Early this evening, Senator Chuck Grassley had a conversation with Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner about the private debt collection program administered at the IRS. Geithner informed Grassley that he would be eliminating the private debt collection program. Grassley made the following comment.
“The administration has decided that after spending nearly a trillion dollars in the stimulus bill to keep people working across the country, they are going to cut a program that provides jobs to hundreds of people during the middle of a recession, including 60 in Iowa. It’s hard to believe that after worrying so much about keeping people employed,
the administration has chosen this route. I told the Secretary that they could hire all the people they wanted for the NTEU, but the IRS was never going to get the money that was owed to the federal treasury because IRS policy is to not go after debts under a certain amount."
Grassley argues that the collection program should be given a chance to work and considered on its merits, not out of union-driven political pressure. His earlier materials can be found in the printer-friendly version of this news release.
