[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[August 31, 2000]
[Pages 1738-1742]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Returning Without Approval to the House of Representatives 
Estate Tax Relief Legislation
August 31, 2000

    Thank you very much. I want to thank Secretary Mineta and John Sumption and his wife, 
Margaret, for being here. Martin 
Rothenberg, thank you very much, and thank 
you, Sandra, for being here.
    I was listening to them talk, wishing I didn't have to say a word. 
[Laughter] It made me proud to be an American, listening to those two 
people talk. Didn't they do a good job? [Applause]

Western Wildfires

    Before I begin with the remarks I have on the estate tax, and since 
this is my only opportunity to speak to the American people through our 
friends in the press today, I need to make a statement about continuing 
efforts to combat one of the worst wildfire seasons in the history of 
America.
    For months now, we have been marshaling Federal resources so that 
the men and women fighting these blazes out West will have the tools 
they need to protect our public and our lands. There are already 30,000 
Federal, State, and local personnel engaged in the effort to fight the 
wildfires, including four full military battalions. Today I'm releasing 
another $90 million to ensure that the Federal firefighters have the 
resources they need. Now a total of $590 million has been spent on 
emergency funding to combat these fires. I want you to remember that for 
a point I want to make later in my remarks. These things happen.
    There will be no shortage of human effort. Tomorrow we are 
dispatching a new marine battalion from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, to 
help fight the Clear Creek fire in Idaho's Salmon-Challis National 
Forest. Last night we issued a disaster declaration for Montana and are 
expediting a similar request from Idaho.
    There is a lot to be done out there. Those people are working hard. 
The Departments of Agriculture and the Interior have begun to move 2,000 
Federal supervisors into the field to assist the firefighters and to get 
adequate compensation for people that are working long and very 
stressful hours.
    Our Nation owes a great debt of gratitude to the firefighters, the 
managers, and their loved ones who are making extraordinary sacrifices. 
Many of them are literally risking their lives today in service to their 
neighbors and their country. Our losses this year in wildfires have been 
much, much, much greater than the 10-year average.
    And I was out in Idaho recently, and I wish every American could see 
what they try to do with those fires and how fast they can move and how 
they can go from being a foot high to 100 feet high in no time at all. 
So we may have to do more out there, but they're doing their best to 
protect as much land and to protect the houses and lives of the people 
as possible.

Estate Tax Legislation Veto

    Now, to the matter at hand. As Secretary Mineta said, 7\1/2\ years 
ago we charted a course for a new economy, a new course focused on 
giving the American people the tools they needed to make the most of the 
information age

[[Page 1739]]

and creating the conditions which would make sure that the hard work of 
our people would be rewarded. And we all know that since then, we've had 
the longest economic expansion in history, that we have the lowest 
unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years; we 
learned last week, the lowest violent crime rate in 28 years; and the 
highest homeownership in history.
    We also had these horrible deficits and a debt which had quadrupled 
in the 12 years I took office, over the previous 200 years, and we've 
begun to pay it down at a record rate. This has effectively worked as a 
tax cut. Why? Because all the economic analyses show that when we went 
from record deficits to record surpluses and started paying the debt 
down, it's kept interest rates lower over these last 8 years, much lower 
than they otherwise would have been.
    What has that been worth in tax cuts? Well, the Council of Economic 
Advisers says that on average it's worth $2,000 in lower home mortgages 
a year for the average home, $200 a year in lower car payments, $200 a 
year in lower student loan payments.
    We have also supported tax cuts within the context of paying the 
debt down. For example, in the Balanced Budget Act, we had the HOPE 
scholarship tax credit and lifelong learning tax credits: the HOPE 
scholarship for the first 2 years of college, $1,500; and the lifelong 
learning credits for the junior and senior year and lifetime education, 
which can be even greater. Ten million families are taking advantage of 
that to pay for a college education this year.
    The earned-income tax credit, which we doubled, which goes to lower 
income working people, will help $15 million families this year work 
their way into the middle class. The $500 child tax credit, which was a 
part of the Balanced Budget Act, will now go to 25 million families. We 
gave upper income people tax credits to invest in poor areas in America 
in the empowerment zones, and it's worked to generate thousands of jobs 
in some of the most distressed areas of the country.
    In 1997 we also reduced the burden of the estate tax for small-
business owners and family farmers by raising the threshold at which it 
applies. The typical American family today is paying a lower share of 
its income in Federal income taxes than at any time during the last 35 
years. That is a pretty good thing to be able to say, and yet we're 
healthy financially because we have proceeded in a balanced and 
disciplined way.
    Now, everybody knows there is a lot more hard work to be done, and 
there are differences of opinion about what we ought to do and how we 
ought to do it. That's why we're having another election this year. And 
that's up to the American people to decide.
    But I believe that prosperity imposes its own difficult choices, 
because there are so many temptations to do things that seem easy that 
will have adverse consequences. And I believe it is our job to maximize 
the chance that America can make the most of a truly unique moment in 
our history to meet the big challenges that are out there: giving all of 
our kids a world-class education; making sure, when the baby boomers all 
retire and there are only two people working for every one person 
drawing Social Security and Medicare, that Social Security and Medicare 
don't go broke, and we don't bankrupt our kids or their ability to raise 
our grandkids; that we meet the big challenge of climate change and the 
other environmental challenges; that we stay on the forefront of science 
and technology; that we continue to be a force for peace and freedom 
around the world; that we bring prosperity to the people in America who 
still aren't part of it and give them a chance to work their way into a 
good life; and many other things.
    Now, in order to do that, a precondition of doing all that is 
keeping the prosperity going and continuing to expand opportunity. I 
believe that the only way to do that is to build on what has worked. 
It's not as if we haven't had a test run here. We've seen now for almost 
8 years that the strategy we have pursued of investing in our people but 
continuing to pay this debt down and doing it within the framework of 
fiscal responsibility and trying to be fair in the way we invest money 
and allocate tax cuts works. It works. It's good economics, and it's 
good social policy.
    Now, I believe that this latest estate tax bill is another example 
where Congress comes up with something that sounds good and looks real 
good coming down the street on a tractor. [Laughter] But if you look at 
the merits, it basically would take us off the path that has brought us 
to this point over the last 8 years, and I don't think we ought to be 
kicked off that path. I think we ought to think about how to accelerate 
our way down this road.

[[Page 1740]]

    I believe that this latest bill, this estate tax bill is part of a 
series of actions and commitments that, when you add it all up, would 
take us back to the bad old days of deficits, high interest rates, and 
having no money to invest in our common future, the kind of things that 
our speakers talked about in their commitment to education.
    Now, let me give you an example. Last year the Republicans passed a 
huge tax bill in one quick shot, and it was like a cannonball that was 
too heavy to fly, and so it went away. But they're still committed to 
it--in fact, an even bigger version of the bill that I vetoed last year. 
This year they have a strategy that, in a way, is more clever. It's like 
a snowball, and every piece of it sounds good. But when it keeps 
rolling, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And unless someone 
stops it, the snowball will turn into an avalanche, and you'll have the 
same impact you had before.
    Today, a few moments ago, this bill suffered the inevitable fate of 
a snowball in August. [Laughter] I vetoed it not because I don't think 
there should be any estate tax changes--I do believe there should be 
some changes--not because I think that the United States Government 
should never respond to the legitimate concerns of people who happen to 
be in upper income levels and have been successful--I think they're 
entitled to fairness just like all the rest of us--but because this 
particular bill is wrong for our families and wrong for our future. It 
fails the test of the future both on grounds of fairness and fiscal 
responsibility. And I'd just like to lay out the facts in a little 
greater detail.
    The cost of their bill is $100 billion over 10 years. That sounds--
in the context of a $2 trillion surplus you may say, well, that's not 
all that much. But to get it down to $100 trillion, they have to ever so 
gradually phase it in. In the second 10 years, when all the baby boomers 
retire and we need as much money as we can for Social Security and 
Medicare and to keep the burden of the baby boomers' retirement off the 
rest of you, the real cost of the bill appears. It's $750 billion.
    Now, this is $750 billion for 54,000 families, 54,000 estates. We'll 
come back to the smaller number, $100 billion for 54,000 estates. That's 
2 percent of the estates. Now, if it's a farm or a small business, that 
can be misleading because they may employ lots and lots of people. There 
may be a lot of people riding on the welfare of, the success of the 
small-business people and the farms.
    And I've talked to a number of people who say, ``You know, I don't 
want to have to sell my business,'' or ``I don't want my daughter or my 
son to have to sell the business to pay the estate tax. Yes, they'll 
still have money, but the business won't be going. Somebody else will be 
running the business.'' So, should something be done to help them? Of 
course. But keep in mind, there are millions of businesses in America--
we're talking about 54,000 here--and it's very important to note that 
over half of the benefits to these 54,000 estates go to less than 6 
percent of the estates, less than one-tenth of one percent of the 
American people, 3,000 of the estates. So over half the benefit of that 
bill that came down here on a tractor goes to 3,000 people. And I'll bet 
you not a single one of them ever drove a tractor. [Laughter] I'll bet 
you if I had a tractor-driving contest with any of those 3,000 people, I 
would win. [Laughter]
    And I say that not to build resentment against them but to say they 
have presented a picture of this bill which is not accurate. The average 
tax relief for those 3,000 families would be $7 million a person. And it 
will do nothing for the farm families like those represented by our 
speaker. That is my problem with this bill. It doesn't really do what it 
says it's supposed to do.
    And for the other 98 percent of the American people, literally get 
nothing out of this. That's another thing I think that is important. 
This was the first priority. This is the bill that was sent up before an 
increase in the earned-income tax credit for low-income working people 
that have three or more kids, before doing more on the child care tax 
credit, before a long-term care credit for people who have to take care 
of their elderly or disabled loved ones and long-term care, before doing 
anything to help average families deduct the cost of college tuition to 
send their kids to college, before increasing the incentives we want to 
give wealthy people to invest in the poor areas of America. This was 
their top priority.
    So I say, it fails on grounds of fiscal responsibility; it costs too 
much; and it fails on grounds of fairness. And let me just mention 
something else that Martin alluded to when he stood up here. I have had 
at least two billionaires contact me and ask me to veto this bill. And 
one of

[[Page 1741]]

the reasons they cited is that it would lead to a dramatic drop in 
charitable contributions.
    Studies show that charitable contributions could drop as much as $5 
to 6 billion a year--private contributions to charitable causes--if I 
were to sign this complete repeal: less money for AIDS research or 
cancer studies, fewer resources for adoption, fewer opportunities for 
troubled children, fewer new acquisitions for art galleries and 
historical museums and historic preservation. This is an element of this 
bill that has been discussed almost not at all in the public domain. But 
it is clear that it would be one of the unintended consequences of a 
complete repeal of the estate tax.
    I say again, the estate tax repeal is part of a larger Republican 
strategy to have, now, over $2 trillion of tax cuts over the next 10 
years. Now, in other words, their aggregate proposals would spend all 
the projected non-Social Security tax cut.
    That leaves nothing for continued improvements of education when the 
student bodies are just getting larger, more and more kids, and more and 
more diverse.
    Nothing for a voluntary Medicare prescription drug benefit, the 
biggest problem most seniors have. Nothing to extend the life of 
Medicare and Social Security beyond the baby boom generation.
    Nothing to invest in scientific research and the environment.
    Nothing to pay for their proposal to partially privatize Social 
Security, which itself would require the injection of a trillion dollars 
more into the Social Security Trust Fund over the next decade.
    Nothing for emergencies. Remember, I told you we've already spent 
$600 million this year on wildfires in the West. Things happen in life. 
Things happen in a nation's life just like they happen in your life. 
Emergencies happen.
    Nothing to pay for low farm prices, bad crop years, or in this case, 
bad foreign policy, and no telling how many billion dollars we spent in 
the last 3 years trying to keep people like our family farmer here in 
business because we passed the farm bill in 1995 that made no provision 
for bad years.
    And by the way, the $2 trillion surplus is just an estimate, anyway. 
And anybody that knows anything about the Federal budget will tell you 
that there are just three or four technical reasons it is grossly 
overestimated.
    So I don't think this is a fiscally responsible bill, and I don't 
think it is a fair bill. And therefore, I vetoed it. Now, does it mean 
there should be no estate tax relief? Actually, most of us Democrats 
believe there should be some. Why? Because of the success of the economy 
in recent years, we've had land values go way up for farmers in many 
places in the country, and many young people and not-so-young people 
have enjoyed a lot of success in a hurry in a booming stock market. So 
that there are a lot of ongoing enterprises that should be able to 
continue to go on, and you don't want them to have to be transferred in 
ownership just to pay the tax bill. That's really the unfairness issue 
that needs to be addressed here.
    And we offered two different options to do that in this debate. Both 
of the Democratic bills in the House and the Senate would allow family 
farmers and small businesses to leave at least $4 million per couple 
without paying any estate tax. That's up from $1 million, where we're 
going today.
    Unlike the Republican plan, which would make them wait 10 years to 
get the full benefits, so as to disguise the real cost of a total repeal 
of the estate tax, the Democratic plans provide immediate relief. The 
Democratic proposal in the Senate actually eliminated two-thirds of the 
families from paying the estate tax, covering virtually every so-called 
small business and family farm in the country, and leaving the people 
that Martin talked about, for which the estate tax was designed. The 
House plan left a few more families in the estate tax, but cut the rate 
for everybody, on the grounds that other rates had been cut in recent 
years.
    The point I want to make is that our party is not against reasonable 
estate tax relief, nor do we think that people should use all claim for 
making a fairness case to their government just because they're in upper 
income levels. But this bill is wrong. It is wrong on grounds of 
fairness; it is wrong on grounds of fiscal responsibility. It shows a 
sense of priorities that I believe got us in trouble in the first place 
in the 1980's and that, if we go back to those priorities, will get us 
in trouble again.
    So I say again to our friends in the Republican Party, John 
Sumption and Martin Rothenberg made a lot of sense today. They spoke for the best of 
America. We are not against wealth, and we are not against opportunity. 
If I were against creating millionaires,

[[Page 1742]]

I have been an abject failure in my 8 years as President. [Laughter] We 
are not against making it possible for farmers and small business people 
to pass their operations along so that their children do not have to 
sell the enterprise just to pay the estate tax. Everybody thinks that's 
wrong.
    We are willing to work with you in good faith to modify this estate 
tax and to take a whole lot of people, including the majority of those 
now paying it, out from under it entirely if you're willing to work with 
us. But we are not willing to turn our backs on the rest of the American 
people who deserve tax relief, who have to have good schools, who have 
to have good health care, and most important of all, have to have a 
fiscal policy that keeps us paying the debt down, keeps interest rates 
low, and keeps the future bright.
    And I will just leave you with this one last thought. We have a new 
study which shows that if we keep on our path and keep paying this debt 
down, instead of giving away all the projected surplus in tax cuts, it 
will keep interest rates another percent a year lower for the next 
decade, which is worth another $250 billion home mortgages, another $30 
billion in car payments, and another $15 billion in college loan 
payments. That is a very big amount of relief to most people in this 
country.
    So I ask the Republican Congress again, if you're serious about 
wanting to deal with the problems that estate tax presents, let's get 
after it and solve them. But we have to proceed on grounds of fiscal 
responsibility and fairness. And I will never be able to thank this fine 
farmer from South Dakota and this successful academic and businessman 
now from New York for giving us a picture of what America is really all 
about and what we ought to be building on for the new century.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 2:39 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to farm owner John Sumption and his 
wife, Margaret; and Glottal Enterprises founder Martin Rothenberg and 
his daughter, Sandra.