Mark Meadows

We must also understand that Congress has a certain intent on how those are to be used

The intent of Congress was not for a dollar of Title 23 money to be able to qualify them for a PAB

I'm the most conservative on private property rights of anybody on this dais, I promise you being from Western North Carolina.

I do believe that if Congress had intended to provide private activity bonds for a passenger train traveling 80 to 110 miles per hour, as Brightline does, then Congress would have laid that out.

Some of my colleagues, including Congressman Mast, have raised these concerns related to the eligibility of a private sector entity like Brightline to receive Federal assistance.

If you're asking this county and more specifically their taxpayers to fund the maintenance of railroad crossing in perpetuity and they don't benefit, it has to be at least a cost consideration for this project.

I'm all about commerce, and I realize that it is always in somebody's backyard, so I don't know that I have a whole lot of sympathy about it not being in my backyard.

I have a real concern that the intent of Congress is being overwritten with the private activity bond measure here.

Would you agree that this does not qualify under number 11 on the statute 26 U.S.C. Code. It is not a high-speed rail project. Is that correct?

I guess this is, what, the 40th anniversary of your authorization, but also the 40th anniversary of civil service initiatives that, quite frankly, sometimes hamper and hurt your ability to get jobs done...

If CEOs would only go into their own phone system, they would change it immediately.

I found the vast majority, in fact, the overwhelming majority of them want to just serve this country and do their job.

I want to thank my vice-chair for his eloquent opening remarks and questioning and pitch hitting.

This committee is committed to addressing this issue and working with the executive branch to do so and with our friends at GAO to develop methodologies to better capture the nature of the problem.

We have heard testimony here. No one has said there is massive individual fraud going on because people are gaming the system in terms of their income, reported income.

What I need from you is really a plan, and I will give you, is 45 days enough to come up with a plan on how we can date specific look at how you are going to implement and improve that quality.

If you could do that from an intellectual standpoint. Are you willing to do that and get to the committee?

I concur with the ranking member, and so I would ask within 60 days if you can come back to this committee with a plan to do that.

Collect it. I mean, it is the American taxpayers' dollars.

And so, at times where sometimes one program looks ideologically to be aligned more with one side than the other, I can assure you in a bipartisan manner, we are willing to tackle those.

And I for one would be willing to commit that every one of those dollars we, in fact, recover I would devote to debt reduction because they are dollars we do not have now.

If the IRS is able to do rules and regulations at the pace of 9 to 10 rules a day, and our action, under the Congressional Review Act, would require a laborious month, two month, three month process to overturn that, do you see how…

There is no statute, so there is no law that would suggest that the IRS guidance should be treated differently than other agencies, is that correct?

Agencies have become increasingly noncompliant with the Congressional Review Act.

Only Congress can legislate and agencies cannot issue regulations unilaterally.