mr. speaker , i yield myself such time as i may consume . 
we hear the phrase `` death tax , '' which really is kind of a misnomer . 
there is no such thing . 
when i am dead , i am dead . 
you can not collect any taxes from me . 
the issue is whether or not estates in the billions of dollars should be subject to any taxation . 
we are not talking about small family farms or small businesses . 
that is not what this is about . 
if you read the washington post today , it is very clear what this is about . 
it is about the most extremely wealthy companies , the most extremely wealthy people in this country . 
the gentleman from north dakota has a substitute that would basically exempt 99.7 percent of all estates from any estate tax . 
so let us be clear about what is going on , and let us also be clear about the cost to our kids . 
the joint committee on taxation says that this is going to cost up to $ 290 billion . 
there seems to be no concern on the other side of the aisle about what this does to our deficit or our debt . 
this is not paid for . 
they make no attempt to pay for it . 
let me just remind my colleagues that the debt that we are faced with right now is close to $ 8 trillion , and the interest on that debt is astonishingly high . 
that is the legacy that they are passing on to our kids . 
our good colleague from tennessee ( mr. tanner ) xz4003950 in a presentation , i thought , said it best . 
he said , so people can understand what the debt means , if you stack up one thousand dollar bills , a million dollars would be about a foot high ; a billion dollars would be about the size of the empire state building ; a trillion dollars would be 1 , 000 empire state buildings . 
our debt is close to $ 8 trillion , and there is no outrage on the other side , there is no concern about what we are doing and what it means to our economy by making these tax cuts permanent . 
i think that people need to understand what is going on here . 
this is not about small family farms . 
it is not about small businesses . 
this is about helping the wealthiest of the wealthy . 
mr. speaker , i yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from north dakota ( mr. pomeroy ) xz4003230 . 
