[House Document 106-291]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                                     

106th Congress, 2d Session - - - - - - - - - - House Document 106-291


 
VETO MESSAGE OF H.R. 4810, THE MARRIAGE TAX RELIEF RECONCILIATION ACT 
                                OF 2000

                               __________

                                MESSAGE

                                  from

                   THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

                              TRANSMITTING

HIS VETO OF H.R. 4810, THE ``MARRIAGE TAX RELIEF RECONCILIATION ACT OF 
                                 2000''




  September 6, 2000.--Message and accompanying papers referred to the 
         Committee on Ways and Means and ordered to be printed
To the House of Representatives:
    I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 4810, the 
``Marriage Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2000,'' because it 
is poorly targeted and one part of a costly and regressive tax 
plan that reverses the principle of fiscal responsibility that 
has contributed to the longest economic expansion in history.
    My Administration supports marriage penalty relief and has 
offered a targeted and fiscally responsible proposal in our 
fiscal year 2001 budget to provide it. However, I must oppose 
H.R. 4810. Combined with the numerous other tax bills approved 
by the Congress this year and supported by the congressional 
majority for next year, it would drain away the projected 
surplus that the American people have worked so hard to create. 
Even by the Congressional Budget Office's more optimistic 
projection, this tax plan would plunge America back into 
deficit and would leave nothing for lengthening the life of 
Social Security or Medicare; nothing for voluntary and 
affordable Medicare prescription drug benefits; nothing for 
education and school construction. Moreover, the congressional 
majority's tax plan would make it impossible for us to get 
America out of debt by 2012.
    H.R. 4810 would cost more than $280 billion over 10 years 
if its provisions were permanent, making it significantly more 
expensive than either of the bills originally approved by the 
House and the Senate. It is poorly targeted toward delivering 
marriage penalty relief--only about 40 percent of the cost of 
H.R. 4810 actually would reduce marriage penalties. It also 
provides little tax relief to those families that need it most, 
while devoting a large fraction of its benefits to families 
with higher incomes.
    Taking into account H.R. 4810, the fiscally irresponsible 
tax cuts passed by the House Ways and Means Committee this year 
provide about as much benefit to the top 1 percent of Americans 
as to the bottom 80 percent combined. Families in the top 1 
percent get an average tax break of over $16,000, while a 
middle-class family gets only $220 on average. But if 
interestrates went up because of the congressional majority's plan by 
even one-third of one percent, then mortgage payments for a family with 
a $100,000 mortgage would go up by $270, leaving them worse off than if 
they had no tax cut at all.
    We should have tax cuts this year, but they should be the 
right ones, targeted to working families to help our economy 
grow--not tax breaks that will help only a few while putting 
our prosperity at risk. I have proposed a program of targeted 
tax cuts that will give a middle-class American family 
substantially more benefits than the Republican plan at less 
than half the cost. Including our carefully targeted marriage 
penalty relief, two-thirds of the relief will go to the middle 
60 percent of American families. Our tax cuts will also help to 
send our children to college, with a tax deduction or 28 
percent tax credit for up to $10,000 in college tuition a year; 
help to care for family members who need long-term care, 
through a $3,000 long-term care tax credit; help to pay for 
child care and to ease the burden on working families with 
three or more children; and help to fund desperately needed 
school construction.
    And because our plan will cost substantially less than the 
tax cuts passed by the Congress, we'll still have the resources 
we need to provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit; to 
extend the life of Social Security and Medicare; and to pay off 
the debt by 2012--so that we can keep interest rates low, keep 
our economy growing, and provide lower home mortgage, car, and 
college loan payments for the American people.
    This surplus comes from the hard work and ingenuity of the 
American people. We owe it to them to make the best use of it--
for all of them, and for our children's future.
    Since the adjournment of the Congress has prevented my 
return of H.R. 4810 within the meaning of Article I, section 7, 
clause 2 of the Constitution, my withholding of approval from 
the bill precludes its becoming law. The Pocket Veto Case, 279 
U.S. 655 (1929). In addition to withholding my signature and 
thereby invoking my constitutional power to ``power veto'' 
bills during an adjournment of the Congress, to avoid 
litigation, I am also sending H.R. 4810 to the House of 
Representatives with my objections, to leave no possible doubt 
that I have vetoed the measure.

                                                William J. Clinton.
    The White House, August 5, 2000.
    
    
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