Heads won't roll at the IRS (protections for federal workers)

Lawmakers pressing for more heads to roll at the Internal Revenue Service are going to be disappointed.

“Why weren’t more people fired?” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) demanded at a hearing Tuesday on the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, channeling the frustration of his colleagues.

In fact, it appears that no one has been formally reprimanded and a spokesperson for the union representing IRS workers said it hasn’t been called to help any employees yet. Most employees involved in the targeting program are covered by protections for federal workers that could drag out the termination process.

The pressure is building: Lois Lerner, the director of the tax-exempt division at the IRS that oversaw the controversial program, will invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Wednesday.

The GOP is also calling for the resignation of Sarah Hall Ingram, an official who used to work in the tax-exempt division and who now oversees the agency’s implementation of the health care overhaul.

The incoming acting IRS Commissioner, Daniel Werfel, could try to clean house — but he’d have to be prepared for a lengthy appeals process.

Under federal rules, a fired government worker has the right to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board. He or she can challenge the decision, argue that their actions don’t meet the threshold for termination and ask to be reinstated — especially if there was no warning of trouble in past performance reviews.

The board is set up so fired employees appealing their termination get two chances to prove they should stay. Their first stop is at the merit board’s regional level, which — for the Cincinnati-based IRS employees in question — would be in Chicago.

The initial appeals take an average of 93 days to process, said William Spencer, a spokesman for the board.

If the regional board rules against the IRS employees, they could appeal to the national Washington, D.C.-based board, which takes on average another 245 days.

The IRS employees wouldn’t collect a paycheck during the appeals process. They would get back pay only if they are ultimately reinstated.

Max Stier, who heads Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that recommends ways to improve the federal workforce, says it’s “not impossible” to get rid of federal workers. In 2012, he says, 8,755 federal workers were fired, and others likely resigned to avoid the ax — although there are no estimates of how many because it’s hard to track those kinds of departures.

“At the end of the day, if any agency has an employee who has really done something egregious and they want to get rid of them, they can do it,” Stier said.

There’s also the option of getting the IRS employees out of the way more quickly — at least temporarily — by putting them on administrative leave.

But IRS workers could always fight back if they’ve had positive performance reviews until now — and the board has been known to mitigate penalties if an employee is a first-time rule violator.

Making this case about conduct does make it easier, however, to skip one part of the disciplinary rules for federal workers.

When someone is just a terrible worker, federal rules require the supervisor to give him or her an opportunity to improve. When it’s a conduct case, though — as the IRS scandal would be — the agency wouldn’t have to take the time to teach its employees not to do something as problematic as targeting conservative groups.

There are other cases in which fired employees wouldn’t even get to appeal. By law, the IRS commissioner can — but doesn’t have to — fire any employee who engages in the so-called 10 deadly sins as defined by a law enacted in 1998 to overhaul the agency.

The “sins” include falsifying information or destroying documents to cover up mistakes, violating a taxpayer’s constitutional rights, abusing privacy clauses to conceal information from a congressional inquiry and threatening to audit taxpayers for personal gain or benefit.

But would any of the activities related to the IRS scandal qualify? J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, suggested at Tuesday’s hearing that it’s possible — noting that one of the sins is revealing taxpayer information to harm a taxpayer.

When Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) asked if the Cincinnati employees violated the sins, he responded: “In theory, it could be interpreted that way,” if they shared confidential information with outside groups. George is looking into the question.

There’s always another option: Even if the new IRS leadership doesn’t want to go through the hassle of getting rid of people, it could always ask them to resign.

Outgoing acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, for example, could have hung on if he’d really wanted to. Just because he was filling in for a politically appointed position doesn’t mean he can be fired by the president like political appointees typically can.

But when Treasury Secretary Jack Lew asked him to step down, he did. That could be an option if the administration wants to get rid of Lerner.

Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, has already said he wants Lerner to be relieved of her duties, and her future is widely seen as being up in the air.

“If the president/Secretary Lew could ask Steve Miller to resign, they should be able to ask Lois Lerner to resign. They are both longtime members of the Senior Executive Service,” one former IRS employee told POLITICO.

There’s also the chance that the IRS workers in Cincinnati could resign without being asked — not because they have to but because they understand how awful their lives will be if they don’t.

That’s what happens in other cases in the federal workforce, although the statistics aren’t available, Stier said. “If the line employees say, ‘We’re really in trouble here, we’re going to get fired, and I’m going to leave before that happens,’ they can do that. It happens a lot,” he said.

That could also help resolve the issue without changing the rules for firing federal workers, he said — because it’s not supposed to be easy to kick them out. If it’s too easy, it can be done for political reasons.

“The flip side is, you don’t want it to be so easy to fire someone that when a new party comes into power, they can fire everyone in the IRS and stock it with people who agree with their ideology,” Stier said.

The recent years since 9/11 have proven our elected representatives have little to no interest in presenting or passing legislation that passes constitutional muster. A myriad of laws such as Patriot Act, GM takeover, NDAA, Bankster bailouts, Operating government without formal budget, mandated Healthcare and coming legislative assaults on second amendment all point to an out of control nearly, if not actually, tyranical government our founders never intended but clearly warned us about.

In other threads I have touched on the subject of the oath of office and find its treated as just words to be said but no one holds those taking the oath responsible so I thought it a good topic for discussion especially since violating the oath is codified as a violation of federal law and executive order.

The oath taken by both houses of Congress reads,

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God

Congressional Oath of Office

It is apparent that the section of the oath that seems almost daily violated by politicians is “I will bear true faith and allegience to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without reservation or purpose of evasion;”

The congress as a whole along with the executive branch has been knowingly presenting legislation contrary to the constitution and then relying on legal challenges to make it to supreme court for final disposition, that folks is still a violation of the oath taken no matter the lawyeristic manuever of passing legislation as constitutional and waiting for a challenge. If these were your children you would immediately scold for exceeding limits by their hope of getting away with trouble but suffering consequences for only the most egregious just by sheer quantity, its evasive both by congress and by children, both should be accountable.

Below is the most detailed listing of codes covering the subject of congressional oath and pealties for violation,

Federal law regulating oath of office by government officials is divided into four parts along with an executive order which further defines the law for purposes of enforcement. 5 U.S.C. 3331, provides the text of the actual oath of office members of Congress are required to take before assuming office. 5 U.S.C. 3333 requires members of Congress sign an affidavit that they have taken the oath of office required by 5 U.S.C. 3331 and have not or will not violate that oath of office during their tenure of office as defined by the third part of the law, 5 U.S.C. 7311 which explicitly makes it a federal criminal offense (and a violation of oath of office) for anyone employed in the United States Government (including members of Congress) to “advocate the overthrow of our constitutional form of government”. The fourth federal law, 18 U.S.C. 1918 provides penalties for violation of oath office described in 5 U.S.C. 7311 which include: (1) removal from office and; (2) confinement or a fine.

The definition of “advocate” is further specified in Executive Order 10450 which for the purposes of enforcement supplements 5 U.S.C. 7311. One provision of Executive Order 10450 specifies it is a violation of 5 U.S.C. 7311 for any person taking the oath of office to advocate “the alteration ... of the form of the government of the United States by unconstitutional means.” Our form of government is defined by the Constitution of the United States. It can only be “altered” by constitutional amendment. Thus, according to Executive Order 10450 (and therefore 5 U.S. 7311) any act taken by government officials who have taken the oath of office prescribed by 5 U.S.C. 3331which alters the form of government other by amendment, is a criminal violation of the 5 U.S.C. 7311.

Violating Oath

The subject I am bringing to the table is “why do the American people allow their representatives to break oath of office (a federal crime) and not hold them accountable?

This should be a non-partisan subject simply due to the fact this has been going on for long decades and both parties are guilty according to the law.

I have myself watched a slow and steady deterioration of personal freedom going on fourty years and the accumulation is IMHO about to reach a tipping point where those hard fought rights become meaningless.

The scales could be tipped back somewhat if the public had awareness that the oath has teeth and voiced expectation that it be taken seriously.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread912761/pg1

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