Insulated from politics. Not insulated from doing their jobs properly.
The republicans have been doing everything they can to prevent Obama from getting things accomplished since before day one of his first administration. They even publicly announced that they would be doing this. You are trying to use this current kerfuffle as retroactive justification and cover for this constant and unending obstructionism. That is disingenuous and intellectually bankrupt.
So you’re saying that Obama is being held responsible for the actions of the IRS; therefore, the system works, the government’s not too big, and your OP is built on a false premise.
Do I understand that right?
The President is not the only elected official in the government. True or false?
There are individuals in the government, both elected and unelected, that oppose the President and/or his policies. True or false?
The President has little to no ability to dismiss the latter without cause, and absolutely no ability to dismiss the former, with or without cause. True or false?
All right, let me be clear, to copy the President’s favorite phrase:
The President is being held responsible. The media and public opinion are not letting him off the hook. David Axelrod and his defenders, including himself, are trying to shield him from responsibility, mainly with the argument that he can’t be expected to be held accountable for what his administration does.
What I’m doing it pushing back against that argument by showing where it leads: to either smaller government, or an unaccountable leviathan. The only way to have a big government consistent with democracy is if elected officials are accountable for its performance.
And it had absolutely nothing to do with my response.
I, too, have my doubts about how many conservatives really want a smaller government as opposed to a different government that’s just as big. But that’s not really relevant since it is abundantly clear that the American people do not want a smaller government. Almost everyone wants his own goodies even if he wants to curtail someone else’s.
What about the budget-slashing that leaves federal agencies underfunded and the pointless obstructionism that leaves agencies without full-time chiefs?
The administration staffers are paid to make the POTUS look as good as possible. These are not policy debates…it’s putting the right spin on the situation to do damage control, including talking out of both sides of their mouths. Both sides do it.
IRS is an independent agency beyond the control of the POTUS.
The POTUS fired the director of the IRS.
These two statements are in direct conflict with each other.
Go figure…
Obama’s fault, obviously.
Dammit, people, why can’t you just blame Obama for everything bad instead of quibbling about trivialities with your “facts” and your “logic” and your “noticing blatantly obvious subtexts”?
There’s no reasoning with some folks.
I think you’ve mischaracterized Axelrod’s argument. In your link he’s quoted as saying,
Bolding mine. I don’t see anything that says the president shouldn’t be held accountable, or that the state of things should change. He’s merely pointing out that the President is in a lose-lose situation – it’s impossible to know every detail of what goes on in the executive branch, and yet the president is ultimately responsible for everything. Which is the problem every leader faces, to be honest.
Make the government small enough for one person to control, and you’ve made the government small enough for one political party to control.
I think you mean either “there’s too much reasoning with some folks” or “there’s no no reasoning with some folks.”
Last time I was in New York, I got an unfair parking ticket. Obama’s fault?
This is just total BS. This is not a binary situation, and the reasoning you use is clearly flawed.
This is equivalent to saying that if a person is accused of a crime, let’s say homicide, that there are only two outcomes: 1) he is totally innocent of the charges, or 2) that he is guilty of first degree murder.
That is clearly a foolish conclusion. The standard of accountability is subject to the facts of the case and the application of common sense and reason. The President of the United States should not be “held accountable” if a postman goes on a shooting spree caused by stress in the workplace. A President should be held accountable if he personally orders crimes to be carried out. To the extent that the malfeasance is not directly attributable to the President, he should be held accountable to the degree that he took, or was expected but failed to take, action.
This whole process of making decisions as to someone’s level of accountability is known as “using one’s judgment.” What you are proposing is that the constitutional system of government that we have should be held to the same facile standards as school districts punishing children for pointing their fingers in the shape of a gun: “Either the child did nothing wrong, or he deserves strict punishment.”
The silliness of demanding serious punishment – and let’s get real, what you’re suggesting here is punishment, not accountability – for any mistake, crime, or malfeasance is a serious error of judgment no matter what size of institution you’re talking about. A strict zero-tolerance policy is, in my opinion, a pretty stupid policy whether you’re talking about making decisions for a organization of 4 people or one of 10 million.
And please answer my question about whether the whole US Government should be smaller than the size United States Army. It is on the previous page.
Nobody said the first one, though.
I see posters saying “the President doesn’t really get to tell the IRS what to do,” “the IRS is an independent agency that does not answer to the president,” and “there isn’t much the president has to do with running the IRS.” All of those things are true. The IRS is part of the executive branch, but the president doesn’t direct its operations or tell the IRS what to do or how to do its job, and he is not (for example) likely to know if a couple of people in an IRS office in Cincinnati overstep their bounds. The president does have the oversight to do things like telling the head of the agency to get out - even though in this case it seems kind of pointless since the person who was running the IRS at the time this stuff happened left six months ago.
So, who DOES tell the IRS what to do? Congress? How is oversight managed?
Who tells the Census Department and the NOAA and other agencies what do to? There’s oversight from the executive and legislative branch but they’re supposed to be nonpartisan and not directly controlled by partisan elected officials. I’m not sure what else to say about them and I don’t know enough to say more.
The point is that he can’t fire them until wrongdoing is discovered. It’s been discovered, and now they’ll be fired. What more do you want?
Yes, they are. Anyone who says the IRS is an independent agency is categorically incorrect. There are federal agencies which are independent of presidential control, such as the FEC, but the IRS isn’t one of them. The POTUS appoints the IRS Commissioner and can fire him at his pleasure.