I’m generally not an anti-government person. I don’t buy into the conspiracy theories that flood my email every day. I tend to take complaints about government corruption with a grain of salt. The government— local, state and federal— is made up of people after all. And call me a Pollyanna, but I believe for the most part that people mean well.
I try not to fall prey to partisan politics. That is why I prefer nightly network news (ABC, CBS or NBC) to the “news channels”— Fox News or MSNBC. The network news programs attempt to limit editorial comment and stick to just the facts.
I have friends who heartily disagree with me on all counts. I have friends who will be upset that I question whether Fox News is “fair and balanced.” I have other friends who will be appalled that I question the integrity of MSNBC. And then I have friends who will argue that those “mainstream” news channels don’t cover all the news.
That’s okay, I’m used to friends being annoyed with my political opinions, which are all over the board. When I’m with one group of friends, I’m pegged a liberal. At another gathering, I’m labeled a conservative. So I can generally find a topic of common ground— or something to disagree about in any political debate.
However, no matter where you lie on the political spectrum, a story that was on network news this week should have your blood boiling. My husband Chuck—who does let political news get under his skin—recorded the news story so I could hear it when I got home.
He hit play and I listened in amazement as ABC’s Diane Sawyer announced that some of the hardearned money U.S. citizens pay in taxes goes to employees of the Internal Revenue Service in the form of bonuses—a staggering $86 million in bonuses in 2012.
That was interesting. Why should IRS employees get bonuses for doing their job? I was curious.
But what came next was a shock. ABC reported that according to the Treasury Department Inspector General, the IRS had given out over $1 million of bonuses to employees who had not paid their taxes!
Not only did these errant IRS employees receive financial rewards, they received extra time off—vacation time they could have spent getting their taxes done!
This report infuriates me, as I’m sure it does any honest and hardworking government employee. In the government agencies I worked for, in low-level jobs within the Department of Commerce and the Department of Defense, I never saw such disregard of the law. At the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), employees acted as watchdogs over the government funds with which they were entrusted. When I worked at a DOD Military Clothing Sales Store, staff always complied with the policies and procedures of our job.
When I worked at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, the PX, we were required to get a supervisor to ring us up at the register if we purchased a candy bar. Yet the IRS blithely hands out over a million dollars of bonuses to workers breaking the rules.
That is just not right. An IRS spokesperson responded, “We strive to protect the integrity of the tax system, and we recognize the need for proper personnel policies.”
From my past government jobs, I know what a big deal it is to be visited by the Inspector General. I sincerely hope that this IG report leads to changes at the IRS.
I’ll be watching this news story without my rose-colored glasses.
Indoors or out, no one relaxes in
March, that month of wind and
taxes, the wind will presently
disappear, the taxes last us all the
year.
Ogden Nash
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