Middle Class Tax Cut Act--Motion to Proceed--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, to follow up on that, clearly in the great State of Wyoming there are lots of farmers and lots of ranchers. It is our heritage, it is our economy, it is our future.

Many people--we talked a little bit about that--to keep these operations going actually have a job in town so they can make enough money to help pay the mortgage and keep things going. But the price of land continues to go up, and on paper they have quite a bit of resources. So to think that we are in the next hour going to vote on a proposal by the Democrats to bring back the death tax is something that should be a surprise to all Americans. It is to farmers and ranchers and all small business owners.

I think of the movie theater owner in Casper I have known for over 20 years. I have operated on him, fixed his ankle when he broke it. He started with one small theater. He was the guy taking tickets, making the popcorn. Other people near him helped out and made it all work. He expanded to a second movie theater, and then again and again. He built the buildings, he built the business. He made it work. He was there early. He was there late. He was there with a broom.

But when I hear the President say, If you have a business, you didn't build it; someone else did, I ask the President to come to Casper, WY, to meet the business owners there, meet the guy who has a dry cleaners, meet the florist, meet the person with the car wash, meet this owner of the movie theaters, and then go around the community and the outskirts of the area to take a look at rural Wyoming, at the ranchers and farmers, and hear their stories, hear of their life's work, hear about what they have put together.

To see a proposal on the floor of the Senate that says, We don't care what you did, how hard you worked, what the impact is going to be on leaving this legacy to your family, we are going to bring back the death tax and we are coming for you. It is something that people back home, in all of rural America--and I would think in many places around the country--would find shocking, astonishing, and very sad as a commentary of what role Washington and government is trying to impose upon their lives, to take these levels of taxation to much higher levels where the death tax hits at $1 million and 55 percent at that level, from where we are now, where it is at $5 million and indexed for inflation because we see inflation and a maximum of 35 percent. I am astonished that people would actually consider voting for that. But yet that is what the Senate majority leader has been proposing, and that is what we are going to vote on within the next hour.

It is interesting, I was driving through the Hot Springs County, Thermopolis, WY, area a couple of years ago talking to a farmer. He said, You know, I could fight the weather or I could fight the government, but I couldn't fight both. And he got out of it.

A lot of families haven't gotten out, and they continue. Now, once again, the heavy hand of government comes with this crushing blow in wanting to raise this sort of tax on families all across the country, on people who have built their own businesses. In spite of what the President may say, these are the people who made this happen.

After the President's comments last week, I was in Thermopolis for a class reunion over the weekend. They have all the different classes come together for a big picnic and cookout in the park. My mother-in-law is a member of a class that graduated quite a few years ago. It was her reunion as well. We were talking about the family bakery that she had worked at as a little girl. The family actually lived above the bakery. They got their food from the bakery because they ate what didn't get sold. They worked every day. She talked about her father working so very early in the morning, through the day. For lunch she walked home from school to be able to eat at the bakery. That is a family who built that business.

We talked about it, and I asked, Well, who else worked there? She started to run through the names of the people in the family who built and contributed to this bakery business called the Wigwam in Thermopolis, WY. She talked
about Sonny who had worked there. There are a lot of businesses and a lot of farms and a lot of ranches--I see my friend and colleague from Kansas here--where there was a Sonny who worked on that farm or on that ranch.

Who else worked there in the bakery? Well, Shorty worked there too. I think every community has a Shorty who worked in a business that made something happen.

I said: Who else? She said: Sandy. I know there is a Sandy in every community. Yet the President thinks they didn't do anything.

Who else? Smokey. We have all these different names of people in the family who made this business, helped to put it together, and built it. Those are the people who made this business. Those are the people the President seems to have forgotten or never met in the first place. Those are the people who built the businesses of this country. It wasn't somebody else; it was them. It was parents who got up early and worked hard. Their kids worked there too. Everyone in the family participated. Everyone contributed. Every community in this country has someone like that.

Now to see the Democrats coming forth with a proposal that says: You may have built a business--well, they may not believe that family actually built the business--and we just want to tax you more when the person who really put the sweat equity into it dies. The family maybe ends up having to sell, as we heard from the Senators from Kansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Why? A lot of it is because this institution can't control the spending, so they are always looking for new ways to tax other people.

The problem is not that we are taxed too little; it is that we spend too much in this institution. Congress spends too much, and the President always seems to find another way to spend more money. That is what we see, ways to continue to find money and then spend, borrow, and grow government bigger and bigger. That is not what built this country. That is not what made this country great. It was the families with ranches, farms, and small businesses all across this country who put in hard work, dedication, and commitment to getting up early in the morning, working all day long and well into the evening.

I ask my friend and colleague from Kansas, I am sure the Senator can think of families and picture those families where folks actually got up before sunrise and worked through the end of the day and after the Sun went down to building something, to make something of themselves and their family, and to contribute to the community. Now we see government with its heavy hand coming to say: The death tax is here. We want to raise the death tax, and we are coming for you.

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