[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 74 (Friday, May 25, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H2720-H2721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                AMERICANS AFRAID OF THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the minority leader and 
his young floor man, Dan, who does a fine job and a fair job, for 
giving me this opportunity to speak. Many of the American people know 
that I go without a committee, but I am a Democrat.
  I want to talk about several issues here today that I think are very 
important. I very seldom take a special order, but while the Congress 
is involved in negotiations on an important bill affecting the lives of 
many people, I decided to take this time.
  I heard my very good friend the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), 
a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, talking about the energy 
problem, and I could not agree with him more. His wisdom and wisdom 
like that is needed in this Congress. But I also have a different view 
that goes a little further.
  I have a bill in that says that if there is price gouging in America, 
there should be a $100 million fine for any company that gouges 
American consumers of petroleum products. Mobil merged with Exxon; BP 
with Amoco. Competition is down. I think they are gouging us, and I 
think a $100 million fine for anybody artificially raising prices, 9 
cents more on the weekend, come on. They get hit once in the 
pocketbook, and it is all over.
  Another thing before I move off that energy issue, I think it is time 
to tell these monarchs and dictators who control oil overseas that next 
time they are attacked by Saddam Hussein, call the Welcome Wagon, 
because Uncle Sam is not going to show up, and we will see those prices 
go down.
  But I am here today to talk about a serious problem in America, a 
dangerous problem, one that I have seen. Many Americans see it and feel 
it and may not realize it or come to speak about it, or maybe just 
whisper it. Many Americans are afraid of their government. They look at 
the government as a separate entity, the people and the government. It 
was not designed to be that way. I personally believe the psychology of 
this change occurred in 1963 with the assassination of President 
Kennedy. If you believe what the government has told us about that, you 
believe in the tooth fairy.
  But I want to get down now to some specifics that bother me. Before a 
subcommittee of the Committee on Government Reform of the United States 
House of Representatives, the people's House, testimony just brought 
out that four men 30-some years ago were convicted for murder. They 
were sentenced to life imprisonment. Two of those four convicted 
murderers, supposedly, died in prison. The other two, Salvadi and 
Limone, were recently released, because the FBI finally admitted they 
had exculpatory evidence that Salvadi and Limone were not the killers, 
and they protected their valuable informants who did the killing.
  When the FBI agent was asked if he had any remorse, his answer was, 
``What do you expect, tears?'' Thirty years, ladies and gentlemen, for 
a murder they did not commit.
  Now, let us look at FBI agent Hanssen; 15 years selling our secrets 
to the Russians. Do you honestly believe he could do that in the 
structure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation with no one else 
knowing it? Come on now.
  Now, how about the case in Boston, Massachusetts, where the FBI 
agent-in-charge has now been indicted? He has been indicted for 
overlooking murder on behalf of his informants. And guess what the FBI 
agent-in-charge said? ``I was told by my superiors to lie.''

  Now let us take a look at Waco, David Koresh. They could have 
arrested him any morning out jogging, but they wanted a sensational 
bust. Eighty-some Americans killed. Tanks. Thirty children. They could 
have arrested him any morning. They wanted a sensational case; they now 
have sensational headaches.
  But how about Randy Weaver and his family? I did not agree with his 
politics. He was a white separatist. But his 14-year-old boy was shot 
and killed by Federal agents. His wife, holding her infant child, 
standing in the doorway, horrified over the scene she was witnessing, 
was shot by one of the FBI's best sharpshooters. Put your finger right 
between your eyes above your nose. And the court ruled accidental 
shooting. Why, then, did American taxpayers give $5 million to Randy 
Weaver? Was it for justice, or to shut him up?
  But now I take you to northeast Ohio. I am the Member that is under 
indictment, the only American in history to have beaten the Justice 
Department in a RICO case, pro se, without being an attorney, through a 
full jury trial. Experts say my chances are 1 in 5 million. Well, there 
are 275 million Americans. That means I am one of about 55 Americans 
that have a shot. I am going to take that shot.
  Now, here is why: In the early eighties, a man named Charles 
Carabbia, an underworld figure, was killed in Youngstown, Ohio. 
Subsequent to that, the FBI said the second most important Mafia 
informant since Valachi, a man named Angelo Lonardo, gave the 
government, the FBI, information in 1984, and then gave this same 
testimony to a Senate subcommittee of the United States Senate.
  Angela Lonardo, the underboss of Cleveland, was credited with helping 
to take down the Mafia in Kansas City and in New Orleans. But listen to 
what he told the U.S. Senate in 1987, and that he had told the FBI in 
1984.
  He said two underworld figures by the name of Joseph Naples and James 
Prato came to him in the early eighties and asked permission to kill 
Charles Carabbia. He and his boss met with them personally and they 
said no, work it out. He later testified they come back and said they 
met with the Pittsburgh Mafia and the Pittsburgh Mafia wants Mr. 
Carabbia killed. They said no, work it out.
  Then Mr. Lonardo, not through Mr. Jones getting information, Mr. 
Lonardo testified that he heard that Mr. Carabbia was missing and 
feared murdered. He said several weeks later he got a call from Mr. 
Prato and Mr. Naples, and Mr. Prato and Mr. Naples met with Mr. Lonardo 
and his boss, Mr. Licavoli, in a restaurant outside of Cleveland, and 
said, ``We killed Charles Carabbia, and we apologize for leaving his 
car in the Cleveland area.''
  Ladies and gentlemen on the House floor, there was no grand jury 
investigation into the murder of Charles Carabbia. Joseph Naples was 
murdered in the early nineties by a mob rival and James Prato died of 
old age, and now affidavits and documents reveal the Youngstown office 
of the FBI was on the payroll of the mob, Naples and Prato. Documents 
also show that Assistant U.S. Attorneys were on the payroll of the mob 
in Cleveland, Ohio.
  What has happened to our country here? How did the FBI, the IRS, the 
EPA, get so strong that we fear them? Who elected them? It is up to 
Congress to take our country back, so help me God. But there are 
several things that I have done since my first trial.
  So the bottom line is, maybe the government can notify you, and by 
that I mean the real government, the middle management bureaucrats that 
are not elected, and if they do not like a Member of Congress, they 
will go after them. Think about that.
  But, you see, since those incidents I have tried to crack down on 
some of the power. Since being in Congress, I passed four specific laws 
to deal with the IRS.
  The first one said they have to treat us courteously across cultural 
lines. They have a training program with their agents about taxpayers' 
rights. They oppose that. They oppose that. We finally passed it. After 
I threatened a bill and killed a Treasury appropriations bill, they 
came to me and said, ``We will build you a courthouse if you do not do 
that anymore.'' I said, ``Go right ahead, but put my language in the 
next bill,'' and they did. Now they have to have a training program.
  The next year I came back and said, what good is a training program 
if they

[[Page H2721]]

abuse us? So I was able to pass a little law that said if the IRS 
abuses you, you can sue them for $1 million. Shirley Barrons of Derry, 
New Hampshire, was the first to be successful. The IRS settled out of 
court for half a million dollars. Did you ever hear of that?
  One of the main reasons I voted for Mr. Hastert, which caused the 
problems on my side of the aisle, was the Democrat Party would not even 
have a hearing on a Traficant bill that dealt with important IRS 
matters.
  Before 1997 you were guilty and had to prove yourself innocent in a 
civil tax case. Most tax cases are civil. If it is crime or fraud, the 
IRS has the burden, but that is in very few cases. They are usually 
civil and the burden of proof was on the taxpayer.

  The Traficant bill said, look, the IRS comes out to audit you, and 
you cooperate and they are not satisfied. They decide to litigate. The 
burden of proof transfers to the Secretary of the Treasury and the IRS. 
They should have the burden.
  The second provision said they can no longer from a back room decide 
to take your home, they had to have judicial consent. I want to give 
credit on the floor to Mr. Bill Archer, no longer here, former 
Republican Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, who called me.
  My language was not in the original IRS reform bill in 1998 because 
it was going to be vetoed. It was too strong. Mr. Archer, the gentleman 
from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan), 
the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Chabot), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney), and the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. LaTourette), they helped get the Traficant language in.
  I want to give you the statistics. The bill was passed in 1998. 
Comparing 1997 to 1999 figures, wage attachments, 1997, 3.1 million; 
1999, 540,000. Property liens, 1997, 680,000; 1999, 161,000. But, 
listen to this: ``Life, liberty and the pursuit of property.'' That was 
the language, the original founding fathers' language. The last change 
to one of our great documents was ``life, liberty and pursuit of 
happiness.'' That is how important property was. Property seizures, 
1997, 10,037; 1999, 151.
  When they needed judicial consent and had to prove it, they could not 
take our homes. They were stealing our homes. What is wrong with us, 
America?
  So it is time now for some additional reforms. There are two of them. 
The major reform bill that I have before the Congress now is known as 
the Fair Justice Act. It requires the President nominate for a 10-year 
term a Director of the Fair Justice Agency, who must be confirmed by 
the Senate, with one exclusive role, to investigate and prosecute 
wrongdoing and crime in the Justice Department.
  Madam Speaker, they investigate themselves. The fox in the hen house 
investigates the fox that raided the hen house. Do you really believe 
that jury in Waco got the true facts?
  We spent $40 million on Monica. Now, look, the President may have 
been a threat to chastity, but he was not a threat to liberty. And we 
did not spend one dime on China. China, who has taken $100 billion of 
trade surplus out of America, buying nuclear attack submarines, 
intercontinental ballistic missiles, and have announced they have aimed 
them at us. We are financing World War III, and there was no 
investigation whether a Red Chinese general gave money to the 
Democratic National Committee. Shame, shame.
  Lastly, dealing with the IRS, listen carefully. The gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Collins) touched on it. We need a flat tax in America. But 
why should it be an income tax? A recent study from Harvard said 24 
percent of the cost of an American-made automobile is the Tax Code, and 
when it is shipped overseas it gets hit with a value added tax. Is it 
any wonder we do not export any cars? Thirty-three percent of the cost 
of a loaf of bread is the Tax Code.

                              {time}  1100

  I think, hey, you do not have to be a rocket scientist here. The 
Tauzin-Traficant 15 percent national retail sales tax will be 
introduced as soon as this tax bill is completed now before the 
Congress.
  I am going to vote for those tax cuts.
  Here is how the Tauzin-Traficant bill works: No more income tax, no 
more withholding, no more capital gains tax, no more inheritance tax, 
no more tax on savings, no more tax on education, no more tax on 
investment, and the IRS is abolished. Nothing personal here.
  Forty-five States already collect a State sales tax. They get one 
penny per dollar to collect the tax. The companies who do the selling 
get half a penny for their paperwork. We get 98.5 cents. You will be 
surprised to find out that 90 percent of all retail sales are conducted 
by less than 9 percent of American retailers.
  Madam Speaker, what do we need the IRS for? How can there be freedom 
in America if you have to look through the Tax Code to see if you 
should buy a car this year or sell your apartment this year? Why should 
we have to look into a Tax Code to see if we can give our property to 
our kids? What is wrong? What happened to America? What has happened 
here? Something is very wrong.


        Memorial Day, A Special Thanks to World War II Veterans

  Mr. TRAFICANT. Now we come to Memorial Day, and I want to thank all 
of the veterans. I recently spoke on the construction of the World War 
II Monument on the Mall; certainly hallowed ground indeed. Washington, 
Jefferson, think about it. Founders. Lincoln preserved America. All our 
veterans are special, but the generation of World War II, those who 
died and those who still live, they not only saved America, they saved 
the entire world. It is right and fitting that that monument be built 
on the mall.
  Thank a veteran. I thank all veterans for preserving our freedom. I 
say this to all veterans, you have won the wars but, by God, the 
politicians have lost the peace.
  It is time to bring our country back to the people. I have confidence 
in this Congress. I have confidence in Speaker Hastert. IRS reform is 
important, welfare reform. Now it is time to reform the powerful 
Justice Department and now it is time to put the people in our 
government back together.
  People should not be afraid of the government. We are the government.
  I want to thank the Democrat leadership for allowing me this time, 
and I appreciate some of the things that they have done recently to 
promote involvement in school construction and other actions in 
education.

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