Financial Services and General Government (113th Congress)
[[{"fid":"65","view_mode":"full","fields":{"format":"full","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Rep. José Serrano","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Rep. José Serrano"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"full","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Rep. José Serrano","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Rep. José Serrano"}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"alt":"Rep. José Serrano","title":"Rep. José Serrano","height":"2307","width":"1748","style":"width: 152px; height: 200px; float: left;","class":"media-element file-full","data-delta":"1"}}]]José Serrano (NY), Ranking Member
Mike Quigley (IL)
Chaka Fattah (PA)
Sanford Bishop (GA)
Jurisdiction
Department of the Treasury
District of Columbia
The Judiciary
Executive Office of the President
Compensation of the President
Council of Economic Advisers
Executive Residence at the White House
Federal Drug Control Programs
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program
National Security Council
Office of Administration
Office of Management and Budget
Office of National Drug Control Policy
Office of Policy Development
Official Residence of the Vice President
Special Assistance to the President
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
Unanticipated Needs
White House Office
White House Repair and Restoration
Independent Agencies
Administrative Conference of the United States
Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Election Assistance Commission
Federal Communications Commission
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Inspector General
Federal Election Commission
Federal Labor Relations Authority
Federal Trade Commission
General Services Administration
Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation
Merit Systems Protection Board
Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Foundation
National Archives and Records Administration
National Credit Union Administration
National Historical Publications and Records Commission
Office of Government Ethics
Office of Personnel Management and Related Trust Funds
Office of Special Counsel
Securities and Exchange Commission
Selective Service System
Small Business Administration
United States Postal Service, Payment to the Postal Service Fund, Postal Regulatory Commission and Office of Inspector General
United States Tax Court
General Provisions, Governmentwide
Thank you Chairman Crenshaw. I'd like to join you in welcoming Secretary Lew before the subcommittee for the second time. You lead a Department with a variety of missions important to our economy, our government, and our nation as a whole.
The Treasury Department plays a central role in promoting economic growth and opportunity through programs like the CDFI Fund, ensuring financial stability through the implementation of Dodd-Frank, enforcing our tax laws fairly, and managing our nation's finances. Your budget request for fiscal year 2015 promotes all of these things. Most of the agency is held to pretty austere budget levels, but there are significant requested investments at the IRS, which is the largest part of your budget.
Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY), Ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, today issued the following statement on President Obama's FY 2015 budget request:
"The FY2015 budget and appropriations process offers Congress its best opportunity in years to reject the politics of brinkmanship and crisis management, and instead fulfill our responsibility to invest in our future, create and protect jobs, and support services on which American families rely.
"I commend President Obama for a budget request that keeps faith with discretionary spending levels set in the Bipartisan Budget Act, yet recognizes that the federal government can and must do more to achieve significant economic goals in research, education, manufacturing, and skills training. We must reject a single-minded focus on austerity, which has unnecessarily slowed our economic recovery while starving our economic future.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I would also like to welcome new Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen for his first hearing before the subcommittee. I thank you for your service to our nation, and for undertaking this endeavor at a very challenging time for the IRS.
By now, most Americans know that last year, it was reported that the IRS had used inappropriate criteria to decide what 501(c)(4) entities should be subject to greater scrutiny. As I said at the time, all Members of Congress were appalled by these actions, which affected liberal and conservative groups alike. We all believe the IRS must enforce our tax laws in a fair, even-handed manner, and that did not occur here.
At a hearing soon after the controversy came to light, the question I asked was, 'Where do we go from here?' What must be done to prevent something like this from happening again?
2013 enacted level: $21.25 billion
2014 Committee mark: $17.0 billion
2014 Omnibus: $21.85 billion
· $11.9 billion for the Department of the Treasury, which is $301 million less than the 2013 enacted level.
· $11.3 billion for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which is $503 million less than the 2013 enacted level.
· $6.5 billion for the Judiciary, which is $12 million less than the 2013 enacted level but $317 more than the post-sequester level.
· $673.3 million for the District of Columbia, which is roughly equal to the 2013 enacted level.
· $1.35 billion for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is $32 million more than the 2013 enacted level.