Hi folks. The House Republican leadership scurried up to the Rules Committee hearing room for an EMERGENCY meeting they convened with 5 minutes notice. Literally.

Wonder where the fire was? Well the topic Republicans chose for EMERGENCY consideration ... H.R. 5638, the Republican Estate Tax Relief bill, designed to further reduce the estate-tax after the year 2011. Yes, estate-tax reduction, which would benefit less than 1% of the population, was more important to this Republican Leadership than passing a minimum wage increase, extending the voting rights act, or having a real, substantive debate on the war in Iraq.



The rhetoric you will hear from the House Republicans who have a history of selling out to special interests is that repealing the estate tax is critical to small businesses and family farmers.

The reality couldn't be more different. The Democrats support tax relief for small businesses and farmers, while Republicans are slashing taxes for multi-millionaires, heaping more debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren. Here is some information on Republican rhetoric v. reality on estate tax that you may find useful:

* The new Thomas estate tax bill (H.R. 5638) will cost the American people $762 billion, in just the first 10 years (2012 to 2021) - nearly as much as full repeal. [CBPP, 6/20/06] Permanent repeal of the estate tax would cost the American people nearly $1 trillion. [CBPP, 4/28/06] * Less than 1 percent of estates will pay taxes in 2006 under this year's exemption and only 7,500 nationwide will pay estate tax, under the $3.5 million exemption which will take effect in 2009. [Center for American Progress, 5/17/06; Joint Committee on Taxation, Memo to the Ways and Means Staff, 10/18/04] * President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the Cabinet stand to gain between $91 million and $344 million if the estate tax is permanently repealed. The current CEOs of the five largest U.S. oil companies and Lee Raymond, the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, would likely receive a windfall of up to $211 million, with Raymond himself potentially receiving a tax break worth more than $160 million. [House Government Reform, 5/30/06] * If the estate tax is repealed, 830 of the wealthiest estates in the country would split an estimated $14 billion in tax breaks each year, or $16 million per estate. [Center for American Progress, 5/17/06] * Almost no working farmers ever pay the estate tax. Under the $3.5 million exemption to take effect in 2009, the number of family farms required to pay any taxes in 2000 would have been just 65, along with 94 small businesses. [Congressional Budget Office, 7/05] * Democrats have supported providing immediate estate tax relief for 99.7 percent of estates, by raising the amount of the estates excluded from taxes to $6 million per couple and increasing this to $7 million by 2009. Not only did this provide relief for small business and family farmers, but it would not have heaped more debt onto our children and grandchildren -- costing less than $75 billion over 10 years. [H.R. 8, Vote 101, 4/13/05, 194-238] * One prominent Iowa economist actually searched for families who had lost their farms to estate taxes, but failed to find a single one. When the New York Times sought to write a real-life feature about a farmer hit by the estate tax, the American Farm Bureau was unable to produce one farm that was lost because of estate taxes. [New York Times, 4/8/01]

This is one of those moments that cuts through the spin, and clearly demonstrates what today's Republican Party is really about, and for whom they are really fighting...and it is not the average American or their family. They are fighting for the richest of the rich at the expense of everyone else. They have no shame. - LMS

