Jeff Bingaman: “this is an amendment I offer on behalf of myself, Senators Kennedy, Murray, Dodd, Kerry, Schumer, and Dorgan. It will do…”

“this is an amendment I offer on behalf of myself, Senators Kennedy, Murray, Dodd, Kerry, Schumer, and Dorgan. It will do a fairly simple thing. It will provide for the relief from estate tax that is proposed as the Democratic alternative on which we voted earlier today so that there will be a substantial reduction in the amount of estate tax over a period of time. It would, however, take some of the additional revenue that would not be going to estate tax relief under the Republican plan and would dedicate that instead to education. This is an important issue. This is an amendment, as were several others we voted on already, that relates to our priorities and what we would like to do with revenue over the next several years, how much of it should be returned, to which group of taxpayers, how much should be spent on needs we have here in the country. Those of us who are proposing this amendment believe it should be a higher priority for us to improve our schools and the future of all of the children in this country--rich and poor, black and white, metropolitan and rural--than it is to assist inordinately a relatively small group of people beyond the $8 million that is provided for as an exemption from the estate tax under the Democratic plan. The amendment makes a commitment to invest some of the savings from the elimination of the Republican estate tax proposal into our public schools.”