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Mrs. NOEM. On March 10 of 1994, my dad was killed in an accident on our family farm. I was taking college classes at the time. I was 21 years old, and I ended up coming home with my family and trying to figure out how we were going to get by without him after this tragedy hit our family.
All I could hear during that point in time were the words that my dad had said to me for many years. It wasn't very long after he was killed that we got a bill in the mail from the IRS that said we owed them money because we had a tragedy happen to our family.
One of the things my dad had always said to me is, ``Kristi, don't ever sell land, because God isn't making any more land.''
But that was really our only option. We could either sell land that had been in our family for generations, or we could take out a loan. So I chose to take out a loan, but it took us 10 years to pay off that loan to pay the Federal Government those death taxes.
That is one of the main reasons why I got involved in government and politics, because I didn't understand how bureaucrats and politicians in Washington, D.C., could make a law that says that when a tragedy hits a family they somehow are owed something from that family business. And it doesn't work for normal, everyday people.
That is why this death tax is so unfair because, at one of the most vulnerable times of people's lives, the Federal Government says, We need to take what you have and what your family has worked for.
A lot of the conversation today has been about that the rich need to pay more. Well, the rich will avoid this tax. They have the resources to do that. But it hits families like mine harder than ever. The rich certainly are not going to pay the burden of this tax.
I will also say that some of the discussion has been about the deficit. The government does not earn money. The government takes other people's money, is what it does. It certainly is not going to earn more money by this policy.
This previous administration and the members of the other party here on the House floor today talk about the people who have struggled. We have more people living in poverty today under your policies than we had before you were in charge of this country.
One in 15 children are on food stamps because of the policies of this administration. Fifty percent of our college students can't find work or are underemployed because of the policies of this administration. We talk about income inequality, and we are seeing it because of those previous policies.
This tax is a very unfair tax. It is double taxation. Please don't put any more families in the situation where they lose their family operation or are threatened by it because of a tragedy that happens to their family.
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