On the recordSeptember 5, 2017
Before I introduce the primary cosponsor of this legislation, I want to respond to something the previous speaker said. Commissioner Koskinen said a number of times in testimony before the Ways and Means Committee that he doesn't write the law. That is the question that is in front of us at this moment. He says that the IRS follows the law, which we expect agencies to do at the behest of those who are duly elected. So in this instance, I would suggest that while we don't like what the IRS has done in these particular examples that have been correctly cited by both sides, we also have the obligation to alter, change, or amend the law so that this doesn't happen to the innocent going forward. {time} 1715 So this was not simply about the Commissioner or IRS agents waking up one day and saying: What kind of havoc and peril can we create today? It was instead the prescription for law that we have offered to them. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), who is a primary cosponsor of this.
