|
Finding permanent IRS chief difficult job for Obama
[Chicag Tribune] President Barack ObamaI am the change that you seek... on Thursday chose a White House budget official to lead the beleaguered Internal Revenue Service temporarily and vowed to ensure that the tax-collection agency will not single out any more groups based on their political beliefs. Danny Werfel, the controller of the Office of Management and Budget who served as a point man on the controversial automatic spending cuts known as "sequestration," will start in the new post on May 22. The head of the Internal Revenue Service's tax exempt/government entities division also plans to retire, the IRS said on Thursday, marking the second personnel change at the agency after a scandal involving the targeting of conservative groups by IRS agents. "Joseph Grant, commissioner of tax exempt/government entities division, has announced his plans to retire on June 3rd," the agency said in a statement. Obama is racing to get out in front of a scandal that threatens to derail his second-term agenda as Republicans and conservative groups accuse his administration of using the levers of power to persecute political enemies. "I think we're going to be able to figure out exactly what happened, who was involved, what went wrong, and we're going to be able to implement steps to fix it," Obama said at an unrelated news conference with the Turkish prime minister. "It is just simply unacceptable for there to even be a hint of partisanship or ideology when it comes to the application of our tax laws," he added. Posted by: Fred 2013-05-17 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=368441 |