The Senate hearings have incited numerous calls for reform of the tax agency (don't hold your breath), ranging from the President's mild proposal of a civilian watchdog board to more aggressive Republican plans - mostly a set of variations on the theme "Pull the tax system up by the roots so it can't grow back."

But the real victory has been in public relations. The bold gambit of vilifying the Internal Revenue Service paid off handsomely, with news stories defining the IRS as "embattled," and editorials lauding the Senate Republicans' courage in taking on an out-of-control bureaucracy. Newsweek weighed in last week with a cover story whose title - "Infernal Revenue Disservice" - encapsulates the tone of kindergarten vituperation that has informed the entire discussion.

The Newsweek story goes on to depict IRS field agents as being at loggerheads with an out-of-touch management (along with The Butler and The Maid, Out-Of-Touch Management forms a kind of culprits' short list for any and all crimes). In this scenario, IRS higher-ups - particularly Arkansas-Oklahoma district head Ronald James - pressure diffident field agents to seize more property, and reward them for pulling in money by any means necessary.

But if the field agents really object to muscling hapless taxpayers, we have to conclude that they are the ones who are out of touch, and it's villains like James who comprehend the true purpose of the IRS - to take as much of our money as it possibly can. The agency's "special powers," including non-arbitrated seizures of houses and bank accounts, is a reflection of the agency's special need - unique in government - to bring in as much revenue as possible, to pry as much money as it can from people who would prefer to keep it. It's the nature of tax collection to be rude, invasive, and borderline illegal.

Given this mandate, it's a wonder the agency behaves as well as it does - auditing only 2% of all returns, and showing no more than the typical highhandedness of all-powerful government agencies. That the IRS seems particularly bad is less a reflection of the agency itself than of the fact that it and the Postal Service are the only government offices we have to deal with regularly. If American citizens had more exposure to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (which unlike the IRS, doesn't even do its job well) the tax collectors might seem mild by comparison. The IRS may even be better than usual. Its efforts to be more user-friendly already range from yearly attempts to "simplify" the natually complex filing process to stunts like the IRS Choir (which according to legend performs a choral version of the text of form 1099) and a self-consciously "fun" and "wacky" web site.

But if the IRS were ten times as bad as it is, our anger at it would still be misplaced; or more specifically, displaced from those same Senators who made such a show of putting the agency on trial. Getting mad at the IRS is like yelling at an intrusive telemarketer: it might feel good to do it, but it's a waste of useful frustration, a meaningless attack on a flunky.

The real outrage of the IRS hearings is that they were conducted by people who have managed to spend every penny the agency brings in, and more (this year may be different, but not through any plan on Congress's part). At no point in the hearings was it mentioned that nearly a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, we stll spend nearly half our tax revenue preparing to fight two world wars simultaneously. That's a shamefully high percentage even by Roman Empire standards, but it only hints at the government's piggish need for your hard-earned cash. We have no right to expect reform of the tax system until we acknowledge that the IRS agents hauled before the Senate were not getting a public trial. They were getting yelled at by the boss.