Byron Dorgan: “I want to have an exemption that will prevent the estate tax from snaring in its web the passage of the family farm from…”

“I want to have an exemption that will prevent the estate tax from snaring in its web the passage of the family farm from parents to children. I will say to my friends who raise these issues, if you want to help family farmers, we have an amendment that will enable you to do that. But then you go further and say: We want to provide the richest 400 people in America a $250 billion tax break during the second 10 years. That is triple the amount of money each year that we now spend on the farm program. We have this Freedom to Farm bill which is just devastating family farmers. Grain prices have collapsed. They have been collapsed for a long time. Perhaps we could take just a third of the amount of money they want to give in tax relief to the wealthiest estates in America-- just a third of it--and say: Let's have a farm program that really keeps family farmers on the farm.”