Political Quotes

“I compliment my friend from Arizona for his forthright address on this very important subject that certainly needs to be resolved by this body. As we continue the debate on repealing the death tax, there is a fundamental question to which we all must respond: Should the Federal Government have the right to confiscate as much as 60 percent of the assets that an individual or family business has built over a lifetime? That is what this debate is all about, not the class warfare arguments we have heard from the other side, to a degree. In my view, whether the estate tax is 60 percent or 40 percent or 20 percent, the estate tax is morally indefensible. It causes businesses that have been developed over a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice to be broken up just so Uncle Sam can take what some think is the Government's rightful share of that business. I ask another question: Why do we have an estate tax? It may be interesting to go into the background. The reason is quite simple. Up until 1913, the Federal Government was primarily financed by tariffs. Estate taxes were periodically imposed to primarily finance wars or the threat of a war. For example, to finance the Spanish-American War, the Federal Government imposed a temporary estate tax in 1898. It was repealed in 1902. With the advent of World War I and the drop in tariff revenue, Congress adopted an estate tax with rates ranging from 1 percent to 10 percent.”