WASHINGTON -- Last week, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) took issue with the IRS for paying bonuses to several employees who had been disciplined for wrongdoing. This kind of problem, he said, doesn't exist in corporate America.
"In the private sector you don't get bonuses, pay increases and promotions right after you've done something wrong," Issa told CBS.
It's hard to defend the IRS on this one, but Issa's critique doesn't seem quite right. Click on the video above to find out why.*
*Hint: Wall Street.
UPDATE:An Issa spokesman provided the following statement after publication:
“Nice try Huff Post. Unlike President Obama – who supported the TARP bank bailout and whose administration gave bonuses to IRS employees who don’t pay their taxes – Rep. Issa opposed the TARP bailout, aggressively investigated mortgage meltdown figures like Angelo Mozilo, and continues to question why the Obama Administration hands out bonus and bailout money as if it didn’t belong to taxpayers.”
Issa also defended the pay that Citigroup CEO Charles Prince, Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O'Neal and Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo received from their companies in a March 2008 hearing. At the time, the companies were tanking, and the executives had been removed from office with lucrative compensation packages. Issa voted against the bailout in the fall of 2008, and against a special tax on bonuses for companies that were bailed out in 2009.
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