DES MOINES, June 8: US President George W. Bush put election-year pressure on the Democratic-led Senate on Friday to make permanent a major element of his tax cut package by ensuring estate taxes were “forever buried.”

On the first anniversary of the signing of his $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut, the Republican president called for more relief, railing against “the death tax” — which Congress temporarily repealed — as unfair and nonsensical.

But he was stumped when it came to explaining why its repeal was not permanent under the bill he signed at the White House a year ago.

Finally we repealed the death tax but because of a quirk in the law that repeal isn’t permanent, Bush told farmers, community leaders and visitors to the 14th World Expo in Des Moines. It’s hard for me to explain why they repealed it but didn’t repeal it.

Under the law he signed, the estate tax gradually would go down from 55 per cent to 45 per cent — with the value of exempt estates rising to $3.5 million — until it disappears in 2010.

But Bush’s tax cut expires at the end of 2010 and without congressional action, the estate tax along with other taxes would be reinstated in 2011.

Republican backers of repeal argued it would be unfair to reinstate the estate tax after eliminating it for a short period of time.

Democrats argue that eliminating the estate tax would benefit the wealthiest of Americans while reducing federal revenues that could be used to help shore up the finances of Social Security or pay for a prescription drug program for elderly Americans.

It makes no sense to tax a person’s assets twice, and it makes no sense to have a tax that drives people off the farm, Bush said. For the good of American agriculture, let’s make sure that death tax is forever buried and forever done away with.

Bush also touched on other parts of his domestic agenda, including trade and energy policy that he argued would ensure a strong economy, along with tax cuts.

I believe that when you let a person keep his or her own money, they’re going to spend it, he said. And when they spend it, it increases demands for goods and services.

And with an increase of demand for goods and services, somebody has got to produce that good and service.

Despite new data showing the US unemployment rate fell to 5.8 per cent in May from 6 per cent in April, Bush said he was not satisfied.—Reuters