[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 82 (Thursday, June 22, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H4427-H4433]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5638, PERMANENT ESTATE TAX RELIEF
ACT OF 2006
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the
Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 885 and ask for its
immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 885
Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it
shall be in order without intervention of any point of order
to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 5638) to amend the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the unified credit
against the estate tax to an exclusion equivalent of
$5,000,000 and to repeal the sunset provision for the estate
and generation-skipping taxes, and for other purposes. The
bill shall be considered as read. The amendment printed in
the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this
resolution shall be considered as adopted. The previous
question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as
amended, to final passage without intervening motion except:
(1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the
chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways
and Means; and (2) one motion to recommit with or without
instructions.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). The gentleman from Washington
(Mr. Hastings) is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate
only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York
(Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may
consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is
for the purpose of debate only.
(Mr. HASTINGS of Washington asked and was given permission to revise
and extend his remarks.)
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 885 is a
closed rule providing 1 hour of general debate in the House on H.R.
5638, the Permanent Estate Tax Relief Act, to be equally divided and
controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee
on Ways and Means.
The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill
and provides that the amendment printed in the Rules Committee report
accompanying this resolution shall be considered as adopted.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, the rule provides one motion to recommit, with
or without instructions.
Mr. Speaker, in 2001, Congress acted in a bipartisan fashion to
gradually phase out the death tax and eliminate it by 2010. However, if
Congress does not act to extend this relief, in 2011 small business
owners and family farmers will once again be assessed the full death
tax up to the maximum 2001 rate of 55 percent.
The death tax is a form of double taxation, and frankly, Mr. Speaker,
it is simply unfair.
The last thing families in central Washington and across the Nation
should have to worry about when a loved one dies is losing a family
farm or business in order to pay the Internal Revenue Service. But
sadly, that is the situation many hard-working families could face if a
permanent and workable solution is not agreed to.
H.R. 5638, the Permanent Estate Tax Relief Act, would provide estate
and gift tax relief to America's small business owners and family
farmers. Specifically, the bill would increase the exemption from $1
million to $5 million per person, indexed for inflation, and it would
lower the amount of taxation on estates.
The bill would also provide tax relief for gifts given during a
person's life. Currently, gifts given when a person is alive are taxed
more than gifts given through a will or death. By reunifying estate,
gift and generation-skipping transfer taxes, we give individuals
greater flexibility to give gifts during their life rather than at
death.
I am also pleased that this legislation creates a new 60 percent
deduction for qualified timber capital gains through 2008. In my State
of Washington, there are 8.5 million acres of privately owned forests,
and the forest parks industry is the State's second largest
manufacturing sector.
However, the current Tax Code puts our timber industry at a distinct
disadvantage against international competition by subjecting corporate
timber and forest product industries to a significantly higher income
tax than their overseas competitors. Included in the underlying bill is
a provision that lowers the timber tax and supports an industry that
provides good jobs in many rural communities, while strengthening its
international competitiveness.
Mr. Speaker, last year I, along with 271 other Members of the House,
supported a measure that would permanently and fully eliminate the
death tax. While permanent elimination of this tax is what I will
continue to work with my colleagues on both sides to accomplish, this
relief measure is a step in the right direction.
The Rules Committee reported House Resolution 885 by a voice vote
last night. Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support both the rule
and the underlying bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
(Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend
her remarks.)
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my Republican colleagues for
providing the American people with
[[Page H4428]]
the clearest possible demonstration of just how stark the differences
are between the priorities of our Nation's two major parties.
We have before us a bill whose sole purpose, the sole purpose is to
funnel as much as $1 trillion over the next decade to a mere handful of
our Nation's richest families.
It is telling that Republican leadership is so committed and so
determined to see this legislation through that it called an emergency
meeting of the Rules Committee last night to make sure it reached the
floor this morning, even though it will not take effect for 4 years.
Now, let me tell you a bill that will expire is the Voting Rights
Act, but we could not deal with that. This is the Republican definition
of a national emergency, to get as much money as we can to the richest
among us. It is not unprecedented national debt. That does not bother
them. The struggling middle class? No. Or the fact that tens of
millions of Americans scrape by from paycheck to paycheck, scrape by
without health insurance, without help and, in many cases, without
hope.
To get this bill to where it is today, the Republicans had to ignore
the needs of virtually every American citizen. The repeal of the estate
tax will benefit less than 1 percent of the people in this country, but
those few individuals that it helps will profit handsomely.
Take Lee Raymond, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, who recently secured
a retirement package worth almost $400 million, and who last year made
more in a single day, probably in a single hour, than the average
American family makes in an entire year. Lee stands to gain up to $211
million from this legislation that he will not pay taxes on.
President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the officers of the Cabinet
will not do so badly either. Together they will pocket anywhere from
$91 million to $344 million. Just the Cabinet.
People like these are among the three-tenths of 1 percent of
superrich Americans who pay an estate tax, and that is it. The other
99.7 percent do not see a dime. Such an astonishingly lopsided outcome
is to be expected when we realize who is actually behind this bill.
A recent report from the group Public Citizenry revealed that 18 of
the richest families in America, families worth a combined total of
$185 billion, have been conducting a concerted and clandestine campaign
on its behalf for a decade. We are talking about families that are
heirs to the fortunes of families like Wal-Mart, Campbell's Soup and
Mars, Incorporated. These 18 families, Mr. Speaker, have spent $490
million in the last decade in their effort to pass this bill. Imagine
that, $490 million to lobbyists, and if it does pass, their investment
will certainly have been worth it because over $70 billion will be
headed their way.
For years, supporters of a repeal of the estate tax have claimed that
the people they really want to help are America's small businesses and
farmers. Well, as is so often the case, that is a lie. Small business
families rarely, if ever, pay estate taxes, and the American Farm
Bureau, one of the leading proponents of this repeal, has failed to
provide even one legitimate example of a family that lost its farm
because of estate tax requirements.
This is the kind of government Republicans have used their time and
power to give us, Mr. Speaker. Multibillionaires say, jump, and the
majority says, how high?
Bills like this are so outlandish and so entirely justifiable, they
would be comical if they were not an assault on the strength of our
Union, which is, I might remind everyone, at war.
Consider the opportunity cost of this bill. For the up to $1 trillion
Federal that this leadership plans to give away, we could fully insure
every single American who does not have health insurance, all 44
million of them. Think of that. We could fully fund the Medicare part D
prescription plan. We could pay for all military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and then we could use the money left over from that to
fully fund No Child Left Behind, and, finally, give every child in
America the education the President promised when he took office.
The sad thing is that what we have today is exactly the kind of
legislation Americans should expect the majority, whose leader has
bragged about never having voted for an increase in the minimum in his
25 years in politics, that is what we should expect from a party that
would not allow the Congress to adjust the minimum wage for inflation,
a party that would have, over the decades, permitted it to remain at
the pathetic $3.35 an hour.
I would challenge my friends on the other side of the aisle to try
surviving on that one for a month, Mr. Speaker, and think about the
trillionaires who are going to say this is chump change to them, and
they do not care. But the notion that they would say if taking away the
taxes of the very rich would stimulate the economy, while increasing
the pay of the weakest among us, the people who are least paid, will
hurt the economy, is an absurdity on its face.
Mr. Speaker, this is a telling moment for this country. It is a
moment in which this leadership clearly demonstrates once and for all
what its priorities are. It is making the decision that educating our
children is not worth the investment, that ensuring our parents and
grandparents receive the prescription drugs they need is not worth the
investment; that fixing our broken health insurance system is not worth
the investment; that curbing our crushing national debt is not worth
the investment; but investing in the ultrarich is worth every single
dime that can be squeezed out of the Federal Treasury.
The bill embodies the very definition of ``America for Sale.''
Today's Republicans are alone in this belief, Mr. Speaker. Great
leaders throughout the history of our Nation have understood that our
collective strength lies in our support for the working and the middle
class. They have understood that the extreme polarization of wealth
this majority is ushering in is fundamentally bad for America, and
among those who believe that are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
I implore my friends on the other side of the aisle, for the sake of
our children, for the sake of our future, for the sake of our military,
for the sake of common decency, defeat this bill and begin again to
work for the people of this Nation and not against them.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time
as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is worthwhile just to put a little bit of the
historical context on this issue because it has been around for some
time.
In the 106th Congress, for example, in the year 2000, the House
passed a bill to phase out the death tax in 10 years and permanently
repeal it. When it passed the House, it got 279 votes, obviously
bipartisan. Sixty-five Democrats voted for it. In the other body, in
the Senate, it passed the Senate with 59 votes, obviously on a
bipartisan basis. Unfortunately, that bill was vetoed by the President
in the 106th Congress.
So, in the 107th Congress, in 2001, once again, the House passed the
bill to permanently repeal the tax, phase it out over 10 years, and
that bill garnered 274 votes, again a bipartisan vote out of the House.
{time} 1030
Unfortunately, in the Senate, we were unable to get a full repeal
and, instead, the death tax was phased out over 10 years, but would
revert in 2011 to the 2001 rate. The expectation, of course, was that
the Congress would deal with that before 2011 and fully repeal it.
In the 108th Congress, once again the House passed a bill to fully
repeal the death tax, 264 votes out of the House, again on a bipartisan
basis; and in the 109th Congress, this Congress, once again the House
passed a full repeal, 272 votes, again on a bipartisan basis, with
Democrats joining Republicans to repeal it.
The unfortunate thing is this leads us to where we are right now, and
that is that the cloture motion failed in the Senate. It takes 60 votes
in order to cut off debate in the Senate; and, unfortunately, the
Senate only received 57 votes. So, therefore, that issue won't be taken
up.
This is an effort, then, to try to get to a position where we can
pass this bill out of the House and in fact pass it out of the Senate
so that we can have some certainty as far as estate planning. So this
issue has been around for some time. It has always enjoyed bipartisan
support.
[[Page H4429]]
This rule simply provides for us to continue what we have been doing
in the last four Congresses, and that is to pass and address this issue
in a bipartisan manner. This issue has been around, I think it is
timely, in fact, it is time for us to act on this. Accordingly, I urge
my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Massachusetts, a member of the Rules Committee, Mr.
McGovern.
Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the ranking leader for yielding me the time.
Mr. Speaker, once again this House will consider an estate tax cut
for the wealthiest people in the United States. Once again the
Republican leadership is forcing their chosen bill through the House
without the opportunity for any alternative, even though Democrats
asked for and presented a germane substitute before the Rules Committee
last night.
Last night, the Rules Committee rushed this bill through under
``emergency procedures.'' That is right, the Republican leadership
considers it an emergency to pass a tax cut for some of the wealthiest
people on the planet, a tax cut that won't take effect for 4 years.
Mr. Speaker, the real emergency is what is happening to American
workers. We are considering another estate tax cut for the wealthy
during the same week that this Republican leadership killed an increase
in the minimum wage for America's lowest-income workers.
Last week, the Appropriations Committee approved an increase in the
minimum wage and included it in the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations
bill, but the majority leader quickly said that the House will not
consider that provision. This week, the Appropriations Committee
defeated a similar effort.
Mr. Speaker, in 1997, nearly a decade ago, this Congress raised the
Federal minimum wage to $5.15 an hour. Since the last increase,
Congress has voted itself a raise nine times, increasing its own salary
by $35,000. Now, in contrast, Mr. Speaker, a person earning the minimum
wage over that same time continues to earn only $10,712 per year.
The Republican leadership should ask the minimum-wage family whether
their health care costs, their property taxes, their heating and
gasoline bills, or tuition for their kids have stayed as flat as the
minimum wage. Of course not.
Here is what it boils down to: the Republican leadership has decided
it is more important to protect estates that are worth at least $10
million instead of helping to increase people making just $11,000 a
year in salary. Mr. Speaker, we have an emergency in our country. We do
have an emergency in our country: working families are struggling each
and every day. They deserve a raise more than millionaires deserve
another tax break.
We should be debating today an increase in the minimum wage for
workers in this country. We should be doing something that will make a
difference in the lives of people who are struggling in this country.
And, instead, here we go again bringing the estate tax bill up again, a
bill that benefits mostly people who are very well off. We can do much
better than this. We need to get our priorities straight.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3
minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).
(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time on
this important issue. I do rise in support of the permanent Estate Tax
Relief Act of 2006, although I am mindful, as I listen to my good
friend who just spoke about the estate tax, of what Confucius once
wrote a millennium ago. He said: ``When words lose their meaning, men
lose their liberty.''
I would prefer in the balance of my remarks to speak not about an
estate tax, because I do not know too many estates in eastern Indiana,
but I would rather talk about the death tax, because this is a tax that
is death to the American Dream for small business owners and family
farmers all across eastern Indiana.
It is why, Mr. Speaker, I have dedicated myself in my nearly three
terms in Congress to the principle of ending this immoral tax, a tax
which, by the way, was instituted in 1916 primarily to raise revenues
for World War I. It was a product of a time where the redistribution of
wealth was seen globally to be an acceptable practice of economics. It
was the very nascent time of socialism on the world stage, and America
embraced this principle of redistribution with the estate tax in 1916.
Let me just say that I believe death taxes are immoral. I believe it
is morally wrong to make death a taxable event. I believe it is also
morally wrong to say to small business owners and family farmers and
any American, whatever their means, that after a lifetime of obeying
the law and a lifetime of paying your share honestly and legally to the
Federal Treasury that we will make your death a taxable event.
So I want to say today that I still believe that we ought to repeal
the death tax, and the legislation we will consider under this rule
does not repeal, but I want to say that it is relief and it is progress
and this Congress should embrace it.
The estate tax relief provided in previous legislation is scheduled
to end in 2010, and what we will pass today will literally bring
permanent estate tax relief to millions of American families,
especially increasing the exemption to $5 million per person effective
January 1, 2010. So let me emphasize that what we will do today is not
repeal, but it is relief; and I want to recognize that progress and
embrace it.
Let me close with a word of caution to our colleagues who may think
of this as a starting point, that this is a deal, Mr. Speaker, that we
can send down the hallway and we can negotiate from: let me say, having
spoken to many of my colleagues who share my belief that we should
repeal this onerous death tax outright, that if this is the deal, it is
a good deal for the American people. But we say with conviction: this
far and no farther. We must demand, at the very minimum, this relief
stand when this bill goes to the desk of the President of the United
States.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
New York, the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr.
Rangel.
(Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. RANGEL. Thank you so much for yielding me time. I think we are
getting closer to the truth when the previous speaker spoke out as to
why we have an inheritance tax in the first place. And while he talked
about World War I, I think he was emphasizing what he called a
socialistic type of government, where redistribution of the wealth was
the issue rather than the actual resources that are raised.
I am convinced that a large number of people, especially the
Republicans in this House, look at this not as a revenue issue but as a
policy issue. Oh, yes, they call it the death tax because they think
this is a way of packaging something, saying that death should not be a
taxable event. But realistically, if you are dead, you certainly are
relieved of your taxes. So it is the live people you are talking about;
people who have hopes and dreams that they would be able to acquire the
inheritances of those that preceded them.
So the real reason, perhaps, of having this tax was to make certain
we had a middle class, that you did not find the superwealthy being
able to influence the politicians and the Congress. And if that was the
reason, and I will have to research it, even though some experts
thought there was a social policy reason, if ever there was a time to
review this policy, it would be now.
The Joint Economic Committee, which is not Republican or Democrat,
has indicated that under existing law, when the estate tax goes to $3.5
million, an estate that would be exempt, and $7 million that would be
exempt, they say that we would be talking about only 7,500 actual
estates. Now, if this does cost $800 billion, or close to $1 trillion,
then what we are arguing about is whether or not 7,500 people could
cause us to go into the deficit further by having their benefits
restored.
In other words, what we are saying here is that while the Nation is
at war,
[[Page H4430]]
while we are spending $300 billion or $400 billion, while we have a $9
trillion debt, while we are cutting even the services of veterans and
those that are fighting, that philosophically the majority believes
that we should shatter the so-called Estate Tax Inheritance Act, the
death tax, no matter what the economic expense is.
So we are not doing this for this Congress or this election; we are
doing it to change the direction of the United States Government so
that the items of resources to pay for education and health care, and
even our national defense, are going to be jeopardized because some of
you believe that the richest of the rich should be protected from an
equitable distribution of tax liability.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3
minutes to a colleague on the Rules Committee, the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington for
yielding, and I do rise today in strong support of the rule and this
underlying bill, and I encourage all my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle to support them both.
As a cosponsor of H.R. 89, the full repeal of the death tax, I was
disappointed to see the inability of the Senate to obtain cloture on a
full repeal of the death tax. I firmly believe that the death tax, the
estate tax, is a double taxation and, philosophically, it is wrong.
We have all heard the statements, I think Steve Forbes said this
several years ago, that there should be no taxation without
respiration. More recently, I have heard the comment that we shouldn't
try to balance the budget by robbing the grave. And there are other
comments: a death should not be a taxable event. The gentleman from New
York (Mr. Rangel) just said that. I fully agree with every one of those
statements.
The gentleman from New York also said, well, you know, in this time
of war, in this time of deficits, in this time of debt, we should be
able to get this money. We are not, Mr. Speaker, always going to be in
that situation. But if we continue to double tax any American, that is
a forever situation and it is forever wrong.
So, clearly, I was in favor of full repeal. However, I believe the
bill before us today is a very strong compromise. It will protect many
more families, small businesses, and family farms from this double
taxation, or the so-called death tax.
It is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, that it also, with a manager's
amendment, is indexed for inflation. Those of us, the fiscally
conservative Members of our side, felt very strongly about that, and I
am pleased with that addition.
I know many of my colleagues are as disappointed with the failure of
the other body to pass a full repeal as I am; but as many of us say, we
cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good. So I think there
is a lot of good in the bill that Chairman Thomas has brought to us
today and that we are discussing at this moment. We have an opportunity
to take a substantial and a permanent chunk out of the death tax with a
bill that can pass the Senate. They assure us, and I believe, that
there will be 60 votes for this bill.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, again I want to thank Chairman Thomas and
the committee for their commitment and all of the hard work in bringing
this bill before us today. Now is the time for us to pass some real tax
relief and eliminate the most egregious form of double taxation.
{time} 1045
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, The Washington Post reports today that
middle-class neighborhoods are evaporating in America. It says that it
is happening because the gap in this country between the rich and poor
is rising at an alarming rate, making it harder for families to raise
their children.
And what we consider today will only speed up that process: an estate
tax cut giving an enormous tax cut to the richest 10,000 estates in the
Nation, no one else. And don't let them fool you, it is not about small
business, it is not about family farms; the 10,000 richest estates in
the Nation. It will cost $762 billion in the first 10 years alone, this
at a time when we are spending between $5 billion and $8 billion per
month on the war in Iraq.
Meanwhile, our productivity as a Nation has risen by about 14 percent
as the real wages of nonmanagerial workers have risen less than 2
percent. So when people look at the statistics, they wonder where is
the rest of that money going? All they need to do is look at this
Congress and the Republican leadership of this House emptying the
Treasury for the likes of millionaires and billionaires.
Democrats believe this country is not about survival of the fittest
but opportunity for all. Democrats understand the pressures on middle-
class families: rising health care costs, education, home heating oil,
gas prices. We believe we could be raising the minimum wage, one of the
best tools we have to keep families from falling off that economic
cliff. It has not been raised in almost a decade. Had it been adjusted
just for inflation since 1968, those families would be making $9.05
instead of $5.15.
And if this Congress can get a raise, the American people ought to be
able to get a raise. But the Republican majority is afraid to let this
House even have a debate, a choice, between yet another tax cut for
millionaires and a wage increase for families. They are afraid of that
real debate that Americans want to have about their economic future.
The American people want us to walk in their shoes, understand their
lives. They don't want to see millionaires and billionaires be able to
get a tax cut that will help to bankrupt this Nation. What they do want
to see is their wages increase. We need to raise the minimum wage and
oppose this rule.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Beauprez).
Mr. BEAUPREZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and the
underlying legislation; in fact, in enthusiastic support. I am a
cosponsor and have voted several times in this Chamber for permanent
repeal of the death tax. This is not repeal, but it is relief, and it
is significant relief.
I listened intently to the gentlewoman who spoke just before me. I
found that a curious argument. I guess I see America and Americans a
little bit differently. I think we ought to be incentivizing and
stimulating and celebrating the achievement of the American dream every
possible way we can.
I was in business myself, private business, all my life before I came
to this Chamber, and as a community banker, I banked, I partnered with
a lot of small business people. I celebrated their path to trying to
create wealth and keep a business, especially a family business, going
generation after generation.
I don't believe there is anything more egregious that government has
ever done to disincent the achievement of the American dream than the
death tax.
We tax everything you buy, everything you sell, you get to the end of
the year, and if you happen to magically have something left, we want a
piece of that. And then when you finally close your eyes for the last
time, we are going to take our piece of what you have managed to
accumulate through your lifetime. I think it is close to criminal, if
not criminal.
Today we have an opportunity to provide some relief to those that do
what so many come to this Nation for, to achieve the American dream. We
have a chance to provide them some relief, some hope that what they
worked all their life for, to accumulate something, maybe a business,
maybe a family asset, pass it on to their children and their children's
children, and that they might be able to do that without the threat of
the Federal Government taking it away from them with excessive
taxation.
It is with a great deal of pride and, frankly, a great deal of
personal experience that I rise again in support of this rule and the
underlying legislation. This is not, again, the permanent repeal that I
think would be the best thing to do, but I think what we have before us
is an opportunity to work with the other body to actually make law that
will make a difference for Americans, American families, and our
[[Page H4431]]
constituents back home that we all support.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying to my friend
from Indiana, I think it would be helpful for this Congress to have the
information about all of the family farms that have gone out of
business in Indiana because of this estate tax. I think it would be
helpful if we wrote to the appropriate officials in Indiana to get that
list so we could share it with everyone here and see how it impacts
this legislation.
I want to say, the last 24 hours will tell you everything you need to
know about what is wrong with Congress: holding up the Voting Rights
Act; knocking down the minimum wage increase; relieving the superrich
from responsibility for paying estate taxes; and keep sending our
children to fight and die in a war based on lies. That, by the way, is
the real death tax, and it is paid by the poor and the middle class.
Our new motto should be: ``United We Stand, Sure. But Divided We
Profit.''
H.R. 5638, the estate tax legislation, should be more accurately
described as the American Idle Act, I-D-L-E, because it relieves the
children of billionaires and multimillionaires of over one-quarter of a
trillion dollars of estate taxes in just the 5 years starting in 2013.
The $2,600 per taxpayer loss of revenue will take money from our
schools, our health care, our senior citizens, and our veterans.
The Bible says it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to get to heaven. Here in Washington, the
superrich ride elephants, and hopefully no donkeys, to get to their
alabaster heaven where they pay no taxes.
Money, most of which has never been taxed once, will continue to gush
upwards. The estate tax is cleverly tied to the capital gains rate,
currently at 15 percent. Estates up to $25 million or $50 million for a
couple will pay the capital gains rate of 15 percent, and those over
that will pay double the rate; but what will happen when Congress
eliminates the capital gains tax? There will be no estate tax because
one or even two times zero is still zero. At that time the destruction
of the middle class will be complete. The ascendency of a new
plutocracy will be complete.
Allan Sloan of Newsweek put it this way 2 years ago: ``In the name of
preserving family farms and keeping small businesses in the family,
President Bush would create a new class of landed aristocrats who would
inherit billions tax-free, invest the money, watch it compound tax-free
and hand it down tax-free to their heirs.''
President Lincoln didn't pray for a government of the wealthy, by the
wealthy and for the wealthy at Gettysburg. He prayed for a government
of the people, by the people and for the people. Whose prayers are we
answering here?
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my
time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), who was denied an amendment in the Rules
Committee.
Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, the rule before us allows only one
alternative. You know, it has been said before but it deserves
repeating today: As our troops fight for democracy in Iraq, we ought to
show that we can have democracy on the floor of the House.
I went to the Rules Committee with another alternative for reforming
the estate tax, and to have on a party-line vote the majority refuse to
allow the Members of this body to even consider any other alternative
but the Thomas proposal, in my opinion, does violence to notions that
this is a deliberative body where ideas can be considered.
The bill before us is not a reform bill of the estate tax, it is
virtual repeal, and make no bones about that, virtual repeal of the
estate tax.
Look at this chart. The cost of the alternative I advance and have
not been allowed to offer is 40 percent the cost of repeal. Our early
estimates on the full phased-in cost of the Thomas proposal is that it
will lose 80 percent at least of the revenue of full repeal. That is
not a compromise.
I bet you are going to hear some of these guys say we are going to
compromise. This is not a compromise, it is virtual repeal. You lose 80
percent of the revenue, it is virtual repeal, no compromise.
Now this is a shocking loss of revenue to help a very, very few
people. The proposal that I was not allowed to introduce would have
made exempt all of the estates but for 3/10 of 1 percent.
Earlier there was a gentleman from Indiana said small businesses have
been lost all over the State of Indiana. I believe he is factually
mistaken. I issue a challenge to him right now and anyone else, bring
me the names. Bring me the names.
There is no fact whatsoever behind these assertions that this is
about small farms and family businesses. This is about the wealthiest
estates in this country, and now let me put it really to bear.
The distribution table on the Thomas proposal is that of the $800
billion that would be lost between 2010 and 2020, 43 percent would go
to those worth more than $20 million. In a decade when we are going to
have 78 million Americans turning 65, we have Social Security going out
of balance in 2018, we have Medicare going out of balance in 2012, we
are going to take $800 billion and ship it to those who make more than
$20 million? What in the world are we thinking about?
Medicare and Social Security apply to everybody. The estate tax
proposal advanced by the majority today applies to way fewer, way fewer
than 3/10 of 1 percent. This sliver showed the number of estates that
would have been taxable under the proposal I have not been allowed to
offer today. Their proposal that goes to the $20 million crowd and up
even deals with a smaller number yet. What in the world are we
thinking?
The preceding speaker said he cannot think of anything more that does
violence to the American dream than the death tax. Let me tell you
about a few other things that do violence to the American dream: This
Congress running up a debt and having to vote not just once in March,
but again in May to raise the borrowing limit of the country, putting
us nearly $10 trillion in debt. Another thing that does violence to the
American dream, the cuts that have been made in student loans so people
can pursue the notion of upward mobility, they can get ahead in this
world, but they cannot afford to get to college, and they cut student
loans in the face of it.
And yet the portion of the American dream that they seem most
concerned about is for this $20-million-and-up crowd, even while we
have no idea how we are going to solve this Medicare solvency imbalance
or how we are going to fund the Social Security imbalance.
Let me come back to the basic issue presented by this rule. How come
we only have their plan to consider? We have a plan, a plan that makes
the estate tax go away completely for 99.7 percent of the people in
this country, and they won't even allow it for consideration. Vote down
this rule, vote down this virtual repeal of the estate tax.
{time} 1100
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I ask my friend from New
York how many speakers she has, because I at this time have no more
requests.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I too have no further requests for time, so I will
close.
Mr. Speaker, I think what we ought to call this tax is the Paris
Hilton tax. Paris Hilton, once this is passed, will be able to jetset
again around the world buying herself more bling and more little dogs
to carry around in her purse, and probably never work a day in her
life.
But while we are helping Paris with her problems, I think we need to
think about the poorest among us, those people working two and three
minimum-wage jobs every single day simply to try to keep themselves
alive and that we have turned our backs on now for over a decade.
So I urge all Members of this House to vote ``no'' on the previous
question so I can amend the rule and allow the House to vote on the
Miller-Owens bill to increase the Federal minimum wage for the first
time in almost 10 years. The bill is identical to the minimum-wage
language included in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill that was
supposed to come to the floor this week, but was pulled by the
leadership.
[[Page H4432]]
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the
amendment and extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the
previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from New York?
There was no objection.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, my amendment to the rule provides that
immediately after the House adopts the rule for the Paris Hilton bill,
it will bring H.R. 2429 to the floor for an up-or-down vote. The bill
will gradually increase the minimum wage from the current level of
$5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour after 2 years.
Mr. Speaker, it is time we started to help workers, instead of making
the very rich in this Nation richer. And I want us to stop this
nonsense that we are doing this for poor farmers. Nobody can come up
with a name of a poor farmer. And we will ask the State of Indiana to
give us a list of all those people who went under because of this tax.
But we are considering another massive tax cut for our Nation's
wealthiest. And to make matters worse, it is done the same week that
the leadership of the House blocked legislation to increase the minimum
wage for those who need the help the most.
America's low-income workers need our help, but millionaires don't.
We are losing our middle class. One of the best things we can do to
help the low- and moderate-income families is to increase the minimum
wage. It has been, as I said, a decade since it was voted to increase,
and it was signed in law in 1996 with the last increase in 1997.
After adjusting for inflation, the value of the minimum wage is at
its lowest level since 1955. The purchasing power of the 1997 increase
has eroded since then by 20 percent. A full-time minimum-wage earner
working 40 hours a week makes $10,700 annually, an amount that is
$5,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. The minimum wage
now equals only 31 percent of the average wage for the private sector
and the nonsupervisory workers, and that is the lowest share since the
end of World War II.
Mr. Speaker, can there possibly be any doubt that we are long overdue
for another increase in the minimum wage?
Leadership in this House has managed to implement numerous tax breaks
for the wealthiest Americans, including this billion dollar budget
buster that we are considering today, but turns its back on those who
work the hardest and are paid the least, those with no lobbyists, those
who struggle to make ends meet every day. They don't have any lobbyists
but us on their side. And I think it is time for Congress to step up to
the plate and help those who need it most, not just those with the
fattest bank accounts.
And those who say an increase in the minimum wage will hurt business
and economy are plain wrong, and facts argue just the opposite.
So I urge all Members of this body to vote ``no'' on the previous
question so that we can help 7 million-plus American workers who will
directly benefit from an increase in the minimum wage.
And let me close by saying this is a very sad day because I believe
this bill will pass. And I think this Congress of the United States
will go on record as saying that we don't care about those people other
than those who can hire the lobbyists and do everything that they want
to do.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to Ms. Brown.
Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking
member; and with what is going on here today, I know soon that you will
be Chair, because this is really a very sad day in the House of
Representatives, the people's House.
Once again, we are doing like what has happened in this House over
and over again, practicing what I call reverse Robin Hood. When I was
coming up, my favorite program was Robin Hood. Well, what this House,
under the Republican leadership, constantly practices is reverse Robin
Hood. What does that mean? Well, it means robbing from the poor and
working people to give tax breaks to the rich.
Today, instead of debating a fair minimum-wage bill, we are debating
a near repeal of the estate tax bill for millionaires. This is a bill
that benefits only 6 to 7,000 very, very wealthy people. This does not
help the poor or the majority of working Americans at all. This reverse
Robin Hood policy which gives tax breaks to the very wealthy robs from
the rest of us and leaves us with very little money to provide services
like educational loans, health care, homeland security, transportation,
our Nation's veterans, our seniors, our children, the poor.
This is the reason why 77 percent of the American public does not
believe that the United States Congress represents their interests. And
this reverse Robin Hood bill is a perfect example of why.
I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and send
this horrible bill back to the drawing board.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, let me just review. This
issue has been around in Congress for some time. This House has acted
on full repeal of the death tax for the last three Congresses on a
bipartisan basis. But the reality is we simply can't get this through
the full Congress because the other body simply doesn't have the votes,
supermajority votes, I might add, to close off debate over there, so we
have to pass something that can pass both Houses of the Congress. This
bill does that. And it is important that we pass this bill as soon as
we possibly can so those that are trying to plan estates after 2010 can
make those plans with some certainty.
So, Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill. This is a good rule.
The material previously referred to by Ms. Slaughter is as follows:
Previous Question on H. Res. 885, Rule for H.R. 5638--Permanent Estate
Tax Relief Act of 2006
At the end of the resolution add the following new section:
``Sec. 2. Immediately upon the adoption of this resolution
it shall be in order without intervention of any point of
order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 2429) to amend
the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an
increase in the Federal minimum wage. The bill shall be
considered as read for amendment. The previous question shall
be considered as ordered on the bill to final passage without
intervening motion except: (1) 60 minutes of debate equally
divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority
member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce; and
(2) one motion to recommit with or without instructions.''
____
The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means
This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous
question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote.
A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote
against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow
the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an
alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be
debating.
Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives, (VI, 308-311) describes the vote on the
previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or
control the consideration of the subject before the House
being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous
question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the
subject before the House Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling of
January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the
House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes
the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to
offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the
majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated
the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to
a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to
recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said:
``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman
from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to
yield to him for a amendment, is entitled to the first
recognition.''
Because the vote today may look bad for the Republican
majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is
simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on
adopting the resolution * * * [and] has no substantive
legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is
not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican
Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United
States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135).
Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question
vote in their own manual: Although it is generally not
possible to amend the rule because the majority Member
controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of
offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by
voting down the previous question on the rule * * * When the
motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the
time passes to the member who led the opposition to ordering
the previous question.
[[Page H4433]]
That Member, because he then controls the time, may offer an
amendment to the rule, or yield for the purpose of
amendment.''
Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives,
the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a
refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a
special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the
resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21,
section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: Upon rejection of the
motion for the previous question on a resolution reported
from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member
leading the opposition to the previous question, who may
offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time
for debate thereon.''
Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does
have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only
available tools for those who oppose the Republican
majority's agenda to offer an alternative plan.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of
my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous
question.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
____________________