NAN A. S. HAYWORTH: “later today we will take a vote to make the death tax repeal permanent. It will be a bipartisan vote, despite some of…”

“later today we will take a vote to make the death tax repeal permanent. It will be a bipartisan vote, despite some of the preceding rhetoric in the well of the House, and I do not want anyone to be deceived or misled. One of the leading proponents of permanent death tax repeal in my State happened to be the standard bearer for the Democratic Party in 1994 for the office of Governor. He came to me and said, ``When are you going to repeal this death tax?'' The reason he did so was not because he fits into the realm of the super-rich. The reason he did so, he is an owner of grocery stores and he employs hundreds of Arizonians. Mr. Speaker, people of goodwill can have a fundamental disagreement. Either we can come to this floor and attempt to demonize and drive wedges and claim that it is always us versus them, or we can understand some simple facts: keeping businesses in business makes good sense for America. More than 70 percent of family businesses do not survive to the second generation. Eighty-seven percent do not make it to the third generation. Sixty percent of small business owners report that they would create new jobs over the coming year if estate taxes are eliminated. We move to do that. Now the question becomes are we willing to make this permanent to deal with the arcane rules from elsewhere on Capitol Hill to make this permanent for job creation. We all want to save Social Security. We want to have people paying payroll taxes.…”