irs allowed employees to believe that they could let their personal political views guide how they treated taxpayers. and that there would be no repercussions whatsoever for so. simply put, we need a cultural change at the irs. american taxpayers should expect at the very least a culture of accountability, of fairness, impartiality. no taxpayer ever again should fear that they will be discriminated against based on their political or ideological beliefs. while i appreciate the changes the irs is attempting to implement on their own i believe implement on their own i believe more needs to be done. captioning performed by vitac grassley and i introduced the enhancement act of 2015 which is a series of measure to hold the irs kpat h accountable. the irs has lost the trust of the american people and doesn't have the ability to make the necessary reforms on its own. congress needs to act to make sure that the taxpayer's rights

are protected. i hope this e which can count on the support of you and other high officials at the treasury. and with that what i would like to do is get you views on a few of what i think are the common sense proposals that senator grassley and i have in our legislation to make the irs accountable to the american taxpayers. i'm going to read through these and ask you to hold off on commenting. but i want to get the questions in. the first one is that last year the irs proposed its own taxpayer bill of rights. if question is would you support legislation to codify the rights and make it the duty of the commissioner to ensure that irs employees are familiar with the rights. second is the ten deadly sins created by the irs restructuring commission in 198 9 8 requires mandatory termination of an employee who threatens to audit

a taxpayer for monetary gain. would you support this? number three, in your recent letter to the committee you state that the irs failure to preserve electronic record is clearly unacceptable. do you support legislation that would ban irs employees from conducting official business over personal e-mail, a measure that passed the house by a voice vote earlier this year and do you support legislation that would codify the deadlines by what this national archives required the irs to put the document retention policies in place. finally, keeping in mind that some conservative groups were stuck in limbo up to five years on their application, would you support granting 501 c 4's. and as you know want that is something that 501(c)(3)s

already possess. all of the measures that i just mentioned are included in the taxpayer bill of rights. and i hope that we can count on your cooperation on these measures and others that the committee might consider to restore the credibility and integrity of your agency. i say all that, ask those questions. but to the degree you can comment on those, commissioner and then if you can can't, we'll certainly welcome that for the record. >> well, i'd be delighted to give you a more detailed answer for the record. when you note the changes on our own, those are the changes in response to the bipartisan report as well as recommendations in the majority and minority report. these are not ideas that we have by ourselves. we've said we'll take all of the recommendations that we have control over. the ones necessary to make sure that the delays don't happen again. we're going everything you asked us to do. with regard to the bill of rights, as you noted, we pulled

together the taxpayer bill of rights over a year ago. we spent a lot of time making sure that taxpayers and employees are aware of those. they're already codified in the statute. we pulled them together to be in one place. and we do think it's important for those to be -- we provide training on them for the employees. we think it's important for taxpayers as well as employees to know what those are. codifying those and saying they are a bill of rights, we would be delighted to support that those become an important part of the statutory framework because they already are. what we've done is made it easier for the taxpayers to find them. with regard to official business on personal computers, that's a policy that we already have. you're not supposed to do that. when i first started i sent testimony home one day to my home computer so i could edit it and got a note the next morning

saying, you're not supposed to do that. the next thing i got was an office computer for home so i would not in fact send anything to my home computer. that's a policy that we have and enforce. it has security issues associated with it. it is a policy. if you wanted to put it in legislation, that would be -- we'd be happy to have you do that. i'm not sure we need a lot of new rules. i'd be delighted to get back with you. i think clearly it's impers missable for anyone to use their political beliefs in doing any business at the irs. i don't know what most people's political beliefs are at the irs. i would note again, senator scott feels strongly about this, but the justice department talked to 100 irs employees, several of whom self identified themselves as conservatives and republicans. no one identified a single intans in which they were instructed or which they knew of

anyone who took an action because of their political beliefs. lois lerner had very public beliefs. she's welcome to have them in her personal life. they have no place and no role in the operations of the irs. and i don't know of any other situation and occasion. and even people who did not like lois lerner did not feel that those views had influenced -- >> going to have to move on. senator roberts. >> i want to thank chairman hatch and ranking member for this hearing on the committee's report on the irs actions. with regard, as stated by others to the suppression of electoral activities of groups whose views do not coincide with those of the white house, having gone over the report, it is clear that was a massive effort and i remain deeply concerned that we don't have all of the can

information that we need to make a final determination on the irs actives the, more important safeguards to protect the first amendment rights. it's very clear, as has been said by senator widen, there was gross mismanagement of the exemption process for the targeted groups. the committee agrees that at a minimum there was a heightened scrutiny and this resulted in significant delays in processing applicatio applications, which in some cases caused the applicants to cease operation. the committee also found that the agency functioned in a politicized environment and that this environment allowed for the improper processing of applications from the targeted organizations. the agent looks to have dropped any pretense of impartial tax enforcement, activity worked against conservative groups and coordinated with the white house and other federal agencies to

suppress electoral actives of groups of those who do not coincide with the white house. in my reading of the factual information in the report, there was a systemic suppression, free speech rights of this organizations which i think is sadly ongoing. the end result has been a loss of faith in the agency, as has been pointed out. this is an abhorrent situation compounded by the agency's half hearted efforts to locate and preserve records relevant to the committee's organization. the irs felt fit to mislead the committee on the backup information and sat on information about computer crashes and lost backup tapes for week. mr. koskinen, you have been on board in this decay of the reputation of the irs. you bare a direct responsibility which you obviously have said, in your less than cooperative

approach in responding to the request of this committee. as you have said within i know you've taken a number of steps to address the issues and recommendations identified in our report. these appear process oriented and very technical. you're talking about delays, we're talking about targeting. but without question there is much more that we can do. there's some common sense structural changes we should consider. chairman hatch, senator grassley and others have given us a full legislative prescription. we have a number of other sound ideas that have been offered by committee members, including legislationly senator coats, senator portman on give to c 4s, small business protection proposal and my legislation to put a stop to further action on

the c4 regulation rewrite. i would like to see a real rewrite that could take care of the politics part of this as opposed to what might be ongoing. these are all good first steps in rehoning the irs au way from a political posture. i look forward to working with my colleagues and and you through the committee as expeditiously as possible. you've just stated that the justice department interviewed 100 folks, that there was some so pigs of being targeted on a political basis. and not one, not one was involved in any politics. senator scott just alluded to this in south carolina and in kansas i find this incredulous. the people i talk with have been targeted and targeted for years. and it is without question a situation where politics was involved. some given the remarks of senator scott and given the

remarks of others and you've gone over a discipline review effort at the irs, and given that the american citizens were targeted for extra scrutiny there by denying them the first amendment rights, a tactic i think is comparable to what is seen in a to toll tarn country, take your pick. has anyone involved in this targeting been fired, find, reprimanded, denied a bonus, slapped on the wrist or even talked to in a stern manner. >> as i said in response to senator scott, i respectfully would disagree with the characterization of what the situation at the irs is. the department of justice, they've looked for instances of political bias actually targeting anyone and none of those reviews have come up with a single case. clearly i don't mean to minimize the delays, the mismanagement

that took place from the start. we've apologize to people for those delays. it shouldn't happen. but continuing to characterize it as if there's a politicized atmosphere and that's causing a lack of public confidence, if we say that enough there will be a lack of public confidence. the independent investigations have not found a single instance of that. doesn't mean we don't need to take the activities actions. we responded quickly. we think the recommendations you recommended to us that we have control over are important and thoughtful. we're going to implement them pep and our hope is that our response positively to the committee will in fact restore whatever confidence has been lost. but i would say again, just reiterating -- it is important for the public to understand while people feel they may have been targeted, there is no review that's found that to be true. i think it's corrosive to the tax compliance system that

people feel that way. we're doing everything we can to assure taxpayers that when they hear us from it's because of an issue in their tax return and application. has nothing to do with who they are. >> my time has run out. i thank you for your optimistic take on this. and i think i probably would agree that the people have talked to who are very irate about this, it tends to be anecdotal, you know, evidence. and i don't -- you have stated the gao, the justice department, lord knows how many other people have investigated with this over 100 folks and found absolutely nothing wrong. that is just not the case with regards to people i know in kansas who have been targeted and -- not only targeted, but also audited. i just find that rather incredulous that these two things don't match up. >> well, let me just say one point if i could.

as i noted, even in our limited resources, we'll do a million audits this year, we'll audit democrats, we'll audit republicans, we'll audit independents, we'll audit conservatives with people who go to church and who don't go to church. >> probably audit some people here. >> and all of those people will be selected by objective criteria. all of them need to feel that the only reason they're hearing from us is because of an issue in their return. >> that was not the case with lois lerner. it just wasn't. she's been cleared and she's just collecting a pension which gets back to my question. has anybody involved in this been fired, find, reprimanded, denied a bonus or talked to in a stark stern manner. you're saying everything is fine and it is not fine. >> the recommendations we're implements is we need to have a better operation to make sure it doesn't happen. she had no right to have those

views expressed during her working hours. the justice department talked to, as i said -- 100 employees -- >> i've heard that. >> -- found no one influenced by her views. i would not minimize the impossible, the unacceptable way that the applications were delayed. there's in reason for that. we're committed to lowering that cycle time. we're down to 112 days. we're comfortable -- >> my time is up and that means your time is up right now. i admire your that nen nasty anr position. there's a great organization you ought to take part here in washington, the flat earth society with regards to whether there was any politics in this or not. >> several colleagues made the point about targeting and political bias. i want to be very brief to

respond. inspector general's audit that spurred or inquiry found zero evidence of targeting or police call bias. so what we did, because we thought it was important tore bipartisan. we sent or investigators to ask every irs employee directly involved in the review of applications whether there had been any attempt to do this targeting to exert partisan influence. not one employee said there was any political bias. you have heard me characterize this whole effort as one involving massive bureaucratic dysfunction. but there is no evidence of political bias. thank you. >> i think you would have to be nuts to read all of this and not conclude that there was political bias. my gosh, lois lerner herself -- i don't care what the left says about it. we all know there was political bias. >> mr. chairman -- >> we all find fault with lois

learn erp and we ought to find fault with her. now was it criminal work? i don't know. they say no. i accept that. senator heller. >> just before we go to senator heller, our investigators, our bipartisan investigators -- this is not somebody else. this is our people talked to every employee and they said no political bias. >> i don't think our side said that. senator heller. >> mr. chairman, thank you. and to the ranking member, also thank you very much for holding this hearing. i want to thank the ranking member for following up on the cell phone tracking issue on the irs and hope that you don't take today's response as an answer. i would anticipate it would take one rogue member of the irs group that could take an issue like this and expand it far

beyond what the scope of it was initially intended. but having said that, commissioner, thank you very much for being here and thanks for taking your time. i know that some f these are pretty strong comments and they're not going to stop with me. but i do also understand that this is the purpose of this hearing today. so we'll continue that. but the report on the irs targeting certain conservative groups and the recommendation from this committee, there's a lot of concern that i'm hearing from people back in my state. and i believe we have an obligation to the american people, also to nevada taxpayers to assure that the irs lives up to its mission of providing, ai think as you define it, top quality service and enforcing the laws with integrity and fairness to all. i know you don't disagree with that and live by that as much as

you can. but right now as i see it, the irs is not living by those particular standards. to say that i'm disappointed with friday's political decision that the justice department would not seek criminal charges against lois lerner or anyone else for the irs controversy is an understatement. they refuse to hold accountable the employees who use their political influence. you've been there for several years now, actually two years in december. congratulations. >> seems like longer. >> i bet it does. >> and i know you do believe that you're ultimately responsible and accountable for these actions. so i have a couple of questions for you. i'll start by saying that the public trust, i think we would agree, is critical to the irs's

success. my home state i continually hear fr why they should have trust in your agency. you've made statements in past about your agency. this is new day. this is not the irs of 2010, 2011 or 2012. i find it hard to understand why that vad dans trust the state when you've misled both houses of congress about whether it targeted organizations. you've stonewalled congress's investigation by repeatedly failing to preserve and locate records, make inaccurate statements about the inaccurate data and failed to disclose to congress the fact that records, missing. as i said, i believe you do feel you have a personal responsibility for these failures. do you feel that way? >> i certainly am responsible

for everything that goes on in this organization. i've told employees, if there's a problem, it's my problem. if somebody has made a mistake, it's my mistake and i'm comfortable being in charge with that. i think that one of the issues has been raised about the delay in disclosure about the hard drive crash of lois lerner. at the time when i was advised in april of 2014 that there was a crash, it seemed to me the appropriate thing to do was to determine what e-mails had been lost and what could we find. we found 24,000. when we reported that to the committee. but people have been concerned about the fact that we -- i knew in april and we didn't provide the full report until june, which i thought was the right thing to do. since then we've taken the position that if there is an issue like this, while we're investigating it, we will advise the committee and the public. we did that with the transcript breach. we didn't know the full sweep of it but we immediately let the chairman know and the ranking

member that we had a problem. >> do you believe that the irs broke any laws in not backing up lois lerner's e-mails? >> we did not break any laws. we had an antiquated system. to reason to rely on backup recovery tapes. we had an antiquated system and a decision was made in 2012 not to upgrade. we should have done that and avoided a lot of these problems. >> let me ask this question. have there been any staffers directly involved in the targeting standards that have been fired? >> i'll be happy to talk to you in private. we're not allowed publicly to talk about pipt the entire chain of command, five levels of supervisors from the commissioner on down are no longer there. >> no longer with the agency or no longer in their current position. >> they've ear no longer with the agency. they've all left and ki give you

the details of how that happened but not in public. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator coats. sorry. i hasn't seen this list for a while. >> thank you chairman, and ranking remember. mr. koskinen, you've heard about the continued frustration that many of us have had. it's no secret there has been a loss of trust in government. it's not just your agency. but it's many agencies. it's the function of government and its leadership. it's ben reflected in the primaries, both sides. people are disgusted and fed up with the way we -- with our

dysfunction. you've talked about massive dysfunction within an agency that people fear the most, that has the most power over individuals. it's not going the away. and so whether it's just incompetence or total dysfunction, or the fact that government has just grown to the point where it simply can't handle the hus that it needs to handle and gain the trust of the american people. my colleagues are stated that and i certainly think there's no other agency that more fed into that narrative that what happened at the irs. this's no trust in the department of justice either. the former attorney general appeared to be nothing more than a private council to the president of the united states and decisions that came out of there did nothing to restore that trust. having said that, i want to go

to a specific issue here. an indianapolis investigative reporter brought this to my attention and we followed up on it in my office. i want to see if you can address this issue or are in the process of addressing this issue. my understanding is that why irs takes identity theft seriously when it involves significant tax fraud, it doesn't do so when names and social security numbers are stolen in order for an undocumented worker to get a job. as an example -- this is a live example. and there are other examples. but this happened to someone in any state and it was brought to my attention by this investigative reporter. an undocumented reporter might submit a tax form using his own taxpayer identification number but attach a w-2 form to it with someone else's name and social security number. and when the irs discoveries this, the legitimate taxpayer's account gets an identity theft

indicator put on it. but the return that has been filed with false information is still processed and the perpetrator suffers no ill consequences. in the meantime it can cause a nightmare for the legitimate taxpayer who might get harassed by irs letters accusing them of not reporting income. they may even lose income related benefits. as i said, who is your taxpayer who could not get his health insurance for his children for several months because he was a victim of this kind of identity theft. the question i have here is the irs aware of this issue, is it takes steps to address this issue? if it's prohibited by law from taking actions to stop this fraud, we need to know that so we can modify that law. but the issue is when the irs

discovers employment related in any theft and still processes the tax return that used the false information and sends any refund to the perpetrator, it doesn't link the account of the filer who submitted fls information with the account of the victimized taxpayer. nor does it mark the account of the perpetrator in any way. the irs does not inform the employer that the worker submitted a false name and social security number. it does not notify local law enforcement that the filer submitted false information in order to obtain employment. i guess my question is, can we fix this? and if you're aware of it and if you're not, can we work together to fix this? >> it's an important and complicated situation as you can imagine. as a general matter, the use of social security numbers for employment purposes, the ins and

social security pursue. our role as tax collects are there are a lot of immigrants here, whether they're illegal or just not undocumented, they work and they also, many of them want to pay taxes. if there's ever amnesty, they have to demonstrate that they've paid them. they get an i-10 and for us that's sufficient and they file. we do fine with it. sometimes it's relatives, sometimes it's borrowed and sometimes it's stolen social security numbers to get the job so that the employer doesn't w-2 is a process that again the ins and social security pursue. our job is if somebody wants to pay taxes, be compliant with their tax obligations, even if they have citizenship problems, our job is to collect the revenues. there are sometimes refunds. but generally because they're not eligible for the refund

programs. so it is -- and we try to work with taxpayers, a significant number of the social security numbers are borrowed or used from relatives or someone else. but again we don't know where they've come from or why. and our view is if we start -- we've talked with ins about this and social security. if we start pursuing employers and undocumented aliens, then nobody is going to file their taxes because that would be another exposure point. and the decision was made long before i got here that it was in the government's interest for undocumented citizens to pay tax to the extent that they want to and want to provides support for the services they receive. >> shouldn't it be in the government's interest also to care for the victim and put something in place that will give the victim official notification that their social security number has been stolen or their tax identification

number has been stolen and used for false purposes and therefore not sitting in front of an employer saying, you know, there's been fraud here and so forth and so on. because it as an impact on individuals who have been the victims. and whether or not the irs should pursue this, some function of government should pursue this. can we try to set up something, some process whereby it can be moved to the agency that can do that, if you can't do that, or something put in place at the irs so that it can accomplish that, address the victim's problem? >> you raise many of the facets of this problem. we've been delighted to talk with you further about it and figure ou how to deal with both aspects of it. allowing people to pay taxes when it sometimes becomes an issue, they'll have a record of paying taxes but at the same time protecting taxpayers. protecting taxpayers is an important issue for us. >> i appreciate you saying that.

if you need authority to do that, mr. chairman, that's something we should pursue. if the decision is made that another agency should do that or another function of government should cothat, there ought to be something in place that pros the victim as well as going after the perpetrator. >> be delighted to talk with you further about that. >> i hope with can move on that, chairman. one way orb another we have to think about prosecuting the person that stole the numbers but the person that's been hacked or the victim of all of this needs to have some able to clear his name and not being denieds job opportunities or other opportunities because of this situation. >> thank you. senator portman. >> thank you, mr. chairman and commissioner we thank you for being here today. this is an issue of particular concern to me. senator hatch and i were the first people to raise this issue

when ohio 501 c 4s were being inappropriate. the document request didn't seem to make sense. we sent the first letter on this back in march of 2012 and unfortunately it it continues today. there's a group called unite for action that still hasn't received a determination on his taxes first sought in 2012. the ig report and the bipartisan report, not talking about a republican report all said the same thing, which is there were screen the applications, 70% of the cases tagged for additional review, 70% for te party cases. and to quote the report, such groups were disproportionately

impact. no question about it. to remind everybody why we're here, that's the issue. of course there's distrust when that sort of thing happens. and of course there should have been consequences. i'm going to focus on fostering the sense of accountability. i couldn't agree with you more. i'm one of those people, as you know on this committee, who believes that my constituents are suffering because of the lack of funding at the irs. i think tax pash service is important. and i would like the see us increase the funding for taxpayer service. but it's very difficult to have any kind of increased funding for anything at the irs as long as there's a lack of account ability and a lack of a sense that there will be consequences for actions. you talked about fosters a sense of accountability. you talked about the fact that we need to ensure this happens all throw the system. you answered a question today saying you sensed irs employees

now feel more comfort in being able to talk to you and go up through the command. let me ask you this question. for those who were involved in the mismanagement, shall we say, of the conservative group, were there any consequences? any consequences? >> the entire chain of command, starting with the acting commissioner down five levels are all no longer with the agency. >> they've all retired with full pengss or they've been reassigned. >> i can't talk about individual cases. >> that's what the public information indicates. let me give you an example. december of last year, the treasury inspector general found between 2012 and 2013, 323 former employees were rehired by the irs for which records show employment problems, termination

or leaving during an ongoing investigation. >> those are primarily and temporary seasonal employees and we've changed that policy to make sure that does not happen in the future. >> this goes to account ability. as you know under the reconstruction reform act, the irs is able to willfully terminate employees. in april the inspector iq found almost 1600 employees had willfully violated the tax law, worse, a number of these employees received awards and promotions within a year. so again this sense of accountability has to have consequences. >> we've made it clear there will be no promotions or awards made in the year in which there is an inability to comply with the procedures and policies. if there's disciplinary actions,

there won't be promotions or awards. >> that's good. still, you know, 1600 employees willfully violate, 61% lesser suspensio suspensions. >> the other 40% actually were suspended or dismissed. we dismissed a substantial number of people every year for violations of the rules and i'd be happy to get you -- >> that would be helpful. the 420 tapes that serves as a backup to lois lerner's hard drive. these backup tapes were droid in 2014. they were at the time the subject of a litigation hold. this is more significant than the loss of lois lerner's hard drive. can you tell us how the employees that disregarded the litigation hold were dealt with? >> as the justice department notes, there's further activity going on that again i will be

delighted to keep the committee advised in terms of what happens beyond that. as a general matter, both the ig in their year-long investigation and justice found that no one purposefully destroyed those tapes. the employees involved trying to obstruct anybody's investigation. they thought of them as junk and did not understand the litigation or the document retrengs program. but that's been thoroughly investigat investigated. >> there's been no consequences for not honoring that litigation hold. it also talks about the failure of the irs for the responsive of the documents. if the foia request had been responded to, we could have avoided a lot of this, if not all of it. we found these documents could have kept the scandal from

happening and that the search was sufficient. the irs was to exclude responsive documents. is there any attempt to impose consequences on those who did not properly respond to the foia request? >> that was so time ago and i would be happy to get you the information. you're exactly prieth. my sense of this before i started if somebody in 2012 said we have a problem, we're trying to learn how to process these issues and it had gone up the chain of command and became public then, we would have avoided a lot of the unnecessary expense. >> two more question questions. a report of multiple mistakes made on employees on the be on the lookout list, have any be reprimanded for their -- >> and briefly, because senator casey was passed over. he's been waiting a long time

>> no employee behave improperly in the sense of political bias or doing something that was out of the ordinary. >> again our report says multiple mistakes. we understand that there have been no consequences and in fact some were actually promoted. again, culture of accountability needs to be in place for us to begin this process of regaining the trust of my constituents and the american people. thank you. >> i do apologize to senator casey. i was led to believe that senator portman was ahead of you. we'll call on you now. please forgive us. >> thank you for the hearing. commissioner, i want to thank you as well for you work today and your public service. you've got a hard job in a difficult time. i wanted to focus on the question of resources. we have -- and this happens on a pretty regular basis in this

town where folks in congress will say the irs or any other agency has to do x, y and z and sometimes pointing the accusatory finger but not providing the follow-up and the resources that are essential. and as you know, in mid september i and four other members of the senate sent a letter to secretary liu talking about this issue. but in pertinent part we talked about the budget cuts to the irs and we give pam. s and these examples -- examples of the impact. the examples are taken from the treasury inspector general. i'm quote from part of the letter. during the 2015 filing season only 38.5% of callers received

assistance, compared to about 75% the year before. and the problems with not having the resources. so whether it's addressing the tax gap, whether it's improving taxpayer services, implementing data mining procedures to identify errors, whether it's combatting identity theft, addressing improper payment, with all of that depends upon resources. it's been my experience in state government and the federal government that you can't improve a service by magic. you have to have the tools and the resources. so the focus that we were bringibring ing in that letter was the result of getting the resources that the president recommended for the fiscal year '16. can you walk through some of the impacts of those resource constraints and how that impacts your ability to fulfill your

responsibilities? >> and then secondly, steps you're taking to prevent identity theft and improve taxpayer services. >> the short answer is a critical problem. i've testified two years ago that u was the most critical problem facing the agency. and since then the agency's budget has been cut further. if you look at the information, basically the thing to understand, the ocd just put on a report looking at the cost of tax administration. the irs spends almost half, in other words, less than half -- slightly more than half of what the average of the oec countries do to collect the dollar of taxes. if you look at germany, canada, england and australia, they spend two to three times what we do to collect taxes. we're already the most efficient tax agency in terms of collection of any agency in the

may jr. countries of the world. since 2010 the budget has been cut by over a billion dollars. at the same time we have six or seven more million taxpayers. we've been given unfunded mandat mandates. last year after our budget was cut, the only agency with a may jr. budget cut we were asked to mpment the employees' act. the net impact is we get funded and spend money on enforcement, taxpayer service, nervous technology including cyber protection and identity theft and general operations and maintenance. our budget has been cut over five years every year, the money has to come from somewhere. on tax pash services, we had a dismal level. in terms of enforcement, we're losing over $4 billion a years in collections compared to what we used to collect because we

have 3,000 fewer revenue agents. they collect over a million dollars a year. to save a billion dollars in funding, we're losing over $4 billion a year in tax revenue collection. it's costing the government four times the amount of savings in the budget skuts. in terms of information technology, we're dealing with cyber criminals around the world, organized, highly sophisticated and well funded. our systems are attacked millions of times by people trying to breach. we've been fortunate not to have a cyber breach. it was by a sense a very set of sophisticated criminals who already had significant detailed information about taxpayers so they could massacre raid more effectively as the taxpayer. it takes resources. if the budget is flat, nothing will get better. it will continue to stay. and if it's flat, we need

between 100 and $200 million to pay for the pay raises and inflation. we no longer have any give. no one cares more about the poor level of tax service than the employees who provide that service. they view their mission as to help people. they're the ones who feel as badly as the taxpayers about the fact that the lack of funding means we don't have enough people to answer the questions. we don't want to go backwards and hire the 15,000 people we've lost. what we need to do is stabilize and go forward to provide better service digitally. it costs us 43 dollars to answer a phone call, $52 to deal with someone when they walk into our offices, 15 to 25 cents in we can answer the issue online in digitally. we need to move in that direction as we go. with regard to identity theft, it is a complicated growing problem. the most significant step we've

taken is we brought in the ceos in march of the tax preparers, the software developers, payroll providers and the tax revenue administrators and created a partnership. i told them at the time the purpose was not to tell them what to do. it was to create a partnership where the private sector, the states and the irs would work jointly together. we just announced last week that we've implemented significant improvements across the tax system to deal with and fight identity theft a this year. but for the systems to continue to keep up we have to invest in them. if the budget continues to be cut we do not have the money we need to do that. everyone will suffer. >> commissioner thank you for that. if we're going to ask you to do a lot more, we cannot continue to give you a lot less. we're grateful for that answer. >> senator nelson.

>> mr. chairman, a lot of this discussion about whether or not there was intimidation could be of y of yated in we went back on the 501 c 4s and say what the statute said. which is civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare. along in 1959 came a regulation to implement that statute. but they changed the word exclusively to primarily. so the regulation said an organization is operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare if it is in

primarily engaged in promoting in some way the social welfare. all of this flap that we're going through is unnecessary if the irs would follow the statute that the social welfare organizations, 501 c 4s would be exclusively for social welfare. but of course it's interpreted differently. and that's why we have the chaos that we have today in our campaign finance system where all of this -- and it is now

termed dark money, comes in to influence elections, dark because it does not have to be reported who is giving the money. now the whole idea of mccain finegoal, and this is the campaign finance reform about a decade ago, the whole idea was to open up the process and let the people know who is influencing elections because they would know who is giving the money. but now we see that it's nothing that a candidate for president is raising over $100 million through 501 c 4s and the public does not know who is financing that, and that money is not being used as a statute requires

for a social welfare purpose. but it's being used to influence an election. we could change this whole thing, commissioner. what do you think about all of this? >> i think it's complicated situation. we've felt that, at a minimum as i've said -- i don't if the chairman thinks everything is as clear as it is. but we need to clarify what the standards are. one of the issue is primarily the right standard. to understand that we don't think we have the ability to change the statutory framework that's been established. our job is to figure out thou rationalize it. >> i agree with you. but the statutory framework says exclusively for social welfare purposes. i understand you are going

through some -- trying to figure out some kind of guidance on that. so what are you doing in issuing the guidance? >> what we're doing is looking -- as i say, we have three questions that we've requested. what is the definition of political activity, the second is how much of it can you do and the third part of it is to which c organization should the standard apply. and the how much of it can you do is the exclusive and primarily the question, the definition should not include nonbipartisan voter registration get out the vote campaigns. so that will get simplified. and the question to which organization they should apply, you have to look at the c 3s, 4s, 5s and 6 and the 527s as a group. ultimate lit it should be up to an organization to pick which of those cat garys it wants to be in. we should not be driving that by

our determinations. but i would say that primarily is the standard used for 5s, 6s, 527s. and the 527 statute was passed in the '70s in the context of recognizing that primarily was already the standard. there are limitations that we can do looking at only one statute. we have to look at all of the statutes in that framework. >> you say primarily was -- and you listed all of the statutes. but you didn't say the 501 c hs. >> no. >> that don't have to disclose. what are you doing in issuing guidance with regard to that? >> we're looking at the history, looking at the fact that some of those statutory provisions by congress were passed usually primarily a standard in which primarily was the standard since 1959. so the question is to rationalize that in light of what the congressional activity is and the framework. we're reviewing all of the

comments. we're actually taking a close look at this but it is not a slam dunk to change the way the process went. as a general matter, i don't think we're going to change the rules of the game. i think it's important to clarify the rules of the game. >> i don't understand what you just said. >> maybe the better way to say it is we are still reviewing all of this, trying to make sure that when we come up with the next draft it is understandable, sustainable, it's fair to everybody and it's not an easy answer. >> do you agree that things have gotten out of control with regard to the interpretation of the rule primarily used for social purpose? >> i think what i would agree, and our concern is that the facts and circumstances of how you fit in to that category, what you're doing, what's primarily a social welfare and

what's not so primarily political activity, designed and studied and assessed on facts and circumstances couldn't be less clear. >> okay. >> so we need to clarify what's in one pocket and what's in the other. >> right so -- >> the question of how much you can do of either is a separate question. but the lack of clarity in terms of facts and circumstances i think goes to the heart of the problem. >> right. >> it's what the ig said. its last lem dags was we should provide clarity. we should make clearer what the rules of the games are even if we're not able to change the rules. >> if you would do this, then i think you will be doing your constitutional duty. when you look at primarily a social purpose, those words, and you stack that up against a commercial paid tv advertisement

that advocates for the election of a candidate or against the candida candidate, against a candidate, then if you would understand that's not a social purpose, that's a political purpose. and it is there that the whole statute has been bastardized. >> and our view is that someone running one of these organizations are setting it up ought to clearly understand what's political activity, what's political intervention and what's social welfare. and the facts and circumstances don't do that. it's been around a long time, facts and circumstances. but the issue of active political engagement by c 4s is a relatively recent occurrence and greater clarity is needed. the ig agreed with that. it's why we think that everyone would be better off if, as you

note, when you ran an ad, when you took an action it would be clear which side of the line it fell on. right now when you do whatever you're going to do, you're subject to our interpretation, in an attempt to try to be fair under an afacts and circumstances standard which doesn't provide any clarity at all. it does lead to the complexity of trying to figure out who is on which side of the

reason why the supreme court ruled the way it did was because one side hads a decided advantage of soft money that the other side did not have, meaning republicans did not have. now whether that's right or wrong, neither side should have an advantage over the other. and unfortunately, that continues today. >> well, the chairman will have the last word in this hearing. but i think that -- >> i think so. >> -- the chairman and i can at least agree that the present system -- the american people are getting fed up with it. and we better start to find out a more equitable way to finance our elections. >> well, i think everybody would probably agree with that generalization.

i don't think there's any question about that. on the other hand, it's hard for me to see why democrats can come pain when they've been benefitting from a whole raft of money that's never reported and is used consistently against republicans throughout the country. i know. i've been a target of some of this money. i's not just some. it's big-time dollars. and i something that's one of the reasons why the supreme court made the ruling that it did, to try to even things up. but even if i go in c 4 groups, they have to disclose how they use their money and they have certain obligations that exist in law today. we're not going to solve that here. all i can say is the system is not fair. republicans think it's disastrously unfair. democrats are thinking now that

501 c 4 organization consist spend money on politics without disclosing the names of their people. you know -- well, let's just back to one of the original cases. the naacp. where does it get its money? democrat arguments were you shouldn't have to disclose who puts the money up for politics and n the naacp because it could be used to discriminate against the people who put the money up. these are not simple issues. but all i can say is i don't, i don't see how democrats can complain when they've had a decided advantage all these years through the unions and other organizations that real hi continue have to report what they're really doing. >> well, mr. chairman, this democrat is complaining. and the reason i'm complaining is i am sure that the fair-minded chairman of this

committee does not believe that one wrong should be corrected with another wrong. >> i'm with you on that. all i'm pointing out is that your side will never up the decided advantage it has. it's that simple. if you can to that, we can do business. we can really do business and solve these problems overnight. but you'll never be able to get them to fully disclose all of the soft money they get from unions and so many other groups that i could name. let me just say that we've appreciated your patience here today, mr. koskinen. i don't think anybody can whitewash what happened. i'm glad you're making changes that hopefully will ensure that some this bias will never happen

again. i don't see how anybody can sigh these are just mistakes. if you look at what lois lerner did and a raft of others who were with her it was a lot more than just mistakes. it was wrong. and it was deliberately. to make a long story short, i'm very appreciative that you're trying to right the wrongs and trying to do what you should do. i have a high opinion of you and i'll get in trouble with the house by saying this, but i have a high opinion of you. and basically think that you're trying to put things in order. and i'm going to count on you doing that.

thank you for your patience. let me thank everyone who attended and participated in today's hearings. i thought this was a thoughtful and useful discussion today that will help us in our future efforts to improve the functioning of the irs. i want to thank you again, mr. koskinen for being here and for your agent sit's response and cooperation with regard to the committee's report and recommendations. as always, me member of the committee should feel free to submit written questions for th

from new york city. just some of the fairs and festivals this fall on c-span 2's book tv. president obama was in chicago tuesday where he spoke at the international association of chiefs of police annual conference. he talked about stricter gun control measures, criminal justice reform and federal spending. this is just under an hour. ♪ >> thank you. good afternoon, everybody. please have a seat. welcome to chicago, my hometown. [ cheers & applause ] chief berry, thank you for that

introduction, because it was brief, and that's what i like. at this point one way or another people know who i am. and let me also thank our outstanding mayor of the city of chicago, rahm emanuel for hosting us. i know that thousands of you from federal, state, county, local and tribal agencies have been working hard to share strategies and solutions to better serve and protect all of us. and we are profoundly grateful for you work. i do hope that you've gotten a little time to enjoy my hometown as well. because there is fun to be had here. somebody clapped. even as we meet here today, though, another gathering of police is taking place in new

york. randolph holder was born in guyana to a family of police officers. his dad was a police officer, his grandfather was a police officer, and after his family came to america, randolph followed in their footsteps and joined new york's finest. a week ago today a shots fired call came over the radio. and as officer holder chased down a suspect, he was shot and killed in the line of duty. officer holder didn't run toward danger because he thought of himself as a hero. he ran toward danger because he was a cop. it was part of his job description. part of his calling. it's why so many of you wear the

badge. every day you risk your lives so that the rest of us don't have to. you serve and protect to provide the security so many americans take for granted. and by the way, your families serve alongside you. and as you serve, america places very high expectations on you. expectations that cops across america work every day to meet. so i want to start by saying on behalf of the american people, thank you. [ applause ] thank you. [ applause ] thank you.

[ applause ] this country is safer because of your efforts. look at the statistics. over the last 20 years police have helped cut the violent crime rate and the homicide rate in america by almost half. it's an astonishing statistic. today americans are nearly half as likely to be the victim of an aggravated assault and less than half as likely to be the victim of a robbery. and even lesser known are the countless acts of kindness and support, helpfulness that your officers perform in your respective communities each and every day. so i want to be as clear as i

can be. i reject any narrative that seek to divide police in communities that they serve. [ applause ] i reject a story line that says, when it comes to public safety, there's an us and a them. a narrative that two often gets served up to us by news stations seeking ratings or tweets seeking retweets or political candidates seeking some attention. i know that's shocking that political candidates do that. because your work and your service really has helped make america shaffer than it has been in decades. and that's something for which every american should be proud. now that doesn't mean that things are perfect. it doesn't mean that we

shouldn't have a serious and robust debate over fairness in law enforcement. over our broader criminal justice system when it comes, particularly, to communities of color. i was just talking to chief berry before i came out and i know there was an outstanding discussion with the naacp. i've talked to enough chiefs and beat cops around the country to know that you care about these issues. you want to do the right thing. and i know there are a few people -- there are few people who more invested in declining crime rates than minority communities that have historically been underpoliced. they want more police presence in these communities, not less. that's why i'm confident in this debate people of good will can and should find common ground.

and many of you have shown that there are actions, specific actions that we can take that will make a difference in moving us in that direction. now first, we do need to get some facts established. so far the data shows that overall violent crime rates across the nation appear to be nearly as low as they were last year. and significantly lower than they were in previous decades. it is true that in some cities, including here in my hometown of chicago, gun violence and homicide have spiked.

and in some cases they've spiked significantly. but the fact is, is that so far at least across the nation, the data shows that we are still enjoying historically low rates of violent crime. moreover, over the past few years, the number of police officers shot and killed in the line of duty has fallen to their lowest levels in decades. in fact, 2013 saw the fewest cops shot and killed in the line of duty since 1887. of course, each victim of crime is someone too many. each fallen police officer is one too many. [ applause ]

i've spoken to too many families of the fallen, including right before i came out here, to not fully appreciate the pain and the hardship, the fear that so many families go through because police officers are putting themselves in the line of fire. more over, because of the spike of crime in the minority communities is real and deeply troubling -- i want to make clear, this is not something i think of as being academic. i live on the southside of chicago. so my house is pretty close to some places where shootings take

place. because that's real, we've got to get on top of it before it becomes a trend. that's why i've asked loretta lynch to work with law enforcement and leaders in these communities to find out why this is happening and target resources where they will have an impact. so for the remainder of the time that i am in this office and then as a private citizen, i'll do everything that i can to encourage cooperation and work hard to make sure that the work that's being done by law enforcement is appreciated and supported and that we maintain this incredible progress that we've made in terms of reducing crime. but in order for us to do that, we do have to stick with the

facts. what we can't do is cherry pick data or use an neck total evidence to drive policy or to feed political agendas. if we stick with the facts and maintain effective coordination across federal, state and local agencies, then we're going to continue the hard fought progress that you and so many law enforcement officers have made over the past two decades that saves lives and keeps families intact. now it's to maintain this progress. i've spent a lot of time this year with people of all backgrounds working to reform our criminal justice system, to think about how can we make it work better. i visited a prison in oklahoma, met with inmates and corrections officers. i just last week visited a community in west virginia and met with recovering substance abusers and those working on new

solutions for treatment and rehabilitation. i've met with rank and file officers in the oval office, met with police chiefs in the white house, met with cheechs and rank and file officers in camden, new jersey, paid tribute to those who have fallen in the line of duty and listened to families talk about what they're looking for in terms of support. and as i said in my state of the union address this year, i am convinced that progress comes together when we work together. and we work together best when we're willing to understand one another. when instead of having debates over talk radio, we stop and listen to each other so that we can imp these with the father who fierce his son can't walk

home because of being mistaken as a criminal. and when we sympathize with the wife who can't rest until her husband walks through the front door at the end of his shift. those of us in positions of power have an obligation to give you what you need to do your jobs even better and to facilitate the conversations and reforms required to move us all forward. so today -- [ applause ] so today i'd like to focus on three things. obviously i don't have time to touch on every aspect of these issues. i'm sure you've already heard a lot of speeches today and yesterday. but u want to focus on three things that i think are really important. first, making sure you've got the resources you need to get the job done.

[ applause ] second, criminal justice we forms that will make the system smarter and fairer. and third -- [ applause ] and third, reducing the risk that your officers face in the field with common sense gun safety reforms. [ applause [ applause ] we need to support by supporting you, the men and women who walk that thin blue line. over the past six and a half years, my administration has invested more than $2 billion to retain or hire 10,000 police officers. when state and city bungts were paralyzed during the economic crisis, we stepped in to save

the jobs of thousands of cops. right now we're helping to make sure that the departments across the country have the equipment they need, and the training they need to use the equipment. we've opened up data to police departments can use new technology to stop patterns and stop crimes. we've setting aside radio spectrum for the first responders so that the first time in history responders will share a single network. [ applause [ applause ] we're launching anti-ambush training programs to help keep officers safe. vice president joe biden, a lifelong friend of law enforcement, has an expression he likes to offer. he's got an expression for everything. show me your budget and i'll tell you what you value.

well, i tell you what, in my budget proposal i've asked congress to increase funding for the cops program so that we can hire more police officers and make sure you the training and equipment you need. that's what i value. [ applause ] it's in my budget. [ applause ] and i'll be honest with you. in the past, some republicans in congress have tried to cut funding for the cops program to zero. and i've argued that's wrong, it won't make us safer. it's time more folks in washington started valuing our cops, not just giving lip service to it. now -- [ applause ] -- the good news is, the cops program and other programs that your departments rely on to do your jobs may get some relief from the harmful spending cuts that congress imposed a few years ago because last night democrats and republicans came together over a long term budget

agreement. i'm pretty happy about that because it reflects our values. growing the economy and the middle class by investing in the things like education and job training that are needed and it keeps us safe by investing in our national security. it's paid for responsibly, in part with a measure to make sure hedge funds and private equity firms pay what they need in taxes like everybody else. it's the right thing to do. [ applause ] and it's a bipartisan compromise which hasn't been happening in washington a lot. two years of funding for bungts that free us from the cycle of shutdown threats and last-minute patch work fixes. it allows us to plan for the future and as a consequence allows your department to plan for the future. it's a step guard and i hope that both parties come together to pass this agreement without delay. and then i hope congress gets to work on spending bills to invest in america's priorities.

and that they don't get sidetracked by i'd logical provisions that have no place in america's budget process. n now, i believe that valuing law enforcement starts with making sure that it provides you with the resources that you need. i also think it means more than funding our priorities. money helps, more police officers help. but we've got to do more. so the second thing i want to focus on is fundamentally reforming our criminal justice system to make it smarter and fairer and easier for your officers to do their job safely and effectively. this is not an easy conversation to have. first of all, we all care about keeping crime rates low and things have been working, and so a lot of folks say, what's the

problem. but for generations, we've had african american, latino communities who pointed to racial disparities in the application of criminal justice from arrest rates to sentencing to incarceration rates. and all too often, those concerns, no matter how well-documented have been brushed aside. we can't have a situation in which a big chunk of the population feels as though the system isn't working as well for them. at the same time, too often law enforcement gets scapegoated for the broader failures of our society and the criminal justice system. [ applause ] and i know you do your jobs with distinction no matter the challenges you face. that's part of wearing a badge. but we can't expect you to contain and control problems

that the rest of us aren't willing to face or do anything about. problems ranging from sub standard education to a shortage of jobs and opportunity, an absence of drug treatment programs and laws that result in it being easier in too many neighborhoods for a young person to purchase a gun than a book. so if we're serious about protecting our communities and supporting our police departments, then let's invest in more opportunity and let's try to stop more crime before it starts. let's go after the racial disparities at the root. one study found that every dollar we invest in pre-k and universal pre-k, early childhood education, we save at least twice that down the road in reduced crime. getting a teenager a job for the summer may cost some money, but

it costs a fraction of what it will cost to lock him up for 15 years. [ applause ] it's not enough to tell our young people that crime didn't pay if they have no prospects at all. we've got to make sure they grow up nowing that hard work and responsibility pay off and that they've got other paths available to them. for those who do break the law, we do have to take a hard look at whether, in all circumstances, punishment fits the crime. i want to be clear about this. right now america is home to less than 5% of the wrld's population, but about 25% of its prisoners. now plenty of them belong there.

i don't have sympathy for dangerous violent offenders. i don't have sympathy for folks who are preying on children. i've got two daughters. i care about making sure these streets are safe. [ applause ] so you know, this is not some bleeding heart attitude here. violence is real, in this city and around the country. and i've seen first hand the devastation the drug trade brought on entire communities. and i believe those who pedal drugs need to be punished. down in west virginia you'd hear stories of families where these are good folks whose children were getting caught up in drugs. and young people suddenly overdosing three on four times, getting caught up in the

criminal justice system themselves because they were hooked. but it's also important for us to acknowledge that our prisons are crowded with not only hard core violent offenders but also some nonviolent offender serving very long sentences for drug crimes at taxpayer expense. and it's important to acknowledge that having millions of black and latino men in the criminal justice system without any ability for most of them to find a job after release, and most of them will eventually be released, that's not a sustainable situation. it is possible for us to come up with strategies that effectively reduce the damage of the drug trade without relying solely on incarcerati incarceration. and the reason i say that is because we've seen states and

local police departments and law enforcement do it. states from texas to south carolina to california and connecticut have already reduced their prison populations over the last five years and seen their crime rates fall. let's take some of the $80 billion we spend each year to keep people locked up -- not all of it. like i said, some of those folks you want behind bars. but let's look at the system and see areas where we can use some of that money to help law enforcement go after drug kingpins and violent gangs and terrorists. and if we can get some with a drug addiction or mental health issue into treatment, that may save us some money that allows us to put a murderer in that jail cell ininstead. we're not making it more likely that a nonviolent offender can

be reintegrated. we're making the community safer. fit helps a prisoner become a skilled worker than a hardened criminal, you're less likely to have to arrest that person again and again and again and again. i can't thank the chiefs enough here. alots of you are out front on this issue and i've talked with you about it. i know because i've met with you on it. in a hopeful sign, good people in both political parties are actually ready to do something about this. just last week the senate, which basically kbets very little done, as you may have noticed, the senate voted to move forward on a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill. and that bill would cut back on the mandatory minimum for drug offenders and give them time off

if they complete programs that make it less likely for them to complete another offense. you've got more resources that you need and there's a similar bill in the house of representatives. this is not something i get to say very often. i am encouraged by what congress is doing. i hope they get a bill to my desk so that i can sign it and together we can work to keep reducing america's crime rate and its incarceration rate at the same time. [ applause ] now even if we pass bipartisan reform, we are still going to have communities that experience a disproportionate amount of crime. in every big city in america, and me small one, folks know

the neighborhoods where the crimes are taking place disproportionately. and in some of those communities we've still got work to do to restore trust between law enforcement and the citizens they protect and serve. this is also a hard conversation. but i hope you don't mind. i'm going to go ahead and have it. it's one of the benefits of not having to run for office again. i'm sure if you polled this room people would have different takes on what happened in places like ferguson and new york. and let's face it, the media tends to focus on the sensational and the controversial and folks on both sides who say stuff that's not designed to brick folks together

but oftentimes makes the situation more polarized. as a society we tend to lurch from shocked to complacency on these issues. we have to resist that impulse. with today's technology, if one of your officers does something irresponsible were the whole world knows about it moments later. and the countless incidents of effective police work rarely make it on the evening news. so -- [ applause ] so it's important for us not to just pounce and jump on anything that happens and immediately just draw conclusions. we've got to resist the false

trap that says either there should be no accountability for police or that every police officer is suspect no matter what they do. neither of those things can be right. it's on all of us to let investigations uncover facts, to make sure that stories of misconduct aren't spread before we know the facts, and that they're not the only stories that we share. because as i said before, every day your officers aren't just stopping crimes. they're responding to emergencies, protecting victims of domestic violence, refereeing pickup games, those stories need to go viral as well. but you know as well as i do that the tensions in some communities, the feeling that law enforcement isn't always applied fairly, those sentiments

don't just come out of nowhere. i mean, there's a long history here in this country. it's not something that any individual person here is responsible for. but we all have a responsibility to do something about it. because it's part of our legacy. i was apt an event last week with l.a.'s police chief, charlie beck. when we ar asked about this issue of tensions and the feeling in minority communities that sometimes law enforcement isn't applied fairly. i repeated what i've said before, which is that there were times when i was younger, and maybe even as i got a little older, but before i had a motorcade where i got pulled over and i confessed. i told chief beck. most of the time i got a ticket,

i deserved it. i knew why i was pulled over. but there were times where i didn't. and as a report that came out just this week reminded us, there are a lot of after dan americans, not just me who have that same kind of story of being pulled over or frisked or something, and the data shows that this is not an aberration. it doesn't mean each case is a problem. it means that when you aggregate all of the cases and look at it, you've got to say there's some racial bias in the system. now problems of racial justice or injustice has been running themes throughout this country's history in every institution, in every institution.

and by the way, base and stereotypes oftentimes go both ways. so eliminating bias is something that not falls on the police alone. the good news is our divides are not as deep as some would like to suggest. i will tell you, i don't know anybody in the minority community that do not want strong effective law enforcement. i don't know anybody that doesn't want their kids to be staf when they're walking to school or playing in a playground. everybody should understand that police officers do a dangerous job. nobody wants to see police officers hurt. the question then is how do we bridge these issues. concern about fairness and a concern about effectiveness, making sure that the police officers get the support they need. that's why i set up a task force on 20th century policing last year that came up with detailed

recommendations, the departments and officers can implement to keep building trust. and i appreciate owl of the members of the iacp who joined fellow officers and community activists and young people as part of that task force. i would urge all of the chiefs here and all of you who are interested in this to look at the task force recommendations. it was really interesting. you had people who were protesting at ferguson sitting with police officers and police chiefs and they came up with some shared recommendations. it talked about having open data and independent investigations to make sure that the system was fair. it talked about helping law enforcement to work with schools and youth groups so that the kids that want to make a difference in their communities say, when i grow up i want to be a cop. right here in shil mayor emanuel

and the chicago pd have spent the past few years working on building this philosophy, putting more officers on bikes and foot so they can talk to residents. earlier this year i went to camden, new jersey where they used to have complete mistrust between the department and local residents and where the crime rate was sky high. and they're now using community policing and data to drive down crime. they've got a war room with cameras trained on hot spots around the city. and they've got software that allows community residents to direct those cameras on where drug dealers or gangs are congregati congregating. that way the local residents feel that they're partners with the local police. the police chief trained their officers from the very first day, the officers would be dropped off in the neighborhoods they would be serving and say

you're spending all day here without a car. figure it out. which meant if they wanted to go to the rest room, they would have to get to know the local business, and they started meeting parents and communities. and that way they were -- because they knew the communities they were serving, they were able to distinguish between the drug dealer and the good kid even if both of them were wearing a hoodie. the police even bought two ice cream trucks with drug forfeiture money and in the summer drove them in to some neighborhoods where gangs had taken over and drug dealers were ped peddling on the streets. they had police officers giving out free ice cream. and suddenly the community started coming out own the drug dealers started fading away.

all of the sudden the street corners who drug dealers were dealing drugs had police officers dishing out free chocolate chip. but in all of the efforts the goal was to get the community involved before a crime takes place, to build trust before a crisis erupts. and officers then feel more welcomed to their communities, citizens are more likely to cooperate with the police and that makes us all safer. now, look, i'm not naive. i'm not suggesting that any of this is easy. a lot of times it means more resources for police departments because it's more labor intensive. if you want that kind of community policing, then you've got to have enough police to the that because it takes time more than just to respond to a call. and i don't want to suggest that we're ever going to eliminate all misunderstanding os

stereotypes between police officers and minority communities. it's certainly not going to happen overnight and it's especially tough because there's more crime in these communities, which means that the police are interacting with them more than they are in some fancy neighborhoods. good community policing has to be a two-way street. the communities that desperately need effective policing have to give police officers the benefit of the doubt. and -- [ applause ] and have to work with the police department to make sure you've got the resource and support to effectively implement strategies that we know work. and the flip side of it is when an individual officer does display bias or excessive force, which is going to happen, just like there are going to be politicians who do stupid things or business leaders who --

there's no profession that doesn't have somebody who sometimes screws up. then we've got to have department to honestly and fairly address it and not just simply close ranks or stand down. [ applause ] so none of this is easy. but it can be done. and it has to be done. because i refuse to believe that the only choice we have is to either ignore circumstances of racial bias or make it impossible for police officers to do their job. that can't be the choice that we've got. we've got to reject that false choice. [ applause ] third point. to make our communities safer and to make our officers safer,

we've got to make it harder for criminals to cause chaos by getting their hands on deadly firearms. [ applause ] police officers see the toll that gun violence takes on our communities. not just when there's a mass shooting, but every single day. if you go to the southside of chicago or the westside of chicago and you walk around neighborhoods that now have big problems with violence crime and homicide, and you talk to the folks who have lived there for a long time and they ask you what's changed, some of it they'll talk about in terms of, well, there used to be more jobs here. people could go over to the factory even if they didn't have an education, could make a decent living. but a lot of what they'll say is

it used to be if a kid or a group of kids was misbelieving, adults could say things to them. and now, folk don't because you don't know if they're armed. you don't know if they're armed. [ applause ] so police officers don't have the luxury of seeing this issue in black and white terms. you know exactly why if someone all too often should want to own a gun, it's a powerful instrument. it helps you do a dangerous job. it's something that has to be used with care. many of you, like millions of law abiding americans are sportsmen or hunters or you've got a firearm in your home for

protection. but you also know the fact is that it's too easy for criminals to buy guns and that makes your already dangerous job far more dangerous than it should be. and -- [ applause ] and it makes the communities so fearful that it's harder for them to be a good partner with you. because the streets become abandoned. and parents start not being as involved. in taking place. you have a risk of being shot. it's risky enough responding to a domestic violence call or a burglary in progress without having to wonder if the suspect is armed to the teeth. maybe has better weapons than you do. and the fact is, that in states with high gun ownership, police

officers are three times more likely to be murdered than in states with low gun ownership. that is a fact. so you know that more guns on the streets do not make you or your community safer. [ applause ] and one of the benefits of being president is you travel all around the country, and i do know that there is a difference in what firearms mean and how they are handled in rural communities and in urban settings. and we've got to take into account some of the regional differences that are involved. but i do want to emphasize, this is not just an issue for cities. yeah, there are those who criticize any gun safety reforms by pointing at my own town as an example. they, well, look, chicago had a spike in homicides this year.

they've got gun safety laws, so this must be proof that suffer gun safety laws don't help. maybe make things worse. the problem with that argument, as the chicago police department will tell you, is that 60% of guns recovered in crimes come from out of state. you just got to hop across the border. as i said before, it is easier for a lot of young people in this city and in some of your communities to buy a gun than buy a book. it is easier in some communities to find a gun than it is to find some fresh vegetables. and a super market. that's just a fact. [ applause ] and that's why the iacp and the overwhelming of the american

people, democrat and republican believe we should require national background checks for anyone who wants to purchase a gun. [ applause ] that's why the iacp believes we shouldn't sell military-style assault winds to civilians. they don't need them. they don't need them to hunt a deer. here, it's just a simple proposition. cops should not be outarmed by the criminals that they're pursuing. [ applause ] as i said earlier this afternoon, i met with families of police officers who gave their lives in the line of duty, and i met with families of children here in chicago, who were taken from us by gun violence. and i do this too often.

meeting with grieving families. i'm proud to be able to express to them that the entire country cares about it. and -- [ applause ] that they're in our thoughts and prayers and that we're sorry for their loss. but i have to tell you, and i know some of you have heard my frustration in the past, here, when i meet with these families, i can't honestly tell them that our country has done everything we could to keep this from happening again. from seeing another officer shot down. from seeing another innocent bystander, you know, suffer from a gunshot wound. and that's a travesty.

32 cops have been shot and killed this year. at least a dozen children have been shot and killed this month. about 400,000 americans have been shot and killed by guns since 9/11. 400,000. just to give you a sense of perspective, since 9/11, fewer than 100 americans have been murdered by terrorists on american soil. the 400,000 have been killed by gun violence. that's like losing then tire population of cleveland or minneapolis over the past 14 year, and i refuse to accept the notion that we couldn't have prevented some of those murders, some of those suicides, kept more families whole, protected more officers if we had passed some common sense laws. [ applause ] so, look, i understand we won't all agree on this issue. but it's time to be honest.

fewer gun safety laws don't mean more freedom. they mean more danger. certainly, more danger to police. more fallen officers. more grieving families. more americans terrified that they or their loved ones could be next. so i'm going to keep calling on the folks in congress to change the way that they think about gun safety. and if they don't, i'm going to keep on calling on americans to change the folks in congress until they get it right. [ applause ] and, and please, please do not -- you know, some of you, you know, are watching certain television stations or listen to certain radio programs. please do not believe this notion that somehow i'm out to take everybody's guns away, and every time a mass shooting

happens, one of the saddest ironies is suddenly the purchase of firearm and ammunition jumps up, because folks are scared into thinking that obama's going to use this as an excuse to take away our second amendment rights. nobody's doing that. we're talking about common sense measures to make sure criminals don't get them, to make sure background checks work. [ applause ] to make sure that, to make sure that we're protecting ourselves. so supporting law enforcement and having a budget that backs it up and not just -- because talk is cheap. but actually following through to make sure you have the resources you need, reforming our criminal justice system so it is smarter and we can reduce crime while still reducing the incarceration rate, restoring