The Internal Revenue Service scandal couldn't have come at a worse time for the nation's two million federal workers, who are desperate to end furloughs and get their first raise in three years.
IRS workers were front and centre at a Friday congressional hearing about employees who wrongly singled out conservative groups seeking tax breaks. Workers were called "foolish" and "incompetent," and blamed for "horrible customer service."
Top IRS chiefs are doing damage control by blaming a small group of low-level federal workers, saying they made "foolish mistakes" by using politically loaded terms such as "tea party" and "patriot" to hold up groups applying to become charities.
To Republican lawmakers, who have pushed to trim federal workers' compensation, benefits and sheer numbers since they took control of the House in 2010, the IRS scandal is an opportunity to point out the flaws of bureaucracy and federal workers.
It's really bad timing for employee and union groups who have been fighting $85 billion U.S. in federal spending cuts. Those cuts have forced agencies to lay off tens of thousands of contract workers, end overtime pay and training, and force workers to stay home without pay on furlough. Furloughs have ranged from five days for IRS workers and 11 days for some 625,000 defense workers to as many as 27 days for some federal public defenders.
That's on top of a nearly three-year pay freeze that has been extended through Dec. 31 and an ongoing hiring freeze that has led to a smaller federal work force.
So far, union groups have laid low. Several unions didn't respond for requests for comment.
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