Rod Grams: “I rise to make a few brief follow-up remarks about the repeal of the unfair and unjust death tax. As I said before, it…”

“I rise to make a few brief follow-up remarks about the repeal of the unfair and unjust death tax. As I said before, it is the family farms and small business owners that the death taxes particularly harm, not the rich, as our colleagues from the other side of aisle claim. Mr. President, the death tax hurts average American workers as well. Let me give you another example of how this tax penalizes those workers: Hy-Vee, Inc., headquartered in Iowa, with operations in my state of Minnesota and 7 other Midwestern states, is one of the largest employee-owned companies in the nation. Over the past half a century, the employees and the management of Hy-Vee have built a very successful business. It is ranked one of the top 15 supermarket chains in this country, and top 5 supermarket chains based on cleanliness, and other services. Through the company's profit-sharing mechanism, workers in Hy-Vee are rewarded for their hard work. Over 171 workers of the Hy-Vee company have accumulated assets of over $650,000. These employees are not wealthy individuals by any means but average workers who work at the checkout lines or at mid-level management. However, a large portion of the earnings from their hard work can be taken away by the government if we don't eliminate the death tax.”