Chuck Schumer: “This bill is about choices. No one wants anyone to pay any taxes on anything. The reason the estate tax repeal is lower…”

“This bill is about choices. No one wants anyone to pay any taxes on anything. The reason the estate tax repeal is lower on my list than helping middle-class families with college tuition is, it is my judgment--and we will see the judgment of every Senator in this Chamber--that a family making $50,000 and paying $10,000 or $15,000 in tuition deserves relief more quickly than an estate that is worth over $3 million. In an ideal world, we would do both. But I don't think the Senator from Arizona is correct. The reason the committee did not put the estate tax in had nothing to do with opposition. They have the votes to pass this. They could have put it in the bill and had the votes to pass it. But they made some choices. They wanted rate reduction and marriage penalty and other things before they wanted the estate tax, having nothing to do with the 45 of us or so who are against the estate tax. But they had to say they were repealing it, so they went through the sham of doing it in 2011. I repeat to my friend: Choices, choices, choices.”