CRAMER VOTES TO OVERRIDE PRESIDENT’S VETO ON ESTATE TAX REPEAL

Washington, D.C. – Today the House of Representatives held a vote to override the President’s veto of the estate tax. Unfortunately, the vote did not get the 2/3 majority needed to override the veto, but Congress sent a strong message to the President that repealing the estate tax is still a top priority of Congress. The vote was 274-157.

“I was not pleased when I heard about the President’s veto,” said Cramer. “This tax is just plain unfair. I’ve been talking to my farmers about this for years. It’s punitive and when there are good times we should reform this tax – it just makes common sense.”

Cramer continued, “We might not have succeeded in overriding the President today, but we did succeed in communicating our support for the repeal of the estate tax. This is something we are not going to back down on and I will continue to fight for relief for the rest of this session and to put it at the top of our agenda when we return. I want the most complete relief possible.”

Cramer helped draft the Small Business Tax Fairness Act, which included $122 billion of tax cuts, 2/3 of which goes towards estate tax relief. This bill, which passed the House in March, also helps offset the cost of a minimum wage increase for small businesses. 

Cramer was also a co-sponsor of the bi-partisan “Marriage Penalty Tax Relief Act of 2000” and voted to pass the bill which provides relief for married couples from the marriage penalty. It also increases the standard deduction and phase-out limit for the Earned Income Tax Credit.

He serves as the chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 30 conservative Democrats, dedicated to fiscal discipline and finding consensus solutions. The Blue Dogs offer a budget alternative each year that takes a fiscally responsible approach to the budget by paying down the debt, preserving Social Security and providing targeted tax cuts such as the elimination of the Marriage Penalty and Estate Tax Relief.