C. Eugene Steuerle The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
© TAX ANALYSTS. Reprinted with permission.Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
Already in 2006 alone, the IRS has potentially lost billions of dollars in revenue by failing to come up with a computer program that would replace one that identified returns likely to be fraudulently filed, while Medicare and Social Security have mistakenly sent refunds to 230,000 people who signed up for a prescription drug plan under the new Part D of Medicare. Are those just isolated, unconnected stories unlikely to be repeated in coming months and years across federal agencies? I think not. What is more likely is that they are symptoms of a much more serious government problem in hiring and retaining top-notch people who keep up with new technology, its uses, and its limitations.
The immediate responses of the leaders of government agencies are appropriate, predictable, and limited: They defend their agencies and promise to do better. Yet matters of controversy remain. The IRS commissioner has indicated that some people are likely to be fired along the way, presumably for their incompetence. (See Tax Notes, July 24, 2006, p. 319, Doc 2006-13489, or 2006 TNT 136-1.) Meanwhile, Social Security and Medicare have exposed their internal squabbles. The administrator of Medicare argues that his "staff has felt that significant concerns they have expressed have not been taken into account by Social Security," while the Social Security commissioner and his staff claim that Social Security is dependent on information provided by Medicare, which needs many quality checks for its inconsistency. (See Robert Pear, "Medicare Refund Mixup Part of Larger Tangle," The New York Times, Sept. 25, 2006.)
We will probably never completely uncover the full stories behind those foul-ups, and I'm guessing that any simplistic assessment of blame will mask the more complicated layers of responsibility involved. But I do know about a festering disease throughout government that raises the probability that such accidents will arise. That disease is the lack of a structure for rewarding people who have the talents and skills and, most importantly, vision about what their agencies can and cannot do well.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
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