it s at if the economy want to feel sympathy for people who were targeted and it s been accurately reported. bee got it. now where do we go? you re absolutely right, but you weren t going to get that from any of the stories that came forth today. again, i m not defending any of that conduct. it all sound e greejious the way it was presented, but let s size up what we were offered today. nothing that will put us closer to why it happened. one thing we are closer to is learning more. lois, the spending report came out from the inspector general regarding some of the monoet that irs used on its conferences. this anaheim trip, $4 million. $11,000 on a happiness expert. $27,000 innovation expert. $17,000 leadership through art. some of the people who defended the irs said listen, you do have these conferences where employees build camaraderie and team building. i don t know if anyone can justify a happiness expert for
conservative groups targeted by the irs are about to testify before the house ways and means committee just as a new inspector general s report gives us more details about outrage rajs spending at those irs conferences. we told you about the 2010 conferences that had film parodies. we also told you the irs hired 15 outside speakers at a cost of $135,000. well, wait until we tell you what they spoke about. it included $27,000 for an innovation expert, $11,000 for a happiness expert, $10,000 for a diversity and inclusion expert and $17,000 for an artist who painted abraham lincoln and michael jordan during a session on leadership through art. i want to bring in congressman adam shift, democrat from california, and a member of the house appropriations committee. good morning, congressman. morning. were you shocked when you saw some of the details of that
salaries, but they don t want to play by the same rules as the rest of us. which seems to me to be really messed up, but yet, chuck todd, we are looking at line dancing and star trek videos and wondering what the heck the irs is doing. will anything get done? or are we going to be worried about whether or not the happiness level in the irs has been fixed by the happiness expert they hired in 2010? i m so glad we need a happiness expert here at 30 rock. if we could do that here in the d.c. bureau, that would be nice. some form. we do get ice cream once a week during the summer at the d.c. bureau. that s true. it doesn t cost us $50 million for what it s worth. no, you know, with the frustrating thing about watching this. remember during the oil spill, we thought, oh, well the oil spill, that s going to make everybody in congress and in washington finally focus on having, you know, got to have an
speakers who were invited, a happiness expert, we all need more happiness and apparently you can earn $11,000 to tell people how to get it. so today the treasury inspector general put out a thorough report especially on that conference. but really look being at more than 200 conferences that the irs has held. and found a series of things that they had done that could have been done better to save the taxpayer money. not that there isn t a proper use for meetings and not there of course aren t expenses that go along with it but looking for the excess. and they found lots of examples of it. andrea? and just briefly, chris christie at 1:30, chris cillizza, i know you re all over this. do you we expect he s going to announce a schedule for a special election? we do. one option to let things go until 2014. that would be a little transparent and open him to criticism. that he ll eventually nominate a republican, if he doesn t today? here s what we re hearing, andrea. and i say hearin
spending will be released later this morning and includes some new details from the agency s now infamous 2010 anaheim conference. that conference featured employees in film parodies of star trek. we haven t seen that one much o of:they costed 50dz,000 dlsh each. a total of $135,000 on that tab. thousands of dollars for speakers including $11,000 for a happiness expert and $17,000 for an artist who created paintings of michael jordan, abraham lincoln and bono. on capitol hill, the new acting commissioner of the irs testified before lawmakers yesterday stressing the need to fix the many problems. hall rogers said congress may impose conditions on irs funding.