[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 185 (Thursday, October 21, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H5769]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             BIDEN'S BANK SURVEILLANCE SCHEME IS POWER GRAB

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the Biden proposed surveillance scheme is 
an ill-advised power grab, which is turning trusted local financial 
institutions into IRS reporting agents infringing upon the privacy of 
everyday Americans.
  The IRS already knows how much you earn. Now they want to know 
exactly how you spend it. This is a total breach of personal financial 
privacy with a presumption of guilt that I am not okay with.
  How can we expect our citizens to place trust in their government 
when their government is keeping tabs on their every single 
transaction?
  A lot of people wonder how people come to Congress and become 
millionaires while they are serving in Congress.
  This is just another push by the government to exercise control over 
our everyday lives. It is also a disincentive for people to save and 
keep money in banks and credit unions because they don't want to have 
every single thing tracked. Do we want to have our savings kept in 
coffee cans or mattresses? That is a pretty bad way to go.
  Whether it is $600 per transaction or up to $10,000 per year 
cumulative, it is an invasion of privacy. We don't need another 80,000 
IRS agents tracking us when we have a border that is like a sieve and 
other problems of much greater magnitude than what you or I are saving 
or spending our personal wealth on.
  It is a wrongheaded policy. The Biden administration and this House 
needs to take back such ideas.

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