By Michael Gerson
Suppose that the Environmental Protection Agency
were to admit offhandedly that the fluoridation of water had only modest
communist mind-control effects. Or the United Nations were to concede it had
been running fleets of black helicopters over U.S. cities, but only in the
course of conducting extensive goodwill tours.
The
Internal Revenue Service has managed a similar confirmation. For years, tea
party and patriot groups have breathlessly alleged that federal bureaucrats
were conspiring against the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Then federal
bureaucrats conspired to target conservative groups because their tax documents
contained the words “tea party” or “patriot,” and because they were “educating
on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.'
As
the scandal has unfolded, the IRS has shown characteristic forthrightness and
transparency. In March 2012, the then-commissioner of the IRS, Doug Shulman, assured a congressional committee: “There’s absolutely no targeting.” But senior
officials at the agency, according to a leaked IRS inspector general report, were briefed about the targeting as early as the
summer of 2011. Now the agency has backtracked to this position: “IRS senior
leadership was not aware of this level of specific details at the time of the
March 2012 hearing.” It will probably take many further congressional hearings
to explore the considerable gap between “absolutely no targeting” and “not
aware of this level of specific details.”
The
IRS has found few defenders, mainly because it is the IRS. Can you imagine the
reception that similar arguments would receive if made to the IRS during
an audit? “I was not aware of this level of specific details when I claimed
that I absolutely deserved a massive tax deduction.” The IRS is granted the
level of sympathy that it would display toward others.
What
is most maddening about the agency’s response is its complacency. Lois Lerner,
in charge of nonprofit vetting at the IRS, has termed the heightened scrutiny
of conservative groups “insensitive.” When asked why her apology was made
during an obscure conference, she responded, “I don’t believe anyone ever asked
me that question before.”
This
after years of complaints by conservative groups of harassing and improper
requests for information, including details of their postings on social
networking sites and material on the political ambitions of board members and
their families.
The
practices already admitted by the IRS were not political insensitivity; they
were political corruption. They amounted to an intrusive, ideologically
targeted federal investigation of a political movement. And complacency, in
this circumstance, is self-indictment. As Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) put it: “If it had been just a small group of employees,
then you would think that the high-level IRS supervisors would have rushed to
make this public, fired the employees involved and apologized to the American
people and informed Congress. None of that happened in a timely way.” And perhaps
not coincidentally, even the IRS’s onset of mild remorse came well after the
2012 election.
I
am conspicuously not a libertarian. I believe that government has valid
purposes that are more than minimal, and that public service is essentially
noble. But most Americans, myself included, become libertarians when a
policeman is rude and swaggering during a traffic stop. Give me that badge
number. It is precisely because police powers are essential to the public good
that abusing them is so offensive. The same holds for overzealous or corrupt
airport-security agents. And it is doubly true with IRS personnel who misuse
their broad and intimidating powers. It is enough to bring out the Samuel Adams
in anyone.
The
temptation to abuse power has deep psychological roots. During the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, some students were randomly assigned as guards
in a mock prison, while others were designated as inmates. The exercise had to
be stopped after six days because the guards became aggressive and abusive.
There are serious risks at the intersection of minimal preparation and
disproportionate power.
During
his commencement address this month at Ohio State University, President Obama said:
“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of
government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity. . . . They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking
just around the corner. You should reject these voices.”
Now
part of his own administration has powerfully amplified those voices. If he
expects Americans to reject them, it is his personal responsibility to act
decisively in restoring the ruined reputation of the IRS.
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