The House passed the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill (H.R. 2829) June 28 on a vote of 240-179 after House Democrats yielded to concerns about plans to shut down the Internal Revenue Service's private debt collection program.
Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Appropriations Financial Services subcommittee, agreed to drop the language that would cut funding for the program to $1 million--$254 million below the Bush administration's request.
Republicans, led by House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Jim McCrery (R-La.), argued during debate on the House floor that eliminating the program would hamper the federal government's ability to collect tax debts and would reduce federal revenues. Because the bill also would restrict the Treasury Department's ability to raise and use revenues, McCrery said such a major change was in the jurisdiction of Ways and Means and should not be part of the appropriations bill.
Although the House Rules Committee June 26 gave Serrano the ability to waive all points of order with regard to that language, Serrano conceded that the measure should not be in the bill and agreed to strike the provision (Section 106) from the legislation.
Nonetheless, Serrano said he believed it was important to put the language in the bill and raise the issue on the House floor "so that people fully understand what it was that this subcommittee was trying to do."
Serrano said the whole idea of the language was to show that the government ought to be collecting its own money. He also objected to McCrery's argument that the provision would reduce the amount of money coming into the federal government, saying revenues would be unchanged if IRS officials were collecting the money instead of private services.
"At least historically we have had a situation where we knew that the person knocking at our door or on the phone was a member of the government, who had been trained in how to deal with the public and who fully understood what was within the law allowed in that conversation," Serrano said.