[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13086]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        A TALE OF TWO STANDARDS

  (Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, Tom Brokaw said the targeting 
of 298 conservative groups by the IRS was ``outrageous'' and called for 
a ``complete investigation and thorough housecleaning.'' He said:

       This is not a conservative or liberal issue. It really is 
     about trusting your government.

  Chris Matthews said there was obvious ``profiling'' of conservative 
groups, and said about Lois Lerner pleading the Fifth:

       Why, if you have nothing to hide, why doesn't she sit in 
     that witness stand and answer truthfully?

  Tom Brokaw and Chris Matthews are certainly not political 
conservatives.
  One of the leading Capitol Hill newspapers today asks, ``What about 
the hard drive?'' and says the IRS in Federal court this past Friday 
said Lois Lerner's hard drive was wiped clean by the IRS and sent to an 
outside disposal company to be shredded. There are thousands of missing 
emails which just happen to include those going from the IRS to the 
White House.
  All over this Nation, people have seen that there is one standard for 
ordinary citizens and another for employees of the Internal Revenue 
Service and friends of those in the White House. We need a much 
simpler, fairer tax law, Madam Speaker, that would allow us to do away 
with the politicized IRS altogether.

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