Ander Crenshaw

Mr. CRENSHAW

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to present to the House the fiscal year 2015 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill. This subcommittee has jurisdiction over a great number of programs and activities, including the Federal Judiciary; the Treasury, which includes the IRS; the Federal Trade Commission; the Federal Communications Commission; the Small Business Administration; and several other activities. All the agencies under this subcommittee's jurisdiction play an important role in the functioning of the Federal Government, and I think it is appropriate that all the Members of the House have a chance to offer germane amendments that impact the funding that is provided in this bill. The bill that we are considering today provides $21.3 billion in discretionary funding, which is $566 million, or 2.6 percent less than last year, and $2.3 billion, or 9.6 percent less than the request. The subcommittee's allocation has been reduced, but it is one that is necessary to live within the confines of the budget agreement that was put together under the Ryan-Murray agreement. The allocation is sufficient to fund priority programs while reducing some of the programs that are not essential to the operation of the Federal Government or have a history of wasting taxpayer resources. One of the main provisions of this bill is funding for law enforcement. The bill provides increased funding over fiscal year 2014 for several law enforcement activities. The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program receives a $6.5 million increase. The Drug-Free Communities program receives a $3 million increase, and the Treasury's terrorism and financial intelligence activities--they are the ones who develop and enforce sanctions--receive an $18 million increase. In addition, we have ample funding for the operations of the Federal judiciary and the D.C. Courts. We also have money for the supervision of offenders and defendants who are living in our communities. Another priority for the bill is supporting small businesses and assisting in private sector job creation. This bill provides $195 million for the Small Business Administration's business loan programs, and that supports $18.5 billion of lending under a program called 7(a), and it supports $7.5 billion under 504 lending. This bill also provides increases over the current year for the Small Business Development Centers. It provides increases for the Women's Business Centers and for the Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund program. In addition, this bill asks several of the regulatory agencies to report to this committee and to tell us how they are doing as they attempt to eliminate some of the burdensome, duplicative, and just plain unnecessary regulations. In order to live within our allocation, we had to reduce funding in some areas. We actually eliminate funding for nine different programs, including the Christopher Columbus Foundation and the Election Assistance Commission. Those are activities that we feel are no longer necessary or are certainly not vital to the operation of the Federal Government. We further reduce funding for more than a dozen agencies and programs that, in our opinion, can operate on a little bit less, like the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission. For the GSA, we reduce their funding for the Federal buildings fund by $240 million. We continue to require them to regularly report to us on their spending and on the state of their building portfolio. The bill provides the GSA with enough funds to operate their current building inventory, and it provides new funding for three land port of entry construction projects. We also continue to push the GSA to reduce their surplus and vacant space. We designate some funding to help them consolidate their projects and dispose of some of the projects, but we make sure that they do that only if there are going to be savings in the long run. In an effort to increase transparency and accountability, we make the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB, subject to the annual appropriations process of this Congress. When Dodd-Frank set that agency up, they purposefully left it without any oversight from this Congress. We think that is not the best way to go. We think that that is an agency that ought to report to us what they are doing, how they are doing it, and how much money they are spending, and this bill will correct that flaw. The bill freezes funding for the White House and the Office of Management and Budget. It includes a requirement that OMB submit the President's budget request on time, which is something they have not been able to do in the last couple of years, or they will face a withholding of approximately 7 months of their budget until the President's request is sent. In addition, the bill contains a prohibition on funding for the White House to prepare signing statements and executive orders which are contradictory to existing law. I would like to touch on the IRS. This committee still remains outraged at some of the activities that we have seen from the IRS in recent times. First, we learned that they were singling out individuals and groups of individuals for additional scrutiny based on their political philosophies. Then we learned that they had wasted millions of dollars in having lavish conferences around the country and in making silly videos. Then we learned that the new Commissioner paid $63 million in bonuses and awards after the prior Commissioner had said we are not going to pay those. Then we find out that some of the people who were receiving those bonuses and awards were, in fact, delinquent in paying their own taxes. So, last year, we had some reforms on spending, and we had reforms on the targeting, but work remains to be done. This bill provides the IRS with $10.95 billion. That is $341 million below the level last year, and it is $1.5 billion below their request. Now, people say that is a pretty drastic cut, but that actually leaves the IRS funded at the same level at which they were prior to 2008. We have to remember that the IRS has betrayed the trust of the American people in a lot of different ways, and it is going to take some time for the IRS to restore that trust, because it seems like, just about every week, we read about a new revelation of some sort of IRS bureaucratic incompetence or, maybe, of a willful disregard for existing law--or sometimes even both. We want to make sure that they begin to clean up their act, and this bill provides that they can no longer subject people to additional scrutiny. They can't waste money on lavish conferences anymore, and they can't pay bonuses and awards to people unless they at least consider the conduct of that individual and whether or not that individual is current on his taxes. We require a certain amount of reporting from the IRS, and we require them to tell us how much official time is being used on union activities. We also have language in there of this new, revised regulation that they have put forward regarding the definition of what is an organization under 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, which was a rule that was promulgated based on the investigation that was taking place about the abuse of singling out individuals. In our opinion, the Treasury should wait until that investigation is conducted before any kind of new rule has been proposed. The rule was withdrawn after there were 150,000 comments, and a lot of those comments came from all sides of the political spectrum. We think there is plenty for the IRS to do in terms of time, in terms of energy, in terms of money before they spend that in trying to write a new rule. We also found out just recently that, while the IRS asks us to keep our records for 7 years, they couldn't keep their records for more than 7 months, so there is a provision in here that says they can't destroy any of their records if it is outside existing law. Finally, I want to say something about the Affordable Care Act. This committee believes that the IRS should not have a role in implementing the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act. The IRS, as I said, has betrayed the trust of the American people. There is not much trust in the IRS today. People don't trust the IRS with their taxes, and they are certainly not going to trust the IRS with their health care. At a time when the IRS hasn't demonstrated much ability to either self- correct or self-police, the bill says that they can't spend any money to implement the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act and that they also can't transfer any money to fund it from the Department of Health and Human Services. That is it in a nutshell, Mr. Chairman. I think this is a good bill. It takes the money that we have and makes some tough choices, sets the right priorities, and spends money in a wise and efficient way. I want to thank all of the members of the subcommittee for the work that they have put in. I want to thank our staffs--both the majority and minority staffs--for the work that they have put in. I want to say a special word of thanks to the ranking member, Mr. Serrano, the gentleman from New York. His input has made this a better bill. Even though he thinks there should be more money and he doesn't agree with everything that is in the bill, he has been a great partner to work with in the spirit of cooperation and particularly in an effort to make sure that we return to regular order, where the appropriations bills are brought before this House, so I want to thank him for that. With that, Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14JY14.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14JY14.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14JY14.003 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14JY14.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14JY14.005 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14JY14.006

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the full Appropriations Committee.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack), a valued member of the subcommittee.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar) for a colloquy.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding and engaging in this colloquy. I also thank him for his leadership on this particular issue and for making great strides regarding the rooting out of government waste, fraud, and abuse. The committee did include the language in question, and we were happy to do so. As the gentleman stated, this type of practice surely fits within the same realm of government propaganda which is barred by law. When the conference committee is selected and meets to discuss all spending programs and priorities, I will work to see the gentleman's request is considered appropriately and amongst all conferees. So again, I thank the gentleman for his efforts. I look forward to working with him on this item and others. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I just want to thank him for bringing this to our attention and let him know that I am happy to support this amendment.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment because the bill strongly supports the Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and actually provides $14 million above the request, and that is to make sure there are robust and forceful sanction programs. This bill also supports the TIGTA. It provides $581,000 above the request to ensure that the inspector general can keep a careful and close eye on the IRS activities. So I appreciate the gentleman's support for the TFI, but it cannot come at the expense of the IRS watchdog. Everyone knows what has been happening with the IRS, and we need a strong IG to oversee the IRS. They are doing good and much-needed oversight, and the bill already provides Treasury's financial intelligence programs with a significant increase. So, Mr. Chairman, I would encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CRENSHAW. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate the gentleman from Florida working with the committee on this amendment. We are glad to accept it. Recently, the IRS began enforcement of this new regulation requiring U.S. banks to report the amount of interest earned on deposits made by nonresident aliens, and this new regulation is detrimental to Florida's economy and the U.S. economy as a whole because it weakens the competitiveness of the U.S. financial institutions and forces foreign capital to flee our country. The regulation burdens U.S. financial firms with additional paperwork and has the unintended consequence of causing many of these foreign depositors to take their business and capital elsewhere, so hundreds of billions of dollars will flee the economy. That will impede small business lending and affect local communities. Both Congress and the administration will benefit from a fuller understanding of how the regulation affects banks, their clientele, and all of the communities, so I urge a ``yes'' vote in support of this amendment.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the intent of the gentlewoman's amendment. I have great sympathy for the situation that the family found itself in, but I have to remind my colleagues that the bill already cuts FinCEN by $3.3 million compared to 2014, and our bill increases taxpayer services by $7.5 million. So I wish the IRS could do a better job of dealing with taxpayer services. That is one of the areas that they really need to get a handle on because there are too many stories like the one she just told, but FinCEN does good work. They work with industry to detect and discourage and apprehend money launderers, so I don't think we should cut them any further. As I pointed out, we have increased the funding for taxpayer services, and so for that reason, I have to oppose the gentlewoman's amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say one final thing. In terms of taxpayer services, this bill already provides $2.1 billion for taxpayer services. As I point out, that is an increase over last year. We have already cut FinCEN by $3.3 million. So, for that reason, Mr. Chairman, I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CRENSHAW. I just want to thank you for bringing this to our attention and am pleased to support the amendment.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. CRENSHAW. I just want you to know that we have no objection to your amendment.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CRENSHAW. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am pleased to support his amendment.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CRENSHAW. I think tax counseling for the elderly is very important, and I am happy to accept your amendment.