White House. Said one, "IGs produce an annual plan of issues they expect to cover for the year, then Congress picks it up and asks the GAO to investigate those specific issues . . . GAO comes in and picks my cherries. Fortunately, the GAO people are very professional and that helps to save things; we work together."
|
Rarely is Congress the friend of the IG. One IG noted a lack of clear direction from his congressional oversight committees. "Oversight hearings are muddled and I don't know what to expect from them, but usually someone's going to get bloodied for political splash." Another described his job thus: "I get my butt chewed out by Congress every day." He never got any feedback or questions on his annual report and had no sense that there was any real interest from his oversight committees, except to use his reports to make his agency look bad. There was, he felt, an uncomfortable ambiguity to his service: "Who is the customer?" he asked, "the president, the agency, OMB, Congress, or the taxpayer?"
|
The Bush White House was not the IGs' friend, either. In the Reagan era, OMB respected the IGs and there were good relations between them. The president always addressed the annual meeting of the professional organization of IGs, the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE), and gave the association's annual award to an IG. When George Bush was elected he sent the political IGs the standard letter all the PASs got reminding them to resign, but most IGs refused to comply, citing the independence of their office. This was supported by letters from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and the House Governmental Operations Committee and eventually the president had to back off.
2
(While the president can fire a political IG, it is a riskier proposition than removing any other non-IRC PAS. The president, upon dismissing an IG, must send a letter to Congress stating his reasons for doing so. No consent from Congress is required, but the public nature of the event might give a president pause.)
|
This history is thought to be the reason for cool relations between the Bush White House and the IGs (Richard Darman, OMB director, or Boyden Gray, White House counsel, were thought by one IG to dislike them). After the first year of his administration, Bush never again addressed the PCIE. As a consequence, "several IGs have run to Congress for their strokes," according to one IG. The result is that Congress is referring or directing more work to the IGs and using them as an internal agency-based GAO; IGs who seek to promote their own careers try to satisfy their oversight committees. As one IG observed, "IGs all have super egos that need to be stroked."
|
|
