Rep. Kelly Confronts IRS Commissioner over Agency’s Diversion of Funds from Customer Service
New Ways & Means committee report reveals misspent funds by IRS, debunking agency’s claim of insufficient funding
WASHINGTON — U.S. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) – a member of the House Ways and Means Committee – participated in this morning’s hearing by the Subcommittee on Oversight on the 2015 tax filing season and general operations at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which featured testimony by IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. The hearing coincided with the release of a new report by the committee’s Majority Staff titled, “Doing Less with Less: IRS’s Spending Decisions Harm Taxpayers,” which details a severe misuse of funds by the agency.
Highlights of Rep. Kelly’s remarks:
“I don’t think that, if you were in the private sector, you would ever go before a company that was in bad shape or failing and say, ‘Hey, here’s the problem: Things are looking pretty bad for us, we don’t have quite the resources that we’d like to have … and so what we’re going to do is do less with less.”
“My big question is: Why would we cut customer service and redeploy those dollars elsewhere? You’re the head of the agency. What was it in your game plan, what was it in your thinking that said … ‘I think what we’ll do is cut customer service, and that way, we’ll have a better relationship with the taxpaying public if we make them wait longer on the phone, if we make them wait longer for mail, if we close down different offices and not be able to do the advocacy that we like to do… I think that’s really going to be able to help our position!’?”
“You can’t run around town telling everybody that you’re out of money and that’s the reason you can’t do your job.”
“If it’s about improving morale, you can’t tell people how bad it is, and how much worse it’s going to get, and expect better results.”
“I would just suggest to you that there's hardly a person in America today that isn't doing more with less, that hasn't tightened their belt and learned how to work with less.”
Summaries of the Way and Means Committee’s report can be found here and here.
NOTE: Since news of the IRS targeting scandal first broke in May 2013, Rep. Kelly has been a prominentvocalleader in the ongoing pursuit for answers and accountability. After earning a standing ovation for his fierce scolding of then-IRS Commissioner Steven Miller at the Ways and Means Committee’s first-ever hearing on the scandal, The Washington Post’s Right Turn blog named Rep. Kelly its “Distinguished Pol of the Week.” The New York Post declared that Rep. Kelly’s words “ought to be emblazoned across the entryway of every IRS office in America.”
In response to the scandal, Rep. Kelly introduced the Government Employee Accountability Act, which would grant all federal agencies the power to fire reckless Senior Executive Service employees (such as ex-IRS official Lois Lerner) on the spot, or place them on “investigative leave” without pay. The legislation was passed by the House of Representatives on August 1, 2013, as part of the Stop Government Abuse Act (H.R. 2879) by a bipartisan vote of 239-176. Rep. Kelly re-introduced the bill on February 4, 2015.
On February 26, Rep. Kelly introduced the Taxpayer Knowledge of IRS Investigations Act (H.R. 1026), which was unanimously passed by the House on April 15, 2015.
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