Political Quotes

“we hear statements today that it only applies to 10,000, it only applies to 33,000 people. Do my colleagues know how many farmers are left in this country? Not too many. This applies to most of them. One of them is Gary Hall of Ogle County, Illinois. Gary's dad died in 1997, and he wrote us a letter. He said, ``My dad worked very, very hard to get where he was financially when he passed away last November. He struggled raising his family of a wife, four daughters, and a son by trying to work on the farm, getting them to work there, getting interested in 4H, buying old machinery and fixing it up.'' When he died, the government came in and asked for $2.7 million in taxes. He says, ``Why does the government deserve to squander or blow dad's hard work away? Why can't you leave your estate to your children or family to continue to farm the land? Why do we have to remortgage farms that were paid off years ago by our parents, and then have our children do the same? We do not want to sell any of dad's farms. We want to keep them in his name and pass the farming operation down to many future generations.'' For all the great conservationists we have here in the Congress, do they not realize one of the greatest incentives for plowing up farmland and putting in a subdivision is to pay the death tax? I mean the green thing to do is to not tax someone's estate when they die. Farmers are forced to sell the land. I was there. I practiced law in the country for 22 years.…”