Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman for his leadership on this particular issue. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to talk about what this bill is and what it is not. When we talk about tax compliance, it becomes very easy to focus on those hardship cases, very easy to focus, as the gentleman opposite just talked about, on that 3 to 5 percent, depending on which agency you are talking about. This bill is really not about those with hardship cases, as there is already an exemption there. This bill is not about trying to penalize Federal workers. It is really about fairness, Mr. Speaker. Why is it fair that 97 percent in some agency--94 and 95 in others-- pay their taxes on time, and yet we continue to give others a free pass? My friend opposite would many times suggest, Oh, well, they are complying better than this group and that group; but we need to look no further than the IRS because the IRS implemented a different standard within their agency. Guess what happened, Mr. Speaker? Their compliance went way up. They have one of the best records, that we get to oversee, with the Federal employees. When we started to look at this, the chairman was very careful to make sure that hardship cases--the ones that all of our hearts go out to when people have family situations that preclude them from being able to pay their taxes on a timely basis--are an exemption.…”