James M. Talent: “The IRS has been responding to the signals that its political masters for a generation were sending it. I think what the…”

“The IRS has been responding to the signals that its political masters for a generation were sending it. I think what the IRS is guilty of is not understanding that the political masters have changed now, and the signals are changing. They need to change as well. We no longer want them to ratchet every possible dollar they can get out of the American people, regardless of how fair or unfair the tactic may be. I do think it is unfortunate that we have to argue over who gets what tax relief here. I just want to point out the reason is because this tax bill is not as big as we all wanted it to be. It is not as big as the tax bill we had in the Contract With America. It is not because the President did not want it that big. He did not want as much tax relief for the American people, so now we have to argue over who gets what. But we have less of a tax bill, and we have it so we can support a Government growing, even under this plan, and it is a good plan and I support it, but a Government growing at over 4 percent a year, at twice the rate of inflation.”