Cite as: 523 U. S. 517 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
the United States obtained preference by operation of the priority statute. Id., at 365-366. The Government would now portray Gilbert Associates as a deviation from two other relatively recent opinions in which the Court held that the priority statute was not trumped by provisions of other statutes: United States v. Emory, 314 U. S., at 429-433 (the National Housing Act), and United States v. Key, 397 U. S., at 324-333 (Chapter X of the Bankruptcy Act). In each of those cases, however, there was no "plain inconsistency" between the commands of the priority statute and the other federal Act, nor was there reason to believe that application of the priority statute would frustrate Congress' intent. Id., at 329. The same cannot be said in the present suit.
The Government emphasizes that when Congress amended the Tax Lien Act in 1966, it declined to enact the American Bar Association's proposal to modify the federal priority statute, and Congress again failed to enact a similar proposal in 1970. Both proposals would have expressly provided that the Government's priority in insolvency does not displace valid liens and security interests, and therefore would have harmonized the priority statute with the Tax Lien Act. See Hearings on H. R. 11256 and 11290 before the House Committee on Ways and Means, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 197 (1966) (hereinafter Hearings); S. 2197, 92d Cong., 1st Sess. (1971). But both proposals also would have significantly changed the priority statute in many other respects to follow the priority scheme created by the bankruptcy laws. See Hearings, at 85, 198; Plumb 10, n. 53, 33-37. The earlier proposal may have failed because its wide-ranging subject matter was beyond the House Ways and Means Committee's jurisdiction. Id., at 8. The failure of the 1970 proposal in the Senate Judiciary Committee— explained by no reports or hearings—might merely reflect disagreement with the broad changes to the priority statute, or an assumption that the proposal was not needed because, as Justice Story had believed, the priority statute does not
533
Page: Index Previous 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007