Free Republic

Forget about the stonewalling IRS Commissioner John Koskinen engaged in regarding the Lois Lerner emails; the lackluster attempt to find such emails; and the erasure of back-up tapes that contained 24,000 emails from Lerner which were under subpoena. Today, we honor John Koskinen for being quite the oinker when it comes to government spending (how am I not surprised?). That’s why Citizens Against Government Waste named him the Porker of the Month: The ceaseless refrain from Commissioner Koskinen when criticized is to blame congressional budget cuts for IRS failures. This response rings hollow in the face of the IRS spending $4.3 million on...

Citing the need to boost employee morale, the Internal Revenue Service’s new commissioner said Monday that he will pay out millions of dollars in bonuses to agency employees, reversing a decision his predecessor made to save money amid the sequester budget cuts and other belt-tightening last year. The agency remains under fire for targeting tea party groups, but Commissioner John Koskinen said the bonuses are needed to retain and attract good employees in a time of cutbacks. The move didn’t sit well with congressional critics who have been stupefied by the agency’s targeting of tea party groups and, more recently,...

Despite the fact that the federal budget sequester does not provide funds for bonuses, acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel has agreed with the employees’ union to pay $70 million in bonuses. “As you may know from reading the papers, many of the Agency’s employees went above and beyond the law to implement President Obama’s wishes regarding intensified scrutiny of dubious political groups,” Werfel said. “We feel that this kind of pro-active mindset is worthy of extra recognition and extra compensation as a way of motivating the desired work ethic among the Agency’s personnel.” A research paper prepared by Andreas Madestam...

As a follow up to my May 20th article, I have a new theory.  The audacity and arrogance of our current government has reached heights that no one could have predicted.  When the news came down last week that the IRS, while still under Congressional scrutiny was going to receive $70 million dollars in employee bonuses, I thought that I was listening to a late-show comedian telling a good joke. It was no joke however.  The truth is that yes, as ridiculous as it sounds, the IRS is scheduled to receive $70 million MORE of tax money to pay them...