This is outrageous.
Our troops in Afghanistan aren't getting hot meals but the IRS blows $50 million on conferences!
WASHINGTON (AP)-- A government watchdog has found that the Internal Revenue Service spent about $50 million to hold at least 220 conferences for employees between 2010 and 2012, a House committee said Sunday.An "unfortunate vestige from a prior era" -- Give me a break!
The chairman of that committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., also released excerpts of congressional investigators' interviews with employees of the IRS office in Cincinnati. Issa said the interviews indicated the employees were directed by Washington to subject tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status to tough scrutiny.
...The conference spending included $4 million for an August 2010 gathering in Anaheim, Calif., for which the agency did not negotiate lower room rates, even though that is standard government practice, according to a statement by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Instead, some of the 2,600 attendees received benefits, including baseball tickets and stays in presidential suites that normally cost $1,500 to $3,500 per night. In addition, 15 outside speakers were paid a total of $135,000 in fees, with one paid $17,000 to talk about "leadership through art," the House committee said.
...The Treasury Department released a statement Sunday saying the administration "has already taken aggressive and dramatic action to reduce conference spending."
IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge said Sunday that spending on large agency conferences with 50 or more participants fell from $37.6 million in the 2010 budget year to $4.9 million in 2012. The government's fiscal year begins Oct. 1 the previous calendar year.
On Friday, the new acting commissioner, Danny Werfel, released a statement on the forthcoming report criticizing the Anaheim meeting.
"This conference is an unfortunate vestige from a prior era," Werfel said. "While there were legitimate reasons for holding the meeting, many of the expenses associated with it were inappropriate and should not have occurred."
This spending was highly abusive and it happened on Obama's watch.
The taxpayers are being screwed by the government. American citizens with conservative political leanings are being harassed by the IRS.
If Leftists think the many facets of the IRS scandals are going to dissipate, they're wrong.
The cost of these IRS conferences is inexcusable. The squandering of our tax dollars to fund these lavish affairs for IRS employees is unforgivable.
1 comment:
Hubris impelled the nerd conferences -- which is what an IRS gathering turns out to be.
They didn't care how much they spent because everyone fears them. Who would be foolish enough to question IRS spending---you'd end up on a economic hit list.
Post a Comment