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 )  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 .  