the IRS and Abuse of Power
President Obama spoke today on the growing scandal involving the IRS and their targeting Tea Party organizations for scrutiny and investigation. Does the President’s statement and actions adequately address the concerns raised by the IRS’s actions? Is the White House doing a good job, in terms of public relations, communicating their message? Are criticisms of the White House in conjunction with this scandal fair?
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First of all, we should agree that IRS was wrong to go after the groups or individuals because of their political views. This is a frightening misuse of government authority and abuse of power. I do not think that the Obama administration is addressing the root cause of this IRS scandal. Changing the chief will do nothing to change the mentality of the organization. People are looking for stronger actions, something like having the FBI investigate potential criminal violations or conducting a series of oversight hearings to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Moreover, White House should address the concerns of people who are worried about the growing intrusiveness and burdensome size of the government. I personally think that President should go beyond the standard political cover-up and address the IRS’s overreach act. The power and scope of the IRS need to be significantly curtailed, not expanded as in the Affordable Health Care Act.
I don’t think the clip from the President’s statements here are sufficient considering the situation. I appreciate that he talks about holding people accountable and what he’s going to do moving forward, but very little is mentioned about what might have initiated this problem in the first place, which honestly is what matters! It’s good that he’s looking forward, but that’s useless if he doesn’t fully understand what to guard against.
I’m not sure what Paul Streckfus is talking about, because it’s clearly been shown that this was politically driven…
This all being said, I don’t think that the criticisms are fair. Anytime there’s a scandal it’s going to be compared with Nixon (not directly mentioned here, but it has been in plenty of other places) They’re not the same at all. The biggest difference here (that they talk about in the video) is the independence the IRS has from the President. With nothing linking the President to directing this, sure it’s an abuse of power, but it’s not the same Presidential scandal by any measure.
I think the burden falls on congress to take action in ensuring this does not happen again. They need to use their oversight power to sure up the IRS and its standing in the nation today. The president obviously is going to be held accountable by the people that do not realize he has very little power or control over the IRS. But his move to pressure the chief out was necessary to save face and make it at least appear like he was doing something.
Firstly, I believe its far too early to judge whether Obama has given justice to this issue. The IRS admitted to their scrutiny of conservative groups only two weeks ago; the further interviews and investigations that just started will probably take months. That should be the time to question if the White House sufficiently addressed the issue. I agree with Kunaal in that changing the chief of the IRS will not change the organization’s mentality, but Obama has very little control over the mentality of such a large and complex organization. I do think Obama should be publicly shaming the actions of the IRS, but he should not be the one recommending oversight plans or a reform of the organization. That should be left to a non-partisan group that does not have the burden of parties or politics to influence its decisions.
I agree with Lizzie that it is too early to completely judge Obama’s handling of this situation, but we know that the media reacts very quickly to events like this, so people will automatically criticize and judge. I think that the White House is doing the best job possible to respond to this issue and has a good message to send to the people. They just have to stay away from questioning at all why the IRS was investigating this political group, because that would hint that they endorse the behavior if it was for a “reasonable cause”.
I think the absolute most important objective is keeping the IRS nonpartisan. The reason the president is isolated from the IRS is exactly for this reason. I think that the White House is handling this well because they are working towards a politically blind IRS once again. The biggest problem is definitely going to be regaining the trust of the people and specifically the Republican party. This should not be compared to Water Gate because this, so far, is not a presidential scandal. It will be interesting to follow nonetheless.
I agree that it is too early to judge how President Obama is handling this situation. While the media has definitely taken some of this story out of proportion, I do believe that the IRS needs to be held accountable. I also think the President is taking the right steps in ensuring that this does not happen again in the future. It seems like President Obama is also making the right changes to the IRS so that it is put on the right path.
When issues like this occur the media tends to blow everything out of proportion and because of this the public wants to see immediate response from the White House and President Obama. However many don’t realize that Congress can do more than the President by using Congressional Oversight to deal with the IRS, this is where I feel that issue should be addressed. Leaders of the IRS need to be held accountable for this abuse of power they have shown and I feel that by Congress using their oversight justice will be brought to the agency,