L. Paxon: “earlier this week the Deputy Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, condemned efforts to ease Federal death taxes saying…”

“earlier this week the Deputy Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, condemned efforts to ease Federal death taxes saying these were motivated by, and I am quoting him here, selfishness. I believe it is nothing short of an outrage for an administrative official who has such important influence over tax policy to make a statement like this. Secretary Summers completely misses the point on death taxes. The fact is whether it is small business or family farmers or others, they spend thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars, in many cases a year, on estate planning to forestall the selloff of that family farm or that small business which results in the loss of jobs back at home in our districts. This is time and money that would be far better spent on buying new equipment and expanding operations so new jobs and more jobs and better wages can be created. Now as we continue this debate we cannot lose sight of the heavy costs that death taxes impose each and every year on our communities and our country. If we stress this enough here in Congress, hopefully the folks down at Treasury will finally open their eyes and ears to the real world.”