[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 93 (Monday, June 23, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H5701-H5705]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ELIMINATION OF THE DEATH TAX

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Garrett of New Jersey). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is recognized for half the time from now until 
midnight.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take a little time this evening 
to discuss an issue which I think is very basic but fundamental to 
American families, to the dream of American families in this Nation 
being able to pass on through their hard work, one business or a farm 
or a home or some type of asset from one generation to the next 
generation.
  Unfortunately, in this country we have put into our tax code one of 
the most unfair, unjustified taxes that any tax code could have, and 
that tax is called, for short, the death tax. It has got a fancy word 
which they say the estate tax, but in fact, what it is is it is a tax 
upon a person's death. It is not a tax that is invoked for any other 
reason but for the fact that a person has died, and the moment they 
have died, the government, the State Government and the Federal 
Government, of course led by the Federal Government, shows up at the 
grave site and tries to get into that person's estate and invoke this 
death tax.
  There is a little history to the death tax. The death tax, as I said, 
from any scholarly point of view, from any economic point of view, from 
any business point of view, if we take a look at the death tax, there 
truly is no justification for it.

                              {time}  2215

  On top of the fact that there is not a justification for the tax, 
under any economic sense, any economic study, on top of that, the tax 
is also at least a double taxation. Because the death tax is not a tax 
on property that has been accumulated during one's lifetime upon which 
no tax has been paid. When this property is accumulated by an 
individual, tax is paid either at the time of the accumulation or at 
the time of the sale. So this tax is not an attempt to collect some tax 
that for some reason or another has evaded the tax man's notice. That 
is not what this tax is about. This is a tax that is a tax on property 
that has already been taxed, and, in some cases, more than once. In 
some cases, two or three times.
  Now, look, everybody agrees that we should carry our fair share of 
the burden. Nobody disagrees with that. We know that to operate a 
government, to operate a military, to operate the needs of the 
government that we have to have some revenue. But we determined a long 
time ago that that taxation ought to have at its fundamental core the 
word fairness. It ought to be fair. And time after time we have said, 
including in recent action by this body of the Congress, we have said 
time after time after time that double taxation hardly fits within the 
definition of fairness. It is not fair to tax somebody twice on the 
same property. And that is exactly what the death tax does.
  Now, I believe that the death tax is a pretty good issue that shows a 
fundamental difference between the Republican Party and the Democrats. 
In my opinion, all of the Democratic candidates that are running for 
the Presidential office here in a couple of years support the death 
tax. Every Democrat, to the best of my knowledge, the Democrats that in 
this House or in the other body in the U.S. Congress that have a net 
worth of more than $1 million and that voted against elimination of the 
death tax have already done trust planning. So they do not have to pay 
the death tax.
  We have people, for example, not just Democrats here in the House or 
on the other side, but we have other people out there, whose party 
affiliation I do not know, for example, Warren Buffett, and people like 
Bill Gates's father, and these are very, very wealthy individuals, and 
these are individuals who stand up and say that we ought to keep the 
death tax in this country. What is ironic about this, and frankly, in 
fact, a little hypocritical almost, and if it were not so serious it 
would be amusing, but I can remember several months ago where at one of 
these parties, and I think it was Bill Gates, Sr. who was doing an 
interview about how as a very wealthy individual, from a very wealthy 
family, that they supported the death tax. But where was he doing the 
interview from? He was doing it in the offices of their foundation. And 
what is the purpose of that foundation? The purpose of that foundation 
is to avoid the death tax.
  So there are some very wealthy people in this country who, along with 
the liberal side of the Democratic Party, say we support the death tax, 
we think it is fair to have a death tax; but the reality of that is 
that if they have any money of their own, these individuals have 
already created foundations or have done trust work so that they 
largely avoid paying any kind of death tax. So that is not the kind of 
source we want to look to for some type of scholarly view as to whether 
or not a death tax is justified.
  I do not look to the ivory towers of our universities to come up with 
some conclusion as to whether or not we should have a death tax. Where 
I look is, I go out into my district. I go out across this country; and 
I talk to the people who have worked hard, who have wanted to 
accomplish the American Dream. And one of the American dreams, and I 
think pretty much all my colleagues at some point or another in their 
life have had this dream, and that is to become successful, to be 
successful to the extent that they are able to help the generation 
behind them, their kids, their children; to be able to give them a 
start; to be able to maybe help them enjoy part of the life that they 
have enjoyed.
  And for the sake of disclosure, Mr. Speaker, let me just mention that 
in my family, on my wife's side of the family, they have a family 
ranch. They have been in the ranching business since the 1860s or the 
1870s out in Colorado. This is a beautiful ranch. It is beautiful not 
just in its physical characteristics, but it is beautiful in that the 
family, generation after generation after generation, has loved the 
land and has been able to stay on the land.
  Now, in the past hundred years or so, or 50 years, ever since the 
death tax has been in place, one would think we live in a socialistic 
type of society where there is some kind of punishment for dying; it 
seems we want to make sure the family behind you does not have that 
opportunity to be able to live on that ranch and work the land like 
this family, the Smith family of Meeker, has done for generation after 
generation.
  I can find example after example, Mr. Speaker. So one might ask, how 
did the death tax come about in the first place? Well, the death tax 
was designed to be a punishment against the wealthy, those very wealthy 
icons around the turn of the 19th century, the Ford family, the 
Carnegie family, the Rockefeller family, people like that. In society 
at that point in time there was such a large division between the very, 
very wealthiest and the population as a whole that somehow the 
politicians were persuaded that there should be a punishment in this 
country.
  Here we are, in our classrooms, teaching that this is the greatest 
country in the history of the world, in part because we encourage 
innovation, and innovation has as its basic incentive reward. An 
individual is rewarded for innovation, that in our country if you 
invent a cure for cancer, you can become wealthy; in our country if you 
make a better seat belt, or as the old saying used to be, if you make a 
better mousetrap, there is incentive out there. We do not live in a 
socialistic society where no matter what you contribute, your share of 
the pie is always equal. That is not what we believe in. That is why 
socialism will never equal capitalism. But the reality of this tax is 
that somehow way back then the politicians decided to punish the 
wealthy people of this country, those few wealthy families.
  What they never imagined was that it would not just punish the 
wealthy. In fact, it would not really punish

[[Page H5702]]

those wealthy people at all, because most of those wealthy people 
throughout time, including today, including the Gates family, and I 
have respect for their accomplishments, although I disagree with them 
on the issue, but it does not really punish them because they are able 
to hire hundreds, or whatever numbers, of attorneys to get them out of 
it. Where it is punishing Americans is in the middle class of America.
  You do not have to be wealthy to be hit by this thing. Prior to the 
Republican movement, led by our President, in which we at least begin 
to phase out the death tax through the year 2010, prior to that all a 
person really needed to own free and clear was, say a bulldozer, a dump 
truck, a pickup, and your office building for a little construction 
company. And guess what, your family was going to face the death tax 
upon your demise. This is a tax that is directed at the middle class of 
America, and it is a punishment tax so that the middle class of 
America, again because the wealthier class is able to plan around it, 
this is designed to take the middle class of America and make sure that 
instead of encouraging family businesses or family farms, instead of 
encouraging that to go from generation to generation, it serves as a 
punishment.
  Now, let me just say that in the last 2 weeks this House once again 
said that we should take the elimination of the death tax, which is 
totally eliminated in 2010, but, unfortunately, comes back in full 
force in 2011, once again this House last week took action to 
permanently eliminate the death tax. And, frankly, I am stunned, not 
surprised, but I am stunned that we did have 44 Democrats, and I am not 
trying to get partisan on this issue, but let us call an ace an ace. 
The fact is this is one of the differences between the Democratic Party 
and the Republican Party, and that is the death tax; but I can say that 
40 or 44 Democrats last week came across and voted with the Republicans 
to permanently eliminate the death tax. The rest of those Democrats did 
not come across. They support this tax. And it is a debilitating tax on 
the middle class of America.
  Mr. Speaker, do you know what happens to some of these farms in my 
area that have to be sold for death taxes? They are not sold for 
ranches or farms. I live in the mountains of Colorado. That is my 
district. What happens when these farms or ranches are sold, they are 
turned into 35-acre ranchettes. They are turned into condominium 
projects. The open space that makes Colorado beautiful, that makes most 
of us in this room want to vacation in Colorado, gets turned into 
condominiums. Why? Not because of some greedy rancher that wants to 
make money. The Smith family could have made a lot of money a long time 
ago. But it is because our very own government forced this family to 
sell that ranch so that that ranch, the proceeds from the sale of that 
ranch could be used to pay the government.
  Now, I have heard the argument, and I want to explore the argument a 
little, but I have heard the argument that, well, we need to spread the 
wealth. This is class warfare, and we saw it during the debate on the 
tax credit a couple of weeks ago; we saw it on the vote of the death 
tax. The Democratic philosophy, and let us lay it out here, the 
Democratic philosophy is more of a transfer system. If you get somebody 
that makes money over here and somebody does not quite make it over 
here, you ought to do some transfer to try to make them equal. But I 
can assure my colleagues that just works as a disincentive. We cannot 
have everybody be equal economically, or we would never have any 
incentive for someone to do better.
  When we take a look at the arguments being used by the Democratic 
Party, by the liberal leadership over there, and I am talking about the 
minority leader, who is an ardent supporter of continuing this death 
tax, their argument is, well, gosh, what we do is we take from a 
wealthy family, and again let me remind everyone it is, in most cases, 
not a wealthy family, in fact this tax comes from middle-class 
families, so what they say, well, we get it from the people who have 
the money and we give it to people that are more in need of the money. 
Let me give an example of what happened to a family I know out in 
Colorado.
  Mr. Speaker, I will not use the names of this family; but first of 
all, the father, the husband and wife started out with the wife as 
homemaker. He started out as a janitor in a construction company. 
Eventually, over 4 or 5 years, he became the bookkeeper of the 
construction company. Pretty soon, he was able to borrow enough money 
to buy the construction company. Pretty soon he had 5 or 10 people 
working for him. Then, 10, 20, 25 years later he was the largest 
investor in the local bank, he was the largest contributor to the local 
church, and he was the largest employer. Hundreds of people worked for 
him in the community. He was by far the largest contributor for 
everything from United Way to the Boy Scouts, to the Girl Scouts, to 
whatever. What happened, unfortunately, his wife got cancer and passed 
away. And then, unfortunately, my friend got terminal cancer as well.
  Now, what happened is he sold the bank, the interest he had in the 
bank, and he got hit with capital gains taxation. Which again, 
fortunately, in the latest tax cut, we have reduced that to 15 percent. 
And I commend the President, the Speaker of the House, and I commend 
the majority leader in the Senate for leading the way on getting this 
capital gains reduced so that we can help bolster this economy.

                              {time}  2230

  But back to my story. In this town what happened was my friend sold 
the interest in the bank and got hit with capital gains. Shortly after 
selling the family interest in the bank, he was diagnosed with terminal 
cancer and died 3 months later. The estate tax when combined with the 
death tax on top of the capital gains tax, that family was taxed 71 
cents on the dollar. That does not mean that the family was able to 
take 29 cents on the dollar, that is not what happened because they 
were not able to realize the true value of their assets because their 
assets were sold at a fire sale. They were forced to sell.
  The family told me they thought they were able to keep a property 
that they had already paid taxes on in many cases more than once, on 
property that their father and mother had accumulated over a 65-year 
period of time, they were able to maybe keep that family for the next 
generation about 18 cents. How did they get the money, they had to sell 
the construction company. They had to stop contributing to the local 
charities, lay off employees, and sell transferable assets that were 
moved out of the community.
  What happened to that money in this case? Did that money stay in that 
local community? It did not. It did not stay in that community. This is 
one of the bad things outside of the fact that the death tax is unfair. 
That money did not stay in that local community. That money was 
transferred to Washington, D.C. When it went to Washington, D.C., how 
many cents per dollar do you think ever went back to that tiny 
community in Colorado once it got back here to the bureaucracy? 
Probably nothing or some small fraction.
  But what was the impact on that community when they took those 
properties and transferred it, simply because of the reason that the 
person, the two people that had earned it had died, that is the only 
reason this punitive tax was put in place, what happened, the church 
which he and his wife contributed 70 percent of their budget to, there 
were no more donations to the church. The employees lost their jobs. 
The construction company was forced to be sold. My understanding is 
that the construction company ownership, they then moved the 
construction company out of town. It hurt that community at different 
levels all throughout that community.
  Mr. Speaker, it pokes a hole in the liberal argument. It is almost 
like a socialistic-type approach that we ought to tax these people that 
are wealthy or upper middle class that die, it is good for the 
community. It was not good for the community. It devastated that 
community. Let me remind my colleagues here, we are not talking about 
somebody who had not paid their taxes. They had paid taxes year after 
year after year. This was not untaxed property. The only reason that 
property was hit with the death tax was because of the fact that a 
death had occurred. That was the trigger event. That is what caused it.
  Let me step back and tell Members, it is not just that community 
alone. I

[[Page H5703]]

brought letters over. In the United States Congress, we get letters 
every day. I grabbed a few of them about the death tax. I want to read 
some of them.
  Dear Congressman, We have operated a family partnership since the 
middle 1930s. My parents died 5 years apart in the 1980s, and the 
estate tax on each of their one-fifth interest was three to four times 
more than the total cost of the ranch which was purchased in 1946.
  Mr. Speaker, this family bought a ranch in 1946 and the death tax 
when the husband and wife died was four to five times the original 
purchase price of the ranch. Tell me how one Democrat could vote to 
continue this tax. As I said, 40 some of the Democrats voted to get rid 
of this tax, and I commend those 40. But for my other colleagues, and I 
say this respectfully, but for my other colleagues on the Democratic 
side who refuse to join the Republicans and the 40 conservative 
Democrats, how can you look at this family, how can you go to this 
family and justify this kind of tax on that property, on that family 
farm out there in middle America?

  Let me go on. Here is another letter. I am a student at the 
University. I grew up in a family that has lived and thrived in 
agriculture for many years. My parents and grandparents are involved in 
a typical family farm, a farm that has been in the family for more than 
125 years. Grandpa is 76, and in the last years of his life. My parents 
have been discussing this situation for the last several months. My 
parents worry about the death tax and about how they are going to be 
able to keep the farm running once grandpa passes away. The eventual 
loss of my grandpa will trigger this death tax on the family's farm. My 
parents hope that they will be able to pay the tax without having to 
sell part of the farm that my family has worked so hard over all these 
years just to keep the ranch together, just to make it so it can 
operate at a profit. The outcome does not good look good, however.
  Mr. Speaker, farmers and ranchers are having enough trouble, and we 
are not just talking about farmers and ranchers, we are talking about 
small businesses, we are talking about the American dream. We are 
talking about a lot of families in America. Finally, through our 
leadership here, we were able to at least for a period of time begin to 
phase this tax out and eliminate it in 1 year. But unfortunately, 
because we could not get the votes on the other side, this tax comes 
back in full force.
  Going back to the letter: Farmers and ranchers are having enough 
trouble keeping family operations running the way it is. My family has 
worked very hard to keep the family farm running this long. We feel 
like we are being penalized because one of our family members has died.
  Here is another letter. This letter is not a plea for help, Mr. 
Congressman. Although I am not a victim of this tax, I appreciate the 
effort against it. I firmly believe that Congress and the government at 
large needs to recognize that America's future is and will always be 
firmly rooted in the success of small business. Many of these 
businesses are family owned, and they need the next generation to 
continue them into the future. I spent a few years working for a small, 
family-owned business. Not just myself, but several workers depended on 
the income that they derived from working for this small business. I 
fear for these workers when the tax man comes knocking. This tax has 
claws that rip at many people, and then the immediate family of the 
deceased has to worry about whether or not they can even continue the 
business, about the punishment that is being dealt to them by the 
government. It has a huge impact on the employees of the family 
business. I hope that people recognize this and will have an 
opportunity to eliminate it.
  Here is another letter. As you know, farming and ranching is no slam 
dunk. If our farm is ultimately faced with the death tax burden, there 
is absolutely no way we could ever afford and justify holding onto this 
farm. This in turn will prevent us from: 1, keeping the farm for future 
generations; 2, keep it from becoming just one more development out in 
the middle of the country; 3, keep us from making it available to the 
deer and elk; 4, keeping it unavailable for other uses, for multiple 
use. You need to know, Congressman, we are only able to meet the daily 
operating cost of our farm under the present economic conditions of 
agriculture. Unless there is positive action taken by Congress on the 
death tax, we will start making the necessary plans to arrange our 
affairs so the family is the ultimate winner of the lifelong struggles 
of both my parents, Roberta and myself. There is no way we will allow 
the IRS and the government in Washington, D.C. to take it all away from 
us. They do not deserve it. But what does that mean, it means of course 
that we must begin the destruction and the development of one of the 
largest, most beautiful open spaces still left out in this part of the 
country. We do not want to do that, but we do not have any choice 
because of this death tax.

  Here is another letter. Our 106-year-old mother passed away. Because 
we knew she was fearful of being placed in a nursing home, and we never 
considered it an option, my husband and I took care of her in our own 
home 2 days a week. She was alert, and we believe she would be living 
today if she had not injured herself. We are now faced with the 
unpleasant and unexpected task of selling our family home which was 
acquired by our parents in 1929 and where they raised six children. 
Prior to World War II, my parents had a greenhouse business on five 
acres of farm property. After World War II, the family returned from 
the relocation center where those of Japanese ancestry were 
incarcerated and signs that said ``No Japs Wanted.'' My father died of 
a heart attack in 1953. My mother lost the business located on two 
acres, four greenhouses, the heating plant, the packing shed, which, by 
the way, had two bedrooms above which many of the children slept, to 
the State. The State took two acres of property for an on-ramp to the 
freeway, but my mother was able to keep our family home which she and 
my father built. Now I must say that because of the death tax, it will 
now be necessary to sell this property, this home, this family home, 
just to pay the taxes that are levied upon the family as a result and 
only as a result of the death of this family member.
  Here is another letter. My family has ranched in northern Colorado 
for 125 years. My sons are the sixth generation to work this land. We 
want to continue, but the tax of the government is forcing almost all 
ranchers and many farmers out of business. The problem is called the 
death tax.
  And again I want to say to my Democratic colleagues, how can you go 
and look at these families and justify the continuation of a death tax? 
How can you dare vote against the elimination of this tax? I just do 
not understand it. Are we so surrounded here in Washington, D.C. that 
some of my colleagues cannot see what is happening to the American 
family, the middle income family, the small business out there because 
of a tax on property that has already been taxed?
  Do you not understand what a death tax does to these people? This 
should be a country that encourages generation after generation to 
continue the family foundation of running the business, whether it be a 
music store, whether it be a farm or a ranch. But believe it or not, 
some of my colleagues here continue to support taxing people upon the 
death of a member of their family, only triggered by the event of that 
death on property that has been taxed again and again.
  People say you get awful excited when you talk about this issue, but 
I have seen what the devastation is to my constituents as a result of 
action taken out of this House many, many years ago. And even though it 
was initiated many years ago, it has continued because some Members do 
not have enough guts to stand up and vote it down.
  We do not live in a world of socialism. We do not live in a world 
where class warfare ought to be instituted. We do not live in a world 
where we say to a family operation, you have been able to keep this 
land and now because the mother or father has died, we are going to 
redistribute the land. That is fundamentally unfair. Nobody is saying 
that someone should not carry their fair share. These people have 
carried their fair share, and I challenge any of my colleagues on the 
Democratic side that voted to continue the death tax, I

[[Page H5704]]

challenge them to come out to Colorado, come out to a mountain family. 
And by the way, they will not let you go out of their house without you 
eating dinner, despite how you vote on this issue, but you look that 
family in the eye and tell them why you support putting a tax on their 
family when one of the members of their family dies on property that 
they have already paid the taxes upon.

                              {time}  2245

  It is not right. There is no way that you can justify the death tax. 
There is no way that the Gates family can justify supporting the death 
tax, other than the fact that they have a foundation that gets them 
around it. It is the same thing with some of these other very wealthy 
families that have come out in support of this death tax. Why? Because 
they have hired the lawyers. As I said, the Gates interview was being 
done out of the family foundation office. That foundation was built for 
the sole purpose of avoiding the death tax.
  I worry about middle America. Get out to the heartland of America and 
tell me, especially my Democratic colleagues, I do not know what it 
takes to get them to realize how punishing this tax is. Go out to the 
heartland and talk to these people and see what you are doing to the 
families by simply casting a ``yes'' vote on this House floor to 
continue to tax people.
  Let me show you. Here is what is going on. This is what the heartland 
of America looks like, just like that. It is family. Families have got 
to have something to eat. They have got to have a way to subsist. That 
is the way it is in my part of the country. Again, I live in the high 
mountains. We have a lot of agriculture out there. We do not have a lot 
of corporate agriculture. We may have families that incorporate for tax 
purposes but we do not have the Monsanto Copper Corporation. These are 
families that run these farms and ranches. The people that supply the 
wagons and supply the tractors, those are family-run small businesses. 
This death tax will destroy them. It threatens the American way of 
life. That is exactly what this death tax does. I cannot think of a 
better demonstration of what happens, and I want to show this picture 
to you. This is exactly what you are driving. I know that the more 
liberal side of the Democratic Party that supports the death tax, many 
of you also pat yourselves on the back, although I am not sure you are 
fully deserving of it, you still pat yourself on the back for being 
strong on the environment. We all need to be strong on the environment, 
but you take particular pride, the minority leader and some of the more 
liberal Members, the people of you that have voted to keep this death 
tax in place, you take particular pride in your record on protecting 
the environment. Let me show you what happens to the environment when 
you force these family farms to sell, when you force them out of 
business, because of this death tax that is what it looks like over 
here on the bottom. That is what it looks like before the death tax.
  What is behind those cattle? Those are condominiums. This used to be 
open space. Look between the cattle and the trees on the mountain. What 
is between them? It is condominiums. That is exactly what your ``yes'' 
vote to continue to have a death tax, that is exactly what your vote 
has done. This land right here has to be sold to pay the death tax on 
this property, although all of the property had already paid its taxes 
year after year after year. Again, we are not talking about someone or 
some family that has not paid their taxes. We are talking about a 
family who has paid their taxes but the bureaucracy has not had enough 
of it. Frankly, and again I am not trying to be partisan, but let us 
call an apple an apple. The reality of it is the liberal wing back 
here, the left side, continually says, look, they have too much, this 
farm family that owns this land, they have too much. Let us approach it 
from a holistic point of view. Let us take it from them and give it to 
them. That is exactly what the death tax is envisioned to do, and it is 
wrong and you are hurting America. You are not only hurting the future 
of American families that want to continue small business or small 
farms or small ranches from one generation to the next, you are hurting 
the environment of America because just as this poster demonstrates, 
and look at it again, what used to be open space, what used to be open 
pasture, what used to be an unfettered view to the mountain is now a 
destroyed view because you have got condominiums right there being 
built to pay the death tax on that piece of property. Tell me where the 
equity in that is.
  Let me read this:
  My family has been on the ranch for 125 years. My sons are the sixth 
generation to work on this land. We want to continue, but the death tax 
is forcing almost all ranchers and farmers out of business. The demand 
for our land is very high and 35-acre ranchettes are selling in this 
area for a very high price. We want to keep our land as open space. We 
want to keep it as a ranch. But the government through its policy of 
death taxes is making it impossible for us because of what we will have 
to pay once a death event occurs. Ranchers are barely scraping by these 
days, anyway. If we were willing to develop home sites, we could stop 
worrying about the death tax but we want to save the ranch. And because 
we want to save the ranch and as a direct result of the death tax, we 
are in trouble. The family has been able to scrape up the estate taxes 
as each generation up to now dies, but I am telling you the time is 
out. I think we are done for. Our only other option is to give the 
ranch to a nonprofit organization. And they all want it but none of 
them will guarantee that they won't develop at least a part of it.

  My dad is 90. We don't have much time to decide what to do. We are 
only one of two or three ranchers left around here. Most of the ranches 
have been subdivided. One of the last to go was a family that had been 
there as long as ours. When the old folks died, the kids borrowed money 
to pay taxes. Soon they had to start selling cattle to pay the 
interest. When they ran out of cattle, their ranch was foreclosed and 
is now being developed. That family which used to be a strong family, 
that had a gorgeous ranch, that survived generations and generations, 
that family now lives in a trailer near town and the father works as a 
highway flag man.
  You can trace it all back to the votes that started on this House 
floor. You can trace it back to the most unjustified tax in our tax 
system. I do not care how you say it. I do not care how pretty my 
Democratic colleagues want to paint the picture. The fact is they need 
to come around and they need to join the Republicans and we need to 
eliminate the death tax on a permanent basis. You cannot justify it. In 
this upcoming presidential election, I think a litmus test that ought 
to be asked of every Democrat presidential candidate is, will you 
support total elimination of the death tax on America? My guess is that 
they will not look you in the eye, but my guess is none of them will do 
that. When you hear people and I say this to my colleagues, when you 
hear people out there talking in a very courageous tone about, look, 
I've made a lot of money and I think we should keep the death tax, take 
a look at what they have done, like the Gates, for example. They have 
put it into a foundation. Why? For the sole purpose to avoid the death 
taxes. That is why those foundations are created. I have a lot of 
respect for the Gates family. I am in awe of what they have done to 
make that. It has been an American dream. But the reality of it is they 
should not be considered an authority to speak on the death tax when in 
fact they have created a foundation in which to shelter that money. The 
better people to go and get an opinion from is, what I say, go out into 
the heartland of America. Go to Kansas. Go up into the Rockies and stop 
at some ranch house. Go in there and talk with those people. First of 
all, you are going to find that they are going to invite you in, they 
are going to feed you something. Ask them what the death tax will do to 
their family. Ask them how. Or better yet, to my liberal colleagues, 
you tell them how you can justify putting a death tax on a family. The 
fact is you cannot justify it. The fact is this tax is not justifiable 
from any economic argument. It certainly is not justifiable from a 
moral point of view. The only way that you could possibly justify a 
death tax is if you were a socialist and you believed in the concept 
that whatever is somebody's property ought to be everybody's property,

[[Page H5705]]

that it ought to all go for the common good, that everything ought to 
be thrown into one pot and everybody shares equally. If you believe in 
the socialistic type of government, then you can justify a death tax. 
But if you believe in the democratic, capitalistic process which has 
made this country, by the way, the greatest country in the history of 
the world, there is no way under any circumstances that you could 
justify this tax.
  As I said earlier, last week we voted, it is over on the other side 
now, we voted for permanent elimination of that tax, of that death tax. 
Unfortunately, most of the Democrats once again have chosen to support 
and to continue the death tax.
  It is time for the American public, Mr. Speaker, to understand why 
there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats. There is one 
issue I feel very deeply about in my heart that separates our two 
parties. Granted, about 40 of the more conservative Democrats did vote 
to eliminate the death tax and for that they deserve credit. But when I 
am out there, I do not feel like I am getting in a partisan argument, I 
do not feel like I am taking any cheap spots when I point out that the 
death tax is primarily supported by the Democrats and the elimination 
of the death tax is driven by the Republicans. When you go out to the 
heartland of America, when you go out there into that countryside some 
time, see if you have got enough guts to look that farm family in the 
face and say to them, it is because of you that the next generation in 
that family will in all likelihood not be able to continue the farming 
or ranching operation.
  I urge my colleagues and I urge especially my Democratic colleagues, 
it is time for you to surrender this issue, because it is the right 
thing to do. It is time for you Democrats to step up to the plate and 
support the American farmer and the American rancher and the American 
small business. The best way that you can do that is to vote to 
eliminate the death tax. Give these families, give these farms, give 
these small businesses, give these ranches an opportunity to go to the 
next generation. We all benefit. Our communities benefit. Our 
environment benefits. Push the socialistic temptation aside and adopt, 
rather, what I call the fairness doctrine. It is very simple, just be 
fair. If you could just be fair in your assessment of this horrible 
tax, you too next time will join the Republicans and vote against the 
continuation of the death tax.

                          ____________________