[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 196 (Wednesday, December 12, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S7456]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             PRIVACY REFORM

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, later 
today the Senate will vote on an attempt by some of our Democratic 
colleagues to undue a pro-privacy reform that Secretary Mnuchin and the 
Treasury Department implemented just a few months ago.
  As I discussed yesterday, there is neither any valid accounting 
reason nor a disclosure reason why the IRS needs access to the donor 
lists of the kinds of tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations in question. 
The Treasury Department has said that ``the IRS simply does not need 
tax returns with donor names and addresses to do its job in this 
area.''
  In a climate that is increasingly hostile to certain kinds of 
political expression and open debate, the last thing Washington needs 
to do is to chill the exercise of free speech and add to the sense of 
intimidation. The Senate should take a stand for America's privacy and 
the First Amendment and reject this misguided resolution.

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