To express the sense of the Senate that the Secretary of the Treasury should ensure that existing Federal employment preferences for disabled veterans and Federal policies promoting opportunities for other disabled persons are carried forward as a part of any tax collection contract program.

SA 2272. Mr. NELSON of Nebraska (for himself and Mr. DeWine) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 3010, making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

On page 222, between lines 5 and 6, insert the following:

Sec. ___. (a) Congress makes the following findings:

(1) The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 permitted the outsourcing or privatization by the Internal Revenue Service of collection of unpaid and past due federal income taxes.

(2) The Internal Revenue Service is about to issue to private-sector debt collection companies tax collection contracts that will create up to 4,000 well paying private-sector jobs.

(3) If the same tax collection activities were conducted by Federal employees, Federal law would give preferences in employment to disabled veterans in filling those federal jobs.

(4) By enacting legislation to improve the Internal Revenue Service's tax collection efforts and outsourcing or privatizing those efforts, Congress did not intend to curtail the Nation's long-standing commitment to creating meaningful job opportunities for disabled veterans and other persons with severe disabilities.

(5) The contracts the Internal Revenue Service will execute with private-sector debt collection companies provide a unique opportunity for the Federal government to stimulate the creation of well paying jobs for disabled veterans and other persons with disabilities.

(b) It is the sense of the Senate that--

(1) the Secretary of the Treasury should, to the maximum extent practicable, ensure that existing Federal employment preferences for disabled veterans and Federal policies promoting opportunities for other disabled persons are carried forward as a part of any tax collection contract program carried out under section 6306 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as added by the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, and

(2) the criteria applied by the Internal Revenue Service in awarding contracts to private-sector tax collection companies under such program should incorporate a preference for companies hiring disabled veterans and other disabled persons.