The Charade of GOP Leadership Regarding the Estate Tax

THE CHARADE OF GOP LEADERSHIP REGARDING THE ESTATE TAX -- (House of Representatives - April 13, 2005)

(Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, I was moved by the words of Dr. Dodd from Omaha and thought about today's continuation of the charade our friends in the Republican leadership play, a very cynical game that they have done every Congress since I have been here that is both unnecessary and unjustified.

Instead of allowing the legislative process to work here to deal with the consensus that exists to raise estate tax limits and solve problems of family businesses and farms, instead they are going to go through an empty effort to repeal it altogether, which ultimately they know will not happen.

In the meantime, this week, 2.9 million families are caught in the snare of the Alternative Minimum Tax, not the fabulously wealthy who are dodging taxes but hundreds of thousands of hard-working, non-rich Americans, whose only sin is, they pay their taxes, they are raising their family and they are saving for the future.

Rather than the fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax, today's charade is a shameful dereliction of duty for American taxpayers.

http://thomas.loc.gov