[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 71 (Friday, June 9, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H4127]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      ONE PERCENT OF AMERICANS OWN 40 PERCENT OF AMERICA'S ASSETS

  (Mr. ROTHMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, today my Republican colleagues would like 
to do away with the estate tax entirely. Democrats propose a way to 
make sure that 99 percent of Americans do not pay any estate tax.
  Who started the estate tax? The Republican, Theodore Roosevelt. Why? 
Because we did not want two different Americas.
  Today in America, 1 percent of the people in America own 40 percent 
of the assets of America. It is growing bigger and bigger, this gap. 
Twice as much as it was 20 years ago. What do my colleagues on the 
Republican side of the aisle want to do? They want to make it worse. 
They want to give the richest 1 percent of America an enormous tax cut 
costing our country $50 billion a year. With Social Security and 
Medicare going broke, with the $5.6 trillion national debt, with our 
public schools falling apart, with needs for a strong defense, our 
Republican colleagues want to give a huge tax break, unneeded, 
unnecessary, to the 1 percent richest people in America who already 
control 40 percent of the Nation's wealth. It is obscene; it is a 
disgrace.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for the modest estate tax 
relief under the Democrat bill.

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