Pete Sessions: “with regard to the death tax, I will be offering some remarks later in the process that deal with the estimated cost of…”

“with regard to the death tax, I will be offering some remarks later in the process that deal with the estimated cost of the elimination of this tax which does not account for the lack of stepped-up basis that will not occur if the death tax is eliminated and other factors that demonstrate that the allegations being made about large losses of revenue are not true. That is an important factor in the debate. I will not go over that tonight. I take this moment on another subject to read to the Senate a letter we received, received by Senator Frist, the majority leader, today, from the administration, William Moschella, U.S. Department of Justice. He deals with the Native Hawaiian bill. I said earlier today, the Native Hawaiian legislation is exceedingly important. It has to do with whether this great republic is going to allow itself, through the vote of its own legislature, to create within its own boundaries a sovereign entity, a sovereign Nation, that, according to those who support it, even on the Web site of the State of Hawaii, indicates that it could result in an independent nation being created. So any principled approach--and the Senate, of all bodies in the Government, ought to be principled; we should think about the long- term--to dealing with this issue should convince us in the most stark way that this is not a path down which we should travel. This is not a way this Nation should go.…”