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One of the leading House critics of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) use of private debt collectors called the privatization program “a cash cow for special interests,” and promised to push pending legislation that would strip the agency’s right to engage in the program.
 Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told a meeting of some 350 NTEU members that the IRS program clearly is “not in the interests of the American people.”
Rather than turn over tax collection responsibilities to private companies, Rep. Van Hollen told the closing session of NTEU’s annual Legislative Conference, “the need is to ensure that you have the tools and resources you need to do your jobs.”
Van Hollen, who is in his third term, has quickly established himself as a strong supporter of federal employees and their issues. He previously sponsored legislation that would repeal the authority of the IRS—granted in unrelated tax legislation—to hire private companies to pursue tax debts. The agency thus far has hired three companies and has plans to expand the program to as many as a dozen.
NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley, a vocal opponent of the runaway federal contracting this administration has engaged in, has been leading the fight against the IRS program. Under it, debt collectors are able to retain up to 25 percent of the money they collect—an issue not only with Rep. Van Hollen but among a growing bipartisan group of House and Senate members—as well as with the IRS’s National Taxpayer Advocate, who supports repeal of the program.
“The special interest debt collectors want to pocket money that should be going to the Treasury for use by the American people,” Rep. Van Hollen told the NTEU members.
He took aim at another aspect of federal contracting—the rules governing the practice as set out in Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76. The Maryland Democrat called the A-76 rules “a one-way street” favoring contractors. And he warned that one serious long-term impact of federal contracting is the loss in government agencies of employee expertise. “Once you lose government expertise,” he said, “it’s gone forever.”
At the same time, he raised—to considerable applause from the NTEU members gathered from across the country—the prospect of returning contracted work to the agencies which sent it out to the private sector in the first place.
“Why shouldn’t you be able to contract in?” he asked. A change in the law a year or so ago permits agencies to take back contracted work, but few if any have moved to do so.
Rep. Van Hollen suggested that the “much more hospitable climate” in the current Congress is more likely than past congressional sessions to generate a good look at government contracting practices.
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