CONGRESSMEN QUESTION SPANISH TAX FORMS

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, and Ron Packard, R-California, are again questioning the financial impact of an Internal Revenue Service program that requires the printing and distribution of more than a half-million forms and documents in Spanish this year.

A toll-free help line, staffed with Spanish-speaking operators, was also established in conjunction with this pilot program, which is slated by the IRS to become a national program.

The Republican lawmakers said Friday they continue to have concerns about the costs to taxpayers and the program's overall accountability, especially in light of a recent IRS audit. The audit said the IRS has "fundamental deficiencies" in managing its own funds.

In addition, Emerson and Packard said they have yet to receive a sufficient response to previous inquiries they made to the IRS concerning the Spanish program.

Said Emerson, "We have sent letters and placed phone calls to the IRS, and still, to this day, we have yet to get a satisfactory answer from them about how the new Spanish program impacts American taxpayers.

"We deserve to have a full accounting of where our tax dollars are going now and the anticipated costs of what I believe is an unnecessary program in the future."

Packard said Congress is "constantly assailed for wasteful, pork-barrel spending. Yet, as a new member of the Appropriations Committee, I have often been astounded by the lack of accountability that exists in the federal government agencies.

"This GAO report confirms that the federal government does not have a clean accounting of where Americans' tax dollars are being spent, and why. Worse, the Spanish tax forms are a classic example of a systematic abuse that is becoming more widespread in our federal agencies."

Packard complained that "unelected, entrenched bureaucrats are making unilateral decisions, without consulting Congress and spending the taxpayers' money on programs that the majority of Americans do not and would not support. This is unacceptable, and it amounts to a federal bureaucrat making public policy."

Emerson and Packard are leading the fight in the House of Representatives to make English the "official language of the U.S. government." They have also sponsored legislation to ensure that all U.S. citizenship ceremonies are conducted in English.