Rep. Graves, House Pass Plan To Stop Government Abuse

U.S. Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA-14) voted for, and the House passed, a package of six bills responding to the government’s abuse of power in recent years, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeting scandal and several luxury conferences held by federal agencies.

“The federal government’s rampant abuse of power and taxpayer dollars has violated the trust of every American,” said Rep. Graves. “Today, the House answered the many scandals with reforms that make federal agencies, particularly the IRS, focus on serving the public rather than themselves. We must change the government from a disrespectful, invasive and out-of-touch mess into an institution known for providing great customer service and respecting taxpayer dollars. That important transformation begins with our anti-abuse agenda that passed this week.”

The House-passed package of bills to stop government abuse consists of the following:

H.R. 2879, the Stop Government Abuse Act, includes the following reforms:

·         Title I limits the ability for federal employees to receive bonus payments during a sequestration period.

·         Title II permits federal agencies to place employees on unpaid leave when they are under investigation.

·         Title III expands the rights of American to record interactions with federal agency employees who are acting in their official capacity, whether in person or on the telephone. This provision does not supersede any state laws.

H.R. 1660, the Government Customer Service Improvement Act of 2013, requires executive agencies to establish customer service standards for the people and entities they serve. The standards are required to include government-wide goals for continuous service improvements and efforts to modernize services as well as target response times for telephone calls, emails, mail, benefit processing, and payments.

H.R. 2768, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights Act of 2013, requires the IRS to ensure that its employees are familiar with and abide by the rights of taxpayers. The bill lists the rights of taxpayers to: be informed, assisted, heard, pay no more than the correct amount of taxes, appeal, certainty, privacy, confidentiality, representation and a fair and just tax system.

H.R. 313, the Government Spending Accountability Act, imposes new restrictions and requirements on government travel and conference attendance, and limits federal funding spent on conferences.

H.R. 2565, the STOP IRS Act, gives the IRS commissioner the authority to terminate agency employees for targeting political groups.

H.R. 2769, the Stop Playing on Citizen's Cash Act, bars the IRS from holding conferences until the Treasury inspector general has certified that the agency has implemented recommendations in an IG report on a 2010 IRS conference in Anaheim, California. The Anaheim conference reportedly cost taxpayers $4.1 million. A June 2013 Inspector General report found that the IRS had spent $49 million on 225 conferences from 2010 through 2012.