Thursday, April 23, 2015

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House report: Cash-strapped IRS prioritized bonuses, union activity over helping taxpayers


While facing budget cuts, the IRS nevertheless prioritized worker bonuses, union activity and the implementation of President Obama’s health care law over assisting taxpayers during tax season, according to a new report released Wednesday by the House Ways and Means Committee.
The findings, in a Republican-led report, were released ahead of a subcommittee hearing Wednesday morning with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
At the hearing, Koskinen stressed that the agency is significantly under-funded, and those cuts have consequences.
He said less funding means there will be a decline in service for taxpayers, and pledged that service would improve if they got more money.
"Customer service -- both on the phone and in person -- has been far worse than anyone would want. It's simply a matter of not having enough people to answer the phones and provide service at our walk-in sites as a result of cuts to our budget," he said.
But Republicans argued the IRS is making bad spending choices. "I would just suggest to you that there's hardly a person in America today that isn't doing more with less, that hasn't tightened their belt and learned how to work with less," Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., said.
The IRS has faced congressional budget cuts of $1.2 billion since 2010, and has faced criticism in recent years over the targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status and reports of wasteful spending. The new report said the cuts were intended to “force the IRS to manage its resources more effectively and immediately stop inappropriate activities.”
However, while cuts were made in part to focus the agency on customer service, the report asserted that “spending decisions entirely under the IRS’s control led to 16 million fewer taxpayers receiving IRS assistance this filing season.”
The panel found the IRS had cut customer services while continuing to hand out bonuses to employees, allowing staff to conduct union activities, failing to collect debt owed by employees of the federal government and spending over $1.2 billion on implementing ObamaCare.
Even though the IRS’s budget for taxpayer assistance remained flat from fiscal year 2014 to 2015, the level of over-the-phone customer service significantly decreased, with the agency shifting staff in customer service to focus on written correspondence instead of telephone calls. Meanwhile, the number of calls doubled in that period.
The panel found that wait times increased from 18.7 minutes to 34.4 minutes, and answered calls decreased from 6.6 million to 5.3 million.
“In January 2015, the IRS commissioner estimated that taxpayer service would decline while delays in tax refunds would increase. While the IRS commissioner has blamed this solely on budget cuts, in reality the IRS deliberately diverted resources away from taxpayer services,” the report found.
Despite the drop in service, there was no significant decrease in bonuses for IRS employees. Notably, in November 2014, despite another round of budget cuts at the IRS, Koskinen announced that employees would receive bonuses at the same level as for the previous year, unless they had substantiated conduct issues, the report said.
While acknowledging that the agency has cut the amount of time spent on discretionary union activity, the report questioned why it could not have been decreased further, asserting that “the amount of resources spent on discretionary union activity could have assisted nearly 2.5 million taxpayers.”
The report noted that while the IRS’s implementation of ObamaCare was deemed a success by Koskinen, “the IRS achieved this supposed success by prioritizing … implementation over other activities, including core responsibilities like taxpayer assistance.”
The panel also claimed the agency had failed to pursue recommendations for streamlining and reducing waste and abuse. It concluded that what it called “large areas of systemic waste and inefficiency” present in 2010 remained unaddressed in 2015, and highlighted in particular that the IRS spent $2.1 million on litigation services that the government could have conducted itself.

Obama facing Dem revolt on trade push, Reid says ‘hell no’


President Obama is facing a Democratic revolt over ambitious trade initiatives that are dividing the party, leading to tensions with everyone from Senate party leader Harry Reid to liberal icon Elizabeth Warren.
The disagreements erupted on Wednesday as leaders of the Senate Finance Committee tried to proceed with a vote on trade legislation, but liberal opposition quickly delayed the process.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a fierce opponent of the trade push, invoked a Senate scheduling rule to sideline the committee's actions for hours. "This job-killing trade deal has been negotiated in secret," said Sanders, who made a lengthy Senate speech denouncing the legislation.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, vowed the committee would finish the bill Wednesday. "I don't care how much time it takes," he said.
The flare-up was just one of many in the Democratic ranks. In a blunt challenge to the president, Reid told reporters earlier this week: "I'm not only no, I'm hell no" on Obama's proposal.
The Senate Finance Committee eventually endorsed Obama's request for "fast track" legislation late Wednesday, which would renew presidential authority to present trade deals that Congress can endorse or reject but not amend. The committee voted 20-6 to pass the fast track bill. The only committee Republican voting no was Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina.
If the House and Senate eventually comply, the legislation would ease the way for sweeping trade deals. Obama wants "fast-track" powers to help move free-trade proposals such as the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership.
This, in turn, would make it easier to approve deals like the controversial TPP.
But that authority, and those proposals, face resistance from labor unions and liberal groups who say free-trade pacts hurts U.S. jobs.
They lost a round Wednesday. The Finance Committee narrowly defeated a "currency manipulation" measure that Obama aides said would unravel the Pacific Rim deal. Votes for and against the provision were about evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, highlighting the unusual -- and possibly tenuous -- political alignments on trade.
The push-back now has Obama on defense, as he tries to muster a bipartisan coalition.
"I would not be doing this trade deal if I did not think it was good for the middle class," Obama said in an interview Tuesday with MSNBC. "When you hear folks make a lot of suggestions about how bad this trade deal is, when you dig into the facts, they are wrong."
In the interview, Obama specifically called out deal critic Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democratic senator and hero of liberal groups.
"I love Elizabeth. We're allies on a whole host of issues. But she's wrong on this," Obama said.
Few issues divide Democrats more than trade. Obama, like former President Bill Clinton, supports free trade, but many Democratic lawmakers do not.
Clinton's and Obama's stands -- and liberal groups' opposition -- pose a dilemma for Hillary Clinton, the former first lady now seeking the presidency herself. Campaigning Tuesday in New Hampshire, she declined to say whether she supports the Pacific-rim proposal.
"We need to build things, too," Clinton said, taking a pro-manufacturing stance generally embraced by both parties. "We have to do our part in making sure we have the capabilities and skills to be competitive," she said, while getting back to "a much more focused effort, in my opinion, to try to produce those capacities here at home."
This week, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, called the trade deal "fragile," noting that Democratic support is necessary. Republican sources say Obama needs to impress his desire for this trade pact on his Democratic allies.
Amid the divisions in Democratic ranks, Fox News has learned there is an effort afoot among congressional Democrats to court just enough from their side not to embarrass the president.
But Senate Finance Committee member Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says the administration must press China to stop manipulating its currency, even though China isn't a party to the Pacific-rim negotiations. "I'm disappointed in the efforts by President Obama," Schumer said at a committee hearing Tuesday.
If a nation keeps its currency value artificially low, it can boost exports by making local products more affordable to foreigners. Economists disagree on whether China still engages in the practice, and the Obama administration says it addresses currency manipulation in the fast-track bill.
Republicans generally support trade pacts. But Obama can't count on them alone to push the fiercely debated bills through the GOP-controlled House and Senate.
Most or all Finance Committee Republicans support fast track. Democratic supporters include Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Tom Carper of Delaware and Mark Warner of Virginia.
Committee passage would move the bill to the full Senate. The House has yet to vote on fast track this year.

ACLU sues feds in bid to make Catholic groups provide abortion to illegal immigrants


Providing food and shelter to illegal immigrants isn't enough for federally-funded Catholic organizations, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing the federal government to help ensure the religious organizations provide abortion and contraception to them as well.
The suit aims to obtain government records related to reproductive healthcare policy for unaccompanied immigrant children in the care of federally funded Catholic agencies, which do not believe in abortion.
“We have heard reports that Catholic bishops are prohibiting Catholic charities from allowing teens in their care to access critical services like contraception and abortion- even if the teenager has been raped on her journey to the United States or in a detention facility,” said ACLU staff attorney Brigitte Amiri.
“Let’s be clear about the ACLU’s purpose here: ending the productive and successful partnership between the Catholic Church and the federal government on the care and shelter of vulnerable populations."- Kevin Appleby, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Almost 60,000 unaccompanied minors illegally crossed over from Mexico border last year. Nearly a third were young girls, and Amiri claims up to 80 percent were victims of sexual assault.
The government contracts with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to care for those children until they can either reunite with a relative or face an immigration hearing. The organization has received $73 million overall from the government- with $10 million coming in to care for unaccompanied minors in 2013 alone.
A letter from the USCCB shows the organization strongly objecting to a regulation proposed by the Obama administration requiring contractors provide abortions to immigrants who have been raped.
“The Catholic Bishops are taking millions of dollars in federal grants- and then imposing their beliefs on this vulnerable population who they are supposed to serve… and that raises serious concerns under the separation of church and state provision in our Constitution,” said Amiri.
But the bishops are hitting back at the ACLU- maintaining they are well within their rights to exercise religious freedom while taking care of the minors.
“For decades, we have provided exemplary services to this vulnerable population without facilitating abortions, and despite ACLU’s extreme assertions to the contrary, the law not only permits our doing so, but protects it,” said Kevin Appleby, Director of the USCCB's Office of Migration Policy and Public Affairs.
Appleby says instances in which a client under his organization’s care asks for a service contrary to the beliefs of the Church are rare. He insists the USCCB informs the government of a girl’s desire to access reproductive healthcare if the government has legal custody of that child.
“Let’s be clear about the ACLU’s purpose here: ending the productive and successful partnership between the Catholic Church and the federal government on the care and shelter of vulnerable populations. Denying us the freedom to serve betrays the very children the ACLU is purportedly attempting to help,” he told Fox News.
The ACLU is only suing for federal documents on the USCCB’s policies at the moment, but will consider further legal actions depending on what those documents indicate. The government has not yet officially responded to the ACLU’s request.

China reportedly issues new warning over North Korean nuclear production


Chinese nuclear experts reportedly warned the U.S. earlier this year that North Korea's nuclear arsenal is larger than previously estimated, creating a heightened security threat to the U.S. and its East Asian allies.
The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that by Beijing's estimate, North Korea may already have manufactured 20 nuclear warheads and is capable of producing enough weapons-grade uranium to double that amount by next year. U.S. experts have previously estimated that North Korea has between 10 and 16 nuclear weapons.
The Chinese estimates were presented to U.S. nuclear specialists at a closed-door meeting at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing this past February. The Journal reported that Chinese military representatives and experts on the North's nuclear program were at the meeting.
Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University professor and former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory who attended the February meeting, told the Journal that estimates about North Korea's nuclear program involved a sizable amount of guesswork. He estimated that North Korea currently could have no more than 12 weapons, and as many as 20 in 2016.
"I’m concerned that by 20, they actually have a nuclear arsenal," Hecker said. "The more they believe they have a fully functional nuclear arsenal and deterrent, the more difficult it’s going to be to walk them back from that."
Washington has not had high-level talks with Pyongyang since 2012, when North Korea conducted a banned nuclear missile test. In the intervening time, the U.S. has relied on China to use its economic leverage to put pressure on the impoverished nation's missile program while the Obama administration works toward a nuclear deal with Iran.
However, the Journal reports that relations between China and North Korea have deteriorated since the death of dictator Kim Jong Il in 2011 and the ascension of Xi Jinping to China's leadership the following year.
The Journal report comes a day after the U.S. envoy to the long-stalled six-nation talks said that North Korea should learn from the emerging nuclear deal with Iran that Washington is willing to engage its adversaries if it has a "credible" negotiating partner.
"The entire international community is looking for this type of policy shift in Pyongyang, and that policy shift would be positively responded to," Sydney Seiler told a Washington think tank Tuesday.
But Seiler said there was no sign in two years that Pyongyang is willing to denuclearize, adding that the country would need to halt its nuclear program and missile launches while any talks are underway.

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