Don Nickles: “this amendment is a very positive amendment. The Senator from Montana, Mr. Baucus, introduced an amendment that would…”

“this amendment is a very positive amendment. The Senator from Montana, Mr. Baucus, introduced an amendment that would add another $2.3 billion in emergency spending for agriculture. We debated that last week. We defeated it. We defeated it on a budget point of order. I made that motion because we have had a lot of emergency spending for agriculture. As a matter of fact, the last couple of years it has just ballooned. We averaged less than a billion or two for decades, and then all of a sudden the last couple of years we start doing $12 billion, $13 billion, $14 billion of emergency spending. The Senator from Montana said we have more problems; let's add another $2 billion or $3 billion--not in the context of the farm bill or the budget but just another couple billion dollars. Now that we are in deficits, I question that. My colleague from Arizona offered an amendment that my farmers have been talking to me about for the last 20-some years, and that is to repeal the death tax. Why in the world should agriculture, or anybody who has a business, have to sell the business because somebody happens to pass away? Somebody passes away and all of a sudden the Government says it wants 55 percent of their farm, 55 percent of their business. I happen to think that is wrong. In the tax bill we passed last year, we reduced the estate tax and we increased the exemptions. We increased the exemption from $675,000 to a million dollars beginning January 1 of 2002.”