Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, first, let me thank my good friend, my colleague from Illinois (Mr. Roskam), for his good work on this issue. Tenacity does pay off. The gentleman has really kept his nose to the grindstone on this. Now, I don't want the gentleman to get a bad reputation for working with me on so many issues. I just want to point that out for the record. Today is a good day for American taxpayers as, hopefully, the House of Representatives will soon pass the Clyde-Hirsch-Sowers RESPECT Act to enact vital reforms to the Federal Government's civil asset forfeiture process. Civil asset forfeiture is an important tool for the IRS and for other Federal agencies. They use it to go after ill-gotten funds from drug dealers, human traffickers, terrorists, and other criminals. This bill will not weaken that vital law enforcement tool one bit. But this legislation will codify into law much-needed reforms to the process to stop abusive asset forfeitures--abusive seizures such as the ability of the government to take a person's bank account without ever charging them with a crime. The Oversight Subcommittee on the Ways and Means Committee, under the guidance of our chairman, Mr. Roskam, undertook a painstaking 17-month investigation. I think this is a good example of the committee process and how we can work functionally, unlike what we have seen in other committees here in the House.…”