mr. speaker , the preceding speaker just told us that he does not like the carryover basis . 
and i will tell you what . 
if his amendment got rid of any aspect of carryover basis in death tax i would vote for it . 
but this is a give-with-the-right-hand , take-away-with-the-left-hand operation that he is proposing , because what he is also doing is he is bringing back the 47 percent death tax . 
we are trying to repeal the death tax , not bring it back ; and you can not tell us that capital gains at 15 percent is worse than the death tax at 47 percent . 
and as the gentleman from north dakota just mentioned , we do not have a carryover basis in its entirety . 
we have simply a step up in basis for both the spouse and for the children . 
i wish we could get rid of the carryover basis . 
i would be thrilled with that . 
but the pomeroy substitute gives us the death tax back full strength at 47 percent tax rate , and it arbitrarily says that a small business that is worth $ 3 million is going to have to deal with this . 
now you have to ask yourself , in advance of your death , do you know what the assets and inventory of your business is going to be 10 years , 20 years , 30 years down the road ? 
the answer is no . 
of course not . 
you are going to have to do that tax compliance year in and year out . 
tax compliance , the cost of actual accountants and lawyers and life insurance and all the other things that you have to do to deal with the death tax year in and year out is $ 20 billion a year . 
this tax , the death tax , kills between 170 , 000 and a quarter million jobs each year , according to the nonprofit center for data analysis . 
the death tax is a job killer . 
it is destroying family farms and businesses . 
it is a drag on economic growth , and it is the greatest disincentive to invest additional capital in family businesses in america . 
but the authors of this amendment still want to pry lots of cash out of the cold dead fingers of america 's deceased entrepreneurs . 
so they rewrite the language of the tax code so we can keep all 88 pages of complexity of the death tax and all the thousands of pages of regulation and the hundreds of thousands of pages of case law that go with it . 
this is the most complex part of one of the most complex tax systems in the world , and it is time to drive a stake through its heart . 
it is time for the death tax to die . 
this is not the time to redefine the death tax or add legislative language so that tax lawyers and accountants can have more to play with . 
it is time to kill it . 
and that is why we must vote against this amendment and in favor of the total repeal of the death tax . 
here is the message that this amendment , were it to be adopted , sends to american workers : do not work for a small- or medium-sized american family business . 
do not work for a large family owned business . 
to be safe , do not work for any small businesses that are growing quickly or picking up new customers or introducing new products . 
because the federal government has decided that the family businesses can grow without the destructive burden of the death tax but only until some irs bureaucrat decides that these businesses are worth $ 3.5 million dollars . 
then the businesses will be subject to huge new tax burdens . 
and guess what ? 
you will not know until it is too late whether you are on one side or the other side of that threshold . 
i have to tell you , it sounds like $ 3 million is a lot of money . 
and it is if you or i had it in our pocket . 
but for a business , counting its real estate , its assets , its inventory , its trucks , that is a tiny business indeed . 
and if you are trying to employ some people , you have 10 , 11 , 12 people that work for that business , what are you going to say to them when they lose their jobs because the family business has to be liquidated on the death of the entrepreneur in order to come up with the actual cash to pay for it ? 
the irs is not going to accept shares of stock in the family business in payment of the death tax . 
they are going to say , go sell those shares , go liquidate the business , go sell the assets in order to pay off the tax plan . 
to the supporters of this amendment i say we agree with you that the death tax destroys family farms and businesses . 
obviously , that is your presumption if you are trying to have a threshold below which people will not pay it . 
we agree with you that the death tax destroys family farms and businesses , that it kills jobs and reduces economic growth . 
so why do you want to keep this monster alive ? 
please join with us and kill the death tax once and for all . 
