海角大神

House Republicans have decided to make the IRS their summer pi帽ata. Its leadership says it will bring a series of anti-IRS proposals to the floor later this month. And an appropriations subcommittee鈥檚 spending bill would slash the agency鈥檚 budget by $3 billion, 24 percent below levels Congress approved in March. If the plan is to score political points聽by hamstringing the agency鈥檚 ability to do its job, starving the beast this way makes perfect sense. But if you are interested in improving the way the IRS works, it is foolish and counter-productive.

This IRS-bashing is hardly surprising鈥攐r unexpected鈥� given the agency鈥檚 bungled management of its tax-exempt entities office and its tone-deaf Star Trek videos. And, of course, few Democrats will leap to the defense of what is probably the government鈥檚 least popular agency.

Forgive me, but let鈥檚 try to apply a dash of common sense to the agency鈥檚 problems. After months of looking, the IRS鈥� most vocal critics have found no evidence that its poor聽processing of requests by political organizations seeking tax-exempt status was politically-motivated.

It was, however, real. And its cause seems to be聽a staff that suffered from low skills, poor training, low morale, a shortage of resources, and bad management. It is hard to see how cutting an organization鈥檚 budget by one-third will fix any of these problems.

To be even more specific:聽 Tea Party and other conservatives groups had two main objections to the way they were treated by the IRS: They were subjected to lots of intrusive questions and the applications process took too long.

The agency has stopped asking the questions and new management wants to speed up the process. But deep budget cuts in a labor-intensive organization won鈥檛 increase efficiency. They will almost certainly slow down IRS processing of something鈥攊f not requests for tax-exempt status, then something else.

Then, there is the matter of the Affordable Care Act. House Republicans have made no secret of their desire to repeal the law (they have voted to do so 38 times). Failing that, they鈥檝e loaded the IRS spending bill with riders aimed at barring the agency from using money to implement key provisions of the law, including the individual mandate.

There is nothing new, of course, about Congress trying to legislate through riders to spending bills. Democrats did it for years when Republicans were in the White House. But it is almost always a bad idea.

This IRS budget isn鈥檛 going to pass Congress. Everyone involved in this little comedy knows that. But it will leave the agency facing聽months more uncertainty at the very time when it needs solid management and good, highly-motivated staffers.

The bottom line is simple: Congress gives the IRS more and more to do, whether it鈥檚 running much of the nation鈥檚 social safety net, subsidizing favored industries, or having to enforce increasingly complex laws. The agency has been short-staffed for years. Reducing funding to 2001 levels, as this bill does, would only make matters worse.

Many聽lawmakers who will vote to cut funding will soon turn around and blast the agency for aiding and abetting the tax gap by not enforcing the law. Then, they鈥檒l accuse the agency of sending jack-booted thugs after taxpayers who don鈥檛 pay what they owe.

Even if you believe in a government limited to, say, national defense, homeland security, and farm subsidies, you still need to levy taxes and you still need someone to collect them. If you grouse about the 鈥�47 percent,鈥� and want everyone to contribute, you need to collect taxes from a lot of households. And you want to do it as efficiently聽as possible.

The IRS can鈥檛 win, even when it is doing a pretty good job.聽And there is no doubt that these days it is not doing a great job and聽many of its problems are of its own making. The nation鈥檚 tax collector聽needs repairs. But a summer of IRS-bashing聽won鈥檛 fix a troubled and often badly-managed agency.