mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman for yielding me time .  i thank the gentleman for his leadership on this issue .  i think it is important that we spend a moment or two and talk about how we got here , why do we have a death tax and what is its consequence ; what is the fundamental we are talking about .  the death tax began in 1916 in order to fund world war i , a noble cause but a cause that has long since passed .  it remained through the 1920s and 1930s under the rationale that we should prevent the accumulation of wealth , an issue more than addressed with our current anti-trust laws .  the death tax has become a harmful relic of previous times .  it survives through the inertia of government and now has the consequence of punishing hard work and success .  it harms families , and it kills small businesses .  families should not have to visit the undertaker and the tax collector on the very same day .  the death tax is fundamentally unfair and violates what should be our principle of freedom and liberty and the imperative of personal property rights .  freedom and liberty demand that hard-working americans be able to leave their children and their grandchildren the results of their diligence and their success and not have washington get a windfall .  i urge all of my colleagues to act positively today on behalf of all americans and let the death tax die for good .  