April 24, 2014

IRS: Bad to the Bonus

Whoever said “cheaters never prosper” obviously didn’t work at the IRS! There, it seems employees do a great job of collecting everyone’s taxes but their own. As if Americans needed another reason to seethe over the agency, government officials are pulling the curtain back on even more corruption. The latest bombshell comes courtesy of the Department’s Inspector General, who is exposing the IRS for doling out almost $3 million in bonuses to employees with “disciplinary issues” that span everything from fraud and abusing agency credit cards to owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. (Apparently, the agency was too busy targeting conservatives to trouble with their own tax returns.) “Employees’ tax problems,” the Inspector General writes, “included ‘willful understatement of tax liabilities over multiple tax years, late payment of tax liabilities, and underreporting of income.”

Whoever said “cheaters never prosper” obviously didn’t work at the IRS! There, it seems employees do a great job of collecting everyone’s taxes but their own. As if Americans needed another reason to seethe over the agency, government officials are pulling the curtain back on even more corruption.

The latest bombshell comes courtesy of the Department’s Inspector General, who is exposing the IRS for doling out almost $3 million in bonuses to employees with “disciplinary issues” that span everything from fraud and abusing agency credit cards to owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. (Apparently, the agency was too busy targeting conservatives to trouble with their own tax returns.) “Employees’ tax problems,” the Inspector General writes, “included ‘willful understatement of tax liabilities over multiple tax years, late payment of tax liabilities, and underreporting of income.”

But, as Americans have come to understand, wrongdoing isn’t just condoned in this administration – it’s rewarded! Despite their transgressions, more than 1,140 of these negligent workers split $1 million in cash awards and another 10,582 hours of paid leave. Sixty-nine of them even “earned” permanent raises! Meanwhile, under the crushing economic policies of the Obama administration, most law-abiding Americans would be happy just to have jobs, let alone bonuses.

While the country’s blood boils, the harsh reality is this: what do we expect? This is, after all, the same administration that put a serial tax evader in charge of enforcing the country’s tax policy. And Timothy Geithner wasn’t the only one. President Obama nominated at least three agency heads with a history of IRS troubles. Clearly, he didn’t mind putting billions of our tax dollars in the hands of people who couldn’t be bothered to pay their own. Unfortunately, this administration has never insisted that the government live by the same rules it imposes on others.

Still, insists the IRS’s chief officer of Human Capital, “We take seriously our unique role as this nation’s tax administrator, and we will strive to implement a policy that protects the integrity of the tax administration system and the reputation of the service.” It’s time to prove it – not just by holding the IRS accountable but everyone in the administration responsible for this pervasive problem of lawlessness. Until then, government credibility (which is dangerously close to an oxymoron) will continue to tank.

Is it any wonder that Washington is a magnet for dishonesty? Just last November, the Los Angeles Times ran an interesting story about college students with a history of cheating. Based on Harvard’s research, college cheaters are more likely to want government jobs. “If people have the view that jobs in government are corrupt, people who are honest might not want to get into that system,” said Harvard’s Rema Hanna. “Overall,” she explained, “we find that dishonest individuals… prefer to enter government service.” Well, if the IRS is any indication, those cheaters will have plenty of competition!

Pledging a Grievance on the Pledge of Allegiance

When it comes to the Pledge of Allegiance, atheists don’t know the meaning of the word “quit.” Despite loss after loss in federal court, secular groups refuse to give up on their goal of stripping the words “under God” from America’s most patriotic exercise. This week, the American Humanist Association (AHA) announced it was taking another crack at the phrase in a New Jersey school district where students daily recite the Pledge.

It’s the group’s second lawsuit against “under God” in a matter of months – only this time, AHA is trying a different tact. Borrowing a handful of buzzwords from the same-sex “marriage” debate, the organization is now insisting that this kind of daily exercise treats “atheist and humanist children as second-class citizens, and certainly contributes to anti-atheist prejudices.”

Obviously, the forces of political correctness are trying to capitalize on the marriage messaging that that so many courts have embraced. It remains to be seen whether this play for the judges’ sympathies will work. As far as the Becket Fund is concerned, trying to prove that children are victimized by the Pledge of Allegiance will be a tall order, even with this twist. As the Fund’s Diana Verm pointed out, AHA and its clients “have every right not to say the Pledge if they don’t want to, but they don’t have the right to silence everyone else.”

Unfortunately, this fundamental misunderstanding is affecting a lot more schools than New Jersey’s. In Cypress, Texas, parents were furious to hear that a teacher told a second-grader to stop bringing her Bible to school for the class’s silent reading time. “They’re letting them read the Hunger Games, that’s [about] kids killing kids, why can’t she read the Bible?” fumed one mom. The girl’s parents, who were afraid to go public with the story, turned to Liberty Institute for help. When its attorneys raised the concerns with school officials, a spokesman released a statement distancing the district from the teacher’s intolerance and explaining that students can bring their own book as long as they can understand it, and it’s deemed appropriate by the school. “As such, religious material, including the Bible, that meets these guidelines would be permissible for a classroom assignment and/or independent reading.”

Wrestling Team Takes on Atheist Heavyweight

At South High School, wrestlers are used to going to the mat. Only now, they’ll have to do it for their faith. The bullies at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who refuse to pick on anyone their own size, are going after a small West Virginia wrestling program for posting a Bible verse on the school’s athletic page. The verse, “I can do all things through Him that strengthens me,” has been the team’s motto for months – even appearing on t-shirts that the kids bought themselves. Now, fearing an expensive and time-consuming lawsuit, the local superintendent is ordering the high school to delete Philippians 4:13 from the website with this explanation: “We have to follow the law – whatever that law might be.”

Obviously, the school doesn’t have a firm grasp on its students’ rights, which is exactly what the folks at FFRF were hoping for. Preying on unsuspecting rural areas is the Left’s specialty, because it knows that trying this same stunt on a larger scale would backfire. While the wrestlers complied with the internet request, they draw the line at the shirts they had made for the team.

“It’s not part of the official uniform,” said an attorney representing one of the kids. “If a student athlete doesn’t want to wear that shirt, they don’t have to. It’s not a requirement.” And these students are willing to go to court to prove it. “It’s frustrating for the parents,” said lawyer Bill Merriman, “because they see a lot of other t-shirts being worn by students that are certainly not religious – but they are offensive. Nobody is saying they can’t wear those shirts.” It’s a frustrating double standard but not a surprising one. Like Ephesians 6 says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.