President Clinton's plan for an independent citizens review panel to monitor the behavior of the Internal Revenue Service is a frank acknowledgment that government, left to its own, can't always be trusted to deal responsibly with the people it serves. The watchdog body that administration officials envision is expected to include a national review board along with 33 local boards that would take complaints from taxpayers and scrutinize the activities of each IRS district office.
Just another layer of bureaucracy? Not at all, if the proposed entity is properly set up and if it meets the needs that recent disclosures of abuses of power by the IRS so starkly exposed.
