Denny Rehberg: “I am here today to urge this Congress to set right a terrible wrong in the Tax Code. There is a basic principle in the…”

“I am here today to urge this Congress to set right a terrible wrong in the Tax Code. There is a basic principle in the American criminal justice system that protects our citizens from being charged with the same crime twice. It is unfortunate that our Tax Code does not provide the same protections for families trying to leave a better future for their children and their grandchildren. The real tragedy of this debate today is that it has been waged between lawyers and professors, and I stand before my colleagues today as a small businessman; and I say to my colleagues, when is enough enough? They get us on the income tax; they get us on the capital gains tax. Do they have to get us again on the death of a loved one? As a fifth-generation Montana rancher on the same ranch, my own family was forced to deal with the terrible unfairness of the death tax. I had to sell my home that was built by my great grandfather and sell a third of my ranch just to pay the down payment on my colleagues' beloved estate tax; and after selling my home, I spent the next 18 years paying off the rest of the estate tax burden, and let me tell my colleagues, this is not some academic or some legal debate today. Eliminating the death tax is about fairness. It is about equality. It is about preserving a lifetime of work. This bill is too late to give me back my home. I just do not want to see it happen to one more American family.”