Quote of the Day:

Congressional oversight has devolved into a series of show hearings after which nothing happens. No one gets fired for lying. No changes are made in the functioning of the agencies. No programs are defunded. Congress issues subpoenas that are ignored, contempt citations that aren't enforced, criminal referrals that go into Justice Department wastebaskets.

–Cleta Mitchell in today’s Wall Street Journal

Are you waiting for the IRS to take some kind of action over the targeting of tea party and conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status? It’s no small matter, and the targeting of tea party groups rendered the movement less effective in the 2014 presidential election. But nothing seems to happen to ensure that this will not occur in the future (and, indeed, that it is not now occurring).

The congressional hearings on the matter have been sometimes heated but nothing happens as a result. Indeed, it appears that IRS officials who have testified before Congress think nothing of being less than candid to elected officials. Lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who represents conservatives and tea party groups targeted, goes through multiple instances of false statements to Congress by IRS bureaucrats.

According to Cleta Mitchell,who has a must-read piece in today's Wall Street Journal.  IRS bureaucrats have withheld information and given false testimony. The easiest to understand (for a layman like me) erroneous claim by an IRS bureaucrat is IRS Commissioner John Koskinen’s claim that the IRS could not recover subpoenaed emails. He claimed that the IRS would need $10 million to even install equipment to save emails in the future. All the while, the emails were stored in a government server in West Virginia.

Mitchell writes:

Lying to Congress is a felony. But the Obama Justice Department has not lifted a finger to prosecute anyone responsible for the IRS scandal, including top brass who repeatedly gave false testimony to Congress.

Neither has Congress done much about being lied to by the IRS. Mr. Issa’s oversight committee first subpoenaed Lois Lerner’s emails in August 2013, then issued another subpoena in February 2014. The committee conducted a hearing on the subject in March 2014, during which Mr. Koskinen testified that, finally, the IRS would produce the Lerner emails. However, as he testified in June 2014, the agency didn’t even begin to look for her emails until February 2014. Why didn’t the House seek to enforce its first subpoena when the IRS failed to respond in the fall of 2013?

Congressional oversight has devolved into a series of show hearings after which nothing happens. No one gets fired for lying. No changes are made in the functioning of the agencies. No programs are defunded. Congress issues subpoenas that are ignored, contempt citations that aren't enforced, criminal referrals that go into Justice Department wastebaskets.

If it is to function as a coequal branch of government, Congress should establish—either through the rules of each House, or by legislation, that it has standing to independently enforce a congressional subpoena through the federal courts. Congress also should use its purse strings to change specific behavior in federal agencies. Rather than across-the-board reductions, Congress should zero out specific departments and programs as agency misconduct is uncovered. It is the only way to stop the executive branch from running roughshod over the American people.

This will be a difficult challenge as long as partisans in both houses of Congress see their role as political gatekeepers who must protect executive agencies when a president of their own party is in the White House. Congressional Democrats have done all in their power to thwart the IRS investigation, arguing with Republicans at hearings and engaging behind-the-scenes with the IRS to undermine the inquiry.

Yet it is a challenge that cannot be shirked. Congress needs to relearn how to flex serious legislative muscle to guard against future executive abuses like those from the IRS.