Death Tax Repeal Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this legislation, and perhaps for no better reason than it is a $270 billion cost that the Congressional Budget Office showed with no pay-fors, no offsets in the Federal budget. If my Republican colleagues want to move forward on this policy proposal, at least they should show courage to the American people and tell them how they are going to pay for this $270 billion bill or to admit that it is just going to be added to the annual structural budget deficits, a completely fiscally irresponsible approach to trying to reform our Tax Code. Lord knows we need to get to work on that.
But there is a larger point--and to speak to the last speaker's point that he just made on the floor--what is somewhat problematic and troublesome for me, it seems many of our Republican colleagues seem very comfortable with the idea of income inequality in this Nation, which is only growing worse. But here is the main point: this income inequality in our society, absent opportunity, absent hope, absent mobility, is just a caste system. It is just a caste system where birth determines outcome.
That is why one of the richest people in the world, Warren Buffett, who opposes repealing the estate tax, says that our fate in life should not depend on whether we win the birth lottery or not. It is no longer good enough for the other side to continue to deliver tax relief to the wealthiest 1 percent; now it has got to be the wealthiest two-tenths of 1 percent, because that is what this legislation affects is two-tenths of 1 percent of the wealthiest households in America.
But they keep saying: Don't worry. We will address the deficit later. They say we have a spending problem in Washington. But what we have seen from their budgets, where they go for offsets in spending: it is in Pell grants; it is in workstudy; it is in GEAR UP and TRIO programs; it is the broadband expansion that we need in this Nation; it is the basic research funding that has to take place; it is the infrastructure modernization that we need.
It is those things that we need to be investing in to keep America competitive, and those are the type of programs that help with mobility, that help with opportunity for many Americans.
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