[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17176-17182]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                               DEATH TAX

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Scarborough). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
McInnis) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, good evening colleagues.
  I note that I am kind of outnumbered here five to one. The 
gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Thurman), whom we just heard, said we 
have had a good debate here. I wish that my colleagues would understand 
that we have only heard one side of the debate. In fact, what we have 
heard are five individuals who are highly, in my opinion, speaking the 
partisan tone and presenting one side of the case.
  Now, my remarks tonight really are going to center on the death tax, 
but I cannot go without at least rebutting some of the comments that 
were made. I refer to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry), the 
pharmacist. This is a closest I have ever come, colleagues, to asking 
that the words be stricken from the Record after I listened to the 
gentleman from Arkansas over here.
  This gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry), the pharmacist, in my 
opinion, has totally mislead the public when he says that the 
Republicans or the Democrats or any elected politician wants to do away 
with Medicare. It is exactly what the gentleman said, that the 
Republicans want to do away with Medicare.
  Now, tell me, colleagues, tell me one elected official on this House 
floor, Democrat, Republican, eastern, western, northern, southern, show 
me one elected Congressman that wants to do

[[Page 17177]]

away with Medicare. That is about the grossest misrepresentation that I 
have heard on the Record on Special Orders.
  I want to continue to go on. I mean, the only way that we are going 
to be able to help the senior citizens of this country and not, by the 
way, just the senior citizens but a lot of other people who also face 
high prescription services, is to work as a team, and not to develop 
highly partisan comments late at night, late into the hour when most of 
our colleagues are off the floor, not to use the tactics of fear, which 
seem to be the tactics that some of these previous speakers have used: 
the senior citizens are going to be trashed, the senior citizens 
Medicare program is going to be destroyed by the Republicans, all the 
Republicans care about are the pharmaceuticals.
  We can sure tell we are about to come up to a national election, can 
we not? That is not how we are going to resolve this problem, and you 
know it is not how we are going to resolve this problem, so do my 
colleagues that have conveniently just left the House floor.
  What team do they want to be on? Do they want to be on a team that 
really can go out and help people with high prescription medical 
services or prescriptions?
  Mr. PALLONE. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McINNIS. The gentleman had 1 hour totally unrebutted, and I 
intend to rebut it with the next hour.
  Mr. Speaker, I have control of the floor. I have control of the 
House.
  Mrs. THURMAN. The gentleman does not want to debate.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentlewoman I love to have a 
debate that is not one sided. That is why I am taking time away from 
the death tax, which I intend to talk about.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman from Colorado want to 
hear from us? I am just asking.
  SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Colorado has the hour.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, the key here is my colleagues can come 
across the party aisle, Democrats and Republicans come across the party 
aisle, George W. Bush ought not to be criticized in the late hour of 
the House of Representatives by a very partisan team who are out 
strictly to destroy any kind of proposal that George W. Bush comes up 
with. Now look, my colleagues may not agree with everything that George 
W. Bush says, but is the whole concept, every line of it intended to 
destroy Medicare? Of course it is not. It is just the same as Gore and 
Clinton, they have come up with some ideas. But should my colleagues 
just in blank say because it was Gore or because it was Clinton that it 
ought to be destroyed? No.
  I think my colleagues owe it to the people that we are elected to 
represent, to go on a very constructive fashion, as I intend to do here 
in a few minutes talking about the death tax and talk about the pluses 
and the minuses, talk about the details of it, talk about the fine 
print.
  I saw an excellent article today, I pulled it out of the newspaper, 
The Washington Post, it says 12 questions to ask about the proposals of 
Al Gore. ``If the projected budget surpluses on which you are basing 
your spending plans do not materialize or come up short, which promises 
will you put on hold?
  The reason I bring these questions up to my colleagues on the 
Democratic side is, look, I realize that it is an election season, it 
is the time for promises. It is almost if you are a teacher telling all 
your kids whatever wishes you want to come true, I will grant them, 
just as long as I get my contract renewed.
  Look, somewhere you are going to have to face these voters and you 
are going to have to tell them how you are going to pay for this. If 
you want to talk about socialized medicine, talk about it as socialized 
medicine, be upfront with our constituents. They are not dummies. In 
fact, they elected us to come back up here so we will speak frankly to 
them, so that we will talk to them. This is what it is going to cost 
you.
  Take a look at your tallies. Just in today's Washington Post, Gore 
promises another $300 billion, the Medicare program, the pharmaceutical 
program. Some of these are needs that we have to address. But as we 
begin to address them and as we begin to critique other people's 
programs, we ought to keep a little cost tally on the right-hand side 
to see if we can afford them.
  It is kind of like going to the car dealership and saying all right I 
promised my son this car and I promised my daughter this car, my other 
daughter this car, my other son this car and my wife promised me this 
car, and I promised her that car. At some point the salesman is going 
to stop and say, Congressman McInnis, can you afford what you are 
promising all of this family? Are you really serious? Are you really 
going to deliver the money to provide these cars for your four, five 
children and your wife and your wife for you, or are you just talking? 
Are you just trying to get me excited as a salesman?
  I am afraid that is what the previous hour just did. It is an effort 
to get people excited about this upcoming election by giving them, in 
my opinion, distorted and inaccurate information. That is pretty strong 
terminology, but do you think that the gentleman who is a pharmacist, 
the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry), the Congressman here, can 
fairly stand up in front of my colleagues and say that George W. Bush's 
plan and the Republican plan their whole intent is to destroy Medicare? 
Give me a break.
  As I said earlier, there is nobody on this floor, nobody in an 
elected office, not a county commissioner, not a city councilman, not a 
governor, not anywhere in the country that wants to destroy Medicare; 
and using that kind of fear tactic on our senior citizens is 
unjustified.
  Constructive criticism is welcome. That is exactly what this House 
floor is for, constructive criticism. But to come up here and patently 
mislead, in my opinion, is very unfortunate, and that is really frankly 
what gives people kind of a bad taste in their mouth about politics in 
this country.
  Let me move on to something which I intended to speak about the 
entire time. My wife and I have faced it, many of our young people in 
this country, the young people, I am talking about the people in their 
20s, the people that are going to college for an education, the young 
people of our country that have dreams, I am talking about the next 
generation in their mid-40s such as myself. That generation has been 
able to realize a part of their dreams, and then I am talking about the 
generation ahead of me that have realized their dreams, but their 
biggest dream is to see what they can do for the generation that is 
behind them or the generations that are behind them.
  I cannot think of a more fundamental question in front of all of us 
to decide whose team you are on then to vote tomorrow. The vote we have 
on this House floor tomorrow is a vote to override the Presidential 
veto on our bill that passed this House. By the way, I think it was 65 
Democrats. So some of the Democrats, not the leadership, but some of 
the mainstream Democrats more conservative Democrats crossed the party 
aisle and voted to eliminate the death tax.
  The President, by the way, this year in his budget did not call for 
elimination of the death tax, did not call for the status quo of the 
death tax, in other words, keep the death tax absolutely the same. 
Instead, the President this year in his budget which was submitted to 
this Congress actually increases the death tax by $9.5 billion. Again, 
the President does not eliminate the death tax. The President does not 
keep the death tax neutral. The President increases the tax by $9.5 
billion. No wonder he vetoed this House of Representatives' and the 
U.S. Senate's proposal to eliminate the death tax.
  Tomorrow, every one of us is going to have an opportunity to cast our 
vote on that tally board up there as to whether or not we think 
fundamentally the death tax is a fair tax to have in this system.
  Now, I have heard on the August recess, I heard some of the rhetoric 
coming out to justify a death tax in this country: Well, it is only for 
the wealthy; well, it is only just for a few people in this country. 
Well, it is selfish for you to think of doing away with the death tax. 
Every one of those defenses, every one of those items of

[[Page 17178]]

rhetoric avoids the basic question, and the basic question is should a 
government based, as a democratic government of the United States is 
based, should it have a tax based simply on the event of a death?
  It is not based on what you have earned. It is not an income tax. It 
is not based on a Social Security-type of tax. It is not based on a 
you-sell-some-land-for-a-huge-profit, a capital-gains type of tax. This 
tax is based strictly on the event of your death; that is the only 
justification for that tax. You died, the Government gets to tax you.
  By the way, take a look at how this goes. Let us give you an idea who 
qualifies for this. Let us say you are a rancher or a farmer, and I was 
appalled, by the way, when I was driving in a car in my district out 
there in Colorado listening to the newscast about President Clinton 
vetoing this death tax, and I was appalled to hear some professor, I do 
not know where he came from, but some professor say, well, there has 
never been a family farm in America lost because of the death tax.
  I about drove off the road. I feel like getting that person, that 
professor, getting him out of the ivory tower, grabbing him by his 
necktie and say why could you not come out to the rural parts of this 
country and see what this death tax does to us. Take a look at the 
impacts to the community and take a look at the impacts generation 
after generation.
  You know what it takes to qualify? Let us say a young person, they 
are 20 years old, 25 years old, they just get out of college or they 
just get out of some type of technical school and they want to start a 
construction company; and let us say they buy on credit, they buy a 
truck, they buy a bulldozer, they buy a backhoe and maybe they buy some 
other type of equipment, say a cable layer or maybe a smaller type of 
piece of equipment. The day they pay those pieces of equipment off, 
more likely than not, they will be in that bracket that the President 
calls the special privileged.
  How about for farming? If you own a tractor, a combine and a few cows 
and your pickup truck, watch out, because you are now in the category 
of what the President and the Secretary of Treasury called the elite 
few, only those 2 percent. Not only that, as I started to point out 
earlier, let us say that you have an estate that is hit by the death 
tax, and you pay the taxes on that. So you pay them here. Let us say 
your father or your grandfather paid for that in 1970, then that same 
piece of property, although it has already been taxed, and by the way, 
almost all of the death tax is a tax on property that has already been 
taxed. You already paid income tax on it. You already paid capital 
gains on it. You already paid any other type of tax, with the exception 
of some IRAs.
  What happens here? Here is property that is already taxed. It gets 
taxed when your grandfather died. Your grandfather, let us say, was 
fortunate enough to be able to pass some of it on to your father, and 
when your father dies, this same property that was already taxed 30 
years ago gets taxed again, generation after generation. In other 
words, every generation that comes on to the farm, one of their highest 
priorities is not how do you grow better potatoes, how do we get more 
production out of our cattle, how do we grow better wheat, how do we do 
this or do that better?

                              {time}  2200

  The first question of this generation of young people that want to go 
into small business or want to go into a farming operations their first 
question is, Gosh, how do I make enough money to pay for the day when 
mom or dad die and I have to pay for the estate tax or I get kicked off 
the farm?
  That is the wrong place. The United States of America should not be 
the country where the first question you ask is how do I pay the 
government taxes for the event of death? In our country, the reason we 
are such a great country is because the first question in history we 
have always asked is how can we do it better? What can we do to 
increase proficiency on this farm or proficiency in this small 
business?
  Well, tomorrow we are going to get a chance, and the American public, 
colleagues, are going to see where you are, which side of the team you 
are on. Either you want a death tax, either you support the government 
being able to go to every citizen in this country who has been 
successful and qualifies. What you are supporting tomorrow if you do 
not vote to override Clinton, in other words if you go along with 
Clinton, what you are supporting is a tax on the event of death that is 
punitive.
  Those of us, and I stand here very proudly to tell you I am going to 
be one of the first votes to cast an override on the presidential veto, 
those of us, and I am confident we will pass it out of here, with 
Democrats across the party aisle, those of us who vote to eliminate the 
death tax stand on the other side of the team.
  I have listened to some arguments, some other rhetoric that has come 
up, but before I get into that, let me point out something else. The 
rhetoric has as its base a focus on the 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 percent 
of the people impacted by the estate tax. Now, remember the death tax, 
and I should correctly call it the death tax, not estate tax, the death 
tax, got its beginnings in the early 1900s. It was a way to go get the 
robber barons, to go after who they alleged to be the robber barons, to 
go after the Carnegies, to go after the Rockefellers, to go after those 
type of families. That is why that tax was devised. Hey, let us get 
them on their death. Let us get that money back into the hands of the 
people.
  Let me tell you what happens to a small community, and I will give 
you an example. Take a small community in any State. I live in 
Colorado, so take a small community in the Third Congressional District 
of the State of Colorado. Let us say that we have an individual there 
who is a young person in their twenties, and I know many of them, and 
so do you, colleagues, who had big dreams. As they worked through life, 
through a lot of hard work, through a lot of risk by the way, a lot of 
risk, they took risks, through a lot of risks they built a successful 
business in this small town. By the way, my story is based on facts. It 
happened in a small community in Southwestern Colorado.
  Then they are successful in this business, and, unfortunately, they 
meet an untimely death, or even if they died in the normal course of 
things. What happens to the risk and to the business that they built up 
in that small community?
  Here is what happens. If you have a business in a community, a 
successful individual, in this particular case that I am thinking of it 
was a man and wife team, they own a construction company, they built it 
up from scratch. They started out, they worked 16 hour days for most of 
their life. Up until the day probably about 3 weeks before his death, 
he was going to the office to work, and what happened is while they 
were successful in this community, and they had many years of success, 
they provided funding for the local church, 80 percent of the budget. 
They provided the majority of funding for things like charities. They 
provided more jobs than any other employer in town. They provided more 
opportunity in this small community from an economic standpoint than 
any other employer in town.
  Well, what happened upon their death? What happened upon their death 
was no more support in the local community. Instead, what happens with 
the death tax is that success of that individual, sure, that individual 
was wealthy by most of our standards, but what happens is they take the 
money from that individual's estate, they do not leave it in the 
community and say, look, we are going to require that the estate 
continue to distribute into this community, the monies to the local 
church or to the local United Way. No.
  What happens is the government takes the money and transfers it out 
of your community, any community USA, takes it out of your community 
and transfers it to Washington, DC, where a government bureaucracy 
takes those dollars and redistributes those dollars throughout the 
bureaucracy.
  The money that the government takes in these death tax cases does not

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stay in your local community. That is what rubs me wrong. Look, I do 
not think it is right that you go after somebody because they have been 
successful and they have made some money. I mean, that is the American 
way. But I have got a lot more sympathy for the community, which gets 
that money sucked out of their community, and that money is transferred 
to Washington, DC. That is where it is unfair.
  I have gotten a number of different letters and correspondence. I 
want to give you some real live examples.
  Let me clarify a couple of things first. First of all, as I said 
earlier at the beginning of my comments, my wife and I, our big dream 
in life, and my wife's name is Lori, our big dream in life was not have 
a big house, not to have a big boat, although we would like to have 
those things. But the fact is we have to list priorities. We did not 
spend a lot of money on other things like recreational equipment and 
things, and have no objection to those who do. But our focus was we 
really wanted to put money away so that our kids would at least get a 
chance at maybe owning a house some day.
  We are not wealthy. My wife and I do not come from a lot of wealth. 
But, especially early in our marriage, we put money aside. Every time 
we got a spare penny, we did not put it in a payment for a new car, we 
did not remodel our house, we put our money in investments so that some 
day our children when they got married and were starting their young 
families could maybe have a down payment or maybe own a home. That was 
our dream.
  You know what, I do not think it is a unique dream. I do not think it 
is a dream just limited to my wife and I. I think it is a dream that 
most of us on this House floor and most of the people that we represent 
also dream of, what can we do for our kids?
  I know of no higher priority for a family than their children, and 
one of the focuses of planning for the future of your children is 
economic, and one of the economic factors is you want to try and give 
them some kind of opportunity, to either take over the family farm, or 
get a start in the family business, or, as in my wife and my case, 
because we do not own a business, to at least have a little money for a 
down payment on a home.
  That is the dream that can be trashed by your own government. Who 
would have ever imagined our forefathers when they wrote that 
Constitution and when they talked about taxes in that Constitution, 
that the government would tax the event of death, and, furthermore, 
they would take that tax from the local community whereupon the death 
occurred and the person resided and transfer it to the Nation's Capital 
to feed a very, very hungry bureaucracy?
  Now, do not be kidded when people tell you, well, this is one of the 
tax cuts, those big tax cuts, and we just cannot afford tax cuts right 
now. Well, that is an argument for another day. But the reality of it 
is the death tax generates very little tax income revenue for this 
country, and you know it and I know it.
  By the time you are done administering it, and by the way, the 
wealthiest families, including I would guess the people in the 
administration, once the administration's job is over in January, I 
would guess that most of those, including the Secretary of Treasury and 
the President himself, will go on to very successful and lucrative 
business careers, and I will bet you money, I will bet the finest 
dinner in Washington to anyone in here, that in a couple of years the 
President and the Secretary of Treasury and all the other members of 
his administration who are voting to keep this death tax in place will 
have gone out and secured the services of professional tax attorneys 
and CPAs and trust attorneys so they can avoid or minimize any kind of 
payment that they themselves say is a justified death tax.
  This is nothing but a punishment. This tax is a punishment for 
success in our country. How can you look at our young people and say we 
want you to be successful, we want you to work hard, and part of your 
responsibility, although it seems to be inherent and human nature, part 
of your responsibility is to provide for your children; but, by the 
way, if you are too successful, or if you provide for your children a 
little too much, like giving them an opportunity to come on the family 
farm, we will punish you and we will destroy you, if that is what is 
necessary, to take the money that we figure you owe the government, 
because you died and we are going to transfer that money out to 
Washington, DC.
  Now, you may think that I am just up here talking about hypothetical 
situations. The fact is I am not. I am going to spend the next few 
minutes giving you some real live stories.
  Headline, Daily Sentinel, great newspaper, Grand Junction, Colorado. 
``Owner sells Brookhart's in Grand Junction and in Montrose to a 
company in Dallas. The pressure of estate taxes,'' death taxes, ``has 
forced the owner of Brookhart's Building Centers in Mason and Montrose 
Counties to sell to a Dallas lumber company, a Brookhart's official 
said today. Brookhart's owner of Colorado Springs said it is one of the 
hardest decisions his family has made in 52 years of business. Watts 
said the current Federal estate taxes forced his father to make this 
sale. In order to protect our family, in order to protect our current 
employees, from a forced liquidation upon the death of my father or my 
mother, we felt the best thing would be now to sell this company.''
  This letter, dated August 28, 2000, ``My grandparents purchased land 
on the east side of Lake Washington across from Seattle in 1932. People 
thought they were crazy. It was a very long trip to anywhere, but they 
were school teachers, just back from helping build an orphanage in 
Alaska, and they liked the more rural lifestyle along the waterfront 
next to the duck hunters' cabin.
  ``They salvaged old bricks from a road that was being torn up, they 
chipped off the mortar and they built themselves a home. A few years 
ago grandma died and left the house and the land and some stocks and 
bonds to my dad, who was 68 years old at the time. It was quite a 
windfall, because that lakeside lot is now worth more than $1 million, 
even though the house is very old and in need of new basic plumbing, 
wiring, et cetera.
  ``My dad and his wife plan to live there. Times have been tough and 
they have no home of their own. The question became one of economics: 
Would there be enough inheritance to pay the estate or the death tax 
bought selling that lot that had been in the family, that they had 
started from scratch?''
  Just like many young couples today. This letter reflects 40 years 
from now if we have this death tax in place what a lot of our young 
people today that are setting out to have their dreams, and this same 
kind of letter will apply to those people if we do not do something 
about it.
  ``Good news. They got to keep the house. Now it is my worry. Some day 
I will inherit my grandparents' homestead, but I cannot imagine how we 
will be able to keep it in the family if we have to pay death taxes. 
The burden of this tax would force us to sell. Sure, we would be 
wealthy if we decided to sell the old house to condominium developers, 
but we would be more interested in preserving the place of family 
picnics, swims on hot summer days, and green beans fresh from the 
garden.
  ``Our family is not amongst the rich. We are middle class Americans, 
and we are proud of it. We believe in family heritage and in our 
country. But why would our country want to take away the heritage that 
my grandparents built one brick at a time?''
  Be a hero do it for the country. Vote to override that veto that we 
vote on tomorrow.
  Let me mention one other thing. In Colorado, I am very proud of the 
State of Colorado. Obviously I am exceedingly proud of my district, the 
Third Congressional District. Basically the Third Congressional 
District covers almost all of the mountains in Colorado. It is a 
district geographically that is larger than the State of Florida, and 
we have lots of discovery in that area. A lot of people have discovered 
how beautiful Colorado is. So we have a lot of people that are moving 
into our

[[Page 17180]]

State. We have a lot of threat to open space, open space we never 
thought would be threatened by development of condominiums and so on.
  Do you know what is forcing a lot of that development, to those of 
you tomorrow who are going to support the President in keeping the 
death tax and imposing the death tax, and that is what your vote 
tomorrow will be, you will be imposing the death tax on the American 
people? You are directly responsible, in my opinion, for the 
development of much open space in Colorado, because those family farms 
and ranches cannot afford to keep that open space open if in fact they 
get hit with the death tax.

                              {time}  2215

  They have to sell it, and they are smart to sell it as soon as they 
can to try to avoid and minimize this death tax.
  So for our environment, for our environment this death tax is 
damaging, and this leads me to other letters.
  My name, and I will leave that out. ``My family lives in a central 
part of Idaho. Our family's cattle ranch is 45 miles from Sun Valley. 
The ranch consists of 2,600 deeded acres, 700 head of cattle. My 
youngest brother Ross lives with and manages the ranch with my mother.
  ``Although I am still involved in the ranch, my husband and I also 
operate a small business in Ketchum. My two brothers, my sister, and I 
all grew up working alongside my father, my mother, and my grandfather. 
We worked weekends, we worked holidays, and we worked summer breaks. We 
moved cattle, we rode the range, and we fixed the fences.
  ``We didn't have a lot of material things. We didn't have a lot of 
material things, but we had our family. We had our land and we had our 
lifestyle.
  ``On October 5, 1993, my father was accidentally killed when his 
clothing got caught in farm machinery. He was 71 and he was very 
healthy. He worked from dawn to dusk, and he loved the land, and he 
loved his family. We were always a very close-knit family. The hub of 
our family was my father and the ranch.
  ``Even though my brother, my sister, and I don't live there anymore, 
we all go home, along with the grandchildren, to help with the seasonal 
work. My daughter and I take as much time off in the summer as we can 
and we work at our summer cow camp moving cattle. My mother puts on a 
lot of church and community picnics and barbecues down by the swimming 
hole.
  ``Every June our family enters the local parade with a float 
representing our ranch.'' That shows a lot of pride. ``All of the other 
ranchers and families in the Valley do the same exact thing. Last year, 
the theme for the parade was the heritage ranching, mining, and 
logging.
  ``My father's death was the most devastating event that any of us 
could have ever gone through. The second most devastating event was 
sitting down with the attorney after his death. I will never forget 
those attorney's words, and I quote, `There is no way you can keep this 
place, absolutely no way.' Still in shock from the accident, I said, 
`How can this be? We own this land. We have no debt on the land. We 
have just lost my father, and now we are going to lose our ranch, too?' 
''
  Our attorney proceeded to pencil out the death taxes that would be 
due after my mother's death, and we all sat in total shock. It had 
taken my grandfather and my father their entire lifetimes to build up 
the ranch and now we can't continue on, and the grandchildren will not 
have the land and the rich heritage that it provides.
  ``It has been 3\1/2\ years since my father's accident. We still don't 
know what we are going to do. We only know we will not be able to keep 
the ranch unless something is done with the estate tax.
  ``The same scenario is happening to many ranchers in our valley. 
Eighty percent of the ranches have been owned by the same families for 
two or three generations. The value of the land on these ranches has 
risen dramatically in the last 5 years. All of these ranchers live on 
modest incomes, and most of them can barely educate their children off 
those incomes. I am certain none of them will be able to pay the death 
tax.''
  At the same time while I am reading this letter, keep in mind that 
the Treasury, the Secretary of Treasury, calls it an act of selfishness 
to do away with this death tax. The President, the administration, this 
year proposed not only not doing away with it, as I mentioned earlier, 
not keeping it the same, but increasing it $9 billion.
  ``This community will not be able to survive without the ranching 
community that has made it. What is happening is these ranches are 
being bought by wealthy absentee owners who do not run cattle and who 
fly in only once or twice a year. It has already happened to two 
neighboring ranches. Both of the owners, both second generations, were 
killed in accidents. Their families could not pay the death taxes and 
sold the ranches to wealthy Southern Californians.
  ``I have heard it said before that the death tax exists to 
redistribute wealth, to take from the rich, presumably to benefit 
others less fortunate. Let me tell you, from where I stand now I know 
that this tax accomplishes exactly the opposite. For my family, the tax 
means we will not be able to continue running the ranch that has been 
our heritage for 60 years.
  ``This Congress says it is pro-family. However, I know from personal 
experience that the current death tax is anti-family. The death tax 
will force us to sell the ranch to a wealthy absentee owner who is 
unlikely to run cattle or keep the workers employed, or contribute to 
the community in a way such as my mother and my father and my 
grandfather have done.
  ``Surely if Congress does not provide relief from this tax many other 
families will suffer a similar fate. Ultimately, I wonder if towns like 
Mackee as we know it today will continue to exist. I urge you to ask 
yourselves,'' and I think this is a very pertinent paragraph, ``I urge 
you to ask yourselves, why does this tax exist? Is it worth the great 
harm it has caused to my family and many others like us? If it is not 
worth the harm, then the tax shouldn't exist. I hope you will do 
everything in your power to eliminate the Federal death tax.''
  I have got example after example. I have a couple more here I want to 
talk to the Members about. But I think the message is clear: What are 
we doing here in America taxing death? Why do we look at death as a 
taxable event?
  The Democrat leadership justifies this tax by saying, We are only 
going after the wealthy. How can they justify going after anybody based 
on the fact of an untimely death?
  I should note how interesting it is. It is kind of like the people 
here on this floor who talk about public schools and how good public 
schools are, and oppose any kind of choice. But my understanding is 
there is not one of us on this House floor, there is not one of us on 
this House floor who send their kids to public schools in Washington, 
D.C. They are all in private schools or other schools, but not the 
public schools in Washington, D.C.
  It seems somewhat hypocritical. The same thing here. There are a lot 
of people who support the death tax because they figured out a way 
around it, but the fundamental question comes back, and I think it is 
presented by these letters, what right do we have as Congressmen of the 
United States, what right does the government have to go upon its 
citizens and tax them because one of the citizens has died, and to tear 
apart family farms and ranches?
  That professor from that ivory tower that commented and supported 
President Clinton's veto of the death tax, who said there has never 
been a family farm in America that has been liquidated or destroyed by 
the death tax, that person was born with blinders on.
  I would be happy, and in fact, I would give that professor frequent 
flier miles to fly to Colorado and let us go visit these. Let us go up 
to Idaho, sit down and talk with that family, Mr. Professor. Mr. 
President, let us get on Air Force One. He took it to Africa, why does 
he not take it to Idaho? Why does he not go talk to some of these 
people and ask them what the death tax is doing to their families, and 
the heritage of their families?

[[Page 17181]]

  The President can use that Air Force one for a little domestic 
travel. Give it a try. It is very moving.
  Here is another one, Derrick Roberts. This was a letter to the editor 
we got.
  ``My family has ranched in northern Colorado for 125 years. My sons 
are the sixth generation, the sixth generation to work this land. We 
want to continue, but the IRS is forcing almost all ranchers and many 
farmers out of business.
  ``The problem is death taxes. The demand for our land is very high, 
and 35-acre ranches are selling in this area for as high as 4,500 an 
acre. We have 20,000 acres. We want to keep it as open space, but the 
U.S. Government is making it impossible because we have to pay a 55 
percent tax on the valuation of this acreage when my parents pass on.
  ``Ranchers are barely scraping by these days. If we were willing to 
develop homesites, we could stop the mining, but since we want to save 
the ranch, we are in trouble. The family has been able to scrape up the 
death taxes as each generation has died up to now.'' That was my 
earlier example. ``This time, however, 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 they won't guarantee they will not develop it, 
either.
  My dad is 90, so we don't have a lot of time left to decide. We are 
one of only two or three ranchers left around here. Our 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 the death taxes. Soon they had to start selling cattle to pay the 
interest. When they ran out of cattle their 18,000 to 20,000 acre place 
was foreclosed on and is now being developed. The family now lives on 
in a trailer in town and the father works as a highway flagman.
  ``If you want to stop sprawl, you had better ask the U.S. Government 
to get off the backs of family farms and ranches.''
  Mr. Speaker, Ron Edwards. ``I am writing to bring to your attention 
an issue of the utmost importance to me,'' which was the elimination of 
the death tax. ``I urge you to support and pass death tax repeal 
legislation this year.'' Well, Ron, we did it. We passed it, by the 
way, in the House chambers with bipartisan support. We had 65 Democrats 
join us. I hope tomorrow on this Republican legislation we have 65 
Democrats that come across the aisle and join us again to override the 
veto. So we have passed legislation, but the President vetoed it.
  ``Family-owned businesses need relief from death taxes now. We are 
celebrating 66 years in business. My grandfather, Vic Edward, started 
with a fruit and vegetable stand in 1933 at our current location, east 
of Fort Morgan. The business grew into a grocery store and a lawn and 
garden center. My father, Vic Edward, is 80 years old and in very poor 
health.
  ``No business can remain competitive in a tax regime that imposes 
death taxes as high as 55 percent. Our death taxes should encourage 
rather than discourage the perpetuation of these businesses.''
  Of all the letters, Mr. Speaker, that I have read on this issue, and 
obviously it is a big issue to me and I hope it is a big issue to 
Members, I cannot think of one sentence that is more pertinent and more 
outstanding than the sentence I just gave.
  Let me repeat that sentence again: ``Our tax laws should encourage 
rather than discourage the perpetuation of these businesses.'' In other 
words, the government should go to these farmers, should go to the 
young people that are starting out with their dreams, and say, we want 
to encourage family business to go from one generation to the next 
generation.
  We can look at a lot of countries in this world. One of the bonds to 
strong families is the fact that homes and farms and small businesses 
have gone from one generation to the next generation to the next 
generation. In these countries the government encourages, not 
discourages, as they do in the United States, but encourages the 
passing from generation to generation of these family businesses.
  ``Being a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, I am sure 
you already know the urgency of the death tax repeal. The economics of 
the estate tax are not good at all. Family-owned businesses and their 
employees will continue to suffer until this unfair, unproductive, and 
uneconomic death tax is abolished.
  ``My wife, Vicky, and I are very active, and look forward to working 
with you and your staff to enact some commonsense legislation to 
preserve and promote'', to preserve and promote, ``our Nation's family-
owned enterprises.''
  This is a story about a ranch in Aspen, Colorado. We all know about 
Aspen, which is in my district. I have all the mountain resorts in 
Colorado. I have Aspen, Telluride, Vail, Beaver Creek. I grew up there. 
My family has been in Colorado for many generations.
  I remember going into Aspen when it was nothing but a coal mining 
town. One could buy a lot for $600. I remember stopping in the Vail 
Valley and all there was was a ranch house.
  What has happened is there were a lot of family farms and ranches. 
Because of the popularity of these communities, those families, those 
what we call basic salt of the earth kind of people, are seeing that 
their dreams of passing on their hard work to the next generation are 
being dashed by the tax policies of this country.

                              {time}  2230

  By the way, not a lot of countries in the world exercise this type of 
tax policy, but the United States does.
  In Aspen, there are a lot of tales to be told with the conversion of 
former ranches into luxury homes or golf courses throughout this 
valley. Sometimes it was a simple financial decision, a choice to take 
advantage of soaring development values in the face of plummeting 
cattle prices. But for other families, the passing of a parent meant 
the passing of a life-style.
  We have been around for a long time. The Maurin family's roots are 
deep in Long Capital Creek Road in Old Snowmass. For nearly a century, 
heritage and hard work, heritage and hard work for nearly a century 
were enough to sustain those that lived on that 300,000 acre stretch of 
land, but it all changed in 1976.
  Until Dwight's father's death, each generation presided over a 
working cattle ranch that was both the lifeblood and livelihood of our 
clan. His later years were lean years for Dwight's father, but the fate 
of the ranch was not at risk until the Internal Revenue Service showed 
up.
  The tax bill on this ranch was to $750,000, and what it took to pay 
the bill was to cut the ranch in half. No longer could the Maurin 
cattle migrate in winter months. It would be 10 years after cutting the 
ranch in half and selling off half of it, it would be 10 years of 
installments before the death tax could be paid.
  What those taxes took was something very vital, the ability of our 
family to support the families by working the land that has so long 
been theirs. Maurin now works full time as a mechanic for the Roaring 
Fork School District, then helps with the ranch when he gets home at 
night. He does not mind the long hours he puts in.
  What does get under his skin is the memory of an IRS agent overseeing 
his father's taxes either did not recognize that devastation was about 
to occur or did not care. It was just pay us, or we will seize 
everything. If anything is left over, we will keep it. If you cannot 
make ends meet on what is left, you can find work elsewhere.
  We have no intention of selling the remaining 640 acres, but what 
happens to our daughters when we die? What choice will they have with 
only half of the land to graze. The ranch itself is only making enough 
to cover its operating costs and its annual property taxes.
  It is Maurin's day job at the school district that pays the doctor 
bills, the car insurance, the grocery bills, and everything else. There 
is always hope that things will change before our daughters need to 
make a decision about the ranch.
  But I wonder if people really think about the permanent changes that 
take

[[Page 17182]]

place when a ranch is sold. It is not just a loss to the family, it 
ripples much wider. There are movements in the right direction, but are 
they moving quickly enough? Because once it is sold to developers this 
ranch is gone forever.
  Real quickly, ``I Am a Businessman''. So I am telling my colleagues 
this is not just families, farms and ranches.
  I am a businessman. My business is all about what a small business 
is. I have 42 people employed, and we are in our second generation. I 
am all too familiar with the death tax, as my father passed away 2 
years ago. My mother, my sister and I have been through the experience 
of paying estate taxes at 50 percent-plus rate. Let me explain how we 
were fortunate enough to get into this bracket.
  My father left school after the 8th grade in 1938 and did odd jobs 
until serving for 3 years in World War II. Afterward, he purchased a 
small diner and built a 12-unit motel in a small town in Pennsylvania. 
He and mom worked 16 hours a day 7 days a week for 12 years before 
migrating to the restaurant supply business. That was better business. 
But it was not an easy task either.
  I can remember him saying for many years that he hoped Monday's mail 
would have enough money to cover the payroll costs he had written on 
the previous Friday.
  You can ask in this country, why would anybody start a business? 
There are obviously still Americans that are willing to risk everything 
to be in control of their lives. The satisfaction of proving that you 
can do better is still a motivator in our country. The key word is 
``risk''. People are willing to take this risk, provide the jobs and 
tax base that makes this country grow.
  Only by taxes from those who take risk does the government even 
exist. This is why when I see our Secretary of Treasury write about the 
repeal of the estate tax I can become exorcised. He seems to think that 
this money is the Treasury's money to dispense as it pleases.
  Maybe it appears to be a simple view of fairness and equity if you 
spent your life in academia and never had to worry about making a 
payroll. But I resent like hell being told that I am selfish to want to 
keep what I and my family have earned and already paid taxes on.
  In effect, the government is saying to businessmen, and I am 
skipping, by the way, some paragraphs, in effect, the government is 
saying to businessmen, since you worked harder and longer and were more 
successful, we will use your estate to pay for programs which we take 
political credit.
  The original purpose of this death tax was to catch a handful of 
robber barons from the early industrial America. Now it reaches into 
the most productive parts of America. Is not the fact that 5 percent of 
our citizens now pay 50 percent of the tax bill evidence that there is 
more than enough progresstivity in the Tax Code.
  This was an article written in the Washington Post dated Friday, July 
14th, 2000. I have other cases, more samples.
  The key is this, Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we face on this floor a very 
significant vote. The President of the United States of America has 
made a decision that the death tax in this country should stand. The 
President of the United States of America has submitted to the U.S. 
House of Representatives in his budget a proposal, not only to let the 
death tax stand, but to increase it by $9.5 billion.
  The President of this country has vetoed a bipartisan bill. In other 
words, Republicans and Democrats sent to the President a piece of 
legislation saying, Mr. President, enough is enough. Get rid of this 
death tax. It fundamentally will not alter the revenues to this 
country. It is not a big revenue producer. Get rid of it. The President 
of the United States vetoed that bill, and tomorrow the President of 
the United States sends up to us on this House floor his veto message, 
and we have the opportunity to override it.
  I am confident that we in these chambers and that the Democrats will 
come across the aisle and that, as a team, we will stand up and be 
counted and say that the death tax is not justified in this country, 
that the role of our government should be to encourage, not discourage 
the passing of business or property from one generation to the next 
generation.
  Tomorrow we will stand, and we will take that vote. I am not sure how 
the result is going to be in the Senate, but I hope they vote to 
override it, too.
  During my entire term in Congress, I cannot think of something that 
would be more pro family, that would help preserve more open space, 
that just out of fundamental fairness would go back to a fair and 
equitable tax scheme than doing away with the death tax.
  Tomorrow it is on our shoulders. No way out. If one is going to be 
here to vote, one is going to have to post one's vote. Do not give 
one's constituents some magic tale about why one voted to keep the 
death tax in place. One is either for elimination of it or one is not.
  Tomorrow my colleagues are going to make that decision. I hope for 
the sake of future Americans, I hope for the sake of the young people 
in their mid twenties that want to make their dreams come true, for the 
couples like my wife and I who want to make our dreams come true and 
for my parents who want to pass their dreams on to the next generation, 
I hope for the sake of those people, for my colleagues' constituents, 
that my colleagues stand tall against the President and vote to 
override his veto.

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