Sean Patrick Maloney: “I rise in support of the bill; and I applaud the hard work of the gentleman from California (Chairman Horn) and the…”

“I rise in support of the bill; and I applaud the hard work of the gentleman from California (Chairman Horn) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), ranking member, in bringing this legislation to the floor. I would like to comment on the statement of the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), who spoke about certainly supporting voluntary efforts first. This bill does that. Before there is any movement to centralize collections or to initiate any effort to collect it, there are three attempts to persuade the debtor to pay what is owed to the taxpayers of this country. At least three letters and phone calls have to go out trying to persuade this person to live up to their obligations before any other method or any other project is encountered. Mr. Chairman, the legislation before us builds on the success of the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, which the gentleman from California and I authored over 3 years ago. When we introduced the Debt Collection Improvement Act, we had just conducted a study that showed that over $50 billion was owed to the taxpayers of this country, $50 billion in nontax debt, $50 billion that could be used for teachers, police officers, roads, mass transit, all types of things to help our people in this country. Furthermore, the government was writing off, writing off and forgetting about over more than $10 billion of that debt each year.”