Not true, such officers and government are subject to both civil action from private citizens harmed and criminal penalty for submitting false documents and reports:
Technogeeb: But it would not be a "false" report. "Poverty" is an arbitrary value, the poorest among the citizens of the United States live better than the kings of a century ago (air conditioning, medical care, etc., that were unavailable to even the wealthy). 963
LMAO!!! That's a keeper.
I can hear it now from the HHS commissioner (having read Technogeeb's above quote): "But your honor, our official HHS poverty level number for 2002 is calculated relative to how kings of a century ago lived. Even the poorest American citizens live better than kings of a century ago -- thus the poverty level is $150,000."
Since the bureaucracy is itself responsible for the definition in law of "poverty level",
The definition of poverty level is one formally defined since 1967 and a matter of law since that time through formal declaration and acceptance by congress. To attempt to change that statistical criteria by which the poverty line is established would be challenged all up and down the political spectrum as well as by individals organazations and businesses throughout the nation.
whatever it claims is the poverty level IS the poverty level for the relevant legislation.
There is only one mandated poverty level for all legislation, not independant measures for each and every piece. To raise that level on any basis other than the historical criteria in place since 1967 and codified into Census Bureau regulations as well as the Department of labor would be a clear act of provable fraud. Your claim that a single bureaucrat can simply raise the number to some arbitrary $150k dollars or drop it by any outlandish figure by fiat of the bureaucracy is simply foolish. If that could be done and made to stick, by now some liberal duderhead in office over the last 35 years of official use would have done so just to garner more constituents eligible for means tested payments from all levels of govenment as well as business benefits which are tied to multiples of that figure, a new poverty classification would create.
To establish an arbitrary or frivoulous, as opposed to a formal statisically measured, amount for poverty would impact legislation and mandates laid on states, organizations, businesses, and individuals creating harms to whole classes of citizens and organizations in its wake. To claim that such would not be pressed vigorously for civil suit and prosecution by many groups both inside and outside of government is hubris in the extreme.
In the 1990s, the Clinton administration deliberately kept the definition of the "poverty level" lower than historical trends in order to make the statistics for the Clinton administration look better.
The "definition" of poverty level has not change since 1967. Inputs into the methodology establishing the dollar amount of poverty level have changed in response to predominately inflation/deflation of the economy through measures of income and consumption.
Manipulation of the input, is possible at the margin through biased selections on the part of lowlevel functionaries. The statistical definition of poverty level is a constant and has become part of the body of evidence that is embodied within the perview civil law. It is not a thing to be changed at mere fiat of individuals or a few persons in the bureaucracy.
Violation of that methodology to the damage of any person, individual or organization, would constitute an actionable tort under U. S. law which would be very rapidly pressed should such a scenario be established to the standard of preponderance of the evidence that tort law is subject to. That is a very easy standard to meet when shennanigans are going on.
Get a conviction in a court under the laws you have cited for those "offenses" and I might consider that they have some relevance to the current flaw in the proposed legislation.
Just go to Google and search for - malfeasance United States Code - you will find many such tort cases against several departments of the United States and officials within those departments successfully prosecuted. Or go to any law library, look up the history malfeasance cases. There are very plentiful and most are successful.