This is a new bit of climacrazy from a Warmist
Can’t Reach The IRS By Phone? Blame Climate Change
John Sheeley couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was listening to brand new IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig deliver a keynote address at a tax conference in the summer of 2019. Commissioner Rettig told the group of tax professionals that, in addition to the obvious staff shortages and budget cuts, another reason calls to the IRS were going unanswered was the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA). According to Commissioner Rettig IRS phone representatives are cross-trained to answer phones for FEMA in the event of a natural disaster. Indeed entire IRS call centers can be reallocated from the IRS to FEMA when necessary. While that’s good news for those needing to reach FEMA during or immediately after a natural disaster it’s terrible news for an already chronically beleaguered IRS, taxpayers, and tax practitioners.
This is your fault, you know. All that Bad Weather is your fault. Thanks a lot.
One of the lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic was that while it is never cost effective to have resources simply sitting on hold in the event of an emergency it is prudent to do so. While permanently increasing FEMA’s number of telephone assistors to the number required during a severe and/or prolonged disaster may not be possible or even desirable, given the increasing pace and severity of meteorological events such as wildfires, hurricanes, polar vortex episodes, etc. it may be prudent to provide some level of permanent increase to the agency’s current number of telephone assistors. Additionally, if Congress continues to pass new tax legislation with immediate and/or retroactive effects they should probably also consider the effects on IRS phone centers and maybe, just maybe, consider cross training some other agency’s phone team (the Social Security Administration possibly?) to handle FEMA-related overload. Of course, it’s just a suggestion.
And the solution is to hire even more federal employees to answer phones. But of course!
Realistically, FEMA shouldn’t be that big, they are there just to coordinate emergency responses between different states, like how you’ll get power employees going to other states after a big ice storm or hurricane, as well as between state, county, local, and private sector to the federal government. Not to be in control or the primary agency in charge.
Conservative Charlie Kirk thinks the Miami condo collapse may be domestic terrorism
Lol
It makes sense that agencies that have a predictable seasonal demand on their services should share their resources with other agencies that have an intermittent demand. I’m glad to see someone thought of this and glad to see inter-agency squabbling didn’t squash it.