Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

My home State is Illinois. The State of Illinois, Mr. Chairman, is a delightful place. It is the ``Land of Lincoln'' and the birthplace of Ronald Reagan, but it is a fiscal basket case. From a fiscal point of view, my home State is a national punch line, because one party--the other party--has dominated State government for years. For a decade, they have had the Governor's mansion. They have got majorities in both the Illinois House and the Illinois Senate.

And what has happened? It has been avoidance behavior, Mr. Chairman. An unwillingness to take on serious issues.

So what did the Democrats in Springfield, Illinois, do? They raised taxes. They didn't deal with the underlying fiscal problem.

And what was the net result? The budget gap didn't close, higher than average unemployment, and more per capita debt than nearly any other State in the Union on the taxpayers of Illinois.

All right. So what does that all that have to do with this?

Springfield, Illinois, is a foreshadowing, Mr. Chairman, of what not to do. Basically, we need to look at the fiscal situation in Springfield, Illinois, and look at it like a big, big traffic signal that says, don't come here; don't go this route; don't take this pathway. Instead, go another direction.

The direction that we need to go is the direction that the chairman has articulated, and that I think a majority is going to vote for tomorrow, and it is a pathway that says, let's look clearly at these difficulties. Let's articulate them clearly. Let's be clear-eyed about what they are, and let's make decisions.

So what does this budget do?

The budget repeals ObamaCare and makes way for a patient-centered approach on health care that our constituencies are calling out for.

It says that we are going to empower States to make decisions. It says we are going to keep promises that are going to be made, not false promises, not telling folks that something is going to be there, and then just assuming that there is going to be some pixie dust that makes these problems go away.

No, these problems are going to be dealt with, and they are going to be dealt with in a forthright manner.

I think we are at an inflection point. I think the House is actually at an incredibly important stage right now, and we can go one of two pathways. One pathway we know, one pathway of more taxes, more spending, more avoidance, and not dealing with the underlying spending programs.

This is not theoretical, Mr. Chairman. The State of Illinois has tried that, and it is a mess. It is a mess that becomes worse. The longer the State waits, the worse the options are.

So what the chairman is saying is, let's not get to that point. We have got options. We have got time. We have got choices. We have got remedies, but we need to act now.

So I urge favorable consideration of this budget.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the Obama administration has done a clever thing over these past years, and that is to redefine things.

They redefined the word ``balance,'' not to mean the traditional understanding of ``balance,'' but they said, No, no, no. That really means long-term fiscal sustainability. That is the new definition of ``balance.''

They did the same thing on tax reform. The common understanding of ``tax reform'' is that you lower rates; you use loopholes to bring rates down; and you simplify the Code. Instead, they said, No. ``Tax reform,'' for us, means, yes, let's close loopholes, but let's use those closures to fuel more spending.

The richest one I have heard so far is to hear a White House spokesman make the claim, basically, that a job is now a burden and that now, with ObamaCare, there are going to be over 2 million Americans who are shed from that burden, Mr. Speaker, and that they don't have to worry about working anymore because they have got this new health care plan.

It is now finding itself coming true in this bill as well, and what the Obama administration has said is, We are just going to create a new definition of ``full-time work.'' Full-time work has meant 9 to 5. Full-time work has meant 40 hours a week. Not with ObamaCare. ObamaCare has now redefined it. It is a long pattern of redefinitions, and these redefinitions have led to failure.

So here is the thing. We have got an opportunity to remedy this. We have got an opportunity to make it right. We have got an opportunity to recalibrate full-time work to what it has historically meant, and here is what the

bottom line is: if we recalibrate it, we will get more work to the very people whom our opponents on the other side claim to speak for, and the irony is that their remedies mean less work for the very groups that they speak to advocate for.

Mr. Speaker, we have got a chance today, and that is to support this bill, to do it quickly and to get us back to the normal definition of ``full-time work,'' which is 40 hours a week.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to rise in support of H.R. 2548, the Electrify Africa Act, which will help enrich the lives of the some 589 million people who live in an electricity depleted part of Africa.

This legislation will bring much needed support to a region that desperately needs it. As you are aware, 68 percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa does not have access to electricity. This bill, if enacted, would establish a base of infrastructure from which economies can grow, improve health and education outcomes, and contribute to sustainable poverty reduction.

I have visited Ghana and Liberia and seen firsthand the struggles that people deal with every day as they try to live a normal life. Power outages are a regular occurrence, while families may wait hours, days, or even weeks for electricity to be restored. A reliable electrical grid will help give businesses looking to make investments in Africa a greater degree of confidence in the infrastructure. The investments they make could help pull many out of poverty and hunger as local economies grow and people gain steady employment.

There are not just economic benefits to consider, though. Electricity is also crucial to health outcomes. Certain medicines and vaccines require strict temperature regulation that is impossible to achieve without access to reliable electricity. Lifesaving devices and monitoring devices also require energy to function. An improved electrical infrastructure could also reduce the prevalence of illnesses like respiratory diseases that come from the use of harmful household fuels. On average, there are more than 3 million annual premature deaths from respiratory disease in sub-Saharan Africa. Shockingly, this number is higher than the annual number of deaths from HIV/AIDS and malaria.

One final benefit I want to highlight is the educational improvement achievable as schools with a dependable source of energy can harness technology to educate the rapidly-growing youth population in Africa. In

some countries, more than half of the population is under the age of 25. Quality education for this generation of young people could further contribute to dynamism and innovation in their countries' economies.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2548 will bring many positive opportunities to a continent that is in great need of assistance. I truly appreciate you and the committee giving this bill the attention it deserves. Electrifying Africa will not only create a brighter future for those who live in the region, but will also strengthen Africa's independence, promote continued economic development, and ensure the continent remains a vibrant source of art, culture, and history for generations to come.

Mr. Speaker, there is one thing worse than gridlock, according to my predecessor, Congressman Henry Hyde. The worst thing than gridlock is the greased chute of government.

It is ironic that the very administration that jammed through the Affordable Care Act, also known in the vernacular as ObamaCare, the very group that foisted that on the American public in the middle of the night, without much oversight, without much discussion, just jammed it all through, now has a new remedy as it relates to this newest problem, and that is, do it again. Do it again on another issue.

We heard our friend from New Jersey posing a question, and he is misinformed. The nature of his question was somehow that the American public is paying for this, and yet, we had testimony that Mr. Camp, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, asked this question of Mr. Barthold, who is the chief of staff for the Joint Committee on Taxation.

He asked this question--this is Dave Camp, chairman of the committee:

Do these proposed regulations respond to some kind of

revenue loss or some kind of tax avoidance scheme?

Answer: Not that I am aware of, sir. These organizations

are generally exempt, and a revenue loss has not been

identified as the basis of these proposed regulations.

So let's not kid ourselves. Here is the reality. The reality is that this stifles speech. This is from an administration that has been complicit in overseeing an Internal Revenue Service that has picked winners and losers, Mr. Speaker, has been able to say you get to participate in the public debate and you don't.

We ought not do this. There have been over 100,000 comments on this proposed regulation. For those that want to participate and offer their own comment, Mr. Speaker, they can go to roskam.house.gov/ dontbesilenced to make sure that their voice is heard as well offering an official comment on this.

One thing we do know: we know that an administration which has a tendency to over-respond, we know that an administration that has not much credibility, frankly, on being thoughtful and nimble as it comes to legislation, is not the administration that we should trust at this point in time with a rule of such incredible consequence when they have demonstrated no capacity to do right things in the past.

I urge the passage of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2530) to improve transparency and efficiency with respect to audits and communications between taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 2530, the Taxpayer Transparency and Efficient Audit Act, is a direct response to testimony and inquiries and news reports that the Ways and Means

Committee and other interested Members of Congress have heard about as it relates to the IRS scandal.

Part of the difficulty that American taxpayers have, Mr. Speaker, is that they feel that they are basically on their heels, that the Internal Revenue Service has all the power and has all the inertia and has all the momentum; and if you are a taxpayer and the IRS is coming after you, you feel as if, look, this is a one-way street, and they are able to target, and they are able to focus, and they are able to keep all this momentum and have us on our heels.

This is an effort to correct this problem. Every time the IRS shares a taxpayer's information, the IRS, under this bill, must send a disclosure letter to the taxpayer within 30 days of the disclosure, except in cases where it would be detrimental to an ongoing criminal investigation or to national security.

Whenever the IRS receives correspondence from a taxpayer, the IRS must substantively respond within 30 days, and the response can't simply be a pat on the head and an acknowledgment letter but a substantive reply. Finally, the bill creates the goal that audits should be completed within 1 year. If not, the IRS must send an explanation to the taxpayer as to why it took too long.

In a nutshell, Mr. Speaker, what we are trying to do is to put the IRS on notice that they have got an obligation to operate within certain timeframes, which is a 30-day substantive response; to finish an audit in a year and, if you can't finish it in a year, have a good explanation as to why; and then also to make sure that, if information is being disclosed to someone outside the IRS--again, outside the context of a criminal investigation or of a national security incident--the IRS has to disclose that to the taxpayer.

Now, you might be thinking, Wow, what in the world? That is against the law already, and this information shouldn't be shared outside the Internal Revenue Service. You would be right in thinking that.

The problem is we heard testimony--and it was very compelling testimony, Mr. Speaker--from a witness down in Texas, who described this experience. Her name was Catherine Engelbrecht, and she was the founder of an organization called True the Vote. This is somebody who decided to participate in public life, who decided to get organized and have a group. Lo and behold, over a period of time, once she decided that she was going to petition the Federal Government for status for her group True the Vote to be involved in election issues and ballot integrity issues, all of a sudden, she finds herself the subject of a great deal of interest from other elements of the Federal Government that have nothing to do with the tax inquiry. According to my information, she had 15 different visits from four different Federal agencies.

We may never get to the bottom of where it came from--where the leak took place--what was the theory behind it and how all of that came to pass, but we know this: we know that we can do something about it. We know that we can put limitations on the Internal Revenue Service that create a duty and an obligation and a legal sanction around which the IRS has to operate that says you cannot disclose this information and that, if this information is disclosed, you have a duty to let the taxpayer know.

Clearly, what we are trying to do with this legislation is to limit the Internal Revenue Service, not from collecting taxes, not from enforcing the law, not from doing the things that they are tasked and created by this body to do, but, instead, to do it in a limited fashion, to be wise, not to be abusive, not to be lording power over taxpayers. When it all comes down to it, let's not forget this: we have a system of taxation that is based on--what? It is based on voluntary compliance. The Federal Government does not have the ability to go about and do all of this enforcement. So a voluntary tax compliance system is presumed.

What does that mean?

That means that the taxpayer has to have confidence that the tax- paying institution, itself, has integrity. As we know, that integrity is seriously in question, so I urge the favorable consideration of H.R. 2530.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we are accused now of wanting to have it both ways. I suppose we are guilty as charged. We have an expectation that the Internal Revenue Service is going to work well with the resources that they have been appropriated and be able to be responsive to inquiries, but it is an important distinction because we are saying that the IRS has to respond at the same level at which they demand responses from the taxpayer.

So, when you get a letter at home from the Internal Revenue Service, there is nobody who is cavalier about that. What happens? You look at that. My constituents look at that. The business owners in my district--the small businesses in my district--look at something from the Internal Revenue Service, and they say, Stop the presses. Wow, we have got to stop everything. The IRS is coming in, and we have got to deal with this. Get on top of it.

Yet we are told that the Internal Revenue Service cannot be held to that same standard, to that same level of responsiveness that the IRS demands from American citizens--demands with the ability to fine, demands with the ability to imprison if necessary, demands with the ability to take your property away through the force of liens.

I think the IRS can handle it. I think the IRS is now recognizing, hey, there is something that is going on, and the American public is recognizing that what has actually happened is that they have delegated a great deal of authority to the Internal Revenue Service. With the way our Founders created our system, Mr. Speaker, now these citizens are saying, We want to reclaim the authority. Why? Because the authority has been abused.

You are going to be limited, Internal Revenue Service, based on this legislation and other legislation because you abused this.

This is not about the poor. This is not about the elderly. This is not about the disabled. Those arguments are not very persuasive. This is about the limitation of the long arm of the Federal Government being able to hold you to account and my constituents to account to a standard that they are unwilling to live by themselves. That is just wrong.

So do we want it both ways? Yes, we do. We want the Internal Revenue Service to be wise with the money that has been allocated to them, and we want them to be forthcoming and helpful when it comes to responding in the same way to which they have been responded.

Now, my distinguished colleague from Illinois has mentioned the consternation and hand-wringing that has come upon the Internal Revenue Service. Here is a fairly simple remedy, Mr. Speaker:

The Internal Revenue Service can be forthcoming. They can say, Here is the information, to the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, that you have requested. The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee has requested documentation, particularly about Lois Lerner, who is at the heart of this investigation.

Has the Internal Revenue Service been forthcoming to give Lois Lerner's emails? The answer is ``no.'' It is difficult. It is one excuse after another. ``We are looking.'' ``We are searching.'' It is all of these sorts of ``the dog ate my homework'' responses.

Here is the simple remedy:

If it has taken too much time, if it is that big of a problem, if it is taking all of this energy that they want to devote to helping taxpayers that, instead, they are spending devoting to defending themselves in an investigation, save a lot of time--print out the emails, and send them to Chairman Dave Camp. That is how they can save time, and that is how they can save money.

By golly, we have got to get to a point where this agency is under control and is doing the right thing by those who have entrusted them with a great deal of authority.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis) for his willingness to come and debate this issue. I appreciate his admonition about Frederick Douglass and that whole notion that we need to pay for what we get, and I think that that is a good word on which to end.

In other words, the American public has an expectation that they are going to get something, and they are paying for it. They are paying for it in taxes that, in some cases, are confiscatory--a very, very high tax burden--and they are voluntarily complying with the Tax Code. And toward that end, they have the expectation that they are going to be treated courteously, that they are going to be treated with respect, and that they are not going to be subsequently targeted by some other Federal agency completely unrelated to their inquiring.

So I urge the passage of H.R. 2530, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2531) to prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from asking taxpayers questions regarding religious, political, or social beliefs.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I draw your attention to H.R. 2531, the Protecting Taxpayers from Intrusive IRS Requests Act. Let me give you a quick summary, Mr. Speaker, of what the bill does. Let me give you an example that we heard in the Ways and Means Committee that prompted this. And I look forward to hearing from my colleague, Mr. Davis.

The legislation establishes a new procedure for the IRS to follow when asking questions regarding three areas: religious, political, and social beliefs. And the following is the new procedure: the IRS can't ask those questions. They can't ask about religious, political, or social beliefs. And there are two exceptions. One is a question or set of questions that is approved by Congress by an enacted law; or, if the IRS Commissioner deems questions are important to aid in tax administration and submits a report to Congress, which must include the following and be approved by a joint resolution of Congress:

State the specific questions that were authorized;

Describe the class of taxpayers who will be asked the questions;

Describe the circumstances surrounding the taxpayers being asked those questions.

So where is this coming from? What is this all about?

We heard testimony from six witnesses, Mr. Speaker, who came before the Ways and Means Committee as the IRS scandal was breaking. These six witnesses in particular I found to be compelling. I found them to be compelling for two reasons:

Number one, they didn't give up on their country. When they were being targeted by the Federal Government, these witnesses kept faith and kept hope with the America that they knew existed, and they were not willing to feel overwhelmed even though the events were actually fairly overwhelming, being targeted by your Federal Government to say you can and cannot participate in the public square. That is one reason I admire them.

The second reason, Mr. Speaker, was this. They came to Washington to do something about it. They engaged Congress. They engaged in the full committee. They gave compelling testimony. The testimony moved us. It moved me to introduce this bill.

Here was the single, without question, most compelling witness who spoke that day, in my view. She represented a right-to-life group in Iowa. She told the story of being asked by the Internal Revenue Service in written interrogatories--in other words, pieces of paper with questions written down that come from the Internal Revenue Service to their little group--and the inquiry was, Tell us about your prayers. Tell us about your prayer meetings. What goes on at those?

Mr. Speaker, you know as well as I do that our freedom to worship is our first freedom, and our freedom to worship is central to who we are.

The long, powerful arm of the Federal Government is coming in and grabbing a little right-to-life group by the neck and shaking them around, saying, Write down what happens in your prayer meetings and write it down and sign your name, under penalty of perjury. That is exactly what those questions did.

I was sobered by that. That was chastening testimony to hear that this agency, this agency of delegated authority from the people's House, has now used that and, I would argue, misused that. Why in the world does the Internal Revenue Service need to know about the prayer meetings of a pro-life group in Iowa? That is a shameful abuse and a shameful scandal that they even asked those questions.

But what does it tell you?

It tells you that there was a way of thinking, a culture, I would argue, at the Internal Revenue Service that said, We are empowered to do these things.

Well, if that is what they think, let's correct that, shall we, Mr. Speaker? Let's say that they can't ask those questions. The questions about religion, your political beliefs, and about what your social beliefs are have nothing to do with what the Internal Revenue Service should be doing as it relates to tax administration.

So these are very clear limitations. There are a couple of exceptions. But it is meant clearly to put the IRS back where they belong on the tax administration side and not deciding who gets to participate in the public square of debate and who doesn't.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My colleague said enough is enough. I guess enough is enough if you are one of the ones that wasn't impacted. But if you were impacted by the IRS targeting, it had a jarring effect on you.

And if we are going to move forward, if we are going to have the Internal Revenue Service have the respect that we need it to have, which it doesn't have right now, there is an overwhelming level of concern and consternation about how the IRS handled these things in the past and how they conducted themselves.

The fact that the Internal Revenue Service has not been forthcoming pursuant to Chairman Camp's request for information is not in dispute. There is nobody here that is arguing the IRS has been completely forthcoming and given the chairman all the information he needs or that he has requested. No. They haven't been forthcoming, and that continues to be a real problem.

I think it is important for us to recognize that the TIGTA report was an audit. It was not an investigation. An investigation is ongoing. So this notion that there is no knowledge or there is no indication of any sort of political influence, I think that there is a great deal of knowledge of political influence that was peddled and used here, and I think the facts bear it out.

The scope of the audit that the gentleman was referring to was to focus on conservative targeting. The IG struck within the parameters of the audit. Far more conservative groups faced IRS scrutiny, they faced more questions, and were approved at a lower rate than progressive groups were.

Numbers are very straightforward: 104 conservative groups experienced an average of 15 additional questions, only 46 percent of conservative applicants were approved, and 56 percent of groups are either waiting for a determination or have withdrawn in frustration.

Now, that is messed up. If you are withdrawing because you can't get a straight answer, you are just feeling overwhelmed, who wins then?

The Internal Revenue Service wins, and the taxpayer that wants to participate in the public debate loses.

Compare that to seven progressive groups that were asked an average of just five additional questions.

You know what, Mr. Speaker?

Every one of those progressive groups was approved--100 percent of them were approved.

We know now that the IRS targeted not only right-leaning applicants, but also right-leaning groups that are already operating as 501(c)(4)s, and at Washington, D.C.'s direction, not Cincinnati's initiative, at Washington, D.C.'s direction, dozens of groups operating as 501(c)(4)s were flagged for IRS surveillance, monitoring of the groups' activities, Web sites, and any other publicly available information.

Of these groups, 83 percent were right-leaning, and of the groups that the IRS selected for audit, 100 percent of those were conservative-leaning. So, this idea that this was, well, everybody is treated the same way, the facts don't bear that out, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to draw attention to one particular group, a constituency that I represent, the West Suburban Patriots of DuPage County. They submitted their application for 501(c)(4) status in May of 2011. They received a letter from the IRS acknowledging their application. Nearly 4 months later they were told their application was ``in the pile.''

Over a year later, June of 2012, the West Suburban Patriots received a letter indicating that they had to answer a series of questions in an incredibly short timeframe. The questions were political, and demonstrated that the IRS scoured their Web site by demanding information that would be on their Members Only web page.

Isn't that interesting?

In July of 2012 they received a letter granting their 501(c)(4) status.

Now, the West Suburban Patriots name and tax ID number were found on a list of ``political advocacy cases'' that the Exempt Organizations Office in D.C. made to track Tea Party cases, and USA Today received the confidential political advocacy list and made it public.

Here is the point: this is not what the Internal Revenue Service should be doing. The Internal Revenue Service should be making proper inquiries, not asking about prayer meetings, not being passive aggressive, choosing winners and losers in the public square.

This is an important piece of legislation. It reclaims authority that was once delegated and has been abused, and now needs to be reclaimed.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to thank Mr. Davis for engaging in this debate and this discussion, and I think he is right. We are at a fork in the road. I would describe the fork in the road as the responsibility that we have in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge us to take this challenge, and that is to do everything that we can, in light of this information that has come to our attention, to make sure that the Internal Revenue Service is being limited, is not allowed to ask questions regarding religion or social questions or political questions, and that we can enjoy a day in the future when they enjoy our respect. With that, I urge passage the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in December of last year, the American Studies Association did a shameful thing. They decided to call an academic boycott of one nation, and that is the State of Israel. Think about that. They looked over every other country of the world and they said basically by omission: Oh, you're fine, and you're fine, and you're fine. It doesn't matter what is happening there or what is happening there, but we are going to go after one country, Israel, and we are going to call upon a boycott.

The former Israeli Ambassador, Michael Oren, after that happened, he asked this question:

Will Congress stand up for academic freedom?

And the answer is, yes.

I was pleased, Mr. Speaker, to join with 134 colleagues, myself included, to send a letter to the American Studies Association to admonish them on what is clearly an anti-Semitic effort on their part. I know that is a very harsh thing for me to say, but there is no other way to describe it. It is anti-Semitic.

I intend to move forward in the coming weeks to offer legislation called the Protect Academic Freedom Act which will prevent these campaigns by prohibiting Federal funds to universities that boycott Israeli academic institutions. Said another way, these organizations are clearly free to do what they want to do under the First Amendment, but the American taxpayer doesn't have to subsidize it. The American taxpayer doesn't have to be complicit in it, and the American taxpayer doesn't have to play any part in it. In fact, what we are doing on a bipartisan basis is calling for Congress to defend academic freedom because we recognize that academic freedom is at the very root of our own freedom.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate my colleagues from Georgia and Illinois for their work on this matter. It is incredibly important; and, as Ms. Ros-Lehtinen mentioned a minute ago, the challenges that Israel are facing are incredibly significant.

The challenges are moving very, very quickly, Mr. Speaker. There is a storm cloud that is brewing; and rather than waiting to recalibrate, this bill says let's evaluate how Israel is doing in terms of a qualitative military advantage and edge more frequently.

As we know, if Israel is strong in the Middle East, good things happen. If Israel is weak in the Middle East, good things don't happen.

We have an opportunity now for the House to stand with Israel. As mentioned before by Mr. Collins a minute ago, it is not just for Israel's sake; but it is clearly in the best interest of the United States.

There is one democratic ally in the Middle East, and that is the State of Israel. It is incumbent upon us as a co-equal branch of government to encourage the administration to do the right thing, not just from Israel's point of view but from the long-term strategic interest of the United States.

I am a cosponsor of this legislation. I am pleased that it is being brought under the leadership of Chairman Royce and his committee to the House floor. I urge its passage.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, there are hinge points in history. There are times at which you can sense that history is moving almost on a hinge from one trajectory to another trajectory, and my sense and my observation is that the United States is experiencing such a hinge right now.

Okay, what is the hinge? What is the change? What is going on? Here is what is happening. The administration has made a decision that is moving subtly in some ways, but I think the results are going to be very, very consequential and the subtleties will be lost, and we are going to be at a very different position. In other words, the hinge will move us from our current policy which says that Iran shall not be a nuclear power. That is the stated position of the United States. It is unambiguous. There is no ambiguity about that, at least not up until now.

But the hinge that is changing is a direction that begins to say, well, maybe not. Maybe instead we need a policy of containment, and that is very dangerous, Mr. Speaker. That is a direction that we ought not go. It is a direction, unfortunately, that the Obama administration is leading us in right now, and I'm convinced it is a mistake.

The House of Representatives has a responsibility as part of a coequal branch of government. We have worked, we have passed sanctions that are robust and dynamic that are not taken up by the false claim of the Iranians, a false promise of future conduct. We need our colleagues on the other side of the rotunda to take on a very rigorous sanctions bill and to push back very, very aggressively.

Because here is the thing: the Iranians are allowed to enrich under this proposed deal. There is no investigation as it relates to the warheads. There is no investigation as it relates to their missile capacity. And so what is happening? The Iranians gain an advantage of time and money, and we squander both. This is the time when the United States needed to be clear and not ambiguous.

So there are Members who are gathered here today, Mr. Speaker, to talk about the seriousness of this issue, to admonish the administration and encourage them to change course; and we hope to highlight the significant nature of this shift in American foreign policy that we are seeing lay out before us as we speak.

So toward that end, I would be honored at this point to yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), my colleague and friend.

I thank the gentleman for his insight and for his leadership on this important issue, and particularly his highlighting that the timing, Mr. Speaker, is an illusion, as the gentleman said, to think this all turns on a dime on the 1st of June.

With that, I would like to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hudson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I will yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks). As he is approaching the microphone, let me just make one point, and that is something that Mr. Davis just highlighted.

Sanctions are working. Sanctions have brought the Iranians to the table. So think of it this way. You have got a hold of a pit bull. You have got it. It is a very dangerous animal and it is ferocious, and if you let go of it, it may come and attack you. Why in the world, if you have got it under control or under some semblance of control, would you say, ``You know what? Let's loosen our grip and try this again''?

It doesn't make any sense.

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, it is an amazing thing to think about how aggressive Iran has been without a nuclear weapon. It is a worldwide sponsor of terror, incredibly aggressive, and going after and making threats about the Strait of Hormuz and so forth. Can you even imagine what it would be like as a nation if it had a nuclear threat behind it? It would change the dynamic entirely.

I think one of the weaknesses of the administration's proposed deal is this: it puts the imprimatur of approval on enrichment. Up until now, it has been American policy that says, You can't enrich. You have no right to a nuclear capability.

And let's be frank. There is nobody with a straight face that is saying that the Iranians have any interest in pursuing nuclear technology because of an interest in global warming. This is not an energy pursuit at all. It is clearly a pursuit to manipulate the world stage toward their ends that are oftentimes driven by terror.

One of the great advocates of a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship and one of the great advocates of a strong U.S. foreign policy is the gentlelady from Florida, former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Ms. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, to whom I now yield.

I thank the gentlelady.

At this time, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber).

I thank the gentleman for his insight and for his perspective and for his admonition for action.

Mr. Speaker, at this point, I would like to yield to the gentlelady from Indiana (Mrs. Walorski), a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Thank you, Mrs. Walorski.

Mr. Speaker, at this point, I would like to yield to the gentlelady from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann), a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Speaker, we have had a discussion tonight that has been incredibly robust. It has been bipartisan. We have had insight from members of the Intelligence Committee, the Armed Services Committee, Members who have had a long-term interest in Middle Eastern affairs and American military affairs, all of whom, Mr. Speaker, have a clear view of history. A clear view of history says let's look back at past activities as the best indicator of what the future is going to be like.

In summary, Mr. Speaker, what we know is this. That the administration has struck a bad deal, maybe for all the right reasons, but they have struck a bad deal. It is the responsibility of Congress not to put its imprimatur of support on a bad deal, but to act as a coequal branch of government and say, We ought not do this. We have got to recognize the weakness of it. We have got to recognize the long-term consequences of it, and we have got to hold this administration accountable.

I yield back the balance of my time.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of the Special Order today.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the President said something interesting when describing the attempt of his administration to have an impact, and when describing his frustration with the Federal Government, he described it this way. He said, It is cumbersome, complicated, and outdated.

Well, isn't that an interesting revelation?

Isn't that a stark contrast with the private sector?

Wouldn't it have been helpful if the President had recognized that during the entire debate on ObamaCare, because here is the irony, and it is a dark, sad irony, and it is this.

I have a constituent named Diane whose coverage has jumped from $368 a month, and it has almost doubled. She was told her coverage is gone, based on ObamaCare, and she is being migrated into a new system. This is an 11-year breast cancer survivor that liked her coverage and no longer has it.

She doesn't want an administrative remedy. She wants a legislative remedy. She has confidence in this House to get it done, not the White House to get it done.

We need to do this work. We need to pass the Upton bill today.

Mr. Speaker, my constituents are asking a simple question,

and the question they are asking the White House is: Can you hear us now, and do you understand this frustration that we feel?

I have got a constituent, Mr. Speaker, Diane, who got this letter from her insurance, Medicare, with these couple of sentences:

Effective January 1, all plans must be compliant with the

new health care law; therefore, the insurance company plan

you have now will no longer be available after December 31.

What happened to Diane? A plan that she liked, a plan that she was satisfied with as an 11-year cancer survivor, a plan that she could afford now was taken away based on ObamaCare, and she was ``migrated'' into ObamaCare, and her premium was nearly doubling.

What does Diane have to say about President Obama's offer to fix this? She said this:

I want to see legislation passed to fix this problem,

legislation I can trust. I don't want an administrative

trust. I don't trust that to anyone.

We need to fix this. We need to pass this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2769) to impose a moratorium on conferences held by the Internal Revenue Service, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 2769 offers the House an opportunity to go back to our constituents who are asking this question when we are out and about at home: What in the world is the House of Representatives doing about the IRS scandals? There is a series of scandals that we've heard about that we've heard testimony from in both the Ways and Means Committee, on which I and the ranking member serve, and also the Government Oversight Committee--and my suspicion is maybe some other committees of the House. But when our constituents say, What in the world are you doing?, this bill that we are discussing is part of that remedy.

Here is one of the things that we have come to learn, Mr. Speaker:

We've come to learn that the Inspector General, the Treasury Inspector General for tax administration, did an audit; and in the course of the audit discovered that there were funds that were being misused in the context of conferences. Some of them were conferences that looked at, even in the most favorable light, even if you were looking at it in the most favorable light from an IRS point of view, were clearly gratuitous and an abuse and overspending. Some of this had to do with videos that were videos of parodies of the television show ``Star Trek'' and, actually, I think a bunch of nonsense. Some of it had to do with the purchasing of trinkets. Some of it had to do with overspending. So the Inspector General very clearly said, Look, there has to be a remedy here.

What the House is proposing in consideration of this bill is that all of these IRS conferences have to stop--hit the pause button on all of them--until the recommendations of the Inspector General are met. When the Inspector General then reports to Congress that those recommendations that would stop the nonsense have been fulfilled under a new set of criteria, the IRS says that they've met these, the Inspector General certifies it, then the conferences can go on.

I think it's thoughtful. I think it has been approached on a bipartisan basis. I have been very encouraged by the spirit with which the Democrats and Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee have worked together to investigate and inquire of the IRS but not just looking through the rearview mirror. Looking through the rearview mirror, yes, but also saying: What did we learn? How do we prospectively make sure that these things don't happen again?

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I suppose that's an endorsement of the bill. It took a while. The ranking member took us on a journey, and I appreciate the journey, but I think what the ranking member said is that he actually supports H.R. 2769, and I appreciate that. I think one of the things that may have been persuasive to the ranking member, which was persuasive to me, is that part of the report--the summary from the inspector general--in which the inspector general, after reviewing all of this, says that procedures at the time of the conference did not require IRS management to track and report actual conference costs.

In other words, the IRS wasn't holding to a standard that it holds you to, Mr. Speaker, and your constituents or the ranking member's constituents or my constituents, because, when my constituents go to the IRS and when they say, ``Well, I don't have my receipts,'' or ``I don't have `this' or I don't have `that,' '' they get a cold, glassy- eyed stare from the Internal Revenue Service and no mercy from the Internal Revenue Service.

So I am delighted and I am encouraged, and I very much appreciate the ranking member's pointing out the progress that the IRS has made and the other areas where the IRS needs to go. Just let me briefly draw the body's attention to what these nine actual recommendations are. After all, this is not climbing Mount Everest, but they are pretty solid, commonsense recommendations:

It requires the IRS' Chief Financial Officer to verify that appropriate information is being tracked to ensure actual costs of the conferences can be established and audited. That's what I referenced a minute ago;

It implements a policy to determine whether training sessions held at the conference qualify for continuing professional education credits for CPA employees;

It sets standards for the site of a conference. The report recommends against nongovernmental facilities unless the benefits will offset increased expenditures and spending will not be seen as unnecessary by the public;

It implements procedures to identify when nongovernment event planners are used, how much they are paid and how they are being selected;

It directs the Chief Financial Officer to establish standards regarding planning trips for conferences;

It outlines the necessity for produced videos at conferences in response to the claim that the IRS spent over $50,000 on video skits;

It sets standards on whether hotel room upgrades should be allowed;

It requires the submission of W-2 tax forms for local IRS employees who were reimbursed for staying overnight at conferences--just a little irony there if you're tracking with me, Mr. Speaker;

Finally, it recommends that the CFO establish procedures to determine the necessity of an exhibitor's hall, promotional items, and other significant costs.

Common sense. Thoughtful. It's meant to restore the public's confidence in the Internal Revenue Service, and it is my hope that it is widely supported on both sides of the aisle today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I am.

Mr. Speaker, I urge an ``aye'' vote on H.R. 2769, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2768) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to clarify that a duty of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue is to ensure that Internal Revenue Service employees are familiar with and act in accord with certain taxpayer rights, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 2768 is entitled the ``Taxpayer Bill of Rights Act of 2013.'' What it does is address a fundamental question. There was an ambiguity, apparently, Mr. Speaker, in the testimony that you heard in the Ways and Means Committee and that the ranking member heard in the Ways and Means Committee and in some other testimony that we've heard from the other body, which is this: Who is responsible for having an understanding of what's going on at the Internal Revenue Service? Who is responsible for the missteps and the mishaps and so forth?

There was a theme that we heard from a couple of folks who you would have thought would have said that the responsibility was theirs, but they weren't really willing to take the responsibility. Here is what I mean by that. There currently exists 10 enumerated rights in the statute, and let me just quickly run through these. It's important that we look at this as a foundation upon which we have an expectation that the Internal Revenue Service is operating:

Taxpayers have the right to be informed, the right to be assisted, the right to be heard, the right to pay no more than the correct amount of tax, the right of appeal, the right of certainty, the right of privacy, the right of confidentiality, the right to representation, and the right to a fair and just tax system.

That's current law, but here is where parts of things get lost in the shuffle in that, apparently, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service doesn't view that as that person's responsibility to make sure, A, that the Commissioner knows it and, B, that other employees know it.

So what we are doing today, what we are proposing to the House today, is to put this in a place in the statute that unambiguously says that this is the responsibility of the Commissioner's. I alluded to a couple of quotes before, and I want to walk through them with you just briefly and put it in this context:

What we are talking about, Mr. Speaker, are fundamental rights that are foundational and that the Congress has put into the Internal Revenue Code to make sure that taxpayers are protected. This is settled ground. This is common knowledge. This is a general understanding. There is no new ground. Nobody is hunting out ahead of the pack here. This is a very solid doctrine, these 10 enumerated rights.

The former Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Douglas Shulman, said before the Finance Committee in the other body on May 21:

I certainly am not personally responsible for creating a

list that had inappropriate criteria on it. What I know, with

the full facts that are out, is from the inspector general's

report, which doesn't say I'm responsible for that.

With that said, this happened on my watch, and I very much

regret that it happened on my watch.

He also said this:

I had a partial set of facts, and I knew that the inspector

general was going to be looking into it, and I knew that it

was going to be stopped. Sitting there then and sitting here

today, I think I made the right decision, which is to let the

inspector general get to the bottom of it, chase down all the

facts, and then make his findings public.

We heard, in the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Speaker, from the former Acting Commissioner, Steven Miller. He said this:

I think that what happened here was that foolish mistakes

were made by people trying to be more efficient in their

workload selection. The listing described in the report,

while intolerable, was a mistake and was not an act of

partisanship.

Can you imagine how we would all be feeling if somebody came and there was an officer of the law who said, Well, I know I'm supposed to read Miranda rights. I know that's what the law says. I know it's settled doctrine. I know that that's what a defendant expects. But I was busy. I had a heavy workload. So I chose not to Mirandize the defendant. I just figured I didn't have enough time.

There are so many things that are going on in this IRS story, there are so many components and elements of it, much of this is actually things that we have yet to learn. I think we're marveling every day at new facts that are coming out, and I think the House has been very disciplined, frankly, in letting the facts speak for themselves. But there is a fact, and here it is: there is ambiguity about who is in charge at the IRS; there is ambiguity about who is responsible at the IRS. And when the IRS commissioners, both of these recent appointees-- not the current one, but both recent appointees--have the sense of, Well, the responsibility belongs here and the responsibility belongs there, I think it is incumbent on the House to say, No, the responsibility for this lies with the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and that's what the plain language of this bill does.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge an ``aye'' vote on H.R. 2768, and I yield back the balance of my time

I thank the gentleman.

Let's talk about burdens--the burden of listening to the President of the United States, Madam Speaker, on June 7 of this year say that this bill is working the way it's supposed to.

No, it's not.

Then, within the twinkling of an eye, the White House has to say, Oh, it's not working the way it's supposed to. We need to have this delayed for a year.

Let's talk about the burden of signing a tax return form under penalties of perjury and all of that burden that presses down with the force of the law when you make a misrepresentation and when you're trying to follow up on 200 pages of an individual mandate, and people don't know if they're on foot or on horseback on this thing. That's a burden. That's a burden that the country can't sustain, and that's the burden that we can relieve by voting ``aye.''