Yesterday was the day hard-working Americans sent the IRS their taxes.

It is ironic that on a day millions of responsible people send the government precious dollars, the Democrats in Congress passed legislation to repeal a provision to help enforce our nation’s tax laws. A provision of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 gave the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the authority to use private debt collection agencies to assist in the collection of overdue individual taxes. These are taxes that IRS has admitted they don’t have the man power to go after and would otherwise go uncollected. It is estimated that allowing these private debt collectors could save the federal government between $1.5 billion and $2.2 billion in gross revenue from 2007 through 2016.

It is important to note that during debate on this legislation, Democrats also voted against making permanent the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 because they say they cost too much. It doesn’t cost too much to let deadbeat taxpayers off the hook, but it does cost too much to let hard working, responsible Americans keep more of what they earn.