[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 28, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H1492-H1493]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to continue this discussion on 
taxes and talk about another tax that has been proposed to be 
alleviated by the Republican tax relief plan. That is the marriage tax 
penalty. If a young couple today gets married, they pay more taxes 
together married than they would if they lived with each other. I will 
walk through an example.
  If you have a young woman who is making $20,000 and a young man who 
is making $20,000 a year, roughly they each pay about $4,000 in taxes. 
So their combined income, their combined tax liability, is $8,000. That 
is living together. They put on one of these little wedding bands here 
and get their relationship blessed by the Lord, and then that tax 
burden comes at a rate based on not $20,000 in income but $40,000 in 
income, and their total tax liability jumps from $8,000 to about 
$12,000 because they are now in a higher tax bracket.
  Mr. Speaker, what sense is behind that? What is wrong with trying to 
correct that? It not only applies to young people, but senior citizens. 
Here we are, we have a society that is condoning such an absurd, 
ridiculous tax policy. If society believes in the institution of 
marriage, then we need to address the marriage tax penalty, which is 
exactly 

[[Page H1493]]
what the Republican Party in their tax relief plan has done.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth].
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from 
Georgia, for another real-life example of what could be called one of 
the one million and one absurdities of our current Tax Code. Let me 
offer another, mindful of one of our Founding Fathers, Mr. Franklin, or 
Dr. Franklin I suppose we should say, with his capabilities, as he was 
often referred to, who talked about only two certains in this life: 
death and taxes. And it is worth noting that we as Americans are taxed 
in death obscenely by this government. Estate taxes are so confiscatory 
and so patently unfair that they are akin to allowing one's estate to 
be plundered, not allowing those benefits to go to children and 
rightful heirs, but instead making everyone's uncle, Uncle Sam, the 
chief beneficiary. That is wrong. That must change.
  I am pleased that some of our colleagues in the freshman class and 
others in the new majority, working with some like-minded folks on the 
other side of the aisle, are willing to move now for significant 
reforms that allow estate taxes to be lowered, so not only in this 
passage of life so important to marriage and building a family, but 
then as the family continues when one's earthly life ends, families are 
cared for. That is vitally important, too, and it is part and parcel of 
the fact that we must reform essentially our Tax Code, our tax laws, to 
allow Americans to save, spend, and invest more of their own money, 
instead of forcing Americans to dig into their wallets and send more 
and more and more money to this Federal Government.
  Indeed, in the spirit of bipartisanship, we should note what Mr. 
Jefferson called for, what his ideal was at the outset of this Nation. 
Mr. Jefferson called for a limited but effective government, and part 
and parcel of that is allowing the American worker to realize his 
dream, to hold onto more of his money, and send less of it here.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I want to make it 
abundantly clear to anybody who heard you say, Thomas Jefferson was not 
a Democrat. He was a Democrat Republican, and the party that he stood 
for has no reflection to today's Democrat party. Do not insult Thomas 
Jefferson.

  I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Jon Fox.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I am appealing to the good sense of 
bipartisanship, as we have so many friends here on the other side.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Do not call Thomas Jefferson a Democrat.
   Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Jon 
Fox.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, what is also important is that 
we need the innovation. What has happened in this Congress which I 
think is also significant is the fact we talked about rolling back the 
1993 Social Security tax on our seniors and allowing seniors to earn 
more. They were capped at $11,200. By our legislation they will be able 
to earn more without deductions from Social Security tax. I think that 
is important in order to free people up, give them the independence and 
let them decide what to do with their own money.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct. Right now. 
Seniors who decide to keep working are penalized $1 on their Social 
Security for every $3 they earn in the workplace. What a ridiculous Tax 
Code that we have.
  Let me speak about another thing. You mentioned the family, the 
different phases of life. As I listen to this, we know already that 77 
percent of the people who will benefit from tax relief have a combined 
family income of $75,000 or less.

                              {time}  2230

  And yet we are making it also clear that it helps young people, helps 
seniors, and it helps middle-income, it helps families with children.
  Getting back to my UPS truck driver with three kids, under my 
proposal he will get a $1,500 tax credit, $500 for each kid. That is 
$1,500 in his pocket.
  Now let us say, on the other hand, we say do not do that; let us 
increase minimum wage 50 cents. We increase minimum wage 50 cents, 
which might come out to $1,000 more a year in income. It is not a net 
income figure, because he still pays taxes on that. So it comes to 
about $600.
  If you give the American worker a choice between increasing the 
minimum wage and a $500 per child tax credit, $500 per child tax 
credit, it puts more money in the pocket of the American worker, and 
that is why I am baffled by anyone in this Chamber who would vote 
against that.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Having been somewhat chastened for my interpretation of 
history and mindful of my good friend's admonishment, let me also point 
out something else. It applies not only to the UPS truck driver but to 
literally the millions of single mothers here. Imagine, a single mother 
with three children, $1,500 in her pocket. What would that mean? I 
think it would mean a lot.

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