Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louisiana for yielding and for his leadership on holding the IRS accountable.

Mr. Speaker, we should not stand by and let the IRS target American citizens based on their political beliefs, and yet, that is what has been going on. It has been uncovered.

The President tries to act like it is some isolated incident, and yet, of course, we have got all kind of testimony that shows this goes way beyond some local office. This is widespread abuse of power by the Internal Revenue Service, and what we are seeing now, with this latest proposed rule, is literally something that would try to shut down an entire segment of American people who want to participate in the democratic process, Mr. Speaker.

The IRS should not be able to go and target people based on their political views, and yet that is what is happening, and President Obama is encouraging this kind of activity where you, literally, have the White House using enemy lists to go after people with groups like the IRS.

We have seen it with the EPA. We have seen it with the NLRB and the entire alphabet soup of Federal agencies that seems to want to go after people that might say something, exercising their First Amendment rights, that the White House disagrees with.

That is not how America works. That is not what this great country is built upon, Mr. Speaker.

If the President doesn't like the political views of somebody, that is what the great discourse of this country is all about. That is what makes our country so great, that we can disagree. We can exercise those great rights that the Founding Fathers put in place and that was later established in the Bill of Rights, the first of those Bill of Rights being the First Amendment, encouraging free speech. It is what makes us strong as a Nation.

Yet here comes the IRS trying to shut down, use the heavy hammer of their power to try to shut down political speech of people who disagree with them.

It is not going to work, Mr. Speaker. We are not going to stand for it here in this House. I commend my colleague for bringing the legislation, which I am proud to cosponsor. Over 94,000 Americans have already weighed in on this as well, signing letters and inputting public comment, including 70 members of the Republican Study Committee who have chimed in.

We are not going to stand for this. This will be a bipartisan vote in support of this legislation to stop the abuse of the IRS.

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