Dale Bumpers: “everybody has heard that old expression about fools walk in where angels fear to tread. I have heard as a practicing…”

“everybody has heard that old expression about fools walk in where angels fear to tread. I have heard as a practicing lawyer, as a citizen and certainly as a Member of the U.S. Senate, as many tales about the IRS as anybody in this body. There have been unbelievable abuses, a lot of which have been aired in the hearings that Chairman Roth held in the Finance Committee. You don't get accomplished diplomats for what we pay auditors in the IRS. Oftentimes, you get somebody who really is, indeed, abusive. Even though he is spending the taxpayer's money he is auditing, he can be very unpleasant. It isn't just the abusiveness of the auditors. Occasionally it is also their incompetence. I was trying to help somebody one time and made a phone call back when I was practicing law. 'We can't talk to you; send us a letter authorizing us.' I was a little offended by that, but at the same time, I understood. ... But my point is all this legislation to abolish the IRS without putting anything in its place is not all that troubling to me because something has to give. You can't abolish the IRS and abolish the Tax Code without replacing it with something. What you replace it with certainly ought not to be a flat tax.”