Rep. Gosar Introduces PURSE Act to Prevent IRS Employees from Using Taxpayer Dollars to Unionize

Statement

Today, U.S. Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) released the following statement after introducing H.R. 4083, the Preventing Unionization of Revenue Service Employees (PURSE) Act, legislation which prohibits federal government tax collectors and other IRS bureaucrats from unionizing and entering into collective bargaining agreements at taxpayer expense:

"The IRS has proven to be one of the most destructive and criminal agencies within the most lawless administration in the history of this great country. Under the failed leadership of John Koskinen and Lois Lerner, the IRS has devolved into a patently partisan organization that has targeted conservative groups simply for their political beliefs. With the targeting scandal and initiation of impeachment proceedings against IRS Director John Koskinen by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, it is now more important than ever to ensure that IRS employees remain unbiased while performing official duties.

"The PURSE Act, championed in the Senate by my friend and Republican rockstar Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO), would add the IRS to the list of federal agencies that are prohibited from unionizing and entering into collective bargain agreements. This bill is necessary to check the partisanship and abuse that has festered within an agency that is supposed to be nonpolitical. IRS employees should be focused on serving taxpayers, not carrying out the mission of labor unions while they are on the clock. Rather than serving the interests of the American people, this inefficient agency allowed bureaucrats to squander more than half a million employee hours last year on union activities alone. We must not forget that current IRS employees targeted innocent Americans because of their political ideologies. I will continue to seek to restore accountability to a partisan agency that has lost its way."

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