House Republicans Congratulate Each Other Over IRS Win

After successfully blocking language that would have blocked funding for the IRS private debt collection program, House Republicans are throwing a bit of a block party to celebrate all the blocking going on.

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio issued a press release last week praising fellow Congressman Jim McCrery for leading a successful effort on the House floor that removed language from a Treasury Department appropriations bill that would have effectively strangled funding for the collection program.

McCrery, from Louisiana, is the senior Republican on the House Ways & Means Committee.

“The current majority has no problem raising taxes on law-abiding Americans, but it is opposed to letting the IRS use private contractors to collect unpaid taxes from those who haven’t followed the law. Today House Republicans took a stand against these mixed-up priorities, saving law-abiding taxpayers more than $1 billion by forcing the majority to abandon its misguided plan,” Boehner said in his release.  “I congratulate Congressman Jim McCrery for leading this successful effort on the House floor.”

“It’s disappointing the Democratic majority is so quick to look to hard-working, law-abiding American families as a revenue source for its spending adventures, yet so reluctant to collect taxes from individuals who are in violation of our nation’s laws,” Boehner said.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates the language that was blocked would cost taxpayers more than $1 billion in the coming decade if it were enacted. Rep. Jose Serrano, a Democrat from New York and chairman of the House Appropriations’ Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee had inserted the language into the appropriations bill.