Steve Rothman: “today my Republican colleagues would like to do away with the estate tax entirely. Democrats propose a way to make sure…”

“today my Republican colleagues would like to do away with the estate tax entirely. Democrats propose a way to make sure that 99 percent of Americans do not pay any estate tax. Who started the estate tax? The Republican, Theodore Roosevelt. Why? Because we did not want two different Americas. Today in America, 1 percent of the people in America own 40 percent of the assets of America. It is growing bigger and bigger, this gap. Twice as much as it was 20 years ago. What do my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle want to do? They want to make it worse. They want to give the richest 1 percent of America an enormous tax cut costing our country $50 billion a year. With Social Security and Medicare going broke, with the $5.6 trillion national debt, with our public schools falling apart, with needs for a strong defense, our Republican colleagues want to give a huge tax break, unneeded, unnecessary, to the 1 percent richest people in America who already control 40 percent of the Nation's wealth. It is obscene; it is a disgrace. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for the modest estate tax relief under the Democrat bill. ____________________”