On the recordApril 15, 2013
I join with the gentlelady from the District of Columbia in applauding what the IRS has done. The IRS effectively gave itself the rules that Mr. Chaffetz would like to have all Federal civilian workers living under. The IRS has a delinquency rate now of 1 percent. So if you take a fraction of that 1 percent that could possibly be out of compliance for a short period of time, and that's what happens. You've lowered the overall rate from, for example, the Government Printing Office, 7.6 percent; the 316,000 people at the Department of Veterans Affairs, 13,000 of them, or 4.3 percent, are seriously in arrears. Mr. Speaker, the gentlelady is absolutely right: the IRS did the right thing, and it worked. You've got a compliance rate down to 1 percent failure, or 99 percent positive compliance rate. For all the Federal workers who are listening carefully because this could affect them, they're looking to their left and their right endlessly wondering who these deadbeats are because, in all cases, it's below 10 percent, and at the IRS at 1 percent. Mr. Speaker, the case for this legislation is made by the IRS's success, and I reserve the balance of my time.
