Xavier Becerra

I would like to submit a letter from April the 17th, 2012, by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops opposing, as they say, our strong opposition to unfair proposals that would alter the child tax credit to exclude children of…

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chair, I stand in strong opposition to the Republican budget that we are considering here today. How easy it is for some to forget that when President Bush took office, we had surpluses as far as the…

My understanding is, and correct me if I am wrong, that we now estimate that some $385 billion annually is not paid in taxes that are either avoided or intentionally not paid in this country.

Mr. Becerra has one follow up question.

It is just incredible. We have American's who are voluntarily paying their taxes. You have a whole bunch of other American's who unfortunately are not doing what they should or at the level they should.

I sat down with my tax preparer and went over my taxes in preparation to file.

We do not want to undermine the voluntary compliance rates that we have in this country by Americans who pay their taxes.

It is hard to believe you need a license to cut someone's hair, but in America, you do not need a license to prepare someone's perhaps most important financial documents.

I cannot imagine the stress they are under given that you have thousands of Americans waiting to connect with them on the phone.

Please share with all the folks you work with that we thank them very much.

This ain't easy to do.

Congress stripped them away from you. Not only are you receiving less money in your budget, but money was taken away from you that you would have otherwise have used for good purposes.

Let's be clear. We can try to paint this however we wish, and we should do hearings on this particular issue on the budget, because Americans have paid for the administration of the Social Security programs.

We have to make sure that we continue to push the SSA to have the tools in place.

Let me congratulate you and the administration for the work you've done, the successes you've had.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. In December, this Congress gave 20 conferees three tasks to achieve by February 29: to extend the payroll tax cut for 160 million middle class Americans; to ensure Americans who lost their jobs through…

Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. Absolutely. And that is on the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Agin, first I would like to begin with you and ask...

I look forward to working with you on this issue.

the troubling aspect of this is that trying to find that balance in giving the information to those who need it

I think that we can do it, because I have talked to a lot of Members, both Houses, both parties.

It sure would be nice, though, to see more consistency in Congress's commitment to payment accuracy.

It means getting back every penny in Social Security overpayments.

But Mr. Chairman, we always are looking for ways to collect any overpayments.

Thank you for the work. Convey that message to all the folks back home.