Former U.S. Rep. Billy Long, nominee for Internal Revenue Service commissioner, testifies before the Senate Finance Committee at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Screenshot from committee webcast)

WASHINGTON — Senators tasked with tax writing split along party lines Tuesday praising and grilling former Republican U.S. Rep. Billy Long of Missouri, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Internal Revenue Service, the agency tasked with enforcing the largest source of U.S. revenue as the country faces record debt and interest costs.

Long, who served in Congress from 2011 to 2023 and previously spent multiple years as a talk radio host, testified to the Senate Finance Committee that he plans to get rid of “stinking thinking” at the IRS and implement a “comprehensive plan” to modernize the agency and “invest in retaining skilled members of the team.”

“This does not mean a bloated agency, but an efficient one where employees have the tools they need to succeed,” Long said.

The agency has lost more than 11,000 employees, or 11% of its workforce, either through deferred resignations or mass firing of probationary workers since Trump began his second term, according to a May 2 report from the agency’s inspector general. Trump said in December he intended to nominate Long for the IRS post.

‘Top-down culture change’

Committee Chair Mike Crapo of Idaho opened the confirmation hearing expressing his confidence in Long, saying he will direct a “sea change” at the agency that will benefit taxpayers.

“President Trump called Congressman Long the ‘consummate people person.’ Congressman Long is very clear that he will make himself available to all IRS employees, no matter their seniority. Moreover, he wants to implement a top-down culture change at the agency,” Crapo said.

The confirmation hearing comes as lawmakers struggle to agree on a budget reconciliation package, which will extend and expand Trump’s 2017 tax law and in turn widen IRS responsibilities.

Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, said he trusted Long’s work ethic and told him, “We’re going to do a tax bill here in the next couple of months. To be able to get that done, as we did it in 2017, there’ll be a lot of work the IRS has to do to be able to put guidance documents out, to be able to get clear instructions of what that means.”

Nonexistent tribal tax credits

Democrats approached the hearing with skepticism.

The nearly two-hour back-and-forth with Long followed recent revelations that he accepted donations to his defunct Senate campaign shortly after Trump nominated him as the IRS commissioner. Democratic senators on the panel have also called for an investigation into Long’s work with a company that peddled nonexistent tribal tax credits.

“Bottom line, the American people have the right to know whether the future IRS commissioner is a crook,” said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the panel’s top Democrat.

Long denies any wrongdoing.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat, pressed Long about $65,000 he allegedly received for his involvement promoting the fake tax credits for the companies Capital Edge Strategies and White River.

“Knowing that (the credits) are illegal, the IRS has said they’re illegal, how do you stand here before this committee and tell the chairman just a few minutes ago that you have no conflict of interest?” Cortez Masto asked.

Long replied that he’s in compliance with the Office of Government Ethics regarding his nomination and that he “did not have any perception whatsoever that these (credits) did not exist.”

Other Democrats on the panel questioned Long on Trump’s recent statements that he would pull Harvard University’s tax-exempt status over its refusal to comply with demands from the administration.

Wyden characterized Long as a “MAGA devotee” and said that Trump wants to use the IRS “as a cudgel to beat his adversaries into submission.”

14-page letter

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who sent Long a 14-page letter questioning his past, repeatedly asked Long about a statute prohibiting the president from ordering tax audits on specific people or businesses.

“Is it illegal for the President to instruct the IRS to remove nonprofit status from taxpayers?” Warren asked several times.

“I’m not going to have the answer that you need, I apologize,” Long said.

Senate Republicans on the panel questioned Long on how he can improve customer service for taxpayers — despite the party successfully fighting in 2023 to cut new IRS funding under President Joe Biden in 2022.

Sen. Todd Young of Indiana said the agency is “behind the curve” on technology and that its customer service issues are “out of hand.”

“If confirmed, will you commit to developing a comprehensive IRS modernization plan that prioritizes customer service, identifies critical technology infrastructure needs and ensures greater transparency and audit practices? Yes or no?” Young asked.

“Yes,” Long replied.

“Excellent,” Young said. 

Angélica Infante-Green, Rhode Island’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, speaks at a forum on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Screenshot via YouTube)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats on Tuesday blasted the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, underscoring the impact of the dizzying array of cuts, overhauls and proposed changes to the agency on students, families and educators.

Sen. Patty Murray, who hosted the forum in a U.S. Senate hearing room alongside several Democratic colleagues, said Trump is “essentially bulldozing the Department of Education, regardless of who depends on it, regardless of who is still inside, and regardless of the very loud outcry from parents and educators and students about this.”

The Washington state Democrat brought in education advocates and leaders, who emphasized the importance of the department in delivering on federal resources for public education, investigating civil rights complaints and helping students cheated by predatory institutions.

Trump and his administration have sought to dramatically reshape the federal role in education, including an executive order calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the closure of her own department, the gutting of more than 1,300 employees at the agency, threats to revoke funds for schools that use diversity, equity and inclusion practices and a crackdown on “woke” higher education.

‘Unnecessary confusion and chaos’

Angélica Infante-Green, Rhode Island’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, said she and colleagues who lead state education across the country have spent a great deal of time trying to decipher the intent of Trump’s executive orders and the department’s directives and policy changes.

“They seem unclear and cause unnecessary confusion and chaos for all of us,” Infante-Green said. “While the impact of the confusion may be hard to quantify,  what is clear is that students and families and educators are the losers in this new paradigm.”

Denise Forte, CEO of the nonprofit policy and advocacy group EdTrust, said “most urgently, we are alarmed by the mass firing of over half of the department staff.”

“This isn’t reform — it is sabotage,” Forte said, pointing to the layoffs hitting wide swaths of the department, particularly in the Office for Civil Rights, Office of Federal Student Aid and Institute of Education Sciences.

“With the Office for Civil Rights now severely understaffed, civil rights complaints will skyrocket while response capacity plummets,” she said.

Students with disabilities 

The cuts at the agency and Trump’s proposal in March that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “will be handling special needs” have sparked worries among disability advocates over whether the department can carry out its responsibilities to serve students with disabilities.

Diane Willcutts, director of Education Advocacy, said she’s been getting “panicked phone calls from parents of children with disabilities who are wondering, ‘What does this all mean?’”

Willcutts has worked for over two decades in Connecticut and Massachusetts helping families of children with disabilities navigate the education process.

“I think everyone’s shell-shocked, and we’re looking for direction — how can we be helpful to you in order to protect the U.S. Department of Education?” she said. “I know there’s this assumption that ‘Oh, the states will take care of it.’ That is absolutely not the case, I can tell you in my state that is not what is happening right now, and so, as I said, there’s a level of panic but we’re looking for direction.”

Trump’s budget request

Meanwhile, Trump also released a budget request last week that calls for $12 billion in spending cuts at the department.

Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin said the budget includes “devastating cuts to many critical programs,” and that the proposal “comes at a time when too many students are chronically absent and achieving at levels that will not set them up for success.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Trump administration is “cutting so many things — don’t feel alone, Department of Education.”

“They don’t know what they’re doing about just about anything, and they want to cut everything, but to cut education, which has been sacrosanct in America, is just awful,” the New York Democrat said.

Schumer said Tuesday’s “spotlight hearing” is just one in a series Senate Democrats will be hosting in response to Trump’s cuts to the department.

Trump administration officials said the outrage was misplaced. 

“If Senate Democrats were truly interested in fighting for parents, students, and teachers as they claim, where was their outrage over this year’s dismal math and reading scores? Don’t get it twisted,” Savannah Newhouse, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education, said in a statement shared with States Newsroom.

Senate Democrats “are fighting President Trump’s education agenda for one reason: to protect the bloated bureaucracy that has consistently failed our nation’s students,” Newhouse said.

“By returning education authority to the states, President Trump and Secretary McMahon will help every American child — including those in public schools — to have the best shot at a quality education.”