José E. Serrano: “For a minute there, I was almost convinced that they are not after the IRS, but they are even willing to give money to…”

“For a minute there, I was almost convinced that they are not after the IRS, but they are even willing to give money to an agency they traditionally do not support just to get at the IRS. The IRS has already been cut overall by $341 million from last year's funding level. This will prevent the IRS from going after tax cheats and helping those who are attempting to obey the law. The Taxpayer Advocate has even said that insufficient funding of the IRS is one of the most serious problems facing taxpayers. This IRS needs more funding, not less. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is funded $5 million below last year's level, and we are supportive of remedying that in conference. However, we simply cannot support this offset. It is my understanding that the sponsor of this amendment would like the money to be used for the CPSC to prescribe new or revised third- party testing regulations. Hearing a Republican offering an amendment to fund regulations makes it very tempting for me to support this amendment, since it is such a rare event. It is also ironic in that there is another possible Republican amendment preventing the CPSC from even proceeding to review comments submitted by the public on another regulation. These dueling amendments point out the obvious problem when Congress doesn't allow the proper process to proceed and instead cherry-picks where and when it wants to interfere.…”