It's a moronic policy, but it is the IRS.
The IRS cannot spend money on things it's not budgeted for. Did you know the IRS returns $7 in additional taxes for every $1 in fraud prevention funding it gets at the moment?
Literally, a 700% return on investment, yet when was the last time any budget passed by congress raised funding the IRS to hire more auditors?
EDIT: Or let's take the articles conclusion: yes, obviously the government agencies should do better. So naturally we can conclude that the Republicans championing this investigation will be pushing through legislation mandating and funding appropriate upgrades - after all it seems like the inquiry has revealed serious issues which require some dedicated staffing and finance to sort out for a very important agency of the government.
Of course obviously that actually means this will never happen.
"Sec. 554. None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to carry out Operation Choke Point."[0]
My point is that managers and execs have a lot of wiggle room and the ability to make a number of funding transfers and decisions. They could clearly use budgeted funds or make a request for funding to accomplish actual data retention if they wanted to.
What makes you think that the Republicans involvement will make sure that "this will never happen". It doesn't matter what the Republicans do when the Democrat administration under President Obama just ignores them and the law.
[0] http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hr4660pcs/html/BILLS-1...
Edited to change the source material because some people could not handle the link originally used and to add the second sentence in the 3rd paragraph.
The relevant bill hasn't, and I will my hat if it ever comes into existence and reaches the floor.
Again: my exact point was that the last thing anyone involved in this inquiry is going to do is actually pass specific legislation to address the actual problem, and mandate/authorize spending to do so. Instead we'll get calls for political bloodletting, for all the effectiveness of its name.
In reality, they will pass legislation, that will probably go way overboard and will budget 100 times more than is necessary in order to payoff some friend or group of friends (business as usual for Establishment Ds and Rs). Now mind you that the house will do this and because of the politics the Senate, led by the Majority Democrats, will promptly ignore it. Or they will pass it because it will benefit some friend of theirs and the President will sign it but decide to include a signing statement saying that they don't agree with any of it and that they will not implement it. Oh and they will put it as part of a large non-related omnibus package with a title talking about helping Homeowners Purchase Crop Dusters.
Same thing in the private sector. Nobody outside of regulated industries like pharma archived email, ever until Enron. Everyone didn't start doing it until the Federal courts changed the rules of civil procedure several years ago.
Targeting organizations based on political affiliation is even worse than general incompetence.