'Why Are We Cutting The People Who We Need?': Welch Grills Bessent Over IRS Agent Cuts

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-05

[00:00:00]Thank you, Senator Blackburn. Senator Welch.

[00:00:03]>> Uh uh thank you very much. Uh Mr. Secretary, I heard your comments earlier uh when I was watching and I support opportunities honestly been helpful to Vermont.

[00:00:13]Uh but number two, I want to talk about what I think is a looming crisis that gets far too little attention in this Congress and that's the national debt.

[00:00:24]And I know you're familiar with this so I'm just going to show the chart for others.

[00:00:29]The projections of the debt uh first of all, January of 2025, it was 36.2 trillion. Uh it's now 39.2 trillion.

[00:00:41]Uh and as you can see in this chart, the trajectory of this debt is just going up and up and up. And uh the CBO uh right now says that debt debt held by the public is 99% of the gross domestic product uh is scheduled to go up to and by 2030 to 130 20%.

[00:01:05]And we're now paying interest, as you know, probably better than anybody, of $970 billion.

[00:01:14]So, taxpayer revenues are going $970 billion to debt that exceeds our military budget.

[00:01:22]Uh and obviously means that we can't spend it on other things that folks uh in Mr. Crapo's district and folks in my district need.

[00:01:31]Uh the federal interest payments rose to 18.5% of all of our revenues.

[00:01:38]And the CBO says that's going to go up to 25.8% uh by 20 by 2036.

[00:01:47]And we don't talk about it at all. It's not even a topic, which is astonishing to me because it's such a threat.

[00:01:55]Now, there's three ways to address that.

[00:01:58]One is we can cut spending.

[00:02:01]One is we can raise revenues.

[00:02:03]And I don't want to talk about those two today, but there's one other where there I think should be consensus. And that is we can collect the revenues that taxpayers owe.

[00:02:16]And that's why I want to talk to you a little bit about the staffing cuts that I understand have taken place uh at the IRS, which has reduced their capacity to collect revenues that are owed by taxpayers.

[00:02:31]Uh in fiscal year 2027, the IRS enforcement funding was cut by 18%, 28%, or pardon me, 2,800 staff positions were reduced.

[00:02:44]Uh and that's in addition to 26% of revenue agents lost in 2025.

[00:02:50]And I've got a revenue chart here that was This was prepared by the Peterson Foundation, and I find them to be extremely credible on on debt issues.

[00:03:02]I don't know if you share my high opinion of the people >> not anymore.

[00:03:07]>> [laughter] >> Well, I I I think they've lost their way.

[00:03:10]>> Well, all right. We will disagree on that. I find [clears throat] them to be an extremely credible source. But what this chart shows is that as you in as we increase the cutting of revenue agents, the loss of owed revenue. This is owed revenue. We're not talking about increasing anybody's taxes.

[00:03:33]>> Okay, you're talking about the tax gap.

[00:03:35]>> That's right. The tax gap. It's going to be $1.8 trillion.

[00:03:39]So, the obvious question here is why are we cutting the people who we need in the IRS to do the audits to collect revenues that are due to the Treasury.

[00:03:52]>> Well, Senator, a couple of things. Let's backtrack to your previous chart. The Peterson Institute and CBO project that we were going to grow at 1.8%.

[00:04:02]Thus far, the in this administration we've grown at 2.6%.

[00:04:07]>> let me interrupt a minute.

[00:04:08]>> It's 1.8 forever. We've grown at 2.6%.

[00:04:11]>> you're Let me Let me just stay on the revenue cuz whether we grow at 1.8 as they say or 2.8, whatever it is you say, you would agree with me that if I'm a taxpayer and I owe money, I should pay it.

[00:04:23]>> I and I I can tell you that more bodies does not equal better collections.

[00:04:29]>> So, you just disagree that >> let me read you something. So, I think that you they would agree TIGTA, which is the IRS the internal reporting system.

[00:04:44]All of these employees who were hired that a whistleblower in Atlanta came out and said a 25-year IRS CI employee who trained 2,700 new IRS agents for the program >> cuz I my time is running out. I I I'll be happy to send this to but please >> show you why it's a complete fallacy.

[00:05:03]Last Last year we had recoveries up, collections >> get a little extra time cuz I Thank you, Secretary. But, number one, I absolutely believe that the people who owe money should be paying that money and that we should have assertive enforcement in order to get that collected, regardless of what the growth rate is. That's number one. Number two, one of the things that is happening is uh we've withdrawn from the global effort for coordinated Organization for Economic Cooperation, and companies are now using these low-tax dodge countries.

[00:05:38]Like America American Express avoided 423 million in taxes by using the island of Jersey saying think where they do their work. Uh Black & Decker cut their bill by 27 million by using Cyprus.

[00:05:51]Uh many companies use Malta.

[00:05:55]S&P Global cut its tax bill by 269 million.

[00:05:59]I Is that is something that we should tolerate?

[00:06:08]>> No.

[00:06:08]>> Thank you.

[00:06:09]And will you do something about it?

[00:06:11]>> Uh uh again, it's a complicated question, and I I'm happy to come to your office, happy to do another phone call as we've done.

[00:06:19]>> All right. I will follow up with >> But I do want to send this TIGTA report that shows that new new agents were a disaster.

[00:06:28]>> Senator Tillis.