[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15112]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   REPEAL OF ESTATE TAX NECESSARY NOW

  (Mr. RYUN of Kansas asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RYUN of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, my constituent Mary Ann wrote me 
about the effect of the estate tax on her family's farm. Her mother's 
family owned that farm for five generations. Mary Ann promised her 
mother it would stay in the family for generations to come. After her 
parents passed away, Mary Ann was faced with the high cost of the 
estate tax on the valuable family land she had inherited. Sadly, the 
family had to part with the farm in part due to the death tax.
  Examples such as this have become far too common in my district and 
across this great Nation. The estate tax has devastated numerous family 
farms and businesses. It discourages entrepreneurship, thrift, and 
diligence.
  We should not penalize an individual's efforts to make life better 
for their children. I am opposed to the government taxing anyone's 
property simply because the owner has died. The time has come to 
permanently repeal the estate tax.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in ending 
the death tax once and for all.

                          ____________________