On the recordFebruary 26, 2014
I sincerely have the greatest respect for the good doctor. I think he is a reasonable man and a good person, but when you are explaining, you are losing. I rise in strong opposition to this legislation. After we learned last year about the inexcusable way the IRS evaluated applications for tax-exempt status--because that is what is at the heart of this issue--I was hopeful that we could have a bipartisan response. After all, it was not only conservative groups, as you have heard, that had their applications singled out solely because of words like ``Tea Party.'' No one is denying that. Progressive groups were inappropriately filtered as well. My Democratic colleagues and I were equally outraged by this behavior. We put it on the record. But those hopes faded quickly when it became apparent that my colleagues on the other side weren't actually interested in investigating this wrongdoing and fixing the problems. This bill is just the latest example of how, instead, they are only concerned with scoring cheap political points. Where I am from in Paterson, New Jersey, we would call this Pyrrhic sophistry. That is what we would call it. Empty arguments, deceitful. That is what that means. The examples the Republican leader pointed out could be under section 527. But if you are under 527, you need to disclose where the money came from. So you choose not to be under section 527 of the Tax Code. You would rather be in another section. And what is that other section?…
