Here are the last two grafs in <$NoAd$>a piece on the Istook Amendment in Wednesday’s Post …
Doubts remained yesterday over exactly how the controversial tax-return provision — which allows Appropriations Committee chairmen or their “agents” access to Internal Revenue Service facilities or “any tax returns or return information contained therein” — got into the omnibus spending bill late last week. House Republicans blamed committee staff aides and the IRS.
Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R-Okla.), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the IRS, denied any role. Yesterday Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who had referred to the proposal as the “Istook amendment” Saturday, issued a statement expressing regret for “any confusion my earlier remarks may have created.”
Are we allowed to comment on how ridiculous this is?
Four days later and they can’t figure out who put the thing in the bill? Just some aides, but it’s not clear which ones or who they worked for, and someone at the IRS and maybe they handwrote a note and dropped it off at Rayburn and somehow it got into the bill.
Really, give me a break. Give all of us a break. This isn’t Schrodinger’s cat we’re talking about. This wasn’t the work of subatomic particles. Which aides? At whose direction were they working? And which IRS employee and what were they asked to write? Presumably it shouldn’t hard to find out the identity of the IRS employee. Just ask the mystery staffer since that he or she asked them to write it.
Silliness.
