Death Tax Repeal Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to sit and listen to the rhetoric. I think sometimes if you drink the purple Kool-Aid long enough, you start to believe it.

That chart is a great chart that was just up there because what we are doing again is we are starting to separate America. We are saying that because it only applies to this very little sliver that we have to go after these people.

I want you to think about something. The entire produce of a woman's or man's life after they have paid their local taxes, their State taxes, their Federal taxes, all the sales taxes over their life and the way they have contributed to build their communities, at the time of their death--now, I know we don't want to call it a death tax, but it is triggered at the time of their death. God forbid these hard-working
American taxpayers are allowed to pass on to the next generation that which they were able to accumulate.

Now, the chairman made a reference to my parents, and it is not just about my parents. My dad was a parts picker in a Chevrolet warehouse. He married the girl who ran the switchboard at that warehouse. That was my mother. He went off to World War II. He came back home, started with a little car dealership in Verona, Pennsylvania, one-car showroom, four service bays. He built it into something he was very proud of and was able to pass on to my brothers and me.

Now we want to go after these folks not because they were successful, but because they died and because the government cannot live within its means. So when we go to the viewing, we go to the funeral home and we go to pay our respects, we are also telling them: Thanks for all your hard work. You did a great job. You contributed so much, and now the government wants to take some of that produce of your entire life
because they can't live within their means. You lived within your means. You tightened your belt when you had to. You made more with less.

But no, that is not good enough because we can't rein in spending, so we can't stop taxing. That is egregious in the United States of America to sit back and look at all those who have done so much and paid so many taxes in their lifetime, and yet to say upon their death they are not allowed to pass this on to the next generation.

I love the chart because you really specify exactly what has been going on here for too long. You are separating the country. You are dividing the country, rich versus poor. This is America.

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