The House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) wrote to Treasury Department Secretary Jacob Lew and IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, Thursday, requesting all documents pertaining to the controversial 501(c)(4) rule change.
Upon sending the letter, the Chairman said “Before having all the facts in hand, Treasury rushed forward with new rules that seriously limit groups’ ability to engage in public debate. It is clear that the Obama Administration is still targeting conservative groups and wrote these rules to put them out of business. This is pure politics and the new IRS commissioner should do the right thing and put a stop to it.”
Under proposed Treasury regulations, 501(c)(4) organizations cannot engage in non-partisan activities, like voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, or convene candidate forums without jeopardizing their exempt status.
Chairman Camp introduced H.R. 3865, “Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act of 2014,” which would prohibit Treasury and the IRS from finalizing the proposed rules for one-year in order to allow for the completion of the IRS targeting investigation and a thorough public discussion, including a review of public comments related to the proposed regulations.
Responses from Lew and Koskinen are due on February 13, 2014.
Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, took to the Senate floor to lambaste the Obama Regime for its “thuggish attempts to shut down its critics.”
He said the arrogance of what is being attempted with the rule change, “incredible” and “literally breathtaking”; “Democrats think that 2014 is shaping up to be a tough year for them politically, so instead of trying to persuade the public that they have the best answers to the problems we face, they try to shut everybody else out of the political process – they try to shut them up – and they have no problem using the powers of the government itself to do it less than a year after presiding over one of the biggest abuses of government power in modern memory.”
McConnell went on to state that “every American needs to know about this abuse of power. Let me be clear – what the administration is proposing poses a grave threat to the ability of ordinary Americans to freely participate in the Democratic process. Rather than reform the IRS and root out any hint of corruption or targeting of political opponents, they’re now proposing to codifying it.”
He concluded by addressing the president directly; “ordinary conservatives across the country aren’t buying the idea that you’re some kind of pragmatic problem solver instead of a liberal ideologue who seems more interested in shutting down your critics, than working with us to address the nation’s most urgent problems.”