IRS Scandal

Floor Speech

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, to my colleague who just spoke, I say she's going to have an opportunity with voting on the Keystone XL bill to address the jobs issue this week.

But let me talk about this most recent IRS scandal. I have a local, well-respected attorney named Tad Armstrong in my district, who founded the Constitution study group called Earn It, Learn It or Lose It.

He applied for a tax-exempt status in August of 2010. In October of 2010, Cincinnati headquarters called with a lot of questions. It wasn't until October of 2011 that he received an 11-page rejection letter.

He hired an accountant to try to appeal. He told the accountant that his appeal was probably denied because he was teaching about the Constitution. She laughed at that. But after this most recent IRS story broke, she called back and said, ``My goodness, you are right.''

I quote Tad in saying: ``Here you have Jay Carney saying the President is a staunch defender of the First Amendment. I can't help but be reminded several times the President saying the Constitution is outdated and gets in his way.''

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