Kendrick Meek: “Private. I mean, these are private tax collectors that we ended up spending more money paying them than what they…”

“Private. I mean, these are private tax collectors that we ended up spending more money paying them than what they collected, and then they turned around and there's an instance of when an elderly couple received 150 calls in the course of 27 days. Now, anyone that knows anything about people calling your home that you don't want calling your home, and they're calling for someone else, they're calling the Murphy household and they're asking for the Johnson family, and you keep telling them that, no, the Johnson family doesn't live here, what we did today was to do the right thing on behalf of the American taxpayer by passing that piece of legislation that repealed the IRS authority to enter into private debt collector contracts. I think that's very, very important. Also, when you look at it from a fiscal responsibility piece, Madam Speaker, and we're talking about being responsible, you have to look at this whole issue of the study that shows that the IRS employees that are employed by the IRS is 13-1 on what they can collect from what the private collectors are actually able to collect. Also in that great piece of legislation was something that we all feel very strong about, the 1-year suspension on the 3 percent, 3 percent that is collected from small businesses up front when they contract with local governments, and a number of other issues that were in that bill. I'm saying all of this to make this point: 210 Democrats voted for it; 22 Republicans voted for it.”