Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act of 2005 - Motion to Proceed
DEATH TAX REPEAL PERMANENCY ACT OF 2005--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - June 07, 2006)
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Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I come to the Senate today to discuss the issue of estate tax with a little bit of a different perspective from some of my Democratic colleagues who have spoken so very passionately on this issue already today.
I respect many of their approaches and concerns, but I come to this issue from a little bit of a different perspective. That perspective is because I believe the estate tax in its current form is unfair.
Outright repeal of the estate tax for family-owned businesses and farms has been a goal of mine since I entered Congress 14 years ago. I have grown up on a seventh generation Arkansas farm. I have watched as small communities and family-owned businesses have dwindled from their inability to maintain their competitiveness in the ever-growing global community, but also with the unbelievable challenges they face of the cost of health care, the cost of doing business, real estate costs, and others.
I have seen too many small business owners and farmers in my home State restrict the growth of their enterprises in order to avoid facing the impossible choice of leaving their families with an up to 55 percent Federal tax burden or the other option of selling off portions of their assets when they die in order to pay that tax.
However, because of our current budgetary constraints, I do recognize outright repeal is not feasible. Not at this time. With that said, it is more important than ever that we do what we can now to provide some certainty and relief for those who are so drastically impacted by this tax.
Last week, I received a phone call from a constituent who owns a family trucking and farming equipment business. The business was started by the family in 1927. Over the years and through much hard work they have grown from a small dealership into a thriving family business that now employs more than 450 Arkansans.
I hope many of us will continue to focus on the issue that small businesses are the No. 1 employer in this country and are the least likely to send their jobs overseas. They are the foundation, in many instances, of our communities. Whether it is the sponsor of our Little League teams or the group that is sponsoring the Cub Scout campout, we know they are the heart of our communities in rural America.
Seeing this business grow, we all are thrilled to hear these stories. I am particularly thrilled to hear stories of families, families who have invested their capital, their hard work, ideas, and their lives in their trade, and are ultimately successful in realizing that American dream we all talk about.
This same story is repeated all over our great State of Arkansas, whether it be the jewelry store owner in Fayetteville, the meatpacker in Morrilton, the car dealer in Springdale, or the timber farmer in Monroe County.
Indeed, these stories can be heard across our entire Nation. Family businesses are the engines of our small communities. It is the family-owned businesses that provide the jobs, the wages, and the health care, in most instances, for our constituents. It is the family-owned business that sponsors our Little League teams or pays our local State and Federal taxes. They are an intricate part of the community. They live in our rural communities. They care about what happens to them.
Yet because of the estate tax, we are forcing them to spend valuable assets on estate planning and life insurance rather than creating more jobs by investing and expanding their businesses. We are putting them at a disadvantage with their publicly traded competitors.
What kind of risk do major publicly traded corporations have to mitigate against with the death of a CEO? None. But a family-owned business has to spend tremendous amounts of resources in mitigating against that risk.
I, for one, intend to fight for these family businesses, fight for these communities, and fight for these jobs in rural America. Unfortunately, as this businessman from my State was quick to point out to me, we in Washington have left far too many of these family businesses in a quagmire as a result of the erratic estate tax policy we set in 2001. Under the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the estate tax will be phased out in 2010 only to come back in full force in 2011 at a 55-percent rate.
For the family-owned business and farms which comprise more than 80 percent of all business enterprises in America, and which spend tens of thousands of dollars each year in planning for this tax, the status quo is unacceptable. It is not acceptable because many of our mom-and-pop shops are having to lock a significant portion of their capital resources into estate planning that may or may not be needed down the road. For small businesses with very limited liquidity, the uncertainty is paralyzing at a time when we should be giving them every opportunity to expand.
At the expense of our family businesses, this issue has been used by some as a political football for far too long. It should end now. It can end now. Since current policy was set in 2001, we have revisited this issue in the Senate on multiple occasions. However, each time we have had the opportunity to act, we have failed to reach a reasonable solution, a compromise, which is what most people in this country want Congress to do, to come together to bring results for the problems they experience, not an end-all-be-all solution but a compromise that gets them some results.
In this Congress, interested parties on both sides of the aisle have been at the negotiating table since early last summer. We have the information we need to form a compromise solution. We have that opportunity now. It is my understanding from leaders on the other side of the aisle that should a true compromise be forged on this issue prior to tomorrow's vote, a vote on that compromise would be allowed.
Let me emphasize again, the time for a solution is now. Our economy is yearning for the investment of these small businesses, these family-owned businesses, that can help regenerate what we need in our economy, the jobs in our community that we need them to expand on. The time for the solution is now, not later.
We have told these family businesses now is not the time far too many times already. I am so very hopeful this time we will do better. We know we do not have the perfect solution. But we also know if we do not seize the opportunity to provide them the certainty they need to continue their businesses, to take the money they are now spending on estate planning and reinvest those dollars into the job creation and the expansion of their businesses, we will have missed a great opportunity.
We have the opportunity to come together, to provide some certainty for these family businesses through the estate tax reform by raising the estate tax exemption, reducing that tax rate to a reasonable level. Let's not let that opportunity slip away.
I encourage my colleagues, come to the table. Look at what we have to work with. We have enthusiastic American family jobs and businesses that want desperately to be a part of making this country strong. We have an opportunity to offer them some solutions, some certainty, in order to be able to do just that, to give back to this great country that has given them the opportunity to create and build a family and a family business they are enormously proud of.
Let us not let this opportunity slip away. I encourage my colleagues to please take seriously this issue--not politically, but seriously, the issue of the relief that we can provide by coming together on a compromise.
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