[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 71 (Friday, June 9, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H4124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 HUMAN INITIATIVE THWARTED BY DEATH TAX

  (Mr. GILCHREST asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, today we are going to vote on a bill that 
will, in about a decade, eliminate what we have come to know as the 
death tax or the estate tax.
  In this country, we lose about 1 million acres of agricultural land a 
year, 1 million acres; and it is not slowing down. In my State alone, 
we lose about 25,000 acres of farmland every single year. There is a 
lot of reasons for that. One of them is that when a farmer dies, in 
order to leave that farm or what we may call an estate to his children, 
they have to pay an enormous tax. To pay that tax, many of these young 
people, these young farmers that want to stay on the land, must sell a 
portion, if not all of that land, in order to pay the Federal 
Government their tax. This is wrong. We need to correct that.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to correct the fact that human initiative needs 
an opportunity to be fulfilled, and that opportunity for farmers is to 
stay on the land. Today, Mr. Speaker, I would hope that everyone votes 
for this bill.

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