By Lee Cullum, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX –
What exactly has been going on in Washington? Senators were meeting on a Saturday night to approve a $388 billion spending bill when what to their wondering eyes should appear but a weird provision, buried as deep as the bones of the Barbary pirates, that, according to the New York Times, would allow the "chairs of the Appropriation Committees and their staffs to examine Americans' income tax returns."
"Something happened clearly in the dark of night," said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on CNN's "Late Edition." "The Senate was totally amazed." As well it might be. Why do these committee chairmen need to see the tax returns of American citizens?
Representative Ernest Istook, an Oklahoma Republican credited with the measure, claimed, once the story began to gain momentum, that the Internal Revenue Service itself drafted that provision, at the request of staff and "nobody's privacy was ever jeopardized." He further insisted, rather belatedly, that the whole thing was the fault of the staff.
Earlier, before this disavowal, a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee gave the Times this odd explanation: the "purpose of the provision was to allow investigators for the top lawmakers responsible for financing the I.R.S. to have access to that agency's offices around the country and tax records so they could examine how the money was being spent."
But why do those investigators need access to individual tax returns in order to understand how the agency is handling its money? What do the regional offices spend their appropriations on anyway? Primarily, I would guess, on people. It is necessary only to know the figures in the aggregate - how many returns handled at that office, how many audits conducted - to determine if federal dollars are being allocated wisely. Individual returns have nothing to do with those assessments.
Is it possible that somebody wanted to help Republican leaders in Congress shake down contributors by threatening to delve into their tax returns? Did "staff" intend this privilege for the Appropriations Committee chairs alone - Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska and Representative Bill Young of Florida? Young apparently did discuss it on the House floor, so he was well aware of the take-a-look-but-not-too-closely aspects of the bill. Stevens said he knew nothing about it. Or was this cooked up at the behest of someone well beyond "staff?"
Did anyone stop to realize that Democrats might be exercising this ugly power as well someday? Did "staff" understand what this could do to chill the voluntary filing of tax returns?
As for the amazement voiced by Hutchison and other senators, the committee spokesman admonished that the bill had been available for Senate assistants to read since the previous Thursday. That's great - 48 hours to go through 3,000 pages. But even speed readers might have missed that special chocolate chip.
The truth is that this stinks. It's good to know that Speaker Dennis Hastert has agreed to remove the offending passage and Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi is insisting on a full debate, refusing to let the Republicans deep-six this any further. The committee spokesman said that Representative Istook and his compatriots, whoever they are, don't mind the loss of this authority, while Istook now calls the whole thing a terrible mistake. All I can say to "staff" is, nice try.
Lee Cullum is a contributor to the Dallas Morning News and to KERA. If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us.