Further Continuing Appropriations, Fiscal Year 2005
Mr. Speaker, we actually had quite a week last week. The 9/11 conference came back with a bipartisan solution with the two Senators and obviously the two House Members, both Democrats and Republicans agreeing; and it was not brought to the…
Mr. Speaker, we actually had quite a week last week. The 9/11 conference came back with a bipartisan solution with the two Senators and obviously the two House Members, both Democrats and Republicans agreeing; and it was not brought to the floor because even though the President and Vice President supported the legislation, at the same time the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he was against it. We do not know why it did not come up, but hopefully we get some action on this.
Secondly, the Republican conference had a meeting, and they reversed 11 years of a rule that now will allow an indicted felon who is in the leadership to continue on in the leadership and not have to step aside until the matter is resolved.
Lastly, obviously, by having a bill come up, $388 billion, over 3,000 pages, and having language that basically will allow any staffer that is assigned by the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations to look at anyone's tax return. Let me tell Members what this really is all about. Talking about a tax return, if in fact that law went into place, and in spite of the little colloquy the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) had, that was irrelevant because the language of the law speaks for itself. This would have been in the law if not for the fact that Mr. Conrad caught it.
That would allow a staffer to go to the IRS in an open meeting and ask for a specific return from any individual in this room or anywhere else and open up that return, display it, give it to the national newspapers, do whatever that person wanted with it and not suffer any consequences.
The reason we actually had to tighten the law was because in the 1970s when Watergate occurred, when we had the enemies list, when we had the plumbers and all of those things going on, the wiretaps, people were allowed to go to the Internal Revenue Service and ask for returns of individual members. It was not until the mid-1970s when we tightened it up.
Perhaps members of the Committee on Ways and Means, or their designees, particularly the chairman of the committee, can in fact obtain tax returns of companies, corporations, and obviously individuals. But before that happens, one has to have an executive session so it has to be properly noticed. Executive session, as my colleagues know, is a closed session. If any of the information in those documents should be released to the press or to the public or to anyone else, it is a felony offense with up to 5 years in prison, $5,000 fine, and other sanctions. That was as a direct result of Watergate.
Here now in the dark of night without any notice a provision was slipped into this bill, a $388 billion bill, to basically allow staffers to look at anyone's return without any criminal sanctions.
I have to say, I know there is a discussion about what happened, why it happened and what was the purpose of it; but what is really troubling to me, I do not believe an IRS agent or one of the IRS employees wrote this provision. Had they been asked to write the provision, they would have based it upon how the Committee on Ways and Means would obtain that information. They would not have written it so broadly. One of the most important things an IRS employee will tell you is they protect tax returns of individuals, companies, and nonprofit corporations. So there was more to this.
I have to say in conclusion here, the real problem I see is the fact that as long as we are not given notice, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) says, as long as there is not a give and take, this problem is going to come up more and more. We ought to be happy that the other body saved us from a massive embarrassment, because the reality is had this become law, there would have been some time over the next few years when someone would have abused that process and someone's returns would have been disclosed to the press.