{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://noem.house.gov/index.cfm/in-the-news?ContentRecord_id=902A1B57-F496-4F5C-BF79-099F3332B56C", "Rep. Kristi Noem: My father's tragic death and Hillary Clinton's tax plan", "2016-10-02", "2016", "2016-10", "Republican", "House", "SD", "Kristi Noem", "N000184", "noem.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "By Rep. Kristi Noem (Fox News) \r\n\tYou don\u2019t forget moments like this \u2013 the ones that come so unexpectedly, shoving a pit into your stomach.\u00a0 I was 21-years-old and nearing the due date for my husband Bryon and my first baby. That\u2019s when the phone call came: \u201cKristi, your dad is stuck in a grain bin.\u201d\u00a0 I knew instantly what it meant.\r\nBy the time I got to the farm, neighbors and friends had taken payloaders and ripped down the grain bin trying to find my dad.\u00a0 When they finally did, our neighbors started doing CPR until the EMTs took over.\u00a0 I followed the ambulance to the hospital with my family and the doctors fought to save him for hours.\u00a0 Nothing worked.\u00a0 That night, we lost my dad \u2013 this man who had seemed invincible to me.\r\nNot too long after the accident, while we were still trying to pick up the pieces, our family received a letter from the IRS.\u00a0 Because of this tragedy, one that undermined our sense of security, the death tax was now about to undermine our financial security.\r\nI could see that we had land that my dad started buying in high school and land my grandpa had bought decades before that.\u00a0 We had cattle and the machinery needed to farm the land and care for the cattle.\u00a0 But we didn\u2019t have enough money in the bank to pay what the IRS was asking.\r\nI couldn\u2019t imagine losing the farm my family had built. After all, it was my dad\u2019s dream to pass it on to us kids.\r\nThat\u2019s why he got up at the crack of dawn almost every morning. He wanted to give us the opportunity to farm together, if we wanted to.\r\n\r\n\r\nWe needed the machinery to continue the operation and I could hear my dad\u2019s voice telling me that selling land wasn\u2019t an option either.\u00a0 After all, I can\u2019t tell you how many times he said: \u201cDon\u2019t ever sell land.\u00a0 God isn\u2019t making any more.\u201d\r\n\r\n\r\nTo keep our family\u2019s American Dream going, we were fortunate enough to get a loan, albeit one so large that it impacted nearly every decision we made for a decade.\r\nI have never understood why the federal government thought it was appropriate to go after families with this double tax \u2013 especially in a time of crisis.\u00a0 My family had already paid taxes on the equipment, the land, and any other assets.\u00a0 Now, we had to pay taxes on it again because my dad had died.\u00a0 It\u2019s not right.\r\nThis month, Hillary Clinton proposed a dramatic 65 percent increase to the death tax, pushing it to the highest point since 1981. She justifies this as a tax on the 1 percent, but all too often it is small businesses and family farms that are put into jeopardy for a few days\u2019 worth of government spending.\u00a0\r\nEarlier this fall, the House Ways and Means Committee offered a blueprint for tax reform designed to grow families\u2019 paychecks, the workforce, and the American economy.\u00a0 In doing so, we worked to shrink the tax burden for every family and streamline the tax code to make it more simple and fair.\u00a0 This includes eliminating damaging add-on taxes \u2013 most notably, the death tax.\r\nNo family should have to go through what ours did.\u00a0 Clinton\u2019s proposal is a tax on the American Dream during a time of tragedy.\u00a0 Hardworking Americans deserve better.\r\n\r\nRep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) was first elected to serve as South Dakota\u2019s lone Member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. She was re-elected to a third term in the House in 2014. She currently serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. Kristi is also a wife, mother, experienced rancher, farmer and small business owner.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://noem.house.gov/index.cfm/in-the-news?ContentRecord_id=902A1B57-F496-4F5C-BF79-099F3332B56C"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9567509405314922, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}