Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I have heard the gentleman's points on reducing the IRS' budget over the last several years, and we have done that. In fact, we have done that in the environment of where we have seen the abuse that the IRS has wrought on this country. We have seen the lavish parties, and the American people said it was unacceptable. We have seen the extreme bonuses that were paid to employees. We have seen the targeting of individual groups based on what they work on. We had hoped that the reduction in spending would be a reminder to the IRS of who they are to be accountable to, which is to the hardworking taxpayers, and that it would be the perfect opportunity for them to identify their priorities of what they should be doing, which is helping and servicing taxpayers who are trying to comply with the law instead of targeting individuals and instead of stopping to answer phone calls. He talked about only 50 to 60 percent of the phone calls being answered. I think only 38 percent of those phone calls are being answered. And then, even if they are answered at times, they are dropped out of courtesy because the IRS simply isn't there to answer the questions the taxpayers have. Taxpayers are spending somewhere around 6 billion hours preparing their taxes, $30 billion on computer programs and/or professional help to try to pay their taxes accurately so they can comply with the laws this country has in place.…”