On the recordApril 15, 2015
I thank my good friend for yielding. Mr. Speaker, let's put in context what is happening on this floor today. This is tax day, and what the majority does each tax day is pull out tax bills. Some of them are good bills; some of them have the appearance of everything but the kitchen sink. There are some Members of their party who are running for President on abolishing the IRS. Well, you can't abolish it; so what they are doing is targeting working people in the Federal Government to point out that Republicans are not asleep on tax day. What the Republican majority is doing today is a gratuitous, useless, slap in the face of Federal employees who apparently do understand that they have an affirmative duty, even beyond others, to pay their taxes because they do so at a rate that is almost twice that of the general public which is more than twice that of other Americans. The best that can be said about this bill is that it is entirely superfluous. It does what already can be done. What can be done is this: existing statutory authority gives the Federal Government, the IRS, the ability to collect Federal, State, and local taxes from all Federal employees. If federal agencies find that there is a delinquent taxpayer, they can already, under Federal law, go from counseling to removal for all Federal employees. That is in the law already, my friends.…
