[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 119 (Thursday, September 19, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H6393-H6397]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




SENSE OF HOUSE THAT CONGRESS SHOULD COMPLETE ACTION ON PERMANENT DEATH 
                         TAX REPEAL ACT OF 2002

  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 527, I call up 
the resolution (H. Res. 524) expressing the sense of the House that 
Congress should complete action on the Permanent Death Tax Repeal Act 
of 2002.
  The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
  The text of the resolution is as follows:

                              H. Res. 524

       Whereas the death tax has been a leading cause of the 
     dissolution of family-run businesses and a burden on families 
     which save and invest;
       Whereas a bipartisan majority of the House of 
     Representatives passed the Permanent Death Tax Repeal Act of 
     2002 on June 6, 2002, by a vote of 256 to 171;
       Whereas failure to enact that Act will reimpose the death 
     tax after 2010 on families, farms and small businesses 
     throughout the Nation;
       Whereas the death tax will continue to prevent families 
     from creating, expanding, and retaining farms and businesses 
     if the death tax is resurrected;
       Whereas the threat of a resurrected death tax will cause 
     American families, including farmers and small business 
     owners, to waste vast amounts of their time and other 
     resources on efforts to plan to comply with the tax;--
       Whereas permanent repeal of the death tax will promote job 
     creation and economic growth by allowing farm and small 
     business families to invest in productive, job-creating 
     assets those resources they will otherwise spend on planning 
     for and paying death taxes; and
       Whereas the Senate has not passed that Act or equivalent 
     legislation: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of 
     Representatives that the Congress should complete action on 
     the Permanent Death Tax Repeal Act of 2002, and the Congress 
     should present to the President prior to adjournment the 
     Permanent Death Tax Repeal Act of 2002.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 527, the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Kleczka) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle).
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the House has done its work on so many issues this 
session, including passing a budget. In fact, we have passed our budget 
twice in the House of Representatives, standing shoulder to shoulder 
with the President at this very important time in America's history.
  We have done our work. Among our accomplishments, the House has 
passed the Permanent Death Tax Repeal Act of 2002, H.R. 2143, by a very 
healthy, bipartisan margin back in June. The Senate has not yet taken 
action on this legislation.
  A temporary repeal of the death tax makes absolutely no sense. It 
does not make any sense, and it is not fair. Unless this very subtle 
quirk in the law is not repealed, thousands of Americans will lose tax 
relief that they deserve and that they expect.
  Let us call this what it really is. If we do not permanently bury the 
death tax, small business owners and family farmers will face a massive 
tax increase in 2011. The 2001 tax relief law phases out the death tax 
entirely by 2010; but without action to ensure permanency, it reappears 
in its full fury on January 1, 2011. This creates a ridiculous 
situation where one minute, one moment, one tick of the clock means the 
difference between no death tax and a full hit, depending on when 
someone passes away.
  Mr. Speaker, the death tax is fundamentally unjust because it results 
in double taxation. Our Nation's laws prevent double jeopardy in court; 
we should also wipe out double taxation in the law.
  Iowa's family farmers and small business owners pay taxes throughout 
their lifetimes. After they pass away, the Federal Government taxes the 
value of their property yet again. More than 1,500 families in Iowa and 
thousands across this Nation filed death tax returns last year alone. 
The IRS imposes rates of up to 60 percent on the value of a family farm 
or business when the owner passes away.
  To pay these very enormous tax bills, many people, many kids, are 
asked to visit the IRS and the undertaker on the very same day, forced 
to sell their farms or businesses in order to pay for those taxes. 
These are family businesses and family farms that in some instances 
have been in their family for generations.
  Mr. Speaker, sound planning cannot be made without stability in our 
Tax Code. The President recently spoke about this need for permanent 
tax relief in Iowa this week. He is ready to sign a bill.
  The current uncertainty surrounding the death tax makes it extremely 
difficult for owners of Iowa's family farms and businesses and 
America's family farms and businesses to make wise decisions. The legal 
and administrative costs of compliance inhibits the economic growth and 
expansion that our economy so sorely needs at this time.
  The House has done its work. It has passed permanent death tax 
repeal. The Senate has failed to act. We need action, and America needs 
action.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KLECZKA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution before us today. 
This resolution is nothing more than a press release; and I believe 
that the appropriate arena for press releases is in the press gallery, 
not here on the floor of the House of Representatives. I always thought 
that the floor was where we debated legislation, not press releases.
  The amount of unfinished business currently pending is extremely 
large. Not one of the 13 mandatory appropriation bills has become law, 
even though the next fiscal year is only about a week away. In fact, 
this House has only passed five of those 13 appropriation bills.
  The Republican leadership has refused to schedule desperately needed 
bipartisan school construction legislation. The Republican leadership 
has also failed to schedule legislation to help all Americans with 
escalating prescription drug costs. Now the Republican leadership has a 
new strategy: pass resolutions praising old, irresponsible tax bills 
and then blame the Senate.
  The resolution before us today is not only a press release, but it is 
a very

[[Page H6394]]

misleading one, at that. The underlying bill has no effect until the 
year 2011. Notwithstanding the rhetoric, the estate tax affects only 
the wealthiest segment of our society. Let me repeat that, Mr. Speaker: 
notwithstanding what my friend, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), 
has said, the estate tax affects only the wealthiest segment of our 
society. In fact, only 1.3 percent of all estates face inheritance 
taxation.

                              {time}  1330

  The Republicans have defeated Democratic efforts to prescribe 
immediate tax relief in the estate tax area by increasing the 
exemption.
  The gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) offered a substitute 
earlier this year which would have provided an immediate $3 million 
exemption per person or $6 million for married couples. That substitute 
would have immediately repealed the estate tax for virtually all farms 
and virtually all small businesses. But the Republicans did not let 
that come up for a vote. However, those farms and small businesses were 
held hostage by the Republican leadership in its attempt to repeal the 
estate tax for the truly wealthy.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would urge that this House return to the real 
issues facing this country: The lack of a prescription drug benefit 
under the Medicare program, reducing the costs of prescription drugs 
for everyone, ballooning deficits, the need to finance our fight 
against terrorism and a bipartisan commitment to improve our education 
system.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, all of bills that the gentleman just mentioned, the 
House has passed. It is, again, the Senate that fails to act.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman 
from California (Mr. Cox).
  Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, I would observe in response to the previous 
speaker that the House has acted on prescription drugs. We have passed 
a prescription drug bill here to add a prescription drug benefit for 
Medicare beneficiaries. The President has said he will sign it and it 
awaits action in the Senate where the bill is not moving.
  The same is true of the death tax. The House has acted. We have 
already, Democrats and Republicans, voted on a bill by majority vote 
here and sent it to the Senate. It is the bill the President has asked 
for and he will sign it. It makes permanent the repeal that is already 
in existing law. We repealed the death tax originally because a 
majority of the Congress and a big super majority of the American 
people recognize that the virtual confiscation of an individual's 
after-tax lifetime savings is wrong and immoral.
  It was said just a moment ago that this somehow affects only the 
rich. To the contrary, the problem has been the forced liquidation of 
small businesses, and the people that are laid off, who lose their jobs 
at ranches and farms and small businesses across the country are not 
the rich. In fact, the rich person is the only one who does not care 
because he is dead by definition, but, rather, they pay a 100 percent 
tax because they lose their jobs, they lose everything. By destroying 
jobs, by destroying small businesses, the death tax has properly earned 
the opprobrium of the American people.
  Now, in the other body they slipped in a mickey. Repeal expires 
somehow in 10 years. That 10 years is coming closer so it is January 1, 
2011 that we will have the death tax right back again, even though it 
has been repealed. That is why the New York Times referred to this as 
the ``Throw Mama From the Train Act.''
  Whether you are for or against a death tax, nobody can be in support 
of this provision that has a repeal and then springs back to life in 10 
years. The House has acted and now both the House and the American 
people want the Senate to act on permanent death tax repeal.


                announcement by the speaker pro tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The Chair would remind all 
Members to confine their remarks to factual references to the other 
body, and avoid remarks characterizing Senate action or inaction, 
remarks urging Senate action or inaction, or references to particular 
Senators.
  Mr. KLECZKA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) indicated all the 
items I talked about, we passed. Well, I would challenge him to tell 
the House when we passed legislation to reduce the cost of prescription 
drugs for everybody in this country. There is a discharge petition 
pending and I challenge him to sign it if he is serious about that.
  When did this House do anything about school construction costs? On 
that we have done nothing at all.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota 
(Mr. Pomeroy), a distinguished member of the Committee on Ways and 
Means who has advanced some real reforms in the inheritance tax area.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, what we have before us is a sense of Congress. And we 
can pass these all day long and they will not accomplish anything. So 
let us talk on this important topic, the estate tax, especially as 
applied to family farmers and small businesses, about doing something 
real and doing it now.
  I have legislation very similar to what we considered when we 
considered the substitute to the estate tax repeal, and I am absolutely 
convinced as I stand here before the Speaker that we can enact this 
legislation and get it to the President for his signature before going 
home in a few weeks at the end of this Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5008 would, effective January 1 of 2003, take the 
exclusion for estate tax up to $6 million for couples. If a couple has 
assets of less than $6 million, we have repealed the estate tax.
  Now, what is important is to note that this is effective January 1 of 
2003. The legislation advanced by my friend across the aisle does not 
have an effective date until 2011. Nothing they are talking about on 
their side takes effect before 2011. We proposed something that takes 
effect in a very meaningful way January 1 of next year.
  I was moved when my friend from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) talks about family 
farms, visiting the IRS and the undertaker on the same day. That is a 
terrible thing. Let us do something about it.
  The research that I have done shows that if we take what Democrats 
would be prepared to vote for right now, excluding couples with estates 
under $6 million from the estate tax effective January 1 of 2003, 
virtually all the farms in North Dakota do not have estate tax 
problems. And if you look at how this applies to small business, you 
can almost conclude the same thing.
  IRS data shows that 99.7 percent of the estates in this country do 
not have problems. We take this estate tax issue and we eliminate it. 
We repeal it. We repeal it immediately for all but three-tenths of 1 
percent; 99.7 percent get full relief now.
  Now, at the end of a legislative session, these family farms the 
other side speaks so much about, they want something and they want it 
delivered. They want it now. I would suggest to the other side, what 
would be wrong with the procedure where you take what you can get right 
now and you come back for more later.
  Your bill does not do a thing until 2011, so what is the matter with 
taking $6 million as an estate tax exclusion right now and come back 
for the rest later.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) to 
answer that question.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to answer that question.
  The gentleman does not give us permanent death tax repeal. We want 
permanent death tax repeal.
  Mr. POMEROY. Reclaiming my time, it is absolutely permanent for 
estates of $6 million and below.
  Effective January 1 of 2003, if you are a couple with an estate 
valued at $6 million and below, we forever repeal your estate tax 
exposure. What would be the matter with taking that as an opening 
proposition? We will take the problem and make it go away for $6 
million and below and we will come back for the rest later.
  Because I will state that the legislation the gentleman supports will 
leave farm families with joint estates of $2 million and below subject 
to estate tax

[[Page H6395]]

exposure in 2003. Under my legislation, it would be $6 million and 
below.
  Why would they not take the $6 million now and come back for the rest 
later?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle).
  Mr. NUSSLE. Because of the magic word the gentleman has put into 
their legislation, and that is ``if.'' We have no ifs. We want 
permanent death tax repeal. They have permanent death tax. And only if, 
then we get some kind of exclusion. We want permanent death tax repeal.
  Mr. POMEROY. Reclaiming my time, because what the gentleman has done 
is lay out very clearly where he comes down. He comes down on behalf of 
the richest three-tenths of 1 percent and the gentleman is not about to 
let those family farmers in Iowa or North Dakota get the meaningful 
relief they deserve January 1 of 2003, because they are holding out for 
the Ken Lays and the multi-bazillionnaires of this world as opposed to 
taking action now that for Iowa and North Dakota family farmers would 
virtually make the estate tax go away.
  When one is a family farmer, we are dealing with assets of less than 
$6 million per farm couple. And that is why initiating this 
legislation, H.R. 5008, that is why this legislation is so important.
  We significantly improve the situation from their tax exposure 
January 1, $6 million and below, no estate tax under our legislation 
January 1.
  Under the majority bill, estates over $2 million will be subject to 
estate tax. They do nothing about that. They leave this exposure out 
there until the year 2011 because they have taken the position if they 
cannot deal with everybody, they will not deal with anybody.
  They will hold out for the richest three-tenths of 1 percent in this 
country, rather than move legislation forward that will help family 
farmers and small business. I think it is a shame because right now, at 
the end of this session, the Democratic minority is prepared to enter a 
bill that will make the estate tax for $6 million for couples go away. 
And if you want to come back for more later, come back for more later. 
Your bill does not take effect, anyway, until 2011. I think if you were 
real sincere about this, you would take what you could get now and come 
back for the rest later.
  The point is they are not sincere. This is a political press release 
and it is a shame.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments on my sincerity 
and I will reserve making the same claim back.
  We repeal the death tax, no ifs, no ands, and no buts. The gentleman 
from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) cannot even get a majority on his own 
side to agree with his amendment and his motion to recommit, as we saw 
in the last time it was presented on the floor.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the very distinguished gentlewoman 
from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).
  Mrs. BIGGERT. Mr. Speaker, I do rise in strong support of permanently 
repealing the death tax which was passed by the House.
  In a former life I practiced estate law. I worked with people to 
navigate this extremely complex tax. And I was not helping the Warren 
Buffets or the Bill Gateses of the world. I was helping the sons and 
daughters of small business owners to try and keep their parents' 
dreams alive so that they would have that property.
  This insidious tax punishes thrift. It has discouraged 
entrepreneurship and it has penalized working families. What is more, 
taxing money that has already been taxed is patently unfair.
  In Illinois alone, over 5,500 families filed a death tax form in 
2001. Many of them were small business owners and many of them were 
family farmers.
  Mr. Speaker, sound decisions cannot be made without permanency. The 
uncertainty of the future of the death tax makes it difficult for 
owners of family businesses and farms to make wise economic decisions. 
Any way you look at it, Americans are taxed too much, not too little. 
It is time for Congress to bury this burden once and for all.
  Mr. KLECZKA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, this resolution does not belong on the floor of the 
House of Representatives. It belongs on the floor of the Mickey Mouse 
Club. This resolution says that Congress, which has not been able to do 
its work, ought to use its time to pass resolutions telling itself to 
get its work done. Only in this place would that make sense.
  What is also revealing about this turkey is the fact that it selects 
what work it wants to put at the top of the priority list. And guess 
what it is? This resolution does not say that this House should sit 
down and meet its basic responsibilities by passing the budget for the 
year, by passing the appropriations bills. Those are the only real 
budgets. The budgets that come out of the Committee on the Budget are a 
joke.
  This resolution does not say that we should meet our responsibilities 
to homeland defense by passing an appropriations bill that adequately 
funds the FBI and the Coast Guard and the U.S. Marshals to protect the 
American people from terrorists. It does not say the Republican caucus 
ought to end its internal war so they can finally bring to this floor 
the Labor, Health and Education bill so we can meet our 
responsibilities to fund education and Federal investments in education 
for the year. Oh, no, no, no. It does not do that.
  It does not say that the Congress ought to get off its duff and 
assure that we have a fully funded fuel assistance program to ensure 
that our low income elderly do not have to choose between heating their 
homes and eating this year. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
  All it says is that the one thing we will take the time out to 
prattle about is the need to satisfy the richest people in this country 
with yet another tax break.

                              {time}  1345

  Those people just happen to be the people who can make the most 
generous response to fund-raising requests. The leadership of this 
House apparently does not want the House to vote for a Labor-H bill 
that adequately funds our schools and funds health care problems, and 
yet they also do not want their caucus members to vote for a bill that 
sticks it to the schools and the elderly before the election. They want 
to put that dirty business off until after the election. Oh yes, we 
will solve that problem later we are told; you understand, we are too 
busy to do that now.
  What they want to do is obvious. They want to do the same thing they 
did 2 years ago. They want to hide from parents interested in education 
in this country what their intentions are for the education budget 
until after the election; and then after the election, they will cut 
back the expenditures for education just as they did 2 years ago, just 
as they did 2 years ago.
  Mr. Speaker, in my view, this House is sick. It is dysfunctional. It 
focuses only on the needs of a tiny fraction of our society, the most 
well-off 2 percent. If ever there was a product that demonstrated the 
true values of the people who run this House, this is it. This is it. 
For all practical purposes, this Congress is in a government shutdown. 
You just have not had the guts to tell the people yet, and then you 
single out one little exception of that shutdown to reward the people 
who can respond with thousand-dollar and hundred thousand-dollar 
contributions. My God, what a set of priorities.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds, and say what 
really needs to be exposed is the tax-and-spend attitude of the 
gentleman who just spoke. Taxes and spending, taxes and spending. Raise 
taxes, increase spending.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Shimkus).
  (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that the Tax Code hurts our 
economy. We all know that Americans who try to save get penalized and 
that many Americans need tax attorneys and lawyers to help them file 
their returns, especially the farmers and small businessmen impacted by 
the death tax.
  While the House has passed legislation to make the death tax repeal 
permanent, because a temporary repeal of the death tax just makes no 
sense, it still has not been signed into law. As

[[Page H6396]]

we wait, families are selling their farms and their businesses just to 
pay their taxes. They are putting money into hiring attorneys and 
lawyers to find ways around the tax instead of investing in their 
businesses and hiring new workers. All this is happening while the rich 
continue to avoid the estate tax by setting up charitable foundations 
and other schemes.
  Mr. Speaker, family farms and businesses, especially in Illinois, 
have the right to pass the fruits of the labor on to their children. 
Congress needs to act. I look forward to voting on this legislation 
today, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
  Mr. KLECZKA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Iowa just attacked my 
positions as a ``tax and spender.'' I would point out that when he took 
over as chairman of the Committee on the Budget, this committee was 
running a large surplus; and under his magnificent leadership he has 
managed to return us to deficits of over $300 billion when you count 
the Social Security account. Taxes and spending may be bad, but taxes 
and borrowing is a whole lot worse.
  Mr. KLECZKA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Hinchey).
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, this resolution calling upon the other 
House to join in the permanent repeal of the estate tax I think reduces 
cynicism to a new low. The permanent repeal of the estate tax, first of 
all, very obviously benefits only a handful, a tiny fraction of the 
American people; but the other problem has to do with the other taxes 
that have been repealed by this House or reduced by this House.
  A study just out today by the Brookings Institution and the Urban 
Institute shows the fraudulent nature of that tax cut. It shows how 
middle-income people are being forced into the alternative minimum tax. 
It shows how middle-income people across the country are going to pay 
up to $1 trillion in alternative minimum taxes over the course of the 
next decade. It shows how the tax cut that was rammed through this 
House in the early days of 2001 by the Bush administration, when the 
Republicans controlled both Houses of the Congress, is shifting the 
burden of taxation away from the rich and to the middle class.
  Middle-income people are paying more and more taxes under their so-
called tax cut while millionaires are paying less and less taxes; and 
that is what they want to do with this particular tax cut today, to the 
estate tax, and of course, they have not figured out how to pay for any 
of this.
  What they have done is taken us from a situation of budget surpluses 
just 2 years ago to a situation now of increasing budget deficits. That 
is how they are paying for these programs, shifting the tax burden from 
the wealthy to the middle income and paying for it by requiring the 
people of this country to borrow more money, putting into jeopardy the 
Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund. That is where 
they are borrowing the money.
  So while they give tax cuts to millionaires, they jeopardize the 
Social Security trust fund, they jeopardize the Medicare trust fund, 
and they make the government borrow more money. This is cynicism at its 
worst.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is imperative that we do something to repeal 
the death tax permanently. We can change many taxes, such as the income 
tax, the sales tax, the property tax, from year to year; and it does 
not promote long-term devastation. But when we have a death tax that is 
in force until the year 2009 and in 2010 it goes away completely and in 
2011 it comes back to 55 percent, we have an untenable position. It is 
absolutely impossible to do any long-term estate planning under the 
present system, and that is why this has to be repealed so people can 
plan now in 2002 what is going to happen in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.
  Let me give a quick example. We have heard about the very wealthy 
people who are profiting from this. There was a ranch that was owned by 
Doris and Harry Coble in Nebraska. This was a 12,000-acre ranch in the 
Sand Hills. That is a small ranch that will barely support one family, 
maybe an income of $30,000, $40,000 a year. It was in the family for 
over 100 years. The land appreciated over time. The land and cattle 
upon their death was worth about $5 million. The inheritance tax on 
that ranch was over $2 million. The capital gains ran that up to about 
$3 million, and the heirs absolutely could not afford to own that 
property. So who bought the property? Ted Turner. Will Ted Turner pay 
an inheritance tax? Will he pay a death tax? No, he will not. That is 
the upper three-tenths of 1 percent we have been talking about. So our 
property in Nebraska and other parts of the Midwest is being bought out 
by absentee landlords who are able to buy those lands and those 
properties at those prices. So we are losing the income, we are losing 
the capital from those areas, and the ownership is moving out of the 
State.
  So I think for the benefit of ranches, farms, small businesses, we 
absolutely have to make this permanent which will provide us with some 
long-term planning capabilities.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Grucci).
  (Mr. GRUCCI asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GRUCCI. Mr. Speaker, today I come to the floor to support a 
measure to urge action on the permanent repeal of the death tax, the 
only tax that forces families to visit the undertaker and the IRS on 
the same day.
  For the past 85 years, small-family businesses have been forced to 
hand over up to 60 percent of the estate to the Federal Government. 
This is a requirement for the families to sell their farms, sell their 
small businesses, sell their fishing boats in order to satisfy their 
tax obligation. One does not have to be an advocate for less government 
to understand that taxing the dead is just a bit extreme.
  Family businesses from Montauk Point to Monterey Bay have worked 
hard, many times through several generations to reach the American 
dream. It is our duty to protect and secure the dream for the future 
generations of Americans that wish to work the family farms that their 
grandfathers built, lead the small businesses that their mothers 
started, or fish the waters of their fathers. It is their right to 
carry on the American dream, and the Federal Government should not take 
that dream away from them.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the passage of the 
removal of the death tax and make it permanent. The House has moved 
expeditiously on this issue; the Senate has yet to act.
  Mr. KLECZKA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), a distinguished member of the Committee on 
Ways and Means.
  Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, today we are voting on a 
sense of the House resolution which, frankly, makes no sense. Rather 
than taking up legislation that actually helps our ailing economy, 
rather than providing relief for workers or pensioners who have fallen 
victim to corporate greed, rather than tackling the remaining eight 
appropriations bills in the 2 weeks before the fiscal year ends, the 
Republican leadership is wasting time in the people's House by playing 
politics.
  We all remember, Mr. Speaker, the glorious talk of future surpluses 
``as far as the eye could see'' in order to provide a trillion dollars 
in tax cuts for the next 10 years. Sadly, these surpluses have 
vanished, and now we are scratching our heads trying to figure out how 
to fund national priorities. The President has asked for $38 billion 
for homeland security, $48 billion more for national defense, and now 
perhaps 1 to 2 percent of the GDP, $100 to $200 billion to prosecute 
the war in Iraq; and we know in this Chamber today that the President 
is going to get much of what he asks for.
  But with a war on terrorism and Iraq looming, the Republicans have 
chosen to spend the last few months pushing one bill after another to 
cement in place the Bush tax cuts. Any economist worth his salt or her 
salt will tell you that the future is always uncertain, particularly 
long-term forecasts. So

[[Page H6397]]

why would you want to lock in escalating tax cuts?
  Every one of us today has had an opportunity in our offices to hear 
from the 3,000 visitors who have successfully fought the scourge of 
cancer in their own lives. Six people from my congressional district 
visited with me today. Ovarian cancer, breast cancer. They were 
applauding the work of the NIH, applauding the work of our hospitals, 
particularly our teaching hospitals across the country and 
universities, and asking us for more money for cancer research. We know 
that that is a priority, and the Members of this House are about to act 
upon an estate tax repeal that they know in the next year or so we are 
going to have to revisit. It is sad commentary on the priorities that 
we have as Members of this House.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the very distinguished 
gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito).
  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, the death tax is one of the most unfair taxes. It taxes 
farmers and small business owners twice. First they pay taxes 
throughout their years and then the Federal Government taxes the value 
their property again at the time of their death. More bluntly put, it 
is simply unjust; and if you do not believe that, just ask Charles 
Wilfong, a farmer from my home State of West Virginia. Mr. Wilfong 
wants to be able to pass his farm along to his children, but he is so 
fearful that his children will have to sell portions of the land in 
order to pay the hefty bill the IRS will hand them once he passes away. 
Desperately trying to keep his farm intact for his children and 
grandchildren, he continues to explore potential legal methods to keep 
that which he has worked so hard for.
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Wilfong is not alone. Many other farmers and small 
businessmen and women could suffer disastrous effects that the death 
tax can have on their future. Many people have worked hard their whole 
lives to build a strong future for their children and grandchildren. 
Our tax laws should not punish hard work by forcing family members to 
pay death taxes to the IRS.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge Congress to give permanent relief from the death 
tax. It is time for Congress to banish the death tax once and for all.

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