Another View Of the IRS Scandal

An old friend who worked for the Social Security Administration for many years sent me an email today to take issue with my take on the IRS scandals.  Here is what he had to say in pertinent part:

"My decades as a denizen of a huge Federal agency have provided me with insights on the IRS affair which you may find of interest. So I'm forcing the following observations on you, while denying reciprocity. [Unfair!] Anyway, here goes:

You're a government manager and someone asks you what your technicians are up to. You proceed to bob and weave, obfuscate and deceive. [Poetry!] In effect, you cover up. But you are not covering up what the technicians are doing; you are covering up that you don't know what the technicians are doing. And you cannot admit that, because it makes you appear incompetent. This happens frequently, because

 

MANAGERS NEVER KNOW WHAT THE TECHNICIANS ARE DOING. 

 

I cannot begin to count the number of times I watched sweat bead on managers' foreheads as they struggled to avoid admitting that they hadn't a clue about something in their bailiwick.

 

Now imagine you're a government technician and you have to make a thorny and complicated decision on, let's say, a 501(c)4 application. You have not much guidance, which is another way of saying you have lots of leeway. Your priority is to get this unappealing thing off your desk, preferably without making a decision, because 

TECHNICIANS DISLIKE MAKING DECISIONS.  

They dislike making decisions because they're going to have to justify the decision [in writing!] and that's hard work, and someone, somewhere, sometime, may disagree with it. So what's the path of least resistance? [Easy Peasy!] You request additional evidence! Whenever, I saw a really thick case file, I knew before I even cracked it open that I was going to find a plethora of requests for more information. Which is not to say that such requests are never, or even seldom, justified. But the primary motivation is "Let me get this crap off my desk, and live to fight another day." But, wait, you say. Doesn't that just delay the inevitable? Aren't you going to have to make a decision eventually? And, meanwhile, aren't the backlogs and processing times getting bigger and longer? Well, the technician figures, maybe the applicant will go away, or maybe when the case comes back, it will fall on some other poor bastard's desk. And as far as the backlogs and processing times, that's funny, because

TECHNICIANS DON'T CARE ABOUT BACKLOGS AND PROCESSING TIMES

That's strictly a management concern. Those would be the very same managers who don't know what the technicians are doing. Technicians put in their 8.5 hours [plus overtime!] and then they go home. They couldn't care less about the height and weight of their inbox.

 

Hope this helps."

 

I don't buy this for a minute.  There is no way that bureaucratic entropy is at fault here.  Indeed, there were literally over 100 requests by Congressment and Senators about the persecution of conservatives that was underway.  There is no way the IRS would ignore that, so I wrote back.

 

Here is my response:

 

I accept what you are saying.  I do, however, have these questions: 

 

1.       Would anything change if scores of members of Congress sent letters questioning a particular practice?  (There were over 130 letters from Congressmen and Senators between 2010 and 2012 about the targeting of conservative groups.)

2.      Would anything change if the management of the agency did an internal investigation and found (in March-May of 2012) that an improper and illegal practice was being followed?

3.      Finally, would anything change in your analysis that the practice was just a way to put the decision off, when you consider that the IRS itself says that there was a list generated which designated only Tea Party and Conservative groups for special treatment?

 

In other words, most of the time your analysis is one that I could accept:  the rigidity and non-responsiveness of the bureaucracy in general is a truism.  I remember your description to me of your job for many years:  look into possible improvements, produce a report, receive praise for a wonderful and insightful report, then watch the report be ignored while nothing changes. 

 

In the present situation, however, I will not accept that this is just lethargy and incompetence.  If it were all groups targeted – yes.  Conservatives only – no.  When you add in things like the leaking of confidential information to Pro Publica or the feeding of IRS data to the co-chair of Obama’s campaign, it seems pretty clear that this is  not just lethargy and incompetence.  To do otherwise is to believe that the proverbial room full of monkeys with typewriters really could produce Shakespeare.