Earl Pomeroy: “We are in a time where there is a complete fascination in this administration with contracting out. If you are happy…”

“We are in a time where there is a complete fascination in this administration with contracting out. If you are happy with Blackwater in Iraq, then I expect you are perfectly fine with contracting the debt collection of IRS debt to private bill collectors. But there are some essential facts at issue which should give us pause to reconsider. First, the start-up costs. We were told, in testimony by the IRS Commissioner, this venture was going to cost about $14 million to get up and running. The tab so far, $70 million, five times the anticipated cost to begin this venture. Now, you might say, well, okay, start-up costs are a little more than expected, but how are we doing on receipts now that we have got them fully going, collecting these receipts? We don't have a very good story on that one either. It was anticipated that $46 million to maybe $63 million would be collected. Coming in at about half of that anticipation, $32 million in. It costs five times more to start and bringing in about half as much as advertised. For the kind of money we have invested, do you know what we are getting back? We are getting about a 6 percent return from this experiment in private debt collection.”