San Diego Union Tribune Editorial: No happy returns

[question everything]

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL
No happy returns

Amid the budget pork, a sleazy power grab

November 27, 2004

Finding language that's sloppy at best, devious at worst, in Congress' mammoth spending bill isn't as odd as it should be. But nobody is claiming authorship of the single sentence in that 14-inch-thick legislative leviathan that would have given the chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees and their "agents" access to "Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein."

No mention there of the penalties incurred by the few people, in the IRS and in Congress, authorized to review them if they release the information in them, penalties intended to ensure it isn't used for political or nefarious purposes. Except for an eagle-eyed aide to Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, however, that sentence would have slipped through. And if this episode is not the "Saturday night massacre on Americans' privacy" that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says it is, it's still worrisome.

When did staffers, IRS or congressional, get the authority to write language, on their own, in an omnibus spending bill? How many committees does it take to oversee the IRS? And why didn't the Appropriations chairmen simply ask Ways and Means and Finance to exercise their authority to grant that access? Answer: Turf war among Republicans who control those committees.


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Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041127/news_lz1ed27bottom.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. How can a law so invasive stand a test against the Supreme Crt?

Oh, never mind.

[mainer]

2. Well, this newspaper endorsed Bush.

Maybe they're re-thinking that.

[fortyfeetunder]

3. Too late now!

That's the message to the editor!