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Copyright 2000 The San Diego Union-Tribune  
The San Diego Union-Tribune

September 8, 2000, Friday

SECTION: NEWS;Pg. A-16

LENGTH: 486 words

HEADLINE: House fails to override veto on estate tax

BYLINE: Judy Holland; HEARST NEWS SERVICE

BODY:
WASHINGTON -- The House failed yesterday to override President Clinton's veto of the estate tax repeal, giving Republicans what they say is a potent political issue to use against Democrats on the campaign trail.

The House tally of 274 to 157 was 14 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.

Republicans, who call the levy the "death tax," had proposed phasing it out over 10 years. They say it hurts farmers and small businesses, as well as people who died before they could do estate planning, by forcing their survivors to liquidate to pay a tax rate as high as 55 percent.

But in 1998, only 47,500 estates, 2 percent of the total, paid the tax, and most of the revenue came from estates worth more than $5 million.

Republicans appeared pleased despite the failure to override Clinton's Aug. 31 veto.

"It helps us build the case for the campaign," House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said after the vote. "The American people are going to see that the Democrats want to keep this money in Washington."

The House approved the bill in June with a veto-proof margin of 279 to 136, including 65 Democrats. Yesterday, 53 Democrats joined 220 Republicans and one independent in favor of the override.

Reps. Brian Bilbray, R-Imperial Beach; Randy Cunningham, R-Escondido; Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, and Ron Packard, R-Oceanside, voted with the majority. Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, voted against the override.

The Senate, voting 59 to 39, approved the repeal in July.

Clinton and congressional Democrats have offered a more modest proposal to reduce estate taxes for estates of less than $4 million, but Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash., quickly dismissed it.

"There is only one way to rid the code of this immoral, unfair and economically unsound tax, and that's to eliminate it," she said.

During the hour-long debate before the vote, Democrats said the GOP bill was a gift to rich families.

"Never have so many spent so much time to give so much money to so very few," said House Minority Whip David Bonior, D-Mich.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y., pleaded with Republicans to join with Democrats to pass a more moderate estate tax bill. "Republicans would rather have sound bites than sound tax policy," he said.

But supporters of the repeal, drawing on the "death tax" moniker, fired back.

"No taxation without respiration," said Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz. "Let's put this unfair death tax to death. It's unfair to have to visit the undertaker and the tax collector on the same day."

The current tax applies to estates worth more than $675,000, rising to $1 million by 2006, and $1.3 million for a family-owned farm or business.

According to congressional and White House estimates, the bill would have cost $105 billion in the first 10 years, as the tax was phased out, and then $750 billion in the decade after the repeal.



LOAD-DATE: September 11, 2000




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