Tag Archives: ethics

Is it Time?

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Fox News is asking the question, “Is it time to overhaul the IRS?”

I say, no, but not for any of the reasons offered by Fox.  It’s time to overhaul our tax code to simplify it to a single flat tax at, say, 10% with no deductions, credits, subsidies, exceptions, differences depending on source of income, or what-have-you, and that everyone pays.

How much money did you make from all sources (wages, cash payments, interest, capital gains, dividends, gambling, etc)?  Pay 10% of that total.  Based on 2007 numbers (i.e., pre-Panic), that actually would increase revenue to Uncle Sugar by a substantial amount.  That’s only a static analysis.  Considering the ripple effects on our pocketbooks and so on our economy—which would take off—that would yield an even more substantial amount of revenue for the government.

Then we can restructure the IRS (as opposed to merely reform it) to vastly shrink it and limit it to the tax bookkeeping function that’s all it would need to be.  At those low tax rates and with no…deductions…there’s no need for an IRS division for special exemptions for this or that organization, no need for an IRS division to gather data and enforce the Obamacare suite of taxes (which would be included in the tax overhaul), no need for eight of the nine IRS divisions in Services and Enforcement.  The rest of the major sections—all overhead—could then be reduced or eliminated.

But first things first.

This is Amazing

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What a breathtaking failure to communicate.  Regarding the IRS failure to perform, The Wall Street Journal reported this tidbit over the weekend.

The Internal Revenue Service’s watchdog told top Treasury officials around June 2012 he was investigating allegations the tax agency had targeted conservative groups….

The disclosure to the Treasury general counsel and the deputy secretary was a cursory one, according to J Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.  He said he didn’t reveal conclusions of the probe, which was in its early stages….

Thus we now see confirmed what was hinted at during Friday’s House of Representatives hearing concerning the IRS’ misbehavior vis-à-vis its targeting of government-disfavored groups and individuals, and IRS officials’ subsequent dissembling about that targeting.  Senior officials in the Obama administration knew of these misdeeds—or at least the allegations of those misdeeds and the investigation into those allegations—for nearly a year, and for months prior to the campaign season Party Conventions.

Then,

Treasury…said Neal Wolin, the deputy secretary, didn’t notify anyone outside of Treasury….

Then,

White House officials say they learned about the targeting of conservative groups from the [IG] report, and not before.

And yet “White House officials” seem to be lying:

The White House’s chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House official said Sunday.

Somebody told Kathryn Ruemmler, that chief lawyer. Then Ruemmler told Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and others members of Obama’s senior cotery.  She told them further, according to Obama (through Jay Carney), that

this is not a matter she should convey to the president.  Her opinion that this is not the kind of thing that requires notification to the president.

This says amazing things about the judgment and competence of the men and women that President Barack Obama has brought into his Executive Branch: they didn’t think it necessary to inform anyone up the chain–that would be the President–that such politically, not to say legally, explosive doings were afoot.

I have no reason to believe that Ruemmler–or McDonough or that cotery–did, in fact, sit on that bomb.

Update: via The Wall Street Journal [emphasis added]:

The Internal Revenue Service briefed the Treasury Department extensively last month about a looming inspector general’s report that would find the agency had inappropriately targeted for extra scrutiny applications from conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, a new timeline of events shows.

The IRS consulted Treasury in late April about its plans to pre-emptively apologize for its actions….

Two people kept out of the loop, according to administration officials, were President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew. Neither was consulted, administration officials said, because their staff wanted to ensure that it didn’t appear they had interfered in any way in the process.

Yeah.  I still have that beachfront property north of Santa Fe, too.

Another Obama Sequester Fail

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Recall that California’s gas and oil industry has been shrinking for years.  It’s a slow shrinkage, but in the present political clime—the green political clime—it’s been inexorable.  This graph tells the tale (ignore, for this post the loud contrast with Texas).

Now this administration’s Bureau of Land Management, the agency responsible for leasing and permitting of Federal lands to oil and gas producers, is claiming that it’s helpless to reverse this trend—the sequester, you see.  The BLM has announced that it

will stop scheduled oil and gas leasing on public lands for the rest of the fiscal year. At least two auctions of more than 3,000 acres with promising oil deposits have already been canceled.

As the WSJ put it,

The state and feds forfeit the money from the leases. The industry can’t move ahead with its planned drilling, which wastes money. And Californians—in a state where nearly one of 10 workers is jobless—lose the chance at hundreds and perhaps thousands of high-paying jobs.

Never mind that lease income, and future royalties from the extractions, are both money makers for the government.  The sequester won’t let them make the money.

Nothing circular or political here.  Mm, mm.

An Honest Citizen

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…and a Government Citizen.

The Federal government is required to certify whether an act of terrorism has occurred so businesses can determine related loss recovery.  One outcome of this is that if a business did not specifically buy terrorism coverage, a formal designation of terrorism could make it harder to recoup a loss.

Now consider the Boston Marathon attack.  Lots of small businesses that were impacted by that disaster did not buy terrorism coverage.

Enter, stage left, the Government Citizen:

Boston Mayor Tom Menino told reporters at a press conference Saturday that he has confidence Obama will not sign anything that would hurt businesses impacted by the bombings[.]

Enter, stage right, the Honest Citizen:

David Sapers, owner of candy store Sugar Heaven, said he took a risk by not purchasing terrorism coverage.

“This is a terrorism act, and we’re not [going to] change the rules because people want to recoup money from the insurance companies[.]

Hmm….

Clinton’s Signature

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Much has been made of the fact that memos that, among other matters, denied requests for additional security for the Benghazi consulate went out over then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s signature.  In particular, the Left insists that it’s entirely routine for others to affix the boss’ signature to correspondence which the boss never actually sees, much less reads, before that correspondence goes out.

The Left is correct in this.  In large organizations, it is a commonplace practice for subordinates to generate and transmit correspondence that the boss never sees but on which, because of the subject matter involved, the boss’ signature is required in order to give the necessary weight to the correspondence.  State is no different in this regard.

What the Left omits to mention, though—and what the right has missed—is that when subordinates put the boss’ signature on a document, it’s done strictly in accordance with a carefully specified policy, developed and promulgated by that boss, that lays out the subjects and types of correspondence for which this is permissible.  And the boss is briefed, usually beforehand and if not as soon as possible after transmittal, on the content of what he just “signed.”

Clinton knew full well what sorts of correspondence were going out over her signature, and she knew full well the contents of the particular correspondence in question: that she was denying upgrades to Benghazi security that were being requested, repeatedly, by the Benghazi security team and by the Chief of Mission, the soon-to-be-murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens.  That correspondence was executed entirely in accordance with her carefully designed policy.  That she denied the requests of her experts on the ground, and now denies knowing that she denied, speaks volumes about her competence and her integrity.

Alternatively, it’s entirely possible that Clinton, as she claims, really didn’t know what was being sent out over her signature.  Since the policy governing those transmittals and their associated briefings was entirely hers, such a failure also speaks volumes about her competence.