Russ Feingold: “I strongly support permanent estate tax reform. Though I do not support completely repealing the estate tax for all…”

“I strongly support permanent estate tax reform. Though I do not support completely repealing the estate tax for all estates, I do believe that we should significantly expand the unified credit to exempt the great majority of estates from taxation, and we should do so on a permanent basis. We should also include an indexing provision to ensure that the unified credit does not become obsolete and burdensome again, as happened over the past several decades. But we should make these changes in a fiscally responsible manner. We should do so without adding to the already enormous budget deficits that were largely the result of the tax bill that was enacted last year. Our budget position is poor, and it is getting worse. Last year, Congress passed a fiscally irresponsible tax cut that has shoved us back into the deficit ditch. Congress then added to our woes by passing an unfunded stimulus package filled with special interest tax breaks, a farm bill that unnecessarily benefits the largest and wealthiest producers, and just last week, following the action of the House of Representatives, the Senate passed a supplemental spending bill, also unfunded, and also apparently filled with special interest provisions of questionable value. Each of these actions will only further aggravate our budget problems. Now, proponents of estate tax repeal are asking us to enact legislation that will add even more fuel to the deficit fires.”