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Ms. ERNST. Madam President, ``Help Wanted.'' I see the signs in nearly every county I visit in Iowa on my 99-county tour. Small businesses and public services are struggling to maintain the workforce that is vital to our communities. The Des Moines Public School District, for example, has over 100 vacancies and is providing $50,000 incentives for retiring teachers, nurses, and administrators to stay in school.

Faced with a declining number of soldiers, the Iowa National Guard is offering signing bonuses to new recruits, along with other incentives to encourage current members to reenlist.

Police departments across the State are also facing recruitment challenges so the Iowa State Patrol is raising salaries and starting outreach efforts with kids as young as the sixth grade to get them to start thinking about careers in law enforcement.

And this need for essential workers, well, it isn't limited to just Iowa. America is facing a shortage of teachers, doctors, nurses, childcare providers, construction workers, truckdrivers, pilots, and even accountants.

And with the Democrats' latest tax-and-spend spree, a shortage of accountants is something taxpayers everywhere now need to be concerned about. The Democrats' response to the nationwide need for essential workers is to hire 87,000 new IRS agents. The reckless tax-and-spending bill passed by DC Democrats last month more than doubles the size of the IRS, which already has nearly 80,000 full-time employees.

So what are the new IRS agents being hired to do? Well, audit America, of course--and very aggressively, if a recent job announcement on the Agency's website is any indication. The IRS says it is seeking armed accountants willing to participate in ``life-threatening situations on the job.''

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says, with the supersized staff, the IRS audit rate ``would rise for all taxpayers,'' regardless of income. CBO warns it will also result in audits of innocent Americans who have paid all of their taxes and don't owe the IRS a cent. That is right. Even if you have paid your taxes, you still could be subjected to an unfair and costly audit by the Biden administration's army of IRS agents.

Folks, Washington doesn't need any more tax collectors; it needs to simplify the Tax Code. If it wasn't so complicated to calculate your tax bill, it would be a lot easier to complete your return and avoid making mistakes.

Ironically, hundreds of employees at the IRS itself may have willfully failed to pay their own tax bills, including tax collectors and even a criminal investigator. In total, 1,250 IRS employees were identified who had not paid their tax bills in full or on time by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. More than 300 of these employees were repeat offenders. Yet the tax-collecting Agency did little to discipline the tax evaders on its very own payroll.

The IRS staffers gave a variety of excuses for not paying their taxes, including forgetting to report all of their income or being unable to use TurboTax. Yep, folks, you heard that right. We have a real problem if the IRS staff who enforce the tax law aren't paying their own taxes and can't even understand how to properly fill out their own tax forms.

I have heard enough of the excuses and these Washington double standards. That is why I have asked the inspector general to audit the IRS to ensure that the tax collectors themselves are paying the taxes they owe, and, on behalf of taxpayers in Iowa and the rest of the country, I am grateful that the IG has agreed.

Before Biden's army of auditors starts harassing innocent taxpayers, let's first make sure that tax collectors have paid their own taxes.

And if the threat of being audited wasn't bad enough, the reckless tax-and-spend bill also increases taxes, which will further add to the burden of small businesses already struggling with the higher costs resulting from Bidenomics. And that is the real issue. Washington's misplaced priorities are creating problems for the rest of America.

No one in Iowa whom I talk to is begging for more IRS auditors, but I do hear about the urgent need for more teachers and daycare providers because these folks are absolutely essential to communities across Iowa. The childcare staffing crisis has an even bigger ripple effect on families because it can determine where, when, and even if a parent can work. Yet four in five childcare centers across the country are understaffed. This is particularly pressing for my home State because we lead the Nation in the percentage of families where both parents work away from home.

Gov. Kim Reynolds is working hard to increase the availability and affordability of childcare, and part of her plan is to pay recruitment and retention bonuses to childcare providers to recognize them for their hard work.

In addition, most of Iowa's restaurants and bars are also shortstaffed, which is resulting in reduced hours of service for customers and also longer shifts for current employees. To retain and attract employees, restaurants are increasing benefits like free meals, more flexible schedules, paid time off, and retirement contributions. And, folks, that is great news for these hard-working Iowans, but it also increases the cost of doing business.

So instead of increasing taxes on Iowa's small businesses to pay for the IRS's new army of auditors, Washington should allow job creators to keep more of their own earnings which can be put toward hiring more of those essential workers--whether that be childcare providers, construction workers, or food service employees--whom we all rely upon. That is the help that America really wants. And while my Democratic friends are working overtime to audit Americans, you can rest assured that Republicans--we are auditing the IRS.

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