530
Opinion of the Court
erty, or of any reason to require a lienor or mortgagee to acquire possession in order to perfect an interest in real estate.
Given the fact that this basic question of interpretation remains unresolved, it does not seem appropriate to view the issue in this case as whether the Tax Lien Act of 1966 has implicitly amended or repealed the priority statute. Instead, we think the proper inquiry is how best to harmonize the impact of the two statutes on the Government's power to collect delinquent taxes.
IV
In his dissent from a particularly harsh application of the priority statute, Justice Jackson emphasized the importance of considering other relevant federal policies. Joined by three other Justices, he wrote:
"This decision announces an unnecessarily ruthless interpretation of a statute that at its best is an arbitrary one. The statute by which the Federal Government gives its own claims against an insolvent priority over claims in favor of a state government must be applied by courts, not because federal claims are more meritorious or equitable, but only because that Government has more power. But the priority statute is an assertion of federal supremacy as against any contrary state policy. It is not a limitation on the Federal Government itself, not an assertion that the priority policy shall prevail over all other federal policies. Its generalities should not lightly be construed to frustrate a specific policy embodied in a later federal statute." Massachusetts v. United States, 333 U. S. 611, 635 (1948).
On several prior occasions the Court had followed this approach and concluded that a specific policy embodied in a later federal statute should control our construction of the priority statute, even though it had not been expressly
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