At today's House Appropriations Committee hearing, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) questioned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
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00:00Chair now recognizes the lady from, gentle lady from Washington, Mrs. Glusenkamp-Perez.
00:05Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Secretary of Business, for being here.
00:10So, I ran an auto repair shop before coming here, and I know that people who are turning wrenches,
00:18who are filing an earned income tax credit or tax return, you know, they're about four times more likely to be audited.
00:25And I'm wondering if you could talk to me about what the plan is for ensuring that regardless of what, you know, income strata you're in,
00:34your probability of being audited is equitable.
00:40Well, Congressman, I think that was one of the problems with increasing the enforcement.
00:46There was nothing to say that there would have been more enforcement at any distributional level.
00:52So, that what you were saying is that those receiving the earned income tax credit are more likely to be audited.
01:02That would have just meant more auditing.
01:05There was also a proposal to track small payments, $600 on Venmo and things like that, which has been pushed back also.
01:15But what is the forward program to ensure that there is an equitable – I'm not – I mean, I have some quarrels with what you said,
01:23but what is the plan, the implementation plan to ensure moving forward we are getting towards a more equitable enforcement rate?
01:32Look, we are reviewing the processes for who is audited at the IRS.
01:38There's been a great deal of politicization of that, so we are trying to stop that.
01:43And we are also going to look at the distribution of who is audited and why they are audited.
01:51Look forward to hearing more about how that is being implemented and how we can help you with that.
01:56So, I think you and I agree that the current trading system has failed working people,
02:02people who are turning wrenches, driving trucks, changing diapers.
02:04Could you expand on how the proposed tariffs would ensure that there is upward pressure on wages?
02:16Well, I think that there are many parts to that, but the key to upward pressure on wages is more job opportunities.
02:25And what we have seen since what the so-called China shock after China entered the WTO was a large decrease in manufacturing jobs.
02:37And studies have shown that workers in manufacturing jobs have more potential for large-scale wage increases than service workers do.
02:47So, moving more workers from service work to manufacturing should do that.
02:54And the administration is also trying to bring down the costs for working families.
03:02I agree, right?
03:04If you are trying to earn a living as a barber, you have to move to a city to earn a high wage.
03:11But if you're in a rural community where there's a factory job, you can own land.
03:15You can own your home.
03:17And I think one of your points about financial literacy is ensuring that we do have economic self-determination.
03:23You can buy the pair of boots that will last five years and not be in this pace.
03:28But there's a lot of work to do here building real wealth and not the nominal kind of – I'm not really here to be a defender of the stock market.
03:37Most of the people I know don't trade stocks in my community.
03:40You know, it's a question of being able to own land, having that capital access to start your own business, and frankly, some of the antitrust work to ensure there's a level playing field for small businesses like mine.
03:53I'm hearing from constituents who have questions about their tax returns and are having trouble getting a real person on the line to speak to.
04:04What is – what can we do?
04:06What is your plan for decreasing wait times for having somebody be able to actually talk to a human being when they call the IRS?
04:12Well, again, this goes back to my three priorities, collection, privacy, and customer service.
04:18So we are moving money into customer service at the IRS.
04:23And it's almost imaginable that the phone banks were – had the same number of operators 24-7, 365 days a year.
04:36So if one of your constituents called on Christmas Eve, they'd probably get through because there were so many idle phones.
04:44If they called on April 14th, there was no surge to help them.
04:48So, you know, as President Trump has repeatedly said, this is a common sense administration, so we're going to have common sense for the IRS.
04:58Playoff season is for the first – from January 15th to April 15th, game day is April 15th.
05:05So we're going to make sure that it's better staff then.
05:09I yield back.
05:09Thank you very much.
05:10Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cloud, for his five minutes of questions.