[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 7391-7392]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IRS SCANDAL

  Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, I am very much appreciative of the 
Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Nevada having this very 
important discussion.
  Washington tends to operate inside a bubble where one can easily 
forget just how much Main Street America is hurting economically, how 
many Americans feel their rights are being threatened, and how many 
fear we are not going to leave behind a better country for our 
children.
  That is why it is so important we stay connected to our constituents. 
It is why I travel home almost every weekend, hold telephone and online 
townhalls from my Washington office, and try to read my mail, which is 
so very important.
  In a recent townhall I answered some difficult questions on the 
issues we are facing as a nation. However, one of the toughest 
questions that was posed was not about a specific policy issue. 
Instead, it was when I was asked: How do we fix the mess in Washington?
  I answered, in part, that transparency and accountability would go a 
long way to restoring faith in Washington. That was before the Benghazi 
controversy escalated. Then news of the IRS scandal broke. Almost 
immediately after that we learned the Department of Justice had 
obtained the private phone records of dozens of Associated Press 
reporters.
  This is the opposite of what we need to do to fix the problems in 
Washington. These scandals move us in the wrong direction.

[[Page 7392]]

  It is hard to pick which one of these I find the most troubling, but 
I want to focus on the IRS scandal because targeting political groups, 
singling them out for additional scrutiny simply because you disagree 
with their ideological views is wrong on every level.
  Dismissing this massive overreach as if it is just the acts of a few 
rogue agents in Cincinnati, as some have tried to do since the onset, 
is not taking leadership nor is it seeking to hold the agency 
accountable.
  We now know the Acting IRS Commissioner knew of these abuses for at 
least a year, and officials at Treasury and as high up as the Chief of 
Staff at the White House were briefed before the leak despite the 
repeated claims that the administration learned about it through news 
reports.
  We know it was not just Cincinnati. IRS officials at the agency's 
Washington headquarters also sent queries to conservative groups asking 
about their donors, and progressive groups, who operated the same way, 
were not subjected to this type of harassment.
  On top of all this there is real concern that IRS officials may have 
lied to Congress in an effort to cover up the agency's misdeeds. 
Yesterday before the Finance Committee the former head of the agency 
who was in charge at the time of these abuses claimed this was not 
``politically motivated,'' while at the same time he said he did not 
know how the targeting happened.
  Along with this impressive double-talk, he refused to apologize for 
the abuses that went on under his watch.
  Somebody has to be accountable. This is not a time for excuses; it is 
a time for leadership. The President needs to fully cooperate with the 
congressional investigations into the IRS scandal.
  Last week, our entire caucus sent a letter to the White House that 
demands at least this much from the administration. Washington's 
credibility--what is left of it--is on the line. The American people 
deserve to know what actions will be taken to ensure those who made 
these decisions at the IRS will be held accountable.
  The good news is people on both sides of the aisle--Republicans and 
Democrats--are rightfully outraged. We are going to get to the bottom 
of this. People will be held accountable. At the very least those 
engaging in these unethical actions need to be fired. If they broke the 
law, they need to be prosecuted.
  This scandal gives the already maligned IRS a black eye. It 
reinforces people's worst fears about Washington--that those in power 
will use any means necessary to maintain that power.
  Keep in mind this agency will be responsible for implementing and 
enforcing key provisions of the President's health care law, a law that 
a majority of Arkansans do not support. If these types of abuses are 
allowed to go unchecked, what kind of bullying will go on when that 
implementation begins, especially in light of the fact that the 
official who was in charge of the unit that targeted conservative 
groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care law?
  Everyone needs to be treated fairly under the law. Clearly, there are 
employees at the IRS who do not subscribe to this principle. There must 
be zero tolerance for the actions of those individuals.
  Until we change the culture in Washington, we will not gain the 
confidence of the American people. The onus is on us. Washington as a 
whole--the White House, Congress, and every civil servant--has to 
remember whom we work for and to whom we are accountable. The actions 
of the IRS, along with the other scandals plaguing DC, only move us 
further from the goalpost, not closer.
  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from Nebraska.

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