Congress Stymies Investigations With Hidden Provision

This from Byron York at the Examiner. Hidden inside the stimulus package - a provision giving the politicians a chance to sidetrack and potentially end internal investigations by quasi-independent inspectors general through "the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board — the RAT Board, as it’s known by the few insiders who are aware of it." Just whose economy is that designed to help, I wonder?

In the name of accountability and transparency, Congress has given the RAT Board the authority to ask “that an inspector general conduct or refrain from conducting an audit or investigation.” If the inspector general doesn’t want to follow the wishes of the RAT Board, he’ll have to write a report explaining his decision to the board, as well as to the head of his agency (from whom he is supposedly independent) and to Congress. In the end, a determined inspector general can probably get his way, but only after jumping through bureaucratic hoops that will inevitably make him hesitate to go forward.

When Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, a longtime champion of inspectors general, read the words “conduct or refrain from conducting,” alarm bells went off. The language means that the board — whose chairman will be appointed by the president — can reach deep inside a federal agency and tell an inspector general to lay off some particularly sensitive subject. Or, conversely, it can tell the inspector general to go after a tempting political target.

Comments

[JAL]

So who is going to put up the website which allows us to see the names of the authors of these various foul provisions?

Do it quickly please. So we can get past the tipping point post haste.

[Greg Toombs]

Specter, Collins, Snow.

[Orman]

"So who is going to put up the website which allows us to see the names of the authors of these various foul provisions".

Read the linked article. Nobody quite knows who is responsible for this particular provision. And with so many crooks in Congress, it will be hard to figure out.

[SenatorMark4]

There is just no controlling them. Congress really is an organized criminal entity. We must gain control of our government again.
1. Pass a Constitutional amendment that 1/3 of Congress MUST be IRS audited every year. Of course we can add a provision that they will never be audited more than 1 in 3.
2. Any money or legislative granted benefit (think property tax rebates to corporations) delivered to non-taxing entities MUST be accompanied with an IRS Form 1099-govUS. Stop the hidden pandering! It really is not their money and we have allowed them to force our reporting without insisting on their reporting. "1099 for All"
3. "Congress shall pass no law granting immunity from prosecution."
Oh well...never happen...the Republicans are just as addicted to the avoidance of accountablity. They just want to give it to different people.

[Blacque Jacques Shellacque]

Apparently, the rationale for getting this "stimulus" passed quickly was so that by the time little "additions" like these were noticed, little could be done about them. It'll be interesting to find out what else is in there that the public doesn't know about.

[Jumbo]

I find it very amusing that you on the right are suddenly bitching about not knowing what is in the bill just passed. When your idiot boy king was destroying the country the last 8 years, all sorts of bills were rushed through with little or no notice (Patriot Act, for instance) but not a peep from you about that. You all do live in a limbaugh/hannity/palin never never land...

[Insufficiently Sensitive]

"When your idiot boy king was destroying the country the last 8 years, all sorts of bills were rushed through with little or no notice (Patriot Act, for instance) but not a peep from you about that."

Good boy. You beat the US Congress to a speed record in opening mouth and inserting foot. You might notice that the Patriot Act was passed through Congress by an overwhelming majority of both parties - if you weren't afraid it would damage your 'argument'.

[AD]

"...your boy-king..."
If he was, why isn't he still on the throne?
Jerk!

[RR Ryan]

I'm sort of kidding, but can we indict congress under rico?

[SacTownMan]

Hey troll, I'll put GWB, or as you like to call him the, "boy king" against your "god king" anyday!!

Typical moonbat response. "yea well so what, your guy did this!"

It was the only argument Alan Colmes used, over and over, for years!

The great Xerxes is going down faster than Andrew Sullivan at a gay pride parade!

[L.N. Smithee]

Jumbo wrote: I find it very amusing that you on the right are suddenly bitching about not knowing what is in the bill just passed. When your idiot boy king was destroying the country the last 8 years, all sorts of bills were rushed through with little or no notice (Patriot Act, for instance) but not a peep from you about that. You all do live in a limbaugh/hannity/palin never never land...

Here are the facts, Jumbo Shrimp: The 2001 USA Patriot Act passed in the House of Representatives on October 24, 2001. The totals: 357 yea, 66 no, 0 present, 9 non-voting. Among GOP members, the score was 211-3-0-5. Among Democrats, 145-62-0-4. Independents, 1-1-0-0. In the Senate, the score was more decisive: 98-1-0-1 (only Dem Russ Feingold of WI voted against it; Dem Mary Landrieu of LA was not present.

The renewal of the Patriot Act passed five years later in 2006, long after everyone in Congress knew durn well what was in it. House, 280-138-0-14, Senate, 89-10-0-1. GOP House Members, 314-13-0-3, Dems 66-124-0-11, Independents 0-1-0-0. Only ten Senators voted to kill the Patriot Act. Among those voting "yea" to renew it was Senator Barack Obama.

So, if anyone here is in "Never Never Land," it's you, Jumbo. I guess that makes you Peter Pan ... or Tinker Bell.

[Mark Turner]

Theoretically speaking, any mechanism that government has to investigate can be used as a political hammer for members of both parties if they see fit -- particular the party in power at a given time. If actively used, I see long term political vendettas coming; it may just as well wind up as something that exists, but is never used.

However, this sort of thing does illustrate the danger of passing legislation without reading the fine print...and makes the sense of urgency conveyed by Obama extremely suspicious. Who knows how many other little weasel provisions have been enacted in legislation over the years, or to come? A perfect conduit for government waste, inefficiency, self-patronage, and abuse -- with little or no public (or private) accountability.

[13yankeebravo]

Almost anything done in haste is generally wrong,regreted, and poorly designed.
This is why this bill is bad.

[rosignol]

1. Pass a Constitutional amendment that 1/3 of Congress MUST be IRS audited every year.

Why only 1/3?

I'm fine with every member of congress, federal or state judge, and head of a federal department or member of the cabinet getting the ol' IRS procto-treatment every year they're in office.