Political Quotes

“this is what happens at the end of a session when things go bump in the night and on your desk you find a stack like this. I am a member of the Appropriations Committee. A lot of work has gone into this, but by waiting until the end of the session to put all of this in front of Members of Congress, it becomes literally impossible for us to meet our responsibility to say to the voters we represent that we know what is here; it is good for America, and we are voting for it. You have to operate on faith. That faith is shaken if not destroyed when something comes through like this. If there is anything we are supposed to respect in this country, it is the right of privacy, particularly when it comes to Government records. To slip in this section 222 in the Treasury appropriation, and give to certain Members of Congress and their staff access to individual income tax returns which they can order up from the Internal Revenue Service and then use the contents with impunity, in other words, without any threat of civil or criminal prosecution if they disclose them, is to create a situation which, frankly, is beyond description.”