Steve Cohen: “I am going to support it because I want to be able to vote to make the estate tax more reasonable, even though the…”

“I am going to support it because I want to be able to vote to make the estate tax more reasonable, even though the reality is, what we are voting on is whether we are going to give the wealthy with the estate tax a six-course meal with wine or a seven-course meal with wine, and we should be talking about a meat and three. The fact is, the estate tax with a $675,000 exemption was started with the Bush tax cuts, and now we are putting it up to a $5 million exemption per person and $10 million per couple. It was at a 55 percent rate and precipitously drops in this bill to 35 percent. The benefit to the heirs of the richest people in this country is unbelievable, unfathomable. And what that means, you will have a continued concentration of wealth in a few select families, lords so to speak, princes that have money beyond what anybody needs to have in this Nation and not contribute to others. The fact is, this was a very difficult vote, a very difficult decision for me.”