Jerry Moran: “I am going to have to vote against this bill. I do not think it is a responsible bill in a number of areas. The one that…”

“I am going to have to vote against this bill. I do not think it is a responsible bill in a number of areas. The one that disturbs me the most is one that is clearly not even penny wise and pound foolish; it is even penny foolish and pound unwise, if there is such an expression. I cannot imagine why we would cut so deeply in the IRS operations. As my colleagues know, from the time of Jesus Christ, tax collectors have been beaten up on. Nobody likes tax collectors. They have one of the worst jobs in the world. But when we compare our tax collection system with any other country, we do a better job. We collect a higher proportion of revenue. We do it in a far less corrupt way than any other country, and the fact is there is no corruption in the Internal Revenue Service. These are good, professional people. We ought not be eliminating 7,500 full-time permanent people, and this idea to take the tax system's modernization program and give it to the Defense Department? The Defense Department has written us a letter. Here is the Undersecretary of Defense. He does not want it. He says we cannot operate this, we do not collect taxes, we do not know what we would be doing. In fact, it says if we were to implement the direction that was given us, it is very unlikely to be successful. And yet this bill gives this tax system modernization responsibility to the Department of Defense.”