Democrats at IRS had a conflict of interest in dealing with Tea Party

Tim Carney:

If you take a group of Democrats who are also unionized government employees, and put them in charge of policing political speech, it doesn't matter how professional and well-intentioned they are. The result will be much like the debacle in the Cincinnati office of the IRS.

The IRS's targeting of Tea Party groups doesn't look like a Nixonian abuse of power by the Obama White House. And there's no reason to even posit evil intent by the IRS officials who formulated, approved or executed the inappropriate guidelines for picking groups to scrutinize most closely.

There's a fairly innocent -- and fairly probable -- explanation for what the IRS did, and it boils down to the natural suspicion people have of those with opposing views.

The public servants figuring out which groups qualified for 501(c)4 "social welfare" non-profit status were mostly Democrats surrounded by mostly Democrats.

Democrats received 75 percent of the campaign contributions I could trace to employees of the IRS Cincinnati office over the last three election cycles. In the 2012 election, every donation traceable to this office went to President Obama or liberal Sen. Sherrod Brown.

This is an environment where even those trying to be fair could develop a disproportionate distrust of the Tea Party.

One IRS worker -- a member of NTEU and contributor to its PAC, which gives 96 percent of its money to Democratic candidates -- explained it this way: "The reason NTEU mostly supports Democratic candidates for office is because Democratic candidates are mostly more supportive of civil servants/government employees."

Another IRS employee made a similar point in an email to me: "Do you think people willing to sacrifice lucrative private sector careers to work in tax administration ... are generally going to support the party directed by Grover Norquist?" he asked, rhetorically, referring to the head of Americans for Tax Reform, which lobbies to cut taxes and shrink government.

In another email, this same IRS employee blamed Republicans for making the IRS's job so difficult that they have to cut corners. He wrote of "career civil servants trying to cope with an impossible job, a job made impossible primarily by the likes of Boehner, Boustany, Issa, et al," referring to three GOP lawmakers.

So, begin with these partisan and ideological assumptions and then consider the job these civil servants had to do. The law and IRS regulations provide incomplete guidance on what qualifies as "social welfare" activity. Bureaucrats are left alone to try to identify which groups are too political. It's human nature to suspect "the other side" of being overly political, while seeing your own side as truly pursuing "social welfare."
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Carney is far to generous to these people.  They are admitting a blatant conflict of interest in their dealings with conservative groups.  Their attitude should disqualify them from making decisions about the adequacy of the applications of the Tea Party.

The questions posited to Tea Party groups were not in good faith but intended to make these groups drop their application.  They were onerous and illogical.  Bureaucrats can kill an application just by questioning the applicant to death.  That is what many of the cases look like so far.

But the problem also lies with supervisors who either pushed this agenda or failed to rein it in.