Congressman Dick Gephardt, who used to represent Missouri, took a break from campaigning today to pay homage to the late great Bob Hope, who died at the age of 100. Gephardt personally contacted Hope's family to offer his condolences, and urge them to quickly settle Hope's estate. With a net worth estimated anywhere between $100 Million and $1 Billion, the government stands to make quite a financial windfall with the death tax.

"If we get that money before the end of the year, we might be able to extend child tax credits to the working poor, who didn't win life's lottery like Mr. Hope," claimed Gephardt. The congressman also said that if elected president, he'd do executive orders to make sure that the super rich didn't ignore their patriotic duty to pay the death tax, when it sunsets for one year in 2010.