Inside the Beltway

Wake us at 5

Contracting federal jobs to the private sector looks good on paper, but at the Interior Department’s Telecommunications Service Office, a trio of audiovisual contractors are “rediscovering the wheel.”

An Interior official tells Inside the Beltway that in order to keep better track of the office’s teleconferencing equipment lent out to other divisions and bureaus, the three contractors have announced that they will begin marking each device with nail polish.

“What happened to the labels used by the [U.S. government] for decades?” the official wonders.

And where better to administer the nail polish than in the “nap room” reportedly set up and furnished by the contractors in Room 1465 of the main Interior Building — “labeled as a computer room,” reveals the official, who speaks on condition of anonymity.

“With the assistance of several other federal employees, they moved a comfortable couch into the room, along with an electric heater, blanket and two plump pillows — complete with pillow cases,” he notes.

“When the contractors are napping, the door is locked and cannot be opened from the outside.”

The official says when other federal employees tried to put a stop to the “fledgling motel,” nobody higher up would listen.

“I went to the [inspector general’s] office, but they weren’t interested,” he says.

The Telecommunications Service Office is part of Interior’s National Business Center.

NOW and later

Just months after firing former National Organization for Women President Patricia Ireland as its national director, the Young Women’s Christian Association, or YWCA, is ready to launch a new look.

The YWCA will announce today that it is sharpening its focus to two areas: eliminating racism and empowering women.

Racism remains “shockingly real” in America, says the YWCA’s interim director, and despite advances in sex equality, many women continue to live with little hope.

“Collectively, we have the clarity, the focus and muscle to empower all women socially and economically,” says interim YWCA Director Dorris Daniel-Parkes. “From the grass roots to Capitol Hill, the YWCA can inspire girls and women to use their personal power to be strong alone … and fearless together.”

The outspoken Ms. Ireland was fired by the YWCA in October, just six months after she was hired. YWCA National Coordinating Board Chairwoman Audrey Peeples said, “We have the deepest admiration for Ms. Ireland’s dedication to women’s issues and social justice, but the YWCA has proved to be the wrong platform for her to advocate for these issues.”

The YWCA, founded in 1858, opens its annual meeting tomorrow in Washington.

Have a headache?

Feeling a little sluggish this post-tax-filing-deadline morning of April 16?

Rest assured, you’re not alone.

A decade of federal tinkering with the tax code has added 1 billion extra hours to the annual paperwork burdens on American taxpayers, says a comprehensive study of tax complexity conducted by the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union (NTU).

Sure, the 2001 and 2003 tax cut laws put more money into millions of Americans’ pockets, but the NTU has found that the savings came with a price tag — a measurable rise in complex forms, instructions and other compliance woes.

“Federal income-tax rates have often risen and fallen, but the complexity of the tax system itself has almost always gone in one direction — upwards,” says NTU senior counselor David Keating. “Even though paying taxes is still the biggest pain for Americans, the very process of filing taxes has become a major headache in itself.”

Several not-so-fun facts:

• It now takes the average American more than 28 hours to prepare the 1040 long form with the three common Schedules A, B and D, an increase of 34 percent since 1995.

• The 1040A, or short form, along with the common Schedule 1, takes nearly as long to prepare — 11 hours and 32 minutes — as the long form did just nine years ago.

• Today’s short form, at 48 lines, has double the number of lines as on the 1945 version of the standard 1040 tax return.

• The increase in the tax law’s complexity alone has added roughly 1 billion hours in annual paperwork burdens in the past 10 years.

Heck, taxpayers today wade through 131 pages of instructions before even getting started on the standard 1040 form.

• John McCaslin, whose column is nationally syndicated, can be reached at 202/636-3284 or jmccaslin@washingtontimes.com.