Spencer Cox: “I have heard here an attempt to make this debate one about the super rich instead of the family next door; to make it…”

“I have heard here an attempt to make this debate one about the super rich instead of the family next door; to make it about only 2 percent of the super rich instead of half of the American population; to make it partisan, when in fact it is very bipartisan. This legislation went to the President backed by Democrats and Republicans. A big number of Democrats supported this, 65, in this House. While Al Gore is campaigning it as some Republican plot, the entire delegation of Tennessee voted for this, including all of the Democrats, including our distinguished African-American colleague, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford), a keynote speaker at the Democrat convention. Before we question the motives of people supporting abolishing the death tax, let us consider that more is at stake here. This is not about the super rich. Bill Gates will never pay this tax and everyone knows it. Those are the only people who we know to a certainty who will never pay this tax. But working men and women will pay not just the 55 percent, not just the 60 percent confiscatory rate, they will pay 100 percent when they lose their jobs, when the business for which they work is sold out to pay the tax man. It is time for the death tax to die.”