(Breitbart) Paul Ryan: I see that there is a case being made for a budget increase. Your budget asks for over a billion dollars in more spending for your agency. And you're asking us to hire another 4,572 employees. Let me read you what we've already learned in just two months. In just two months, we've got a conference in Atlanta, which had celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck cater, costing $2.4 million. We've got a conference in Anaheim, California—$4.1 million. A conference in Philadelphia, $2.9 million. A conference in San Diego, $4.1 million. At one of these conferences, you had $135,000 for 15 people. That's about $9,000 per speaker. The IRS paid for the deputy commissioner to stay five nights in the presidential suite at the Hilton Hotel during one of the conferences. You paid $17,000 for a speaker to paint pictures of Bono, Michael Jordan, Abraham Lincoln, and others. We hear a report of crony contracts—an improper relationship between an IRS contractor and a person whose business had less than $250,000 in income the prior year is getting awarded $500 million contract. Between 2010 and 2012, you had 225 conferences costing $49 million.
Let me see if I can put this in perspective for you ...
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