today I want to talk about the tax reform legislation that this body passed at the end of last year. It turns out that this week is the 6-month anniversary of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the tax reform legislation. It is time for us to look…

We believe it has been more truncated since 20 years ago with the reforms in place. We need to get back to a system where people feel they have an absolute right to appeal.

I do think that, if you are confirmed, that this committee is going to be very interested in working with you on IRS reform.

The IRS is not working. It is not functioning to help taxpayers.

I think it started off pretty well, and then, because of lack of support by every administration, frankly, along the way, it kind of fell to the wayside.

Only half of the calls were being answered when a taxpayer would call the IRS.

By 2015, just 3 years ago, only 37 percent of calls were being answered.

The problem is we all want more infrastructure and we need it badly.

By the way, more data and the ability to use the data, so it is not just having big data but to be able to put the analytics behind it so it makes sense, will help put the performance measures.

Absolutely. I was going to get down to your project next. I am really impressed that so many people know how to pronounce Mid-Barataria too.

As Senator Portman mentioned, these efforts already have resulted in saving FAST-41 projects over $1 billion in costs through avoided permitting process delays.

Our job is to push, push, push.