Chris Sununu: “I very much appreciate the spirited nature of the debate. I certainly apologize to my colleague from Massachusetts for…”

“I very much appreciate the spirited nature of the debate. I certainly apologize to my colleague from Massachusetts for attempting to answer his question too specifically and too accurately. I know it is never a comfortable situation for someone who is speaking on the floor. But I do think that if we look at the scope of what the IRS is trying to do, we look at the number of checks that are going out, a couple of hundred million, I think it is very reasonable to assume that there may be a lot of confusion. The Financial Management Service looked at a number of different options. I think they had a credible reason for wanting to do an advance notice, considering that the checks would be staggered over time. The IRS employees recognized that being inundated with phone calls could really degrade their level of customer service and that more information was better. We can quibble about the exact wording on the notice and some down at the White House might complain that Congress is mentioned first, Congress might complain that the President is even mentioned in the notice, but at the end of the day, the taxpayers will have information that is helpful to them: how this is being calculated, what the tax implications are for the current year, how they can get additional information. I do not think there is any surreptitious or are there are any impure motives here.”