House staffer "dumbfounded" by privacy uproar (tax return provision)

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6641918/

A mid-level House aide said yesterday that he was the one who, during last month's drafting of a huge spending bill, added a provision that could give staffers on the House and Senate appropriations committees broad access to Americans' tax returns.

Richard E. Efford, a 19-year veteran of the House Appropriations Committee, said he did not inform any elected official before inserting the provision and advised his immediate boss, Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R-Okla.), only after it was too late to make changes. He said other House and Senate appropriations staffers in both parties were aware of the provision, however, and believed it gave them needed authority to enter facilities of the Internal Revenue Service to inspect how taxpayer funds were being used.

"I would guess we all thought it was a housekeeping thing that would help our bosses but did not need to be elevated up to them," said Efford, a mild-mannered man who described himself as "dumbfounded" by the uproar.

When the existence of the provision became known Nov. 20, just hours before Congress was to vote on the spending bill and adjourn, irate lawmakers in both parties denounced it as a sinister encroachment on Americans' privacy. Several suggested its presence in the spending bill may have had the approval of GOP leaders.

[bowens43]

1. More 'pass the buck'

Has any republican in recent memory ever taken responsibility for his actions? Pass the buck down the line until someone accepts it.

[BR_Parkway]

3. NO, and our "representatives" are putting bills together with

absolutely NO knowledge of what their staffers do? Do we start voting for the administrative clerks now?

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. At a minimum they should fire that employee.

Republicans say that they'll run government the way they run business (into the ground). Thus, fire the incompetent son of a bitch.

[aquart]

2. Housekeeping?

What else have they done to make things tidy?

[Pithy Cherub]

5. Supposedly within the congress, GAO & others

there are investigative bodies for audits... After 19 years one would think that would be common knowledge for even the lowest plebe. It took him 19 years to get to that level of silly?

[ooglymoogly]

6. oh wasn't his three year old brother who slipped it in

i didn't just fall off a turnip truck ya know

[MsAnthropy]

7. It is terrifying that elected officials do not read what they vote on!

Perhaps Michael Moore should read it to them, like he did the Patriot Act. Who knows what else is hiding in those bills that we won't discover for years?

[Julien Sorel]

8. Just plain dumb, not dumbfounded.

[Ducks In A Row]

9. So the staffer wouldn't mean sending everyone all his returns

or posting them on the web