[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6179]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         THE CHARADE OF GOP LEADERSHIP REGARDING THE ESTATE TAX

  (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, I was moved by the words of Dr. Dodd 
from Omaha and thought about today's continuation of the charade our 
friends in the Republican leadership play, a very cynical game that 
they have done every Congress since I have been here that is both 
unnecessary and unjustified.
  Instead of allowing the legislative process to work here to deal with 
the consensus that exists to raise estate tax limits and solve problems 
of family businesses and farms, instead they are going to go through an 
empty effort to repeal it altogether, which ultimately they know will 
not happen.
  In the meantime, this week, 2.9 million families are caught in the 
snare of the Alternative Minimum Tax, not the fabulously wealthy who 
are dodging taxes but hundreds of thousands of hard-working, non-rich 
Americans, whose only sin is, they pay their taxes, they are raising 
their family and they are saving for the future.
  Rather than the fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax, today's charade 
is a shameful dereliction of duty for American taxpayers.

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