Mr. Carper mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from delaware. Mr. Carper mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Carper thank you mr. President. Well mr. President Congress Says here we do a lot of oversight, oversight thats focused on what is going right and also what is going wrong in our government. Theres a lot of each actually. That oversight is critically important work. Sometimes overlooked but critically important. I think its also important to stop and recognize where things are going right from time to time and people that are doing the right thing. Following in the footsteps of one of our former colleagues here i dont think the presiding officer had a chance to work with him but ted kaufman served here for two years. He succeeded joe biden and went off to do some other job. I think Vice President maybe thats what he is. And then before senator chris coons was elected two years later,
Noted in my testimony in 2013 as a result of spending and Information Technology the Information Technology business, modernization problem for the irs was taken of the highrisk list having been there for 14 years. It was proven in the i t area that if we have the funding we can make significant progress. Is great for the i t area but other areas need to be addressed and 25 years is far too long. Time to put some teeth into it. I now recognize the gentleman from florida for five minutes. Commissioner koskinen, a year ago the senior irs leaders and learned lois lerners hard drive had crashed. There was an issue about getting her emails off of backup tapes, you wrote a letter to Senate Finance in june of 2014 saying there were problems with her emails and backup tapes had been destroyed. And on june 20th you testified before the ways and means committee, went to Great Lengths and made extraordinary efforts to recover lower as lerners email please let me ask you this, after the irs began
Proffered interpretation to see if those substantive effects are compatible with the statute as a whole and to see which interpretation is more consistent with the design and object of the statutory structure. As i said, that was a Supreme Court case. Those of you listening in the audience who are not familiar with recent Supreme Court cases might want to reject that reasoning as being maybe one of the liberal justices. It might have been our friend Justice Briar for a 54 majority with some purposebased argument. But no, that was Justice Scalia talking about his version of strict text chul interpretation. That should not be surprising. Its not the sort of psycho analysis or sort of general appeal to purpose that youve heard some liberals make and some advocates for the government, certainly not the liberal argument that was set forward as sort of a foil by my colleagues on the right, rather when Justice Scalia talks about intent, purpose, object, design, he is not talking about what he
Establish by the state is not used anywhere else in the statute except in provisions that are serving that purpose. Now, in terms of why would congress do this because this is the question. Why would congress think to do Something Like this . The condition achievement of goals on state cooperation. They did that on medicaid. They offered a lot of inducement on medicaid. Because congress cant come comen dear, everyone knew that congress could make states a really good offer but it had to be an offer. The state that refused to accept the Medicaid Expansion as the statute was written would leave the poorest and most Vulnerable People in that state without any help under the medicaid program. Thats the way the statute was written. Conditioning a whole lot of the statutes goals on states willingness to go along. They would do that with medicaid where a lot more is at stake. Why wouldnt they do it here . Congress has done this before. Congress has routinely said tax credits or other benefits
Conditioned on this question the incoming secretary needs to have the courage to speak truth to power to congress, yes but also to his commander in chief. Half. Mr. Durbin mr. President . Speaking in morning business, i rise to express my support for the president s nominee dr. Ashton carter to serve as our nations 25th secretary of defense. A few words of thanks first for chuck hagel our former colleague in the senate who served as secretary of defense. Hes a friend. Hes had a long career in public service. Hes a veteran from vietnam and the people of nebraska rewarded him by asking him to represent them in the United States senate. As our nations first person 6 enlisted rank he had a unique ground level view on matters of war and peace and a strong, strong commitment to our troops. I thank chuck hagel for his service. Dr. Ashton carter has an impressive distinguished record of service as well in government. An advisor scholar. He has what it takes to be a great secretary of defense.