[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 5606]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                    OPPOSITION TO ESTATE TAX REPEAL

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 27, 2015

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, it was barely three weeks ago that the 
Republicans came to the floor with their ``work harder, get less'' 
budget. While making everyday life harder on working Americans, the 
Republican budget disinvests in the future of our nation by making deep 
cuts to education, infrastructure, and scientific research. Under their 
plan, Americans would face smaller paychecks and have a harder time 
getting ahead or buying a home; kids would have a harder time affording 
college; and seniors would have a harder time ensuring a secure 
retirement, with the end of the Medicare guarantee and immediate higher 
costs.
  The Republican plan also took budget quackery to a new level. Their 
budget claimed to repeal the ACA, but relied on its revenues and 
savings in order to claim it balanced in 2025. It made no accounting 
for the costs of the almost $1 trillion in business tax cuts that 
Republicans called for in the 113th Congress. The Republican budget 
also included all the revenue from the current estate tax.
  Today, Republicans are fully abandoning any claim to balancing the 
budget, and showing once again that they prioritize wealth over hard 
work. Instead of investing in America in a fiscally responsible way, 
Republicans want to give the very wealthiest households a $269 billion 
dollar tax cut by repealing the estate tax, while still refusing to 
close a single special-interest loophole to pay for it.
  The estate tax is designed so that it only affects the very 
wealthiest households. Today, you do not have any estate tax obligation 
as a couple if your estate is less than $10 million. That means that 
only 5,500 of America's richest families will pay the estate tax this 
year. There are cruise ships that hold more people than that. 99.8% of 
households will never pay it. We do have an estate tax on the amount 
over $10 million, because we do not believe that people should get 
ahead just by the wealth they inherited from others--Americans pride 
themselves on getting ahead through their own hard work.
  But instead of rewarding work, Republicans are passing a massive 
giveaway for just 5,500 of the wealthiest households in the country. 
The average tax cut will be $3.3 million. Three-quarters of the cost of 
this bill goes to households with estates over $20 million. For 
households with estates worth over $50 million, the average tax cut 
would be $22.5 million. And right now, the wealthy have rarely been 
better off. The top 1% of income-earners now hold 42% of all the wealth 
in the United States. Last week was the 90th anniversary of The Great 
Gatsby being published, and we are heading towards levels of wealth 
concentration not seen since then.
  And yet, Republicans want to give tax cuts to the very richest 
families without doing anything for the middle class. In fact, the 
Republican budget would raise taxes on American workers--it ends the 
American Opportunity Tax Credit for higher education, ends the 
expansions to the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, 
does nothing to expand the EITC for childless workers, does nothing to 
expand tax credits for child or elderly care, and does nothing to help 
two-earner families. This bill also destroys any pretense of the 
Republicans balancing the budget in ten years. This is not just me 
talking--the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget 
said, ``if the estate tax were repealed, the budget would no longer 
balance.'' And they did not even take into account the lost revenues 
from repealing the Affordable Care Act or unpaid for extensions of 
expiring tax provisions. If you add those altogether, in 2025, the 
Republican Budget is hundreds of billions of dollars in the red.
  Of course, this is nothing new. In the two years of the 113th 
Congress, the Republicans passed tax bills on the House floor and in 
the Ways and Means Committee that, including debt service, would have 
increased the deficit by a trillion dollars. The Republicans in this 
Congress are doing their very best to surpass even that level of fiscal 
irresponsibility. When you add up all the tax bills approved by Ways 
and Means Republicans in this Congress, the debt would grow by $700 
billion--and it's only April! Just today, in addition to the estate 
tax, the Republicans brought another permanent tax extension to the 
Floor without closing any loophole to pay for it--not the loophole for 
corporate jets, for hedge fund managers, or for shipping jobs overseas.
  The House Democratic Budget is focused on the priorities of the 
American people--boosting the economy to create more broadly shared 
prosperity, making critical investments in our future, and keeping our 
promises to seniors. Our plan would grow workers' paychecks and provide 
tax cuts for the middle class and for Americans who are working hard to 
get by; invest in our infrastructure and transportation network; help 
students pay for college; support working families and reduce the cost 
of childcare. And we do it in a fiscally responsible way.
  Today is more proof that Republicans are not seeking balance. Rather, 
they want to cut crucial supports for children and the elderly, 
voucherize Medicare and cut investments in research and infrastructure, 
all so that they can give America's wealthiest families multi-million 
dollar tax cuts.
  We need to foster shared prosperity and reward hard work, not give a 
tax cut to multi-millionaires. I urge my colleagues to vote no on H.R. 
1105.




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