mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time .  i am proud to be a part of the committee on rules , which reported out a very balanced rule that allows both sides to be heard on this issue .  the interesting thing about this issue is that there is agreement that the death tax should go away .  there is disagreement about the numbers and the number of people for whom it should go away , our side believing that it should be totally repealed , the other side believing that there are a certain number of people who should be exempt from paying this .  it is good to see that we have finally come together to recognize that the death tax is a killer for small businesses and family farms and ranches .  i am glad that that is a bipartisan agreement , and i am glad that this rule reflects that .  a wise man once joked that there is always death and taxes , but death does not get worse every year .  with the death tax in place , that is not true .  each year that passes , many family-owned farms and businesses are subject to this tax .  it is fundamentally unfair that death is a taxable event .  taxes have already been paid on the assets subject to the taxation under the death tax during the lifetime of the owners .  it amounts to a second bite of the apple for the government .  with the repeal of the tax , more small businesses and farms will stay in the hands of those families .  currently , the death tax is a leading cause of dissolution .  and we see this all the time in agriculture , that when the grandparents die they have to sell off a portion of the land so that the government gets their share so that they break up the very asset that made that farm what it was .  they eliminate the opportunity for that next generation to participate even though they worked on it themselves , growing up , paying their way through school , helping to support all of the family efforts .  that is a great cause of the loss of rural communities and small-time agriculture in this country , and i think that we can all agree that that is a shameful loss to our nation .  they form the backbone of our rural heritage .  the death tax is a virtue tax in the sense that it penalizes work , penalizes savings and thrift in favor of large-scale consumption .  in other words , if those same families had sold off everything and spent it , then they would not be subject to the death tax .  but the fact that they made a decision to hold something , to build it , to grow it so that their children and grandchildren might have a farm to continue to cultivate the bread basket for the world in , then they are taxed .  where is the fairness in that ?  mr. speaker , 87 percent of family businesses do not make it to the third generation .  unquestionably , the death tax plays a tremendous part in that statistic .  this is especially true of businesses that are land-rich and cash-poor .  that is what we call it in the south , mr. speaker , where you have all of your assets tied up in things .  you can not afford a brand-new car , you can not afford a brand-new tractor , you can not afford all the nicer things ; but yet on paper you are quite wealthy , because you purchased land , you gave value to that land as time passes .  mr. speaker , i urge that we adopt the rule and continue forward with the repeal of this scurrilous tax on death .  