If we don't act now, the death tax will come back in just a few years. Under current law the death tax is phased out in 2010 but comes back in full force in 2011. That is a ridiculous and untenable policy.

As the Senator from Vermont was kind enough to note, I did have the experience of being commander in chief of our National Guard in Missouri for 8 years.

According to the Small Business Administration, more than 70 percent of all family businesses do not survive through the second generation, and 8 percent do not make it to a third.

We need to end permanently the tax that punishes American values of savings and investment and of building small businesses and family farms and ranches.

Our National Guard, as I think everybody knows, has provided about 40 percent of the boots on the ground in Iraq and in the conflict against Islamofascism. They went into that battle, being called up for their national security service, short of equipment.

Remember, we know the end of the story of World War II and the Cold War. But day by day, living in fear of the Nazis and then in fear of the Soviets, the outcome was by no means certain.

While I support immigration regulated through a legal framework, I do not support rewarding those who broke the law to get here.