air and water, and if we are having higher standards, and if people have lower standards, that's where tariffs make a lot of sense. >> and i think we'll leave the conversation there, thank you so much. thank you. [applause] ♪♪ >> democracy is always an unfinished creation. >> democracy is worth dying for. >> democracy belongs to us all. >> we're here in the sanctuary of democracy. >> great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. >> american democracy is bigger than any one person. >> freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. we are still at our core a democracy. >> this is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.

♪♪ >> welcome back to washington journal, we're joined now by danny, a former irs commissioner under the biden administration. danny, welcome to the program. >> good to be here. >> so you're part of a group of former irs commissioners who are warning that the trump administration layoffs of irs employees, about 7,000, that that would be a dangerous thing. what prompted first the creation of that op-ed? >> well, as it turns out, the former commissioners, all the former irs commissioners going back to ronald reagan, we connect with each other, we have a network. they were very supportive of me when i was the commissioner and going through senate confirmation and when there's news about the irs and we think we can help or explain what's going on to members of the public, we do so. so when we heard about the

layoffs and we understood that the stated purpose of the layoffs was cost efficiency, we all scratched our heads and said how can this be about cost efficiency if the irs is the primary agency responsible for collecting virtually all the revenue and receipts of the u.s. government? >> well, because they would say it's a bloated agency and you don't need those 7,000, we're paying them for no reason. >> well, i would say that that would also misunderstand the history of the irs and the fact is that the irs has already gone through over a decade of budget cuts from 2010 through 2022. the irs budget was cut year over year or held constant, but again, inflation, it was essentially cut. the staff size at-- in 2022 before the inflation reduction act was passed was at its lowest point since the

1970's. in the meantime, our population has grown, the number of filers have grown, the economy has become larger, more global. the tax system has grown. so if you have a growing tax system and a decreasing number of employees to manage the tax system, you have the emergence of challenges, including not only challenges in answering the phones or meeting people in walk-in centers to deal with their tax questions, but also, you start losing pace on collecting what is owed. these are not new taxes. the-- whether the irs staffing is high or low does not deck tate dictate whether our taxes are high or low. all the irs is responsible for collecting the taxes enacted by congress and right now we run about a $700 billion deficit each year in