The U.S. House has just passed H.R. 928, a bill designed to strengthen to power of Inspectors General and protect them from political backlash whenever they report information that is unsavory to the Executive Branch, or in this case, to King George The Just Idiotic. With its knee-jerk reactions intact, the White House has threatened to veto the bill.
The U.S. House has just passed H.R. 928, a bill designed to strengthen to power of Inspectors General and protect them from political backlash whenever they report information that is unsavory to the Executive Branch, or in this case, to King George The Just Idiotic.
San Francisco Chronicle
We'll see how the Senate version shakes out but the House passed this bill by a vote of 404-11. Could it be that the first overridden veto of Bush's presidency will come from a bill that improves the independence of civil service workers? If so, karma will justifiably strike right where it's needed. Fifty-eight inspector general offices were established under the 1978 Inspector General Act. Of these, half of the positions are appointed by the president with Senate confirmation, while the other half are appointed by agency heads. You see where a problem can arise, especially under this specific president.
The Library of Congress has its version up here:
Library of Congress H.R. 928
The bill stipulates that Inspectors General will serve in seven year terms and will only be removed for just cause, including incapacity, inefficiency, laziness, or improper conduct, with respect to committing a felony or having a moral lapse. Republicans can tell us more about moral lapses and felony charges, I'm sure. Any firing are to be reported to the Congress immediately.
Also, these independent watchdogs will be able to submit their budgets to the White House budget office (Office of Management and Budget) and to Congress. The old hackneyed response from the White House was predictable:
If you allow watchdogs to submit their budgets to Congress, that will "circumvent the president's long-standing, and constitutionally based, control over executive branch budget requests" and won't allow us to cheat and skim off the system [my own addition after the quote].
Inspectors General are of great value, the article notes, as a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report cites that for 2006 alone, watchdog offices uncovered "$9.9 billion in potential savings from audit recommendations and $6.8 billion from investigative recoveries." Not too shabby.
And why is the White House so scared of this bill?
... several recent incidents, including Democratic allegations that the State Department's inspector general, Howard Krongard, interfered with investigations to protect the department and the White House from political embarrassment; and that NASA's inspector general, Robert Cobb, penalized his own investigators for pursuing cases possibly involving theft, safety violations and other wrongdoing.
Looking into the bill itself, there are other details that are worth mentioning. A new Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency would be created. It's role would be to train new Inspectors General and staff for the respective watchdog offices within the Executive Branch. The Council will be made of all the Inspectors General (IG), in addition to the IGs for the CIA, FBI, and the Special Counsels Office; and will be chaired by the OMB IG along with an IG elected by the Council members. You can call the chairperson the IG Czar as we are in the midst of throwing that word around nowadays (Iraq Czar, Intelligence Czar, etc).
And one more thing of note is that each of these watchdog offices will now be considered their own separate agency within whatever government institution they happen to reside. This really doesn't change too much, but it does elevate the IG to the status of agency head, which means they have the same rank as the person to whom they report right now when they commission surveys on waste and corruption and mismanagement in the government.
Don't you feel that the White House and Republicans in Congress are quaking now? Having an ineffective IG office was akin to their K-Street Project, except that it was working within the government bureaucracy itself (or rather, nor working). Watchdog offices are akin to whistleblowers and both are needed in any government, no matter what party controls the White House. This bill doesn't prevent the president from making his budget requests. It does prevent the IG offices from having to go begging for money at the feet of a president who could care less for government integrity. If this bill passes, and it should with an election year approaching and politicians eager to burnish their anti-corruption credentials, it will be a long-awaited change in how Washington does business; and another card in Bush's house of cards will come tumbling down.