Both the House and Senate have taken important steps toward ending the wasteful and risky Internal Revenue Service (IRS) private tax collection program. The House Ways and Means Committee approved a bill (H.R. 3056) that would repeal the program, and the Senate Appropriations Committee cleared a bill (H.R. 2829) that would tightly limit the funding available at the IRS to administer the program.

On July 19, the Senate Finance Committee approved a proposal to expand coverage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to four million additional children who would otherwise not have health insurance. The entire Senate is expected to vote on the proposal this week (July 24-27), while the House is expected to act soon to approve legislation providing insurance for even more children than the Senate's version. The president has threatened to veto the Senate Finance Committee-approved version, even though it cleared the committee with strong bipartisan support, 17-4.

On June 28, the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) private tax debt collection program survived an effort by the House to bring it to a halt. House legislators struck language in the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act (H.R. 2829) that would have put a tight cap on how much funding could have been used to administer the program.