On the recordMay 23, 2013
Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in condemning the Internal Revenue Service for intentionally singling out dozens of nonprofit organizations for no cause other than their political leanings. This is not an issue of Democrat versus Republican. Indeed, the actions of the IRS have brought rare bipartisan accord. There are lessons for us all in this scandal. One is that a government that is too big, too powerful, and too all- encompassing is prone to overstep its bounds. It becomes unwieldy and inefficient. And sometimes, it tramples upon the rights of the people it is supposed to serve. We have seen those maxims in action over these last few weeks. We have an IRS that targeted groups of American citizens, threatening them with the force of law and imprisonment, for no other reason than they had certain political affiliations. We know now the IRS selected these groups by zeroing in on certain words and phrases. And what were these words and phrases that elicited such concern in the halls of the Internal Revenue Service? Words like ``patriot'' and ``we the people.'' It seems to me that we can draw only one of two conclusions from the actions of the IRS. Either some in the administration intentionally attempted to use the power of the Federal Government to target and cripple their political enemies, or they lack the competence to oversee a bureaucracy that has grown too big not to fail. One thing is for sure, though.…





