Political Quotes

“Or 55 percent. Even if the ball drops at Times Square and we don't get this thing resolved, taking away half of what he'd earned in his lifetime, he would have not had that dream. He's unlikely to have even come to the United States. But he's really unlikely to have bought those nine quarter sections of land, because he would know that before he could hand it off to the next generation, the tax man would come in and swallow up half of it. And so here's the scenario. I mean, unfortunately for my great- grandfather, he lost all of that land when the stock market crashed in 1929. He didn't lament that. He'd engaged in free enterprise, capitalism, and commerce, and it didn't work out for him. The timing was wrong, and he lived the rest of his life in Pierson, Iowa, a lonely man in a tiny little house. But he had the dream. He had the chance to access the dream. And it didn't work out for him, but his children received the vision of his dream and they went to work and they built, and they raised their children with the same dream that brought him here to the United States. And so I think today, even though it hasn't worked out for my family in the way that it was envisioned, and there isn't wealth on either side of my family that counts as taxable in the estate tax configuration, no matter what it is, it inspired them nonetheless. They worked nonetheless. They invested capital anyway, and they went to work. And so--”