Earl Pomeroy: “I am going to be brief with the 5 minutes allocated for this side. I do not intend to use all of it, with the reason we…”

“I am going to be brief with the 5 minutes allocated for this side. I do not intend to use all of it, with the reason we are presenting this information and this alternative under the motion to recommit is because the Rules Committee, when offering this House a so-called compromise on the estate tax reform, only allowed one version and did not allow the minority even the opportunity to present a different level of compromise. So we have to use this motion to recommit, and I will tell you quickly what it does. It would exclude all estates from taxation at the $3 million level and $6 million joint level beginning January of next year. In 2009, it would move as the present law affords to the $3.5- and $7 million, excluding all estates below that. Many of us believe that the estate tax needs reform, and we think this reform at the levels $7 million joint exclusion from 2009 and thereafter is very meaningful reform indeed, and, in fact, it makes the estate tax go away for 99.7 percent of the people in this country. Yet it compares very favorably in cost impact to the Thomas proposal before the House; indeed, 40 percent of the costs of outright repeal for the motion to recommit compared to the Thomas proposal, which, when fully phased in years 2010 to 2020, costs 80 percent, maybe even more. We estimate at least $800 billion will be lost, and we mean actually borrowed because we are in deep deficits. It is a simple fact.…”