Political Quotes

“let me first echo what the Senator from Montana has just been saying with respect to support for education. As he noted, this bill already has substantial benefits for education. Unfortunately, the amendment of the Senator from New York, in order to provide the money for those benefits, has to get money from someplace else in the bill. It is called an offset. What I want to talk about is the offset here because in order to try to help education, he is pitting one group against the other. The group that would be the big loser here is all the small businesses, all the entrepreneurs, the small family farmers, and the others who were looking forward to some death tax relief, to a reduction in the rates of the estate tax. That would be gone under this amendment. All of the rate relief that was provided for in this bill would be eliminated. So instead of the rates going from 60 percent, which is the effective death tax relief rate, down to 45 percent under the bill here--which is still far too high--this would take all of that and put it back up to the effective 60-percent rate. It is morally wrong. I think everybody on the committee who voted for the bill agrees that it is morally wrong for the U.S. Government to take more than half in any tax. And I don't think we have another tax that taxes people at the rate of 50 percent. This would be the highest rate in the world except, I believe, for the country of Japan.”