Political Quotes

“I join him in the same enthusiastic reform of the Internal Revenue Service and see this as an important chapter in a longer book which will soon bring us to the pages of simplification of the Internal Revenue Code. Mr. President, this legislation does mark a new era for the Internal Revenue Service. The hearings that we had disclosed some of the culture of the IRS as it has operated in the past. We focused on how to change that cultural orientation. Let me just mention three areas that we uncovered. One was typical of many large organizations, public or private, and that is a loss of focus on the mission and a tendency to become too internal in the way in which issues were reviewed. That tendency to become incestuous, to answer questions based on what is in the best interests of the organization rather than what is in the best interests of the customers--in this case, the taxpayers served by the organization--is, unfortunately, a typical transformation and a transformation which we found that the IRS had succumbed to. The new IRS will begin to analyze issues from the perspective of their customers, the American taxpayers, and, with that new reorientation, will become more effective in carrying out its mission and will be seen by the taxpayers as being less intrusive in their lives.”