Plouffe Says Congress Wasting Time Focusing on Scandals

Former White House senior adviser David Plouffe on Sunday said that Republicans in Congress are wasting too much time on Obama administration scandals instead of focusing their efforts on economic issues that matter to the American people.

Plouffe said he expects Republicans will spend the summer “surfing scandals” and said congressional oversight of the administration has become an obsession on Capitol Hill.

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Several scandals have erupted as President Barack Obama is trying to advance his second-term agenda, prompting oversight hearings by numerous congressional panels, including the targeting by the IRS of conservative groups, the White House reaction to the Benghazi attacks, Justice Department subpoenas of media records, and the federal health department’s solicitation of private funding to promote Obamacare.

“Are we just going to be obsessed with scandal and trying to score political points?” Plouffe said on ABC’s “This Week” program. “The American people could not be screaming any more loudly, ‘worry about us, work on the economy, you were sent by us to do a job’ … We ought to be looking at all of these issues and we ought to be looking at them thoroughly.”

Of all the administration’s troubles, Plouffe acknowledged that the public had a right to be upset about the IRS scandal.

“All these things deserve a thorough investigation,” Plouffe said. However, he rejected pleas from GOP lawmakers that a special prosecutor be appointed -- an action that 76 percent of Americans are in agreement with Republicans, according to a Quinnipiac poll last week.

“I think if people knew that the Department of Justice was engaged in a criminal investigation, you have Treasury undertaking an IRS 30-day review, you had any number of congressional committees spending inordinate amount of time on this,” Plouffe said.

“This is going to be looked at thoroughly as it should be, the question is, is that all Congress is going to do?” Plouffe said.

Karl Rove, former White House deputy chief of staff for George W. Bush, called it a “reasonable point” that Congress stay focused on the economy, but added that the ongoing scandals should also be a key concern for the Obama administration.

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“The IRS thing cuts to the heart of a lot of people’s concerns about intrusive government, and as we find out more facts, I think the facts are not going to be attractive,” Rove said on the show.