Mac-Coleman

18 May 2013 –

No Surprise In What He Said—Or In How He Said It.

Steven Miller’s testimony yesterday to the House Ways and Means Committee about IRS abuse of power was best described as that of a disrespectful, self-important teenager saying “You’re not the boss of me.”  He even had the audacity to refer to his agency’s performance as “customer service.”   How could he act this way in front of such a powerful committee?   

The answer hit me when I realized that Mr. Miller was a career IRS agent.  Tellingly, he once headed e actually the very office that decided which political groups would receive “increased scrutiny.”  I quickly saw his performance as an example of the IRS’s bureaucratic culture capturing and then corrupting the agency’s employees and their mission.         

I spent thirty years in one of the most bureaucratic organizations on earth:  The United States Air Force.  I have an advanced degree in Public Administration, aka, bureaucratic crap.  I have worked extensively with the State Department and with foreign governments and militaries.  My experience confirms what I saw in Mr. Miller’s performance:  All organizations create bureaucracies, which, in turn, engender and protect organizational cultures; and, they often do this at the expense of the organizations’ original missions.  The self-serving interests of ensconced bureaucratic cultures help us understand not only Mr. Miller’s performance, but the IRS’s vested interest in assaulting conservative organizations, and President Obama’s guiding role in this scandal.  

Every government organization, no matter its official mission, quickly coalesces around a culture.  This culture often coopts and guides organizational action.  For example, the Air Force’s mission is to be an integral part of a larger organization—Department of Defense—that fights our nation’s wars.  But, if you ask an Air Force fighter pilot what her mission is, she will say that it is to “fly, fight, and win.”  The technology of powered flight gave the Air Force its original “raison d’être” among the military services at the same time that it engendered a powerfully self-serving flying culture.   The scarf-in-the-wind culture naturally inspires and motivates Airmen.  It also helps sell complex arguments in the interagency budget and mission allocation battles.  But, in one case, drone technology languished for decades before the Air Force begrudgingly gave up pilot seats in aircraft for console seats in distant bunkers.  Such cultural power stultifies innovation and risks government success.  A flying culture also promotes pilots who, when leading the organization, have personal reasons to perpetuate the limited culture.  That is a tough system to deconstruct.    

The IRS as well has powerful cultural and organizational motivation to perpetuate its involvement in the present liberal, wastrel government.   The IRS’s powerful role as the arbiter of a complex tax code has long been abetted by the growth of a regulatory and intrusive government.  The thousands of agents that will swell IRS ranks to implement Obamacare, for example, will give the agency even more organizational, cultural, and personal power.  On the other hand, the IRS stands to lose tremendous organizational power if TEA Party and other conservative movements convince politicians of the necessity for limited government.  Limited government, lower taxes, and a simplified tax code—all conservative goals—could even eliminate the IRS as a major agency.   It is no wonder that Mr. Miller doesn’t admit to deliberate abuse of conservative movements.  He probably justifies his actions as necessary to perpetuate a powerful culture and organization that he bought into years ago.  It makes perfect sense to do what Mr. Miller did—in a corrupt, selfish sense, that is. 

What about President Obama’s role in this scandal?  I predict that there will be no tapes or e-mails implicating the President in these crimes.  The IRS did not need explicit presidential direction.  Mr. Miller and his fellow career IRS employees implemented common cultural and organizational survival practices when they blatantly abused conservative 501 (c) 4 applicants.  I repeat: The IRS did not need outside prodding.   Abusing conservative organizations helps the IRS thrive.  Therefore, Mr. Miller’s testimony that such abuse by his agency was not partisan is correct in a corrupt sort of way.  The IRS naturally satisfied the President’s partisan political and economic agenda because that is where the money is for the IRS.  It is no wonder that Mr. Miller, the career IRS agent, was so defiant and arrogant in front of the conservative House Ways and Means Committee; his culture has always rewarded him for doing so.  The President will survive this scandal because the IRS did his partisan work for him.