mr. speaker , i yield myself the balance of the time . 
let me first say , mr. speaker , how much i appreciate my friend from north dakota as we have done this in a number of sessions of congress , and i appreciate the tone , and he is a friend of mine , and i have a lot of respect for him and the intent with which he comes to this debate . 
let me answer a couple of points that have been raised in particular , first of all , about the tax simplification . 
tax day is 2 days away , and i am sure taxpayers , in particular small businesses and family farmers , would appreciate anything that we can do to simplify our tax laws , and i would submit that permanent repeal of the death tax does just that . 
in fact , h.r. 8 is one simple paragraph , and it reads as follows : `` section 901 of the economic growth and tax relief reconciliation act of 2001 shall not apply to title v of such act. '' basically , we repeal the sunset . 
now , again , the gentleman from north dakota 's ( mr. pomeroy ) xz4003230 substitute , i counted , and i hope i am counting correctly , but 40 subparagraphs and directing accountants and the like to this subparagraph or that particular paragraph . 
the reason that we are here is because of complicated and arcane senate budget rules , called the byrd rule , that we phase out the death tax for one single year . 
in 2010 , it magically disappears , and then on january 1 of 2011 it springs back to life , and the uncertainty , how would one as an estate planner advise a client when the tax is gone today and comes back again in the very next year ? 
by making death tax repeal permanent , we give taxpayers the certainty they need to make those long-term financial decisions . 
the form itself , the blank form i am holding here , form 706 , is 40 pages in length for the estate tax return , 40 pages in length , and it comes with a handy dandy 30-page instruction booklet . 
so when one is talking about simplification , what better simplification would there be than ripping these pages dealing with the estate tax completely out of the internal revenue code ? 
lastly , when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of it , whether or not the pomeroy substitute , and again , in the effort to pursue the american dream , whether those businesses are going to be shielded by the pomeroy substitute or not shielded , the fact is that as long as the tax is on the books , as long as congress draws some line in the sand , and that is all we are doing with the substitute , is just some arbitrary line , we are still going to have those family businesses that are going to be taking some of their resources and these convoluted schemes , legal , but efforts to avoid the tax . 
again , we hear a lot about these very high-profile individuals who have been successful . 
i mean , this is the land of opportunity , is it not ? 
i would submit to my colleagues that the billionaires and the top of the fortune 500 lists , those folks have a stable full of lawyers and accountants to create this intricate estate plan to thwart the estate tax . 
not so , and i go back to the original discussion , that small family in columbia , missouri , the eiffert family who spends $ 52 , 000 a year just to buy term life insurance because they might have to face the estate tax . 
under the current law , or probably even under the gentleman from north dakota 's ( mr. pomeroy ) xz4003230 substitute , there is no certainty for families like the eiffert family . 
so i salute my colleague . 
the gentleman from illinois ( mr. emanuel ) xz4001200 , again a colleague of mine on the committee on ways and means , said , why are not we debating real reform ? 
interestingly , there is a lot of discussion . 
i am not here to advocate one particular tax reform proposal because we have got this blue ribbon panel that is happening and looking at various options . 
there is a lot of talk about the consumption tax , and yet it is notable that , while there may be support for the idea of a general consumption tax , the death tax , by contrast , is a tax on nonconsumption . 
we talk a lot , too , about sin taxes . 
why can we not put taxes on alcohol or on cigarettes and the like and whether or not that generates support among certain groups . 
this death tax is a tax on virtue . 
in other words , if you work hard , you play by the rules , if you scrape together your savings , and , again , we as an industrialized nation , not only do we have even under the pomeroy substitute a 47 percent death tax rate which would be the second highest in the world , but the fact is that we are not very good at savings and investments . 
in fact , if you are looking at your 1040 right now , look at line eight because it says if you have been thrifty and you are able to generate a little interest income , guess what , uncle sam says put this amount here because we are going to take our bite of the apple . 
permanent repeal of the death tax actually rewards virtue . 
let me just paraphrase a column recently , actually it was some years ago but i think republished recently by professor edward j. mccaffery . 
he is a professor who says this : `` as a committed liberal myself , i used to believe that the gift and estate tax was essential to a just society . 
but as a former estate planner and a scholar in both law and economics , i confess that i was mistaken . 
the gift and estate tax is quite simply a bad tax , even , and maybe especially , when viewed from a liberal perspective. '' professor mccaffrey goes on and says , `` this is not a supply-side argument but a moral one . 
people who die with large amounts of wealth have done three good things for society . 
they have exercised their talents , rather than living a life of leisure . 
they have saved , contributing to a common pool of capital whose benefits manifest , for example , in lower interest rates , inure to all . 
and they have refrained from spending all of their wealth on themselves. '' in fact , professor mccaffrey across the capitol some years ago i think before the senate finance committee said , to paraphrase scripture , the reason he changed his mind , i was blind but now i see . 
if this comes from an unrequited liberal that the estate tax , the death tax , is a bad tax , then i would suggest to all of my colleagues here that it is time to permanently and completely repeal the tax . 
finally , i would say to my friend again , because there has been some discussion about creating a new tax , as the gentleman knows , the intent of h.r. 8 , the underlying bill , is to help make it easier to pass a family business from one generation to the next . 
as we have heard from nonpartisan groups , 70 percent of family businesses do not make it to a second generation , 87 percent of family businesses do not make it to a third generation , and often the reason cited is because of this very confiscatory punitive tax called the death tax . 
the fact is that under h.r. 8 , if it were to pass and become the law of the land , the tax rate imposed at death on a lifetime of work and thrift is zero percent . 
under my friend 's substitute amendment , the rate imposed would be locked in at 47 percent . 
now i mentioned my personal experience , and i am running our family farm . 
if a surviving heir chooses not to farm and then makes the conscious decision to dispose of assets , then that is a taxable event , but that is a purposeful decision made by the heirs of that family business owner . 
it is not the federal government requiring the death of a family member to be a taxable event . 
so i would simply say to all of my colleagues that death should not be a taxable event , period . 
under the underlying bill of h.r. 8 , it would no longer be a taxable event . 
under the substitute from my friend , individuals above an arbitrary line drawn by this body , death would continue to be an event that triggers the federal death tax . 
that is why prominent organizations such as the chamber of commerce , national federation of independent business , american farm bureau federation and a host of other small business coalition members , representing the interest of small businesses and family farms across the country , support h.r. 8 and oppose my friend from north dakota 's substitute . 
i urge a `` no '' on the substitute and a `` yes '' on the underlying bill . 
