IRS MISCONDUCT
During testimony concerning the IRS scandal in targeting certain tax-exempt groups for special scrutiny, J. Russell George, Treasury inspector general for tax administration, stated that what the IRS did was “not illegal, but it was inappropriate.”
So is George’s declared non-illegality of what our country’s federal tax collection agency has been doing the past couple of years meant to provide a measure of comfort for us as citizens?
Regardless of their targets — conservative, liberal or anywhere in between — I actually find it more disconcerting that management representing such a powerful bureaucracy anchors its “well, it was bad but not SO bad” public defense in the fact that no explicit federal laws have yet been written to suppress such harassment.
I would rather have learned the IRS had actually broken a federal law than to discover such manipulation is technically legal.
ALAN FOSTER, ACWORTH
ALTERNATE ENERGY
Without big subsidies,
solar’s acceptance dim
The AJC article “Solar power lagging in Ga.” (Business, May 19) featured comments by solar energy promoters that the state is losing money by not adopting solar energy. There was no mention of disadvantages of their products. Without massive taxpayer-funded subsidies and mandates customers have to buy solar electricity, there would be no solar industry.
Solar facilities in California deserts generate 30 percent more electricity than the same facility in Georgia. Recent DOE records show residential electricity rates are 15.8 cents per kilowatt hour in California, and 9.3 cents in Georgia. Billions of dollars in solar plants are under construction in California. Why not wait to see electricity costs from these new plants? Let California show the way.
JAMES RUST, ATLANTA
POLITICAL SCANDAL
Progressive reader
finds Dowd too dour
Regarding “Scandals are proving to be taxing for Obama” (Opinion, May 19), the eternal pessimist Maureen Dowd should be replaced by a columnist with a lighter view of life. Surely, a good progressive should be an optimist.
Dowd’s May 19 column, if taken to heart, would prompt the president, followed by us progressives, to leap over a cliff to our political deaths.
RICHARD V. FULLER, MARIETTA
Don’t fixate on past,
start work on future
There seems to be quite a stir over some developments in our country: the Benghazi affair, and the IRS going after the tea party.
It seems that veterans’ suicides, gun violence, solving the budget crisis and creating jobs have all taken a back seat to more “important” distractions — for that is all the Benghazi and IRS “scandals” seem to be. Why not work on fixing the future, rather than dwelling so on the past?
DAVID CLARKE, BUFORD
