[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 176 (Tuesday, December 1, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H13358]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   CONGRESS MUST REPEAL THE DEATH TAX

  (Mr. SMITH of Nebraska asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Mr. Speaker, the estate tax, also known as the 
death tax, has been a drag on America's family-owned small businesses 
for decades. It threatens our Nation's farms and ranches, the very 
businesses which produce 86 percent of U.S. agricultural products.
  Farmers and ranchers work their entire lives to build their land and 
equipment for their operations; yet the existence of the death tax 
could take it all away.
  The death tax impedes economic growth because it lowers incentives 
for small family businesses to invest capital in their own economic 
endeavors. In other words, it punishes success.
  This flies in the face of the very principles upon which our country 
was founded.
  The estate tax is inappropriate, and it needs to be eliminated once 
and for all. Doing so in the right way would lift a tremendous weight 
off the shoulders of America's family-owned small businesses, farms, 
and ranches.

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