Judd Gregg: “I wish to join with what I am sure will be numerous Senators in congratulating the Senator from Delaware and the Senator…”

“I wish to join with what I am sure will be numerous Senators in congratulating the Senator from Delaware and the Senator from New York and the Committee on Finance for bringing forward this exceptionally good bill which is truly timely. Many of us, as we have tried to help folks out in our States, have run into situations where people have been treated in ways which can only be described as abusive by the Internal Revenue Service, where the Internal Revenue Service has gone way beyond the appropriate action for the purposes of collecting the revenues of the country and has treated American citizens in a way that you might expect were they to be living in a police state instead of in a democracy. In my experience, probably one of the worst cases I have ever seen of Government excesses involves a family known as Barron in New Hampshire. That family, unfortunately, got into some tax trouble, failed to pay its taxes, and the IRS, in an appropriate way, attempted to collect those taxes--at least appropriately at the beginning. But then it got carried away. And as a result of getting carried away, it put that family through an extraordinary trauma, to a point where Mr. Barron ended up committing suicide. And his wife, Shirley Barron, who is now responsible for the family, found herself in a situation which was beyond all reason, which was untenable and which was horrible. A lien had been put on her house. Her children's bank accounts had been taken.”