mr. speaker , i rise in support of h.r. 8 , which will finally free america 's hard-working farmers and small business owners from the specter of the death tax .  benjamin franklin said : `` in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes , '' but i doubt even the inventive mr. franklin imagined the taxation of death itself .  americans get taxed when they earn money .  they get taxed again when they spend what is left , and government pursues them beyond the grave , devastating their relatives who must sell the family farm or liquidate the family business just to pay the taxes .  the impact of the death tax extends far beyond the pain it inflicts upon grieving families .  the death tax distorts economic decisions on a massive scale .  it punishes thrift .  it reduces savings and investment , and it diverts capital away from job creation to tax avoidance .  the national federation of independent businesses has estimated that the death tax will compel one-third of small business owners today to sell some or all of their business .  the center for the study of taxation found that 70 percent of all family businesses can not survive the second generation and 87 percent do not make the third .  all of this wasted money , energy and over 100 , 000 jobs lost per year and for what , a tax that the joint economic committee says costs just as much to collect as it generates in revenue .  mr. speaker , the opponents of h.r. 8 can not provide any justification for the continued existence of this useless relic .  it hurts the people it is intended to help , and it reduces stock in our economy by $ 497 billion a year .  i urge my colleagues to drive the final nail in this coffin so 6 years from now americans will not wake up to find that , like a vampire , this unfair tax has arisen from the dead to once again suck the blood from a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice .  