Weingast and Moran – The Narrative Continues

The IRS, a prominent bureaucracy, has been notoriously featured over the past few years because of its recent alleged practice of unjustly targeting conservative groups. This article by the Associated Press covers updates about the House Oversight and Government Committee investigating the IRS. Recently, the Republican-dominated committee retrieved thousands of emails to advance their investigation, perhaps leading to the prosecution of leading bureaucrats in the IRS for allowing and maybe even leading the targeting. A few years ago when presumably many of the conservative groups were targeted, the 111^th Congress (from January 1, 2009 to January 1, 2011) was in session, and the Democrats held the majority in the House Oversight and Government Committee. This scenario parallels Weingast and Moran’s example about the FTC in the 1970s, in which they argue for the congressional dominance approach. In this case, though, the congressmen on the House Oversight and Government Committee possessed “sufficient rewards and sanctions to create an incentive system” to influence the IRS. When the Democrats controlled the committee, the IRS assumed more power and harnessed it against conservatives. However when the Republicans took control, they favored a less powerful IRS and soon discovered the corrupt practices of unfair targeting of specific political groups. Just as scandal erupted in the 1970s after the FTC had overstepped its authority and new congressmen favoring a less activist FTC took control of the Senate Commerce Committee, scandal erupted at the IRS after Republicans took control of the House Oversight and Government Committee in the 112^th and 113^th Congresses.