Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2017
Floor Speech
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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chair, I rise to offer a commonsense amendment with the intent of prohibiting the use of funds in this act to pay a performance award to any senior executive employee within the IRS.
Under the direction of Commissioner John Koskinen, IRS officials have led a coordinated effort to hide the truth about this IRS' targeting of innocent Americans based on their political beliefs. Rather than cleaning up this rogue agency, Koskinen has doubled down on the agency's lawlessness and political culture.
On Koskinen's watch, the IRS intentionally destroyed nearly 24,000 emails from Lois Lerner and failed to comply with a congressional subpoena. To make matters worse, Commissioner Koskinen made a series of false and misleading statements under oath to Congress at multiple committee hearings on this matter.
Koskinen said in March of 2014 that the IRS had turned over all of Lerner's emails and all requested information; yet the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration uncovered more than 1,000 emails that the IRS tried to hide.
The recent transgressions perpetrated by this agency are not only disgraceful, they border on corrupt. The trust Americans once had has been utterly destroyed.
In July 2013, Danny Werfel, Acting Commissioner of the IRS, sought to eliminate bonuses for union employees and senior executives within the agency, sending an email to employees which stated: ``I do not believe there should be performance awards this year for IRS employees, managers, or executives.''
Unfortunately, Koskinen chose to ignore Werfel's attempts to restore trust within the agency. In February of 2014, Koskinen announced his decision to pay out bonuses to senior IRS bureaucrats in order to improve ``employee morale.''
In April 2014, the Treasury inspector general reported that more than 1,100 IRS employees with delinquent tax returns received bonuses of more than a million dollars. That same investigation found: ``2,800 IRS employees facing disciplinary actions received more than $2.8 million in monetary bonuses.''
The Office of Personnel Management reported that in fiscal year 2014 alone, 61.5 percent of all senior executives within the Treasury Department received performance awards.
Lawlessness within this agency should not be rewarded. This amendment seeks to effectuate a policy of accountability and change the corrupt culture of this agency by prohibiting bonuses and performance awards for Senior Executives Service employees within the IRS.
It is unconscionable that Lois Lerner and other dishonest senior officials within the IRS have received more than $100,000 in bonuses in recent years. Committing perjury, purposely disposing of hard drives and more than 2,400 emails in order to stymie an investigation, and providing an extremely poor level of service to taxpayers doesn't warrant a bonus of even a penny, in my mind.
Fifty-seven Democrats joined every single Republican in seeking to prevent senior bureaucrats within the IRS from collecting these lavish bonuses in the fiscal year 2015 by voting in favor of my amendment that passed the House with strong bipartisan support.
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste supports this amendment and FreedomWorks is key voting in favor of this amendment.
Once the IRS can prove that it will hold rogue employees accountable for their ineptitude, I will cease my efforts to prohibit these awards.
Again, I thank the chairman and ranking member for their continued work on the committee.
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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chair, let me now ask the gentleman from New York a question.
I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) to respond.
If you disagree with my amendment and feel that it will have unintended consequences, name the agencies in the bill that you think should be allowed to dole out lavish bonuses to their senior executives.
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Mr. GOSAR. Reclaiming my time, if the gentleman from New York can't give an answer--
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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chair, reclaiming my time, I think most hardworking Americans would agree that the senior bureaucrats with the Customer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and the Federal Communications Commission should not be receiving lavish bonuses when we are $19 trillion in the hole.
As I mentioned at the outset, the intent of this amendment is to prohibit the use of funds in this act to pay a performance award to any senior executive employee within the IRS. When the staff realized the actual language in the amendment could be more far reaching than intended, we attempted to work with the committee to correct this occurrence.
One thing that this House agrees on is that senior executives within IRS should not be collecting bonuses, and this amendment prohibits exactly that occurrence.
I urge adoption of this amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise today to offer a commonsense amendment. The Gosar-Bridenstine- Duncan-Gohmert-Huelskamp-Jones-Barletta-Brat-Brooks-Black amendment prohibits funds within this act from being used in contravention of Federal immigration law for sanctuary city policies.
The concept of sanctuary city policies is in direct opposition to the rule of law and our Constitution. Article I, section 8, clause 4 gives Congress clear jurisdiction on immigration matters.
A nation of laws must enforce established law, not seek ways to skirt around it. Sanctuary cities defy Federal immigration statutes by harboring untold numbers of illegal immigrants and providing safe havens for criminals, many of whom are violent offenders.
Our amendment prohibits the use of funds which are appropriated by this act from being used in contravention of section 642(a) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. This Federal law prohibits sanctuary policies that prevent or obstruct government and law enforcement officials from sharing information regarding a person's immigration status with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Despite being the law of the land, more than 200 State and municipal jurisdictions across the country have established policies that directly violate the law and shield criminal illegal aliens from enforcement. The shocking case of Kate Steinle in San Francisco in 2015 revealed the danger sanctuary cities pose to our Republic.
Just over a year ago, on July 1, 2015, Steinle was shot and killed by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times. San Francisco authorities were asked to detain Sanchez until he could be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. The city declined and held Sanchez in jail for less than a month on a 20-year-old drug charge before releasing him on April 15, 2015, less that 2 months before he killed Steinle.
Sadly, Kate's tragic murder is not alone. Between 2010 and 2014, criminal aliens who were released by DHS went on to commit 124 homicide-related offenses across the country.
Let's not forget the many others who have been killed by criminal aliens: Jerry Braswell, Sr., and Jerry Braswell, Jr., of North Carolina; Dani Countryman of Oregon; Chandra Levy of Washington, D.C.; the Gonzalez family of Texas; Kevin Will of Texas; Christopher ``Buddy'' Rowe of California; Jamiel Shaw of California; Alvert John Mike of Utah; and Grant Ronnebeck of Arizona and countless others.
These brutal murders have called attention to the dangers sanctuary city policies pose to the safety and security of the American people. The Federation for American Immigration Reform supports this amendment stating: ``Gosar amendment 31 addresses a critical public safety problem and sends a clear message to sanctuary city jurisdictions that their dangerous policies are unacceptable.''
NumbersUSA is key voting in support of this amendment and has stated: ``The Gosar Amendment is a targeted approach to sanctuary policies.''
I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Black).
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