[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5327-5333]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               DEATH TAX

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Forbes). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, this evening I want to cover a couple of 
points. Especially, I want to focus tonight on one area, and that is 
the death tax, and the differences between our parties, between the 
Republicans and the Democrats when it comes to the death tax. This is 
clearly reflected by the votes of the last couple of years. When I 
speak in Special Orders, most

[[Page 5328]]

of the time I try not to speak in a strong partisan fashion. There are 
a lot of issues that span both sides of the aisle. There are a lot of 
issues that are not necessarily a division between Republicans and 
Democrats, but rather a division between urban and rural areas; or 
there are issues that partisanship is divided, not Republicans and 
Democrats, but geographical location in the Nation.
  For example, many times I have taken this podium and spoken about 
water in the East as compared to water in the West, the issues of 
public lands which are almost exclusively found in the West as compared 
to the private lands found in the East. There are a number of different 
issues, so not every issue that we deal with up here falls along 
partisan lines. But there comes a time when there is an issue that 
falls along partisan lines where the majority of one party is on the 
opposite side of the majority of the other party, and tonight is one of 
those nights that I want to speak about an issue.
  The reason I bring this up is because of the impact it has on my 
district in Colorado, and the impact that it has on the American dream 
and throughout this Nation, not necessarily the people from Colorado, 
but the people from the other 49 States, and it is the death tax. It is 
a tax that the Democrats, time and time and time again, go back to 
their districts and talk about how terrible it is and come back here 
and vote to support it, to keep the death tax in place. I am tired of 
it. This thing is killing people out there, no pun intended.
  This death tax is devastating to a lot of American citizens. It is of 
little benefit to the government. Our government gets very little tax 
revenue from this death tax; but time and time and time again, the 
Democrats continuously through their leadership continue to support the 
death tax. Every time we talk about it, they make it look like we are 
talking about the Gates families or the Ford families or those kinds of 
families out there. They completely ignore the fact that the wealthiest 
families in this country which they say that the death tax is directed 
at, those families have estate lawyers and trusts. Those families have 
life insurance to take care of a death and the costs related to that 
and the cost related to the death tax.
  What the Democrats do ignore time and time again is what it does to 
the middle class in this country. What do I mean by the middle class? 
Look at what one has to own today to be subject to the death tax. If 
you are in construction, you are not a wealthy person. Let us say you 
are a woman. And women in business, by the way, have jumped 
dramatically, so the impact against women that this death tax has also 
jumped dramatically. You will see the Democrats jumping up and down 
about women in business and we are for women in business.
  Next time you hear one of your Members from your district say that, 
you have to be prepared to defend. Why do I vote for the death tax and 
why do I support the death tax which has an inappropriate impact on 
women in business? Let us say you have a woman who owns a couple of 
dump trucks, a backhoe and a small office building, not a big office 
building, just small. Let us say she has a trailer and a semi to haul 
the backhoe around on. She is now subject to the death tax upon her 
death.
  What is the death tax and how does it work? That is what we are going 
to talk about this evening, because I want Members to understand 
clearly how negative the impacts are. Tonight I intend to read a few 
letters from families, diverse in their interests, farm families, small 
business families, contractors, children of families who have had 
businesses go from one generation to the other, which as we know in 
this country is significantly diminished in large part due to the death 
tax. Let me just kind of point out a couple of things to start with.
  Last year the President, with the help of the Congress, we put 
together a tax reduction package. No matter how hard we tried, we could 
not get the Democrats, and we had 58 of the Democrats in the House who 
came across, but the real impact, their leaders, we begged them to join 
us. We asked them, come on, let us get rid of this death tax. Look what 
is happening to middle America. Look what this does. But we could not 
get them to budge.
  The best we could do last year in our effort to eliminate the death 
tax was to get a compromise to lift the exemption. Here in 2004 it 
works its way up to $2 million. In 2006, it works its way up to $3 
million; and 2010, it works its way up to $4 million, actually $3.5 
million. But guess what happens in 2010? Here is what the exemption is. 
In other words, if you have an estate worth $3.5 million, the first 
$3.5 million is exempt from the death tax.
  Then in the year 2010, look what happens in 2010. In the year 2010, 
the exemption is zero, because guess what happens for 1 year? For 1 
year the death tax goes away. Zero. Then what happens? Then all of a 
sudden it goes back to normal in 2011 because we could not make it 
permanent. The reason we could not make it permanent is we did not have 
enough Democratic votes in our conference committee to come across.
  Let me say again, colleagues, I do not like to be partisan every time 
I speak up here, I rarely am, but tonight the issue demands it because 
it is a clear distinction between Democrats and Republicans. The 
Democrats continually support the continuation of that death tax; the 
Republicans on a continual basis oppose the death tax.
  Last year we were able to get a compromise to at least lift the 
exemption. The exemption, as my colleagues know, is that amount of 
money that you get before the government starts to tax your estate. It 
has been $675,000 before the tax package agreement. So we had the tax 
package agreement which does not do away with the death tax initially, 
but allows you to lift the exemption. And that is what this chart 
reflects, from $675,000 on up to $3.5 million, and then the death tax 
actually goes away for 1 year. But then it sunsets.
  What is sunset? Sunset, as my colleagues know, this tax bill 
evaporates and we go back to the same taxes we had in 2000. In other 
words, we are back to a $675,000 exemption which takes that woman 
contractor that only owns a backhoe, a dump truck, and some other 
equipment and maybe a small office building, it makes her estate 
subject to the Federal death tax.
  Let us talk about what the Federal death tax is, and we need to make 
this clear at the beginning. The death tax is not on property that has 
not been taxed. This is not property that one has been able to evade 
the tax man for many years, that the people who own this property have 
not carried their fair share. They have. They paid taxes on it when 
they bought it. But the government comes in and says it does not matter 
to us that you paid taxes once or twice, or in some cases three times, 
we are going to tax it again simply because of the event of death. Even 
though your property has been taxed, even though you have paid for it 
again and again and again in some cases, you still get taxed as if it 
were never taxed upon your death.
  How did such an egregious tax start? Let me say there is no 
justification, in my opinion, for the death tax anywhere in our tax 
system. If you take a look at the history of our tax system, if we look 
at it from a historical view, the debates when we put taxes together 
throughout the history of this country, when we came up with the income 
tax, nobody ever envisioned, certainly our forefathers when they 
drafted the Constitution would never have envisioned that upon your 
death the government would come into property upon which you had 
already paid your taxes and tax it again. They never thought that would 
happen.
  Mr. Speaker, how did it come about? It came about because of 
jealousy. In this country the American dream is to succeed. We educate 
our kids. All of us grew up with the dream of some type of success. 
Having a family is, of course, one of our big dreams; I as a father, my 
wife as a mother, one of our big dreams is to have something to leave 
to our kids so our kids can get a start in their life.
  I cannot leave my congressional seat, obviously, but I always did 
dream, I did

[[Page 5329]]

dream of having something physical like a construction company or some 
kind of business that I could get my kids to work with me, and then 
turn the business over to them. Well, this tax dashes that. This tax 
puts a knife in the center of it. It is amazing how few base businesses 
pass to the second generation. I think 70 percent do not make it to the 
second generation, and 80 percent do not make it to the third 
generation. Those are pretty rough numbers.
  How can one conceive such a tax like this? Why would the lawmakers 
put this tax in place? As I said, it is jealousy. We urge people to be 
great, enjoy the fruits of your labor. Have Members heard that before, 
enjoy the fruits of your labor? Around the turn of the century, there 
were some big families which made a lot of money, the Rockefellers, the 
Carnegies, the Fords, Chrysler, a lot of these big families, and there 
was a lot of jealousy at that point in time.

                              {time}  2000

  The government decided to respond to some public pressure and said, 
``Hey, let's penalize those people. They've made too much money. They 
shouldn't be able to pass that money from one generation to the next. 
After all, the government needs the money to fight a war or to fight a 
depression. Let's go ahead and let's go after those families.''
  Well, they did. Of course, what did those kinds of families do? They 
have the resources to hire the necessary professional help, which is 
legal, of course, to hire the necessary professional help so that their 
impact on this is not nearly as significant as the impact is on middle 
America. So this tax got put into the system, more of a target towards 
Carnegie and Ford.
  So this tax gets created, put into our taxing system, and I will tell 
you something; once the government figures out a tax, it is very, very 
hard to ever get rid of it. The battles that we had on the floor last 
year, I was astounded that any Democrat stood up and defended the death 
tax, that any Democrat could stand up and do that. By the way, to the 
best of my recollection, we did not have one Republican stand up and 
defend the death tax. Every Republican stood against it. And to 58 
Democrats' credit, 58 of them, not all of them, not even close, what is 
that, maybe a fourth of them, a fifth of them stood up to oppose it; 
four-fifths of them supported this death tax. So this thing has 
continued and continued and continued. I hope the Senate has some kind 
of vote on this thing, that we can eliminate this death tax.
  This death tax does not serve any of us. It does not help the 
government in revenues. Let me tell you, it does not just go against 
the wealthy people at all. You would be surprised, colleagues, when you 
go back to your district, take a look that anybody that is at all 
financially successful, in some of your States like California where 
you have high home prices, or in Massachusetts or in any of those kind 
of communities, if a person owns their home in some of those 
communities free and clear, they could be in that category where they 
face a death tax simply because of the fact they saved their money, 
they paid the taxes on their house when they bought the house, they 
worked hard, they got the house paid off, and now all of a sudden upon 
their death the family to whom they want to leave this to will have to 
pay the taxes.
  You will understand after I read some of these letters. We are not 
talking about the Gates family here. We are not talking about the 
wealthiest families in the country. We are talking about middle 
America. And we are talking about the need to stand up and say enough 
is enough.
  Look, we all have to pay taxes. That is how we fund things. That is 
how we fund our highways, our schools. Thank goodness we paid taxes 
many, many years ago and funded a terrific military, a machine that 
could protect this Nation in a time of need. But there is a point of 
ridiculousness. There is a point of absurdity. That point is reached 
when you put the death tax in place.
  Let me just cover a couple of points. One point I want to make before 
we get started too much here is these people that come out, and I heard 
this just the other day, somebody said, ``Why are you complaining about 
the death tax? That's what life insurance is for.''
  For example, a ranching family. The ranching family, usually most 
ranching families are what you would call land rich, cash poor. The 
land has been around and they have accumulated land, but the revenue 
that comes off the land is very limited. They do not have a lot of 
cash. So you talk to people, and this is what happened to me the other 
day. I was talking to somebody, in this particular case we were talking 
about a ranch in Colorado. I was talking about that family. He said, 
``Well, the death tax isn't unfair. That's why you have life insurance. 
Go out and buy life insurance.'' I heard that last year from some of 
the Democrats: ``Why, you ought to go out and buy life insurance.'' It 
was almost as if the special interests up here in regards to life 
insurance had done a lot of lobbying right before to sell life 
insurance as a justification for the death tax. In this particular case 
when I was talking to the individual about this ranch, I said, ``Oh, 
yeah? Why don't you pick up a telephone. You show me one life insurer 
that is going to be willing to sell a life insurance policy to the 65-
year-old rancher that owns this ranch.'' Where do you think he is going 
to get the money, or in this case he and she, because it was a husband 
and wife operation. Actually the husband was 67 and the wife was 65. 
Who do you think is going to insure them? Oh, sure, they will start 
writing you life insurance at 67 or 65, maybe if you get a million-
dollar policy they will sit down and write you for a premium of a 
couple of hundred thousand bucks a year.
  That is the whole point. The small people, middle class America, the 
middle class of economics here, they cannot afford the premiums for 
life insurance to take care of this unjustified tax. Why should they 
have to buy it in the first place? How can you in a democratic society 
that practices capitalism, how can you justify a tax based solely on 
the fact that you have died on property that you have already paid 
taxes upon? How can you do that? You cannot justify it.
  Let me jump in here and read some letters to you. Again, I do not 
speak from written notes. These are actual letters that I have received 
in regards to this terrible death tax and what it does. These people 
feel like they have been fooled, that the death tax goes away in 2010 
and then it leaps from the grave, as the Wall Street Journal puts it, 
leaps from the grave the next year. By the way, any of you that cannot 
afford life insurance, whose family will be devastated by the death 
tax, look, do not die until 2010. Those of you from an economical point 
of view who are lucky enough to die at 2 minutes to midnight 2010, are 
going to be a whole lot luckier than those people who die 2 minutes 
after midnight and go back to a full estate taxation.
  Let me read some letters.
  ``Dear Mr. McInnis:
  ``I'm writing to encourage you to keep up the battle of the death 
tax. As an owner of a family business, it is extremely important that 
upon our death, this business be able to be passed to our daughter and 
our son, both of whom work with us in the business, without the threat 
of having to liquidate to pay inheritance taxes on assets that have 
already been taxed once. Of all the taxes we pay, this one is double 
taxation and it's unfair.''
  I can tell you that word is probably the most accurate word of the 
whole letter. It is unfair. Where is the fairness in this, Democrats? 
You are the guys that carried it. You are the guys who continue to 
support this. You are the guys that put it in place. You are the guys 
that work against us to get rid of it. Again I want to stress, I am not 
up here to start a partisan fight. I am up here to clearly define where 
the lines are on the death tax. One party has stood time and time again 
in unison to eliminate the death tax. The other party, the majority of 
whom have stood time and time and time again to look at an individual 
like this, a gentleman and his wife that want their son and daughter to 
continue in

[[Page 5330]]

business and said, ``Too bad. You're rich. We need the money for 
society. We'd rather take the money from those of you who work and 
achieve the American dream and pay your taxes, we'd rather hit you with 
double taxation and transfer that money to people that don't work.''
  That is the essence of your argument. And it does not hold water. Let 
me continue with the letter.
  ``I'm aware that several wealthy people like, for example, Bill Gates 
Sr.''--not Bill Gates, Jr.--``Bill Gates, Sr., and George Soros have 
come out against repeal of the death tax.''
  Let me address that. These people are the billionaires, or close to 
it. They ran an ad, I think, in the New York Times, the most liberal 
newspaper in the United States, they ran an ad that said, ``Hey, we 
support the death tax. It is only fair that rich people pay an extra 
tax on property that has already been taxed upon their death.''
  The Gates family has what is called the Gates Foundation. What do you 
do when you have a foundation? You evade, and not illegally, you 
legally are able to avoid those death taxes.
  George Soros, do you not think George Soros has an entire roomful of 
trust attorneys? Do you not think every person who signed that ad has 
already made arrangements to get around the death tax? I would venture 
to challenge every one of my colleagues, any of my colleagues today 
whose net worth would put them into the death tax category, any of you 
sitting here today, my guess is that any of you that voted against 
eliminating the death tax have already done your estate planning so 
that you do not have to pay the death tax or so that you minimize the 
death tax that you pay. My guess is not one of you who voted against 
elimination of the death tax, not one of you that is worth, say, over 
$1 million today, so you are going to be subject to the death tax, not 
one of you has not already protected yourself through some kind of 
legal counseling on how to evade it. That is the same thing that is 
referenced in this letter. It is always easy to stand up and say, 
``Hey, I think it's a good tax'' when you do not have to pay it.
  It is pretty interesting, is it not, the support for a tax comes from 
the people who do not have to pay for it. That is exactly what that ad 
was about.
  Let me go on to another letter. This one, by the way, was signed by 
Tony and his wife.
  This is from John:
  ``I wish there were some way I could help to get these death taxes 
eliminated, the most discriminatory and socialistic taxes imaginable.''
  That is another key word, socialism. This is a society of capitalism. 
We have a democracy in the United States. We are not socialists, where 
we make everybody equal, where we go out and say, ``All right, Johnny, 
you have a farm. You were successful in your farm. Joey over here 
didn't do any work, wasn't at all ingenious, didn't do anything to help 
society, but we're going to take the money and the rewards that you had 
and we're going to equal it out.'' That is what the original intent of 
the death tax was, and this individual, a fellow by the name of John, 
picked up on that.
  He says, are we in a socialistic society? Why do we have this death 
tax? Where is the fairness of it? He goes on:
  ``How can anyone,'' and I want the Democrats that voted to keep the 
death tax in place, I want the Democrats to listen to this: ``How can 
anyone advocate taxing somebody twice?"
  How can you do it? Where is the fairness of it? How can you tell me 
it is not socialism? I do not care if it is a millionaire or a pauper. 
It is not the government's money and the taxes have been paid. That is 
what he writes in this letter. I do not care whether you are a pauper 
or a millionaire. It is not fair. And the taxes have already been paid.
  Why should a family working for 45 years and paying taxes on time 
every year, year after year after year, be forced into this position? I 
do not know, John, other than the fact that we have Members of the U.S. 
House of Representatives, colleagues, who continue to support a death 
tax, who continue in force, especially, and there is a huge party 
difference on this, and let me repeat again. Last year, to the best of 
my knowledge, not one Republican stood up and supported the death tax. 
They all voted to eliminate it. Four-fifths or so of the Democrats 
supported the death tax and keeping it.
  Let us go on. There are some other interesting letters. Marshall 
writes this letter, Marshall and his wife:
  ``We have operated as a family partnership since the middle 1930s. My 
parents died about 5 years apart in the 1980s. And the death tax on 
each of their one-fifth interest was three to four times more than the 
total cost of the ranch that was purchased in 1946.''
  In other words, because of the death tax, Marshall says his parents 
each owned a fifth, they each owned a fifth of this ranch, and the 
taxes on each of their fifths exceeded what the original purchase price 
of the ranch was. Where is the fairness in that?
  ``Eliminating the death tax will go a long way towards providing 
jobs.''
  In fact, Marshall, I will give a couple of points here that I think 
are pretty important, to tune in on Marshall's letter. Sixty percent of 
small business owners report they would create new jobs over the coming 
year if they knew the death taxes were eliminated. Half of those who 
must liquidate the business to pay the IRS will each have to eliminate 
30 or more jobs. To pay that bill on average, small business will have 
to eliminate 30 or more jobs for each estate. One-third of small 
business owners today will have to sell outright or liquidate a part of 
their company to pay the death taxes. More than 70 percent of family 
businesses do not survive the second generation. And 87 percent do not 
make it to the third generation.
  And Marshall, in talking to colleagues, this letter from Marshall, 
let me add something else for you to consider. The death tax hits women 
business owners hard.

                              {time}  2015

  The impact of the death tax on small business means it is especially 
threatening to women who are creating small businesses at twice the 
rate of men. Since 1987, the number of female-owned ventures has 
doubled from 4.5 million to 9.1 million. Last year, women-owned 
companies employed more than 27 million Americans, nearly 9 million 
more than in 1996. And their annual sales have risen from $2.3 trillion 
to $3.6 trillion. The National Association of Women Businessowners 
strongly supports eliminating the death tax.
  So the next time, I say to my colleagues, and there is a campaign 
here, the next time my colleagues are out there on the campaign trail 
talking about what they are going to do for women, those of my 
colleagues who voted to continue the death tax better be ready to 
explain to the women that are asking you that question why you continue 
to support a tax that hurt women unproportionately.
  Let me go on from Marshall's letter: ``I have 3 sons involved in our 
operation, and a grandson starting college next year. It is important 
that we keep agriculture viable to keep our beef industry from being 
integrated. We must make sure that our youth can stay on our ranches 
and farms.'' I agree with Marshall.
  Let us go on to Nathan. This is an interesting letter. This is a 
young man. This is a young college student, a college student who looks 
out into his future and perceives kind of what this death tax is going 
to mean to him and to his family: ``I am a college student. I grew up 
in a family which has lived and thrived in agriculture. My parents and 
grandparents are involved in a typical family farm. We have had the 
farm more than 125 years. Grandpa is 76. He does not have long to go. 
My parents have been very worried and discussing this situation over 
the last several months. My parents worry about the 'death tax,' the 
eventual loss, and they worry about how they are going to be able to 
keep that farm going once he passes away. The loss of my grandfather 
will trigger this tax upon my family's inheritance. My parents hope 
that they will be able to pay this tax without having to sell any part 
of our family operation that our family has

[[Page 5331]]

worked so hard in maintaining over these years. It does not look 
good.''
  The outlook really does not look good. Farmers and ranchers are 
having enough trouble keeping their family operations going.
  ``Statistics show that the farmers are having, from an economic 
viewpoint,'' he says, ``a very difficult time, and yet, the Government 
continues to pursue this death tax. Those who say something about life 
insurance, we cannot afford the premiums. Statistics show that more 
than half of all of the people who pay these death taxes had estates 
that are valued at less than $1 million. My family falls under this 
category. It does not seem fair to me. My family's farm is not located 
in a rich district, but I can tell you I needed to talk to somebody. 
Even though we are not located where the land values are high.''
  What he says here is their family is still going to be subject to 
this punitive tax. And that is what it is. Do my colleagues know what 
the word ``punitive'' means? It means penalty. There is no way to 
explain the death tax to our society other than to say it is a penalty 
for success. It is a transfer of wealth devised strictly as that, as a 
penalty. It is not a net revenue for the government or, if it is, it is 
very, very minimal, by the time we take out all of the costs and so on 
of collection. So it has very little benefit to the Government. Even 
those who are socialists or believe in what is good for all, we should 
have all of this equal treatment, even when we take a look at the small 
benefit and we put it on the scale, that small incremental benefit that 
it gives to the Government as compared to the devastating loss that it 
does to individual families that are being hit with this death tax, 
that scale looks just like that. That is exactly what happens to the 
scale. So even those of us who believe in kind of a socialistic 
pattern, that upon a death, the property should go to the Government 
and be redistributed back into the communities, take a look at that 
scale and tell me about the impact.
  I want to tell my colleagues about a true story down in my district. 
We had a very wealthy individual. This individual, by the way, started 
as a janitor in a local construction company. His name was Joe. Joe 
Ashley started out, as I said, as a janitor; but he could keep books, 
so pretty soon he was keeping books for the construction company. Over 
the period of his work career which spanned 50 some years, he went from 
janitor to bookkeeper, worked in the bidding part of the business, and 
pretty soon he owned a construction company, started his own 
construction company. Pretty soon he was into real estate investment. 
He started up in a bank there in the community. Obviously, he was very 
successful. He did not inherit it; he worked for it. He worked a lot of 
days, worked hard. The American dream, it came true.
  What else did he do in the community? What else? Well, he happened to 
be the largest contributor to his church. In fact, he underwrote 75 
percent of the church's budget. He was the largest contributor in the 
community to the charities. He was the biggest booster for the sports 
club at the high school. He employed the most people in the community, 
gave jobs to people sometimes that needed the jobs, but did not exactly 
have the work for them; but he put them to work. He found something for 
them to do. He was probably the most popular individual in the 
community, not because of his wealth, but because of his personality, 
because of his compassion, because of what he did for people. He gave 
them jobs. He gave them an opportunity to protect themselves.
  Well, unfortunately, not too long ago, my friend, Joe, in this 
community got cancer, terminal cancer; and he passed away. Do we know 
what happened to the money in his estate? After they got done with 
capital gains, which is another tax we could discuss, but after they 
hit the family with capital gains, and then they put the death tax on 
top of that, 76 cents, 76 cents out of every dollar went to the U.S. 
Government. Now, do my colleagues think that money stayed in that local 
community where it was distributed by Joe? When Joe made the money, the 
money stayed in the community. It went to the local bank, it went to 
the local charities, it went for local employment, it went for local 
investment. But as soon as Joe died, the government reached into this 
little tiny community out in rural Colorado and sucked that money out 
of that community and back to Washington, D.C. And then what happens 
back here? The money gets redistributed.
  What percentage of the money they took out of that community through 
the death tax do we think went back to that community after Washington 
got its hands on it? Probably not a thousandth of a percent. Probably 
not one-thousandth of a percent ever made it back to the community. And 
for those Democrats who continue to support the death tax, you go down 
to the local church down there or to the local charity or to those 
local people that no longer have their jobs and explain why it was more 
important to transfer that money, to take it out of a small community 
in Colorado and move it to Washington, D.C. under the theory that when 
you die, this property should go to the Government, that death should 
be a taxable event.
  And I say to my colleagues, I know that when some of you are out 
there on the campaign trail, you try to avoid this, you get a direct 
look from a constituent, a small businessperson, a woman in business, a 
farmer, a rancher, somebody who owns some property and they say, 
Congressman, what are you going to do about the death tax? I hope every 
constituent out there demands that you give them an exact answer, that 
they do not let you puff and fluff around it. Either you support it or 
you do not. Do not hide it with all of these exemptions.
  That is what I am worried about this week. We are going to get an 
opportunity to see the death tax come to a vote I think in the other 
body. The question is are they going to dilute it with a lot of other 
amendments? It is pretty simple. Do you support eliminating the death 
tax on a permanent basis, getting rid of it; or are you a supporter of 
the death tax? And if you are, you ought to go talk to Chris, you ought 
to talk to some of these people, to Tony, to John, to Marshall and look 
them right in the eye and say to them why you think it is appropriate 
for the Government, upon your death, to come and take your property 
simply for redistribution to other people that have nothing to do with 
you. That is exactly what happens with the money.
  When the government takes the money and your property upon your 
death, do you think that they leave it in that community? Of course 
they do not leave it in your community. Do you think they give it to a 
special cause that you want it to go to? Of course not. That money is 
redistributed to sources you would not even imagine. That money is 
given out, given out to somebody other than the people that you had in 
mind. And people, by the way, who did not contribute to your success or 
your family's sweat on the farm or in the small business or some other 
way it was accumulated.
  Let me talk about another couple. Here is H.B. and Roberta: ``As you 
know, farming and ranching out here is no slam dunk. If our farm is 
ultimately faced with this death tax burden, there is absolutely no way 
we could ever afford and justify holding on to our farm. This, in turn, 
prevents us from the following.'' Think about this, and to those 
Democrats that support this, that vote continually for a death tax, 
think about what I am saying. I am not saying, I am just repeating it. 
These are constituents. These are constituents. ``This, in turn, this 
death tax will keep us, it will keep us from having a farm for future 
generations. We want to keep it from becoming one more development out 
in the middle of the country.''
  This particular location is in Colorado. Do we know what is going to 
happen to that farm if it does not continue to be a farm? It is going 
to become condominiums. Anybody that cares about the environment ought 
to be adamantly opposed to the death tax, because in areas like I come 
from, I come from a fairly wealthy part of the country, I mean where 
the land has really

[[Page 5332]]

increased in value. Same for California, same for Arizona, same for 
parts of many of these States. Do we know what happens to that farm 
land? They do not continue to do it as a farm once they get their hands 
on it. The developers come in, and they build condominiums or they 
build strip malls or they lay down pavement; and that is exactly what 
this family, H.B. and Roberta, are saying. You are going to keep this 
land from being available to the deer and elk. By the way, we just saw 
over 600 head of elk this afternoon, and you are going to keep it 
unavailable for other uses.
  ``Scott, we are only able to meet the daily operating costs of our 
farm under the present economic conditions of agriculture. Unless there 
is some kind of positive action to eliminate this death tax, we must 
start making the necessary plans to arrange our affairs so that my 
family is the ultimate winner of lifelong struggles of both my parents, 
Roberta and me. We cannot allow the IRS to take it. They do not deserve 
it.'' That is what they say in here. The Government does not deserve 
it. We have already paid our taxes. They say it right here. ``We have 
already paid our taxes. Why are they coming back again? Is it just 
solely for the purpose of breaking us, of breaking up the family farm 
so it goes to condominiums, of taking out the ability for wildlife to 
enjoy those resources? Of taking the heritage of the family, the dream 
of many families to pass it from one generation to the next 
generation?''
  Folks, do we not think that the Government ought to be in the 
business of encouraging business to go from generation to generation? 
Certainly my colleagues would agree, I would hope. A lot of my 
colleagues do not, but certainly I would hope that at some point my 
colleagues come to the agreement that the Government really has a role 
reversal here. They have it all wrong. What the Government ought to do 
instead of breaking up family business or family farms and preventing 
it from going to generation to generation, the Government ought to 
encourage it. The Government ought to put incentive out there.
  There is a lot to be said for a farm that has generation after 
generation and generation of family on it, but 80 some percent of that 
is not going to happen primarily due to the death tax.
  Let us look at a couple of other letters. Let me go on:
  ``Our 106-year-old mother passed away. Because we knew she was 
fearful of being placed in a nursing home and we never considered it an 
option, my husband and I took care of her in my own home for 2 days a 
week, alternating with my siblings. She was alert, but she was in the 
hospital for 5 weeks. When hoping to leave, she suddenly died. Now, 
guess what? We have discovered that we have to sell the family home 
which was acquired by our parents in 1929. We are six children who 
worked in it and grew up in this home.

                              {time}  2030

  ``Prior to the WWII, my parents had a greenhouse business on 5 acres 
of farm property. After the end of WWII, the family returned from'' the 
relocation center ``where those of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated 
to our home and signs that said, `No Japs wanted.' My father died of a 
heart attack in 1953. My mother lost the business located on 2 acres 
(four greenhouses, the heating plant, and the packing shed which had 
two bedrooms above where many of us slept'' when they were children, or 
spent many nights as children. It went to the State.
  ``My mother was able to keep the family house, which she and my 
father built. The property lost its access frontage and now can only be 
reached by a dirt road in the back. I might add that all my siblings 
and I worked many hours in the business after school, weekends, and 
summer vacations. . . .''
  Because of this death tax, this property will have to be sold. I urge 
Members and I ask Members, where is the fairness? How do we answer a 
letter like that? What do we say?
  Look at this: ``My family has ranched in northern Colorado for 125 
years.'' That is what Derek says. ``My sons are 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.'' He says the problem is the 
estate taxes.
  In Colorado, ``The demand for our property is very high and 35-acre 
ranchettes are selling in this area'' for unbelievable amounts. They 
have a lot of acres. ``We want to keep it open space.'' They want to 
keep it as a farm. They want to keep it in the family. They want their 
sons and daughters to continue to work it, as they had the American 
dream of putting their hands in the soil, but the government is making 
it impossible because they have a death tax. They want to penalize 
them.
  Mr. Congressman, we have paid these taxes. This family has paid our 
taxes when we bought the land. We pay our taxes for our equipment. We 
pay our taxes on any revenue we take off this land. But they haven't 
had enough. The government has not had enough. Now they want to 
penalize us because we have been successful. But in the long run, 
Congressman, you do not just penalize us, you hurt the institution of 
our government.
  And they are right. What we are doing is breaking up a family from 
passing business from generation to generation. We are inviting the 
developers to come in and destroy the open space and build condos and 
parking lots. There are a lot of things, a lot of things that are being 
destroyed by this tax that cannot be justified.
  ``We are one of only two or three ranchers left around here. Dad is 
90 years old. We do not have much time to decide what to do. Most 
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 taxes. Soon they had to start selling cattle 
to pay the interest.''
  When they ran out of cattle, the ranch was foreclosed on and now is 
in full development. That family which started out with this ranch, 
because of the punitive interest that they had to pay, the interest 
they had to pay on the punitive death tax, it broke them. Now they live 
in a trailer court on the other side of town.
  Who would ever imagine this is what the American dream was all about? 
These letters go on and on and on. Every one of my colleagues, every 
one of them, has a duty, in my opinion, to go out to their constituents 
that are facing this tax. They have a duty.
  And to those constituents of theirs whose businesses will be 
threatened because of this death tax, they have a duty to go to them 
and be straight with them. It is pretty easy because we have a 
definitive vote on the record right up there. There is a recorded vote 
that took place.
  Members ought to be straight with them and say, ``Look, I tried to 
eliminate the death tax on a permanent basis. I tried to even minimize 
the death tax.'' Or if they are from the other side of the aisle, they 
would say, ``I support the death tax, even though it will break you; 
even though it brings very little benefit to the government.'' Even 
though the money that a death tax is levied against is money that is 
taken out of the local community and transferred to Washington, D.C., 
they supported that.
  Keep in mind, as I said, and I will summarize it with this, I started 
my comments this evening by saying that my general intent when I may 
speak at night on these nightside chats is not to get into partisan 
flavor, because, as I described, there are a lot of issues up here that 
are not partisan. They are based more on geographical differences, the 
East and West, the cities and the rural areas. That is generally what I 
like to focus on.
  But this issue is hitting us so hard, and here there is a clear 
division between the parties. Not one Republican, to the best of my 
knowledge, not one Republican stood up last year in support of the 
death tax. Every Republican, to the best of my knowledge, every one of 
them that is a Republican opposed the death tax.
  The same cannot be said for the Democrats. That is why I am taking 
this partisan approach, not to attack unnecessarily, but to say, come 
on, it is time to draw the line in the sand. Why is it that four-fifths 
of the Democrats in this House, why is it that they

[[Page 5333]]

continue to support this death tax? Why is it that they will not stand 
with us shoulder to shoulder to eliminate the most punitive tax ever 
known in the history of this country?
  The reason is simple. The reason is because they think it is 
appropriate to take money from an individual family, to take money from 
a community and transfer it to Washington, D.C.; take money and 
transfer wealth from this person to this person, for no other 
justification than the fact that the person that had the money or had 
the small business or had the farm or had the ranch is no longer alive.
  They cannot fight them anymore, so I guess they think in the long run 
they won. But frankly, in the long run, if we continue with this death 
tax that has been primarily or solely supported by the Democrats, we 
all lose. All of us lose.
  It is time to eliminate the death tax once and for all. I urge all of 
us on both sides of the aisle to stand shoulder to shoulder to 
eliminate this punishment upon the American people.

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