Steny Hoyer: “this debate as we open consideration of the Treasury-Postal bill has centered on the Internal Revenue Service. We have…”

“this debate as we open consideration of the Treasury-Postal bill has centered on the Internal Revenue Service. We have done well by law enforcement, and I support them. We have done well by some other portions of the bill, and I am appreciative of the fact that we did not have the conflict which was political, in my opinion, last year with reference to the operations of the President of the United States, the White House, which we fund. I think that is appropriate in the comity between the legislative and executive branches. Mr. Chairman, we have focused on IRS because it is central to the operations of government. We have come together as a people to perform certain functions. We argue about those functions. That is the purpose of this body and the body across the way, the Congress of the United States sent here to make determinations as to how this Government ought to be operated and what it ought to do. In the process, we have taxed ourselves, we have said we will commit a certain portion of our resources to public efforts. All societies do that, and all societies have arguments about how much those taxes ought to be and what ought to be the purposes for which they are spent. But I say to my colleagues, if you are a proponent of education, this bill puts your objective at risk. I say to my colleagues, if you are a proponent of the defense of this Nation, this bill puts that at risk.”