Political Quotes

“I thank Senator Whitehouse for his comments. As Senator Whitehouse said, I have been in this body only since January of 2007. Most of the damage from the estate tax was done prior to our being here. But I spent some years before being elected to the Senate in the House of Representatives, and anytime we talked about the estate tax in the House, my Republican colleagues would use two terms. They would talk about the ``politics of envy'' and they would talk about ``class warfare;'' that Democrats were envious of success and that we were engaging in class warfare, wanting to turn one social class against another. But the issue here isn't any strong desire for us to engage in retribution against anybody or any class envy. The situation is this, and let's start with this chart. This is a percentage of estates subject to tax. The estate tax, which the Republicans called the ``death tax,'' does not impact 99.3 percent of people who die in this country. Their families pay zero estate tax. It is only, as Senator Whitehouse said, the absolute mega superrich. It is not people worth just a few million but only seven-tenths of 1 percent. That means it is 7 out of 1,000 who will pay any estate tax at all. And so this issue-- not aimed at any one person--raises the question of: What do we do instead? The Duncan family--this is Mr. Duncan, whom Senator Whitehouse talked about--died with $9 billion, and his family pays no estate tax whatsoever.…”