mr. speaker , i rise in opposition to this latest republican assault on social security and on fiscal sanity .  at a time of apparently unending war and the largest budget deficits in american history , our republican colleagues are intent on solving a crisis that does not exist .  as the president wastes millions of our taxpayer dollars crisscrossing this country to declare that there is no social security trust fund and questioning the full faith and credit of the federal government , his republican allies here seem intent on actually making his dire and inaccurate statements a self-fulfilling prophecy .  today , what they propose is to borrow from the social security trust fund and to borrow from the medicare trust fund in order to give more tax breaks to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of the people in this country .  that is borrowing from social security for purposes that have nothing to do with the social security system because they think some rich folks in this country do not have wallets that are fat enough .  it is taking from the hard-working employees and employers who are paying their social security money and transferring that wealth over to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent .  they call it the death tax ?  i think that is a good name .  if they keep pursuing bills like this , it will be the death of social security and medicare , as sure as i am standing here .  like most democrats , i have voted not once but a number of times to repeal the estate tax for most americans and to see that it is done right away , now , not postponing it for years as the republicans propose to do .  there is another democratic substitute coming out today that is going to exempt 99.7 percent of all estates from this tax , and only cover the richest .3 percent of the wealthiest estates in this country .  that means you are not going to have a small business in east austin or west mcallen or a family farm in karnes county that is covered if they are even covered now , which the vast majority of them are not .  why do they keep talking about family farms since it is irrelevant to this debate ?  they keep talking about the guy in the pickup who is working extra hours to try to make ends meet .  they keep talking about the little family business that with good reason wants to be able to pass that enterprise on to the next generation of that hard-working family .  the reason they talk about those folks is that steve forbes 's family is not quite as sympathetic .  the family of enrons ken lay , not quite as sympathetic .  they can not defend transferring money from the social security and medicare trust fund to ken lay 's family , to steve forbes 's family , to ross perot 's family , because it is totally indefensible .  their goal is to ensure that the richest of the rich are rewarded , as if they have not rewarded them enough for the last few years that they have controlled this congress .  social security is not in crisis today , nor is medicare , but if you keep passing bills that drain $ 750 billion from the treasury at the very time more people are retiring , you will have a crisis .  it was back almost a century ago when a republican , a fellow named teddy roosevelt , said that `` inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our government. '' it is still inconsistent .  would that we had even one teddy roosevelt republican today to put a stop to this nonsense .  