the electorate to make their decisions about whether or not they want these politicians to stay in office. At what level of pain will the electorate cry uncle? We need to find out. The French have a word particularly biting to moderates (or blue dogs) in politics that allow untenable situations to continue and thrive in government – bourgeoisie. I do not think there is any big bad political wolf behind the IRS issue only government that has over-reached their funding level and kept their mouths shut.

Additionally, the numbers that were cited in the meeting today of denied claims and approved claims seemed to fall fairly evenly between conservative and liberal groups. Conveniently, this side of the story has not been told. Also, these kinds of incidents occurred during the Bush administration with the NAACP and other left leaning groups. One comment was made today that these issues have been going on for a long time and that the real culprit is badly legislated laws concerning C4s. The law really is a mess. It has been chipped away so much that we should either give C4 status to any applicant OR have very strict and well defined rules about who can quality. Bad laws and bad court decisions create these kinds of situations…I am reminded of Citizens United. Again, when we try to please everyone for everything we only do a disservice to everyone and everything. We need more chutzpah from our elected leaders and willingness to take the heat for better or worse for them personally. Personally, I think it is inevitable that the American people will have to decide when the pain stops and what kind of people they send to Congress…BUT first, they have to feel the pain enough and in large enough numbers to throw the bums out and get a Congress that can do something besides show their ass all the time. Anti-government hate will not solve the problem; only a proactive electorate. Patriots do not hate their government. I think that is the domain of terrorists and thugs.