Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act of 2005--Motion to Proceed
DEATH TAX REPEAL PERMANENCY ACT OF 2005--MOTION TO PROCEED
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are now considering the repeal of the estate tax. The estate tax is a tax paid by 2 out of every 1,000 Americans. It is not a tax that will affect the vast majority of Americans because they have not accumulated enough wealth in their lifetime to be subject to the tax.
It is an action which is imposed on the very wealthiest, the very richest people in America. It is a tax which is imposed on their estates after a certain amount is exempt. Up to $4 million is exempt for a couple under current estate tax, and that number is scheduled to rise.
However, the Republican majority believes this tax is unfair. They believe it is unfair for the wealthiest people in America, who have accumulated millions of dollars, to pay any tax to the Government on that accumulated wealth when they die. They say that is fundamentally unfair. They come to the Senate with a sense of outrage that we would ask wealthy people in America to pay taxes, so they propose the elimination or dramatic reduction of this tax, to the point where it will add substantially to the deficit of the United States of America.
This is not a tax cut for the wealthy; it is a tax deferral. By reducing or eliminating the tax on the wealthiest, they are passing the burden of taxation on to those in lower income groups. With their elimination of the death tax, they are creating a birth tax.
In other words, if you happen to be born in America and you are one of the 997 out of 1,000 who don't pay the estate tax, you will have a bigger debt and a bigger burden because the Republican majority believes the wealthiest should be spared paying taxes. People who have had the good fortune of living and succeeding in America should be spared, according to the Republicans, any responsibility to pay back to this great Nation for the benefits they have accrued during their lifetime. There is a sense of outrage on the Republican side of the aisle that somehow we would impose this tax. They have created this vast mythology about the estate tax. They translated it into a death tax, suggesting to Americans that when you die you must pay taxes. That is plain false. Only 2 or 3 out of 1,000 people who die each year pay any such tax. Yet the average person on the street believes the Government is going to come and grab whatever small amounts they have kept together for their sons and daughters and take it away in tax collection. It is not true. It is false. It is misleading. It is deceptive.
Who is pushing this great effort to eliminate the estate tax? Will it surprise you to know they are the fattest special interests in Washington, DC? An analysis has shown--and these numbers are nothing short of amazing--that 18 families in the United States of America, with a combined net worth of $185 billion, have spent $200 million lobbying on Capitol Hill to repeal this estate tax. Why? They are going to make a fortune because their fortunes will be protected from being taxed. This is the ultimate special interest bill. This bill has nothing to do with the average American, the average American family, the average American farm or the average American business. It is about the wealthiest people in America flexing their muscles, pushing through on Capitol Hill the most outrageous piece of special interest legislation in modern memory. The Republican majority is pushing this to the floor with a straight face: We want to eliminate the death tax.
What does it mean for the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell's soup and other companies? It means that if they are given full repeal of the estate tax, these 18 families will collectively net a windfall of $71 billion. That is what this is about.
Who will end up paying for it? Our children will. We will take the money which we are not going to collect from the estate tax and end up borrowing. And who will loan us the money? More and more the Bush administration goes overseas to borrow the money: Japan, China, Korea, the oil sheikhs, they will loan us the money. But there are strings attached. Do you remember the Dubai Ports deal? Think there is a connection between these Middle Eastern oil giants now buying into the American economy and what we are doing on the estate tax? It is directly linked. There are bankers, mortgagors. They sell us oil. Why? Because the Republican majority runs up the biggest deficits in the history of the United States.
When President Bush took office, the national debt was $5.8 trillion. The accumulated debt in the history of America was $5.8 trillion. Five years later, the national debt is knocking on the door of $9 trillion. And if they continue to eliminate taxes on the wealthiest people, the debt will be $11 trillion. For the students who are watching this debate on television, in the galleries, through C-SPAN, let me tell you, this effort to find a benefit for the wealthiest families, to absolve them from paying debts for the success they have experienced, is going to be visited on our children and grandchildren. Where is the fairness and where is the justice? Where is the sense of outrage that we would give this special interest legislation such a priority in the Senate? Why wouldn't we consider changing the Tax Code so that average working families can deduct the cost of college education for their kids? Isn't that something good for America? Isn't that of greater value than to say to the superrich: We are going to spare you from paying $71 billion in taxes over the life of this repeal? No. From their point of view, you don't think about the families putting the kids through college. You don't worry about the situation where we have so many Americans, 46 million in fact, without health insurance today. You don't deal with the reality of funding education. You focus your attention and the time of the Republican majority on repealing a tax on the super wealthiest people in America.
Warren Buffett is the second richest man in America. He said: Do you know what is going on here? It is class warfare. And do you know what? My class is winning.
They sure are.
Today the Republican majority will try to put a victory on the board for the richest people in America. Why do we do this? For some, it is a matter of philosophy. They happen to believe if the rich get richer, America will be better off. That has been a philosophy around this country for a long time. I come from a different point of view. I think the strength of America is in its families, those families getting up and going to work every day, doing their best to keep families together, to save money for the future, to put their kids through college. It is in small businesses that take risks and sometimes fail but, when they succeed, build into a business that gives them a chance to hire more people. It is in family farms. That is the strength of America. These other folks have done quite well.
The New York Times went to the Farm Bureau and asked them: Name for us a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability. Not one single example derived from the American Farm Bureau. They couldn't find one. I did the same thing in Illinois. Not one farm has been lost because of Federal estate tax liability.
We will hear them crying and moaning and whining and rending their garments about how this is needed to save family farms. They can't come up with a single example where a family farm has been lost by the estate tax. According to the Congressional Budget Office, only 123 family-owned farms and 135 family-owned small businesses would pay any estate tax at all with a $2 million exemption level--across America, pay any tax at all, let alone risk losing their business or farm.
This has been exaggerated to a point which is shameful. To think that at a time when we are facing the biggest deficits, when we are involved in a war where we are asking our sons and daughters to risk their lives for America, that we are going to make those who are comfortable more comfortable by sparing them their taxes, that we are going to welcome home the soldiers by saying, thanks for serving America and, incidentally, here is a larger national debt for you to carry the rest of your life.
I urge my colleagues to defeat this effort to repeal the estate tax.
http://thomas.loc.gov/