[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
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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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