Don Nickles: “an April 15, 1997 letter to the Wall Street Journal, which I will insert for the Record, describes one family's recent…”

“an April 15, 1997 letter to the Wall Street Journal, which I will insert for the Record, describes one family's recent experience with the estate tax. The letter states, ``We finally did it. We didn't want to, but we had no choice. Exactly nine months after my father-in-law died, my wife and I signed a check for $1,285,000 payable to the Internal Revenue Service.'' The man who wrote this letter goes on to talk about what his family could have used that money for, such as buying a beach house, prepaying their kids' college education, or even retiring. Instead, he calculates that the federal government will spend in 26.8 seconds what took his father-in-law 75 years to accumulate. After I read this letter, I decided to do some calculations of my own. In 1997, the federal government will collect $19.2 billion in estate taxes from 37,200 Americans. The federal government will spend that $19.2 billion in 4.3 days. Assuming each of those decedents was 70 years old when they died, that represents more than 2.6 million years' worth of work and savings which will be wiped-out forever and spent by the government in less than five days. Mr. President, some people mistakenly believe estate taxes only affect the rich.…”