John B. Breaux: “I take this time just to say a couple of words about the President's nominee to be the Internal Revenue Service…”

“I take this time just to say a couple of words about the President's nominee to be the Internal Revenue Service Commissioner, Mr. Charles Rossotti, who I enthusiastically support. I think the President has made a good choice. It is interesting to note that this appointment will be the first nontax lawyer to head the Internal Revenue Service since World War II. That might not make a lot of waves in some areas, but I think considering the problems we are experiencing with the Internal Revenue Service that this is a very positive qualification at the current time. I say that because I think that many of the problems that we heard in the days of hearings that we had in the Senate Finance Committee about the Internal Revenue Service were not so much tax problems but human problems; not so much a problem about how much money was being collected and where it was being collected from or where it was not being collected from, but really more evidence was given to us about mishandling of individuals, mistreatment of individuals, setting quotas for Internal Revenue Service agents that they had to meet in order to be considered for an appointment; review processes of Internal Revenue Service personnel that were conducted by Internal Revenue Service personnel themselves whose appointments many times were based on how they defended the Internal Revenue Service.”