Political Quotes

“I would make an observation. I understand what the gentleman is saying. The IRS says there are $688 billion. That is not chump change, not behind the sofa cushion, $688 billion. They say that if they have the resources, they can collect a large sum of that, which is really what the gentleman is looking to do in this amendment with this agency. Mr. Chair, this bill provides for a 23-percent cut in enforcement on moneys that are due and owing under the current law to the Government of the United States. The gentleman and previous speakers have said how concerned they are with the deficit. I would think that--again, I will use the collection department of a corporation as the example--you would want to collect that money. If the principle that the gentleman espouses is a good one, and I frankly think it is, then we ought to apply that to that $688 billion, which would have a substantial impact on collections. Let's say we just collected a third of that. That would be more money than all of these cuts combined and perhaps all of these bills. I find it confusing and contradictory that the gentleman would want to collect these debts--of course, the agency says it would cost more to collect than would be collected. That is their position. Whether that is true or not, I am not arguing that, but that is their position, as I understand it. In the case of the $688 billion, it is, essentially, if you are at the upper end, $1 of expenditure for $12 of revenue.…”