Chuck Schumer: “I thank my colleague. He spoke so poignantly of the doctor in Dickinsin and the senior citizen who had breast cancer and…”

“I thank my colleague. He spoke so poignantly of the doctor in Dickinsin and the senior citizen who had breast cancer and could not afford the drugs. Again, I appreciate the approach that my colleagues from Nebraska and Nevada have taken. It is an honest approach, but it is a minimalist approach. It is based on the theory that we do not have enough money to do more, even though 52 people in the Senate voted to do significantly more. I would just ask my colleague this: Isn't this part of the same budget where they take $600 billion over 10 years to reduce the estate tax? Isn't it true that estate tax reduction does not go to people whose income is $17,000 or $35,000 or $350,000, but to people whose estates will eventually rise, I believe it is, to $2 million or $4 million? That is a minimum amount. This is not an abstract discussion. I ask my colleague if I am right. Do you want to give somebody who is a millionaire, who has an estate worth over $2 million, a total exemption from any tax and deprive patients in North Dakota their desperately needed medicine? It isn't either/or. In my judgment, it is not that we can't afford it. If tomorrow the President and his budget friends on the other side in their budget say we are not going to make the estate tax reduction permanent, there would be more than enough money to afford the plan that we voted for on the floor yesterday. Am I wrong? Is this a question of choices?”