[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 22, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H4674-H4675]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELLER. Madam Speaker, this is an important year. As I look back 
over the last few years and the challenges that we have, and of course 
there have been big challenges, doing some things we were told we could 
not do, I remember when I was first elected in 1994 we came to 
Washington to change how Washington works. There was a group of us in 
the majority here, and all of us were committed to doing some things 
there were those who told us we could not do, balancing the budget, 
cutting taxes for the middle class, reforming our welfare system, 
taming the tax collectors. But by sticking together and being 
persistent, we accomplished those very great challenges.
  We balanced the budget for the first time in 2 years, we cut taxes 
for the first time in 16 years. In fact, in Illinois, my home State, 3 
million Illinois children now benefit from the $500 per child tax 
credit. When we think about that, that is $1.5 million that now stays 
in Illinois, rather than coming to Washington to be spent. I personally 
think that the folks back home can better spend their hard-earned 
dollars in Illinois than I can for them in Washington.
  On welfare reform, the first real welfare reform in a generation is 
working so well that in my home State of Illinois we have now seen our 
welfare rolls cut in half.
  When it comes to taming the tax collector, we enacted a very 
fundamental change with IRS reform. If Members have ever been audited 
or gone to court with IRS in the past, they treated one as guilty until 
proven innocent. But thanks to this Republican Congress, we now have 
the same rights in the IRS that we have in the courtroom; that is, we 
are innocent until the IRS proves us guilty.
  Now we have some big challenges before us again this year, some 
challenges that the folks particularly on this side of the aisle say 
cannot be done. Republicans want to strengthen our local schools and 
make them safer. We want to strengthen social security and Medicare. In 
fact, we want to lock away for the first time in 30 years 100 percent 
of the social security surplus, so it is used only for social security. 
We want to pay down the national debt. We also want to continue working 
to lower the tax burden on middle class working families.
  I believe, Madam Speaker, this year as we work to lower the tax 
burden on the middle class that we should listen to those concerns that 
I hear in the union halls and the South Side of Chicago and the south 
suburbs, in the VFW and local coffee shops and grain elevators.
  Not only do people feel their taxes are too high, but they feel the 
Tax Code is too complicated, it needs to be simplified, and that the 
Tax Code is really unfair. I believe the first place we should start as 
we work to make our Tax Code fairer and more simpler is to address the 
most unfair consequence of today's Tax Code. That is something that has 
been nicknamed today the marriage tax penalty.
  Why it is so important that we address this, this particular 
important issue that affects working middle class families, is to ask a 
series of questions. That is, do Americans feel that it is fair, do 
Americans feel that it is right, that a married working couple with two 
incomes pays on average $1,400 more in higher taxes just because they 
are married? Do Americans feel it is right, do Americans feel that it 
is fair, that 21 million married working couples, on average, pay 
$1,400 more in higher taxes just because they are married?
  It is just plain wrong that a married working couple pays $1,400 more 
in higher taxes than an identical couple living together outside of 
marriage. That is wrong. The marriage tax penalty on average is $1,400. 
Back home in the South suburbs and in the South side of Chicago that is 
one year's tuition at a junior college, a local community college. It 
is 3 months in day care. It is several months worth of car payments. It 
is real money to real people, and it is just wrong that under our Tax 
Code married working couples pay more just because they are married.
  Let me give an example here of a south suburban couple on the south 
suburbs of Chicago. We have a machinist, who of course works at the 
Joliet Caterpillar Plant making that big equipment. He makes $30,500 a 
year.
  Under our current Tax Code, if he is single and files as a single 
taxpayer, after we subtract the standard deduction and exemption, if he 
makes $30,500, he is in the 15 percent tax bracket. But if he meets and 
decides

[[Page H4675]]

that he wants to get married to a schoolteacher with an identical 
income, and her income is $30,500, of course, she is in the 15 percent 
tax bracket if she is single and stays single, but if she decides to 
marry this machinist their combined income is $61,000 because they file 
jointly, which pushes them into the 28 percent tax bracket.
  With the marriage tax penalty, they pay on average the almost $1,400 
in marriage tax penalty if they choose to get married. If they choose 
not to, they do not pay that marriage tax penalty.
  Madam Speaker, the Marriage Tax Elimination Act has 230 cosponsors, a 
majority of this House. Let us make elimination of the marriage tax 
penalty our number one priority as we work to lower taxes for American 
families. Let us simplify to make the Tax Code fair to eliminate the 
marriage tax penalty.

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