Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act of 2005 - Motion to Proceed
DEATH TAX REPEAL PERMANENCY ACT OF 2005--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - June 08, 2006)
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Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, this is an interesting debate, and in some ways it is very troubling. I wish to talk a little about fiscal policy and where we find ourselves.
It is almost as if this place is disconnected from what is happening. The night before last, I sat in HC-5 until about 1:30 in the morning working on the emergency supplemental appropriation request--roughly $90 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan, and a portion for Katrina. None of it is paid for; it is just emergency spending--$90 billion. This takes us to something close to $400 billion over these recent years, none of it paid for.
Not many weeks ago, we had on the floor of the Senate a proposed $70 billion tax cut. That passed. It wasn't paid for. Just cutting the revenues. I voted against that. So we are spending money without covering it. We are cutting taxes. The gross federal debt will be $8.6 trillion at the end of 2006. We will add over $600 billion to the indebtedness just this year alone in fiscal policy. We will add over $700 billion this year alone in trade deficits. That is different from the fiscal policy. Combined this year, we likely will be in debt by some $1.3 trillion. Everybody understands this is completely off track and dangerous.
So what is the business today? How about cutting some taxes again? What is going to come behind this? A third tax cut bill coming from the Finance Committee. It is unbelievable. It is almost as if somebody pulled the plug out of the socket, so there is no current coming through here by which people can think straight. You can go to the hometown café or restaurant and folks ask: What do you do next? You are choking on debt up to your neck--$8.6 trillion of fiscal policy debt this year. It is going to increase to almost $12 trillion in the next five years, we expect. So what do we do next? We say we ought to get rid of the ``death tax.''
But there is no death tax, of course. This is a function of a clever pollster, paid handsomely by people with a lot of money to come up with a moniker that would allow them politically to cast this into the water and have it float. My colleague spoke at great length about the ``death tax.'' Clever, interesting, but it doesn't exist.
There is, in fact, a tax on inherited wealth in this country. Very few Americans pay it. Currently, the exemption is $2 million for a husband and $2 million for a wife. If you don't have $4 million in net assets in your family, don't worry about this issue. That is going to $3.5 million apiece, so that is $7 million. If you are not above $7 million, don't worry about it.
By the way, notwithstanding those exemptions, if one spouse dies, the other owns everything--a 100-percent exemption--and there is no estate tax. It doesn't matter what the estate is worth; the other spouse owns it. There is a 100-percent spousal exemption.
This ruse of suggesting that this is a death tax is an unbelievable. The most interesting hoax of all is this small business and family farm issue. I will tell you why it is a hoax. I came to the floor of the Senate twice and offered amendments twice. The last time I offered the amendment, it would have completely repealed the estate tax obligation of any small business and any family farm passed from the parents to the children, the lineal descendants who continued to operate it. If that family business or farm, no matter the size, were passed from the parents to the children, on January 1, 2003, it would have forever been exempt from an estate tax. My amendment would have taken that issue off the table. And 54 Members of the Senate voted against that, including the people here today crying crocodile tears over small business and family farm issues. When they had the chance to do this, they didn't want to. Why? That is not the purpose.
The purpose of this issue is to say to the wealthiest Americans that we want to help you. My colleague said we are going to craft something that is a little bit of a modification. He didn't tell you that the modification would lose some 80 percent of the money. But his real interest and the interest of most of the folks who are speaking is to repeal the death tax, which doesn't exist.
Now, we are at war, up to our neck in debt--$8.6 trillion in debt, heading toward $12 trillion in debt--with a budget policy that is completely out of control and a trade policy that is wildly out of control. What do those who have the majority in this Chamber decide they ought to do? The President, the majority in this Chamber and in the House--what is their next step? It is to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
Let me tell you what Warren Buffett says about this. He is an interesting guy. He is the second richest man in the world but a really public-spirited man. He said, ``If this is class warfare, my side is winning.'' He doesn't approve of this; he thinks this is nuts. He has an estimated worth of $42 billion. He said:
I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I have earned. If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh, or Peru, or someplace, you will find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil.
Being here is what allowed him to be successful, he said. He said, by implication, that we owe something back.
We are at war, and my colleagues have decided that the pressing priority is to remove the tax burden from the wealthiest people in this country, the ones worth billions of dollars. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in one of his fireside chats--this in another age when we were at war:
Not all of us can have the privilege of fighting our enemies in distant parts of the world. Not all of us can have the privilege of working in a munitions factory or a shipyard, or on the farms or in the oil fields or mines, producing the weapons or raw materials that are needed by our Armed Forces. But there is one front and one battle where everyone in the United States--every man, woman, and child--is in action. ..... That front is right here at home, in our daily lives, and in our daily tasks. Here at home everyone will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary, not only to supply our fighting men, but to keep the economic structure of our country fortified and secure. .....
Do you see any urge at all by the majority here, by the White House, to call this country to action for some public spiritedness, about what we need to do together? We have soldiers dying on the battlefield, and we are sitting downstairs in the Capitol Building until about 1:30 in the morning appropriating money for those soldiers for their munitions, for their trucks and tanks and battleships, and we will not pay for it. The majority party says we will not pay for it. Even as we spend money, we won't pay for it. But we see that their highest priority is to cut taxes for those who are very well off.
The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans now own a bigger piece of the pie than the poorest 90 percent added together. That gap is growing. This legislation will once again decide to expand the inequality of income in this country.
Let me say this again. Those who come to this floor talking about small businesses and family farms had a chance to vote for the repeal of any estate tax obligation for any transfer of any family-owned business or any family-owned farm, and that full repeal would have been effective on January 1, 2003; and 54 Members of the Senate voted no. I daresay almost everybody speaking today in support of this legislation because they believe it will help family farms and small businesses, when they had the chance to do it, they voted against it.
And that tells you a little something about what is really at stake.
Has anybody here ever seen a hearse pull a U-Haul? Don't think so. You can't take it with you. We are on this Earth for a relatively short period of time. We are blessed to live here, a unique spot on this planet. And this, in my judgment, requires of us some responsibilities.
Oh, I know some don't want to lose anything. They want to take it all with them. But you can't take it all with you. The question is: Should at least some of the largesse that those who have been most successful in this country have accumulated in this lifetime bear a tax because most represent an accumulation of assets that never ever bore a tax? Growth appreciation of stocks that has never been taxed, should that not also contribute to this country's defense and well-being? The answer is yes.
I hope we decide to do the right thing and reject this proposal.
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