Yesterday, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed by a vote of 409 - 13 a bill designed to increase the percentage of federal contracts awarded to small businesses and limit the bundling of small projects and work orders into gigantic contracts. The White House declared their opposition to H.R. 1873 earlier this week, but stopped short of saying President Bush would veto it should it reach his desk. That's a pretty good thing since the vote in the House is more than enough to override a veto by the president.

After the House Small Business committee approved the bill on April 24, it was sent to the Oversight and Government Reform committee, where a number of the bill's provisions were scaled back or weakened. Before the bill was passed on the floor however, amendments were adopted to restore the original version approved by the Small Business committee. This version would increase the federal government small business procurement goal to 30 percent.

The Senate Small Business committee is reported to be drafting similar legislation.

In one of the more common-sense moves of the 110th Congress, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement unanimously approved a bill yesterday to prevent companies who owe federal taxes from being considered for government contracts. The bill (H.R. 1870) would target companies that owe at least $2,500 and have not paid the IRS or started a payment plan within 180 days of getting an assessment.

During the mark-up, the bill's sponsor and subcommittee chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) offered an amendment that would help assuage concerns expressed by the Bush administration during hearings on the bill. The amendment would change the bill to incorporate the tax deliquency provisions into the regular contracting process. This change would still bar companies who owed taxes from receiving new contracts from the government, but would grant those companies due-process rights and opportunities to contest the government decision to bar them. Seems fair enough.

The bill moves now to the full House Oversight and Government Reform committee, where it may encounter opposition ($) from ranking member Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), who apparently thinks it's alright for companies not to pay taxes.

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A spokesman at the IRS announced yesterday that Deputy Commissioner Kevin Brown will become acting IRS commissioner May 4. Current Commissioner Mark Everson has accepted a position heading up the American Red Cross (see here and here for more on Everson's departure).

In much the way a senior in college decided to go to graduate school to put off a decision about what to do with their life, the IRS said Brown would only be the acting commissioner for 25 days. For him to continue beyond that time would require White House approval.

I don't know much about Kevin Brown (other than that I believe he pitched for a time for the Rangers and Dodgers and had a wicked sinker), but he has previously served as both counsel and then commissioner of the Small Business/Self-Employed Division at the IRS, which employs almost 44,000 workers and oversees the compliance programs for all individuals and small businesses. It serves 45 million taxpayers.

Brown has also served as chief of staff to Everson, and joined the IRS in 1998 as Assistant to the Commissioner. He also participated in advising the agency during the Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998.

At this point, there is no reason to believe that the White House will not approve of Brown's permanent appointment to be the IRS commissioner.

Business Week has an interesting article on public infrastructure privatization...

Steve Hogan was in a bind. The executive director of Colorado's Northwest Parkway Public Highway Authority had run up $416 million in debt to build the 10-mile toll road between north Denver and the Boulder Turnpike, and he was starting to worry about the high payments. So he tried to refinance, asking bankers in late 2005 to pitch investors on new, lower-interest-rate bonds. But none of the hundreds of investors canvassed was interested.

Then, one day last spring, Hogan got a letter from Morgan Stanley (MS) that promised to solve all of his problems. The bank suggested Hogan could lease the road to a private investor and raise enough money to pay off the whole chunk of debt. Now Hogan, after being inundated with proposals, is in hot-and-heavy negotiations with a team of bidders from Portugal and Brazil. "We literally got responses from around the world," he says.

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-SD) and Patty Murray (D-WA) released a "Dear Colleague" letter, or a message between representatives, in favor of S. 335, a bill that would end the IRS private debt collection program.

The letter is part of the congressional war of words over the bills that would end the IRS program. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN) have sent letters defending the program. Here's Grassley's letter, and here's the first and second part of Gordon's letter.

It doesn't seem random that these two legislators are taking up the charge to support this wasteful, risky program. One of the two private debt collectors whose contract has been renewed -the CBE Group- is based in Iowa. And Rep. Gordon's 2006 campaign received $2,000 in contributions from employees of Pioneer Credit, Inc- the other private debt collector whose contract has been renewed.