Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I first want to thank the Senator from Indiana for his very astute observations about the impact of these taxes on hard-working men and women in this country. I would say to my colleague from North Dakota, who is now here, and the Senator from Kansas--both of whom represent very rural States--this is not an issue that is inconsequential. A lot of people think people who have $1 million in assets are rich. But as I said earlier, in most farm and ranch operations, 80 percent of the value of that is in real estate. So they may be land rich but cash poor. When we talk about imposing a tax of this size on hard-working farmers and ranchers in this country, we are getting at the very heart, as the Senator from Kansas pointed out, of their ability to transfer that farm or ranch operation to the next generation. That is what is at stake. The Senator from North Dakota is here, and the farmland in North Dakota is similar to what we have in South Dakota, except they have energy. They found oil in a few places in North Dakota, which drives those land values up even higher. We would like to see some of that in South Dakota, but in either of the Dakotas or in Kansas we have seen land values going up in the past few years and it takes a bigger operation to make it work to survive in modern agriculture.…”