Congressional Record, Volume 146 Issue 7 (Wednesday, February 2, 2000)

[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 7 (Wednesday, February 2, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H193-H199]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

ELIMINATING THE MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, my topic today will be exactly the topic
that the gentleman prior to me spoke about, the elimination of the
marriage tax penalty. And, in a way, I am glad he came and spoke to us
about that, because the point he made is we have to do this within the
context of a balanced budget. But he talked about a surplus of $1.8
trillion over the next 10 years. The bill that is being marked up today
in committee, which is a bipartisan bill, the Weller-McIntosh-Danner
Marriage Penalty Elimination Bill, that will impact that budget only by
one-tenth of that projected surplus, or $180 billion.
So I say to my colleagues that I disagree with the gentleman from
Minnesota (Mr. Minge). We must move forward now, in fact, we should
have done it yesterday, to eliminate this marriage penalty in our Tax
Code.
Now, there are organized lobbies for all the other things he
mentioned. There are organized lobbies for payments to hospitals,
payments to farmers; there are organized lobbies for tax credits to
businesses; there are organized lobbies that petition us daily to spend
money on all of that reflected on his pie chart. But there are no
organized lobbies here in Washington saying protect families from
having to pay an additional burden on their taxes.
I want to thank my cosponsors, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Weller) and the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Danner), for helping me
to create the bipartisan momentum so that this Congress now can finally
do something for those families. We do not have to wait. We should not
wait. We know what needs to get done.
Now, let me share with my colleagues during this hour some of the
complex parts of this marriage penalty, and then I want to also
introduce some of our friends and colleagues who have been supporters
of it. But I want to start this with a reflection of 3 years ago. Three
years ago this month I received a letter that changed my career in
Congress. It was a letter from a constituent of mine talking about how
the marriage penalty affected her and urging me to do something about
it. And that changed my priorities on what I was going to fight for
here in Washington, and I have been fighting to eliminate that marriage
penalty really ever since I got that letter.
So I want to share with my colleagues now, 3 years later, what a
young lady from my Congressional District, a young lady named Sharon
Mallory, wrote to me that got me thinking about our priorities here.
She said, ``Dear Representative McIntosh: My boyfriend, Darryl Pierce,
and I have been living together for quite some time. We would very much
like to get married. We both work at the Ford Electronics in
Connersville.'' It is a factory there. ``We both make less than $10 an
hour, however, we try to work overtime whenever it is available, and
also Darryl does some farming on the side.''

{time} 1400

So my colleagues can see Sharon and Darryl are your typical middle-
class working family. She goes on to say, ``I can't tell you how
disgusted we both are over this tax issue. If we get married, not only
would I forfeit my $900 tax refund check, we would be writing a check
to the IRS for $2,800. This amount was figured for us by an accountant
at the local H&R Block office in New Castle.
``Now, there is nothing right about this. After we continually hear
government preach to us about family values. Nothing new about the
hypocrites in Washington.'' As my colleagues can see, Sharon had some
harsh words for us here, ``Why don't we do away with the current tax
system? It is old and outdated, antiquated.
``The flat tax is the most sensible method to use, and no one is
being penalized; everyone would be treated the same. I don't understand
how the government can ask such questions as are you single? Are you
married? Do you have any dependents? Employers, bankers, realtors and
creditors are forbidden by law to ask these questions. The same should
apply to the government.''
This is what really got my attention, I have to share with my
colleagues when I read this letter, ``Darryl and I would very much like
to be married. And I must say it broke our hearts when we found out we
cannot afford it. We hope some day, some day, the government will allow
us to get married by not penalizing us, Sharon Mallory and Darryl
Pierce.''
As I said, that letter changed my life, because it changed the
priorities that I have in working here in Washington. I brought Sharon
and Darryl out here to a hearing a few years ago. They shared with my
colleagues the penalty that is stopping them from getting married. They
shared with the Speaker the plight they had. He became a cosponsor of
our bill.
My fondest hope is when I return home after this session of Congress
I can get together with Sharon and Darryl and say we did it; we
eliminated the marriage penalty tax for you and married couples all
over this country.
Now, let me introduce a gentleman who has been waiting very patiently
today to join us in this special order, a colleague of mine who has a
lot of experience and wisdom about how this process works.
I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) to talk about
this issue.
(Mr. SKEEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)

[[Page H194]]

Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana
for yielding to me to speak in support of H.R. 6, the Marriage Tax
Penalty Relief Act of the year 2000.
Americans, I think, have spoken loud and clear on this issue. I have
heard from several of my constituents in Southern New Mexico who feel
that the current tax on married couples is blatantly unfair.
During their marriage ceremony, couples say ``I do'' to a lifetime of
love and devotion, not higher taxes.
The institution of marriage is the foundation of our country's past,
its present, and its future. It is hard to imagine our Nation having a
tax code and structure which unfairly taxes those who get married and
have a family. That is not right, and it is very unfair.
It is time to end the marriage tax penalty. In fact, our current Tax
Code punishes working couples by pushing them into higher tax brackets,
taxing the income of the second wage earner at a much higher rate than
individuals who are unmarried.
On average, this penalty amounts to almost $1,400 per year, more than
enough to pay for a Roth or Education IRA account, buy a family
computer with an Internet highway ramp, pay some mortgage payments on
the family home, or buy important necessities for the family home such
as clothes and food.
This unfair tax most often hits middle-income Americans, people who
earn from $25,000 per year to $75,000 per year.
In the State of the Union message to Congress last week, the
President proposed abolishing this tax over the next 10 years. Folks,
our families cannot wait that long.
Mr. Speaker, by acting now, we will prevent even more working couples
from being punished in the future. By acting now, we will help working
couples keep more of their own money, each year helping American
families make their dream come true.
By acting now, it will end this unfair tax which penalizes married
couples.
I have already added my strong support to the Marriage Tax Penalty
Relief Act of 2000. I call for all of my colleagues to support this
bill as soon as it reaches the floor of the House of Representatives.
We can do no less to right this wrong. I thank the gentleman for the
time he has yielded and for the interest he has shown in letting young
people be young people, but married, and for strengthening this
country.
Mr. McINTOSH. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) and
thank him for his support of this bill. It means a lot to me.
Mr. SKEEN. It is a pleasure.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, let me also yield to a colleague of mine.
Although, we are on opposite sides of the aisle, and that sometimes
means you do not get to work closely together with each other, but
someone who I have come to admire greatly. We shared an office down the
hall from each other.
I know in her heart she cares about people. She cares about families.
She has been good enough to join us as one of the lead cosponsors on
this bill, making it a strong bipartisan bill.
I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. Danner).
(Ms. DANNER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her
remarks.)
Ms. DANNER. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank my
colleague for the courtesy of asking me to be the Democrat lead
cosponsor. I am pleased to be able to do that because I feel very
strongly about this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I know that other speakers have talked about this issue,
we have heard several already, about the benefits of eliminating the
marriage tax penalty.
Today, I would like to share with my colleagues and with the public
Missouri's experience, my home State's experience, and, indeed,
Missouri's leadership on this issue.
My colleague, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) mentioned
marriage and taking the vows. When the minister utters that phrase
``for better or worse,'' although the couple does not realize it at the
time, that phrase applies to how they are going to file their State and
Federal income tax. Obviously, they are thinking of something else at
that moment in time. But that will come home to haunt them, I am
afraid, ``the better or worse'' with regard to the tax issue. For some
taxpayers, it is better than for others.
These are the couples who file in a State which, like my home State
of Missouri, permit married couples to file separately on the same tax
form.
Despite the loss of revenue that has been mentioned before when
people are not paying in as singles but paying in as a married couple,
once again, my State of Missouri has consistently been able to refund
money to those who pay State income tax.
Missouri is known, I think many of my colleagues know, as the ``Show
Me'' State. And I think it has shown the Federal Government that there
should be and is fairness and equity in the way our State income tax
system addresses the issue of taxes levied upon married couples.
Married couples filing in Missouri have two options. They can file
jointly or separately, using whichever option imposes the least amount
of taxes upon their income. That is, I think, as it should be.
Many years ago, Missouri's General Assembly, where I served proudly
as a State senator for 10 years, so I know a bit about Missouri's
General Assembly, gave couples relief from the marriage penalty; and
last year our State still provided income tax payers with a refund.
I believe that the Congress can and should do no less than to afford
those who pay the Federal income tax the same option that Missourians
have, to file a tax return that causes them the least amount of taxes
to be paid.
Once again, I thank my colleague. It is a pleasure to join with him
in this very, very worthwhile piece of legislation, a piece of
legislation that he and I and literally hundreds of our colleagues who
have signed onto H.R. 6 know will benefit the people that we serve.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms.
Danner) for her leadership on this.
There were a lot of skeptics when we first started. Does it make a
difference? How can we fit it into the budget with our other
priorities? And she was instrumental in helping us build a bipartisan
body of support for that and convincing many of our colleagues that
this needs to be a priority.
I suppose I am quite confident that her leadership on that helped
this year with the President's support for Congress doing something to
eliminate the marriage penalty, and that is important that we get
everybody behind this.
Ms. DANNER. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I was very excited
about in the State of the Union address was the fact that the President
did include that. And so, it shows you, it shows me, it shows our
colleagues that we have some mutual interests there and that what we
have to do is bring these two bills, his ideas and our ideas, to some
kind of a mutual agreement that we can all support.
And I have been reading several things lately that indicate to me
that the executive branch is very, very willing to work with those of
us in the legislative branch to accomplish that purpose.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments,
and her participation helps enormously.
I know what it is like to be working in an executive branch and to
wonder if a Congress controlled by the other party is doing what is
right or trying to do something that gets a political advantage. And I
think when they see leadership from someone of her stature and her
caring on the same political side, they realize that this is what is
good for Americans, it is not about politics; it is what is good for
Americans.
So her leadership in that way will bring a lot towards getting this
bill passed, and I thank her for that.
Ms. DANNER. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to work with my colleague
on this.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, let me share with my colleagues and folks
who may be watching. They may ask themselves, how did we get into this
position of having a marriage penalty tax. Surely, Congress never voted
to suddenly start taxing marriage. And to be honest, it happened very
quietly, very subtly that people did not really focus on around here.

[[Page H195]]

For 30 years now, there have been two things in the Tax Code that
ultimately effectively created that marriage penalty tax. The first is
that there is a difference in the amount they get as a standard
deduction.
If they are two single people, both of them earning a living, living
together, not living together, they get a standard deduction that is
about $4,200. We would think that would double, so it would be $8,500.
If they get married, they only qualify for a standard deduction of
$7,100. So there is a $1,400 difference in the amount they get as a
standard deduction off their taxes. That means they end up paying more
taxes when they get married.
The second way that this marriage penalty has crept into our tax
system is through the bracket creep. If they are both earning, say,
$30,000, the gentleman may be a carpenter who earns $30,000 and he
marries a young lady who is a teacher who is earning $30,000, they both
pay as single people in the 15 percent bracket. That is how much their
tax burden is, 15 percent of their income after they adjust for the
deductions. If they get married, they get thrown into a higher tax
bracket because then they are making $60,000 together.
And because those brackets are not doubled, where if they are two
people they get twice as much before they get kicked into the next
bracket, they effectively pay a higher rate on their combined income
just because they are married. Those are the two major ways in which
our Tax Code ends up inflicting a marriage penalty tax.
Now it affects 40 million families in this country. It affects them
on average by asking them to pay $1,400 more just because they are
married.
Let me share with my colleagues what does our bill do, what H.R. 6,
the Weller-McIntosh-Danner bill, does to relieve that marriage penalty.
First, it immediately equalizes that difference on the standard
deduction. So that, beginning in 2001, if they are a single person,
their standard deduction is $4,250. If they are married and filing
jointly, they get double that for two people. No difference, no
marriage penalty in the standard deduction starting immediately.
Second, it phases in a gradual increase in the 15-percent bracket
cutoff. So that when they are married, they do not ultimately get
thrown into a higher tax bracket, at least for that 15-percent level.
That, by the way, helps all taxpayers. Because we all pay some of our
income at 15 percent. If we make more, we pay the rest of it at a
higher rate.
The third thing it does is it increases the beginning point of a
phase-out of the marriage penalty for those working families that are
at the low end of the scale and they are getting earned income tax
credit.
What it essentially does is, say they are a single dad and they are
working in a low-income wage, minimum wage, and they are a single mom
also making minimum wage, if they start a new family together, they
will give up what the Government helps them with earned income tax
credit. And a lot of times they go from receiving an earned income tax
credit to paying more in income taxes.

{time} 1415

So it is a true burden on those who can least afford to pay it. Our
bill gives them an extra $2,000 of leeway in that program on the earned
income tax credit.
Mr. Speaker, I notice that one of our colleagues who has been a
strong supporter of eliminating the marriage penalty and sits on the
important committee to help us make sure we can afford to do that in
the rest of the budget is with us.
I yield to my good friend and colleague the gentleman from Georgia
(Mr. Kingston).
Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding to me.
I want to commend him on his work for what he is doing. It is amazing
that in this society where our government has all kinds of rules,
regulations and taxes to encourage and to discourage certain behaviors,
that here we have really a frontal assault on married couples all over
America, saying that if you get married, we are going to penalize you.
If you want to just live together, it is no problem, we will not
increase your taxes.
It is ridiculous when we think about the importance of marriage as an
institution for our economic stability, for our social stability,
really as a way to continue the race, if you will, marriage is a
profound institution. Here we are talking about two potential plans.
One plan basically almost gives you a car payment, a monthly car
payment, $210. The kind of bombs that I drive, you cannot even get
financing on, but if you could $210 would certainly pay for it. The
other one is good for maybe 3 months' worth of house payments, to say
to a married couple, we want to help you and here is one worthy place
because you are going to need a house, to put that money, that makes
sense. Serving 28 million people versus 9 million people. I think that
it is proper for us to aggressively try to help as many married couples
as possible and not try to take the Washington approach where, yes, if
you vote for this lesser plan, you can leave Washington and you can go
back home to the Rotary clubs and the Kiwanis clubs, the folks in your
church and synagogue and say, ``Oh, yeah, I'm a strong supporter of the
marriage tax penalty,'' because technically you can. But there is an
old expression we used to say in the Georgia legislature, it is like
holding up a little fish and saying, ``Hold still, little fish, I'm not
going to do anything but gut you.'' That is what the administration and
the Democrat proposal does. Yes, it is a marriage tax penalty relief
bill but it basically guts the entire intent of it. It does not help a
broad spectrum of people and it does not give any real help to those it
can. It is ironic that those who a few years ago were laughing at our
$500 per child tax credit, saying what is that going to do to help
people, now want to have full election-year bragging rights on a $210
tax credit. It does not make sense. I plan to support the legislation
that the gentleman from Indiana is cosponsoring. I encourage him to
keep up the good work.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, let me share with the gentleman from
Georgia and my colleagues the chart that I have next to me that really
shows the differences between the President's proposal and our
Republican congressional proposal. Let me say at the outset, I was
happy that President Clinton put that on the agenda in the State of the
Union address, because now we have gotten over the threshold question
on both sides of the aisle, of do we do anything to help married
families. For a long time, there was resistance for doing anything
about this. So it is a step in the right direction that President
Clinton has come forward with this proposal. But I think we could do
much better.
On the left-hand side of this chart, we see the details about
President Clinton's marriage penalty plan. It is $45 billion in tax
relief over 10 years. The Republican plan is four times that, $180
billion in tax relief. To put that in context, as the gentleman from
Minnesota (Mr. Minge) pointed out, over those same 10 years, we have 10
times that, or $1.8 trillion in projected surplus. So this is a drop in
the bucket when we are dealing with the surpluses we are expecting here
in Washington.

The second line shows that the total relief is limited, it is capped
in the President's proposal to $210 per couple. That is less than half
of that $500 per child tax credit that we passed, and much less than
half of the total burden that the average married couple will pay when
they are hit with a marriage penalty.
The Republican plan gives relief up to $1,400 per couple, roughly
seven times the President's does if you are at that maximum level.
The third point is that if you look at what the President has done,
he has eliminated just one of the two major causes of the marriage
penalty. His proposal is to double that standard deduction, eliminate
that first problem we talked about. But he does nothing about the
brackets, and the fact that you get thrown into a higher tax bracket
when both the husband and the wife are working and earning income. He
also does not do it right away. He phases it in over that 10-year
period. Our proposal is to eliminate that standard deduction problem
immediately, so that in 2001, there is no difference, if you are
married or if you are single, everybody gets the same standard
deduction. Then we go beyond that and we start to tackle that problem
of

[[Page H196]]

the differences in the tax brackets, so that over the 10-year period,
we have equalized the difference in the 15 percent tax bracket. That is
the tax bracket that most working middle-class Americans have to pay.
Right now if you are a working-class family where you are earning
$30,000, the husband is, and the wife is earning another $30,000, you
would stay in that 15 percent bracket if you were divorced or if you
were single, two individual people, but the minute you get married,
part of your income gets thrown into that higher bracket, the 28
percent bracket. You start to be treated as somebody in the upper
middle class would be taxed. And so we would phase out that difference
and allow everybody to have relief from that tax bracket creep.
The fourth point on the chart shows who would be helped by this.
Under the President's plan, only those individuals who use the short
form, or the 1040-EZ form, would benefit. By the way, they do not
benefit by very much at the beginning. Ten years from now, they get the
full benefit when that standard deduction is equalized. Our proposal
helps all families who are hit with the marriage penalty, whether you
use a short form, an EZ form or whether you deduct. A lot of homeowners
have to deduct, because that is the only way that they can take that
deduction for interest on their mortgage. Under the President's plan,
they do not qualify for any kind of marriage penalty relief. Under our
plan, they would get equal treatment. And then the bottom line there
shows how many people would be benefited by the two plans. Under
President Clinton's plan, only 9 million Americans would be affected by
this.
I am not saying that is bad. We need to help those 9 million
Americans, and I am delighted that the President has put this on the
table in his State of the Union address. But our plan goes way beyond
that. We help three times the number of Americans who are married,
earning a living, trying to save for the future for their children. The
reason I brought this chart out here is it is easy to see for me, by
far, the best plan is the one that we are going to be producing on the
floor of this House, the Weller-McIntosh-Danner bill that the committee
is marking up. We need to step back and look at this and say, Let's do
something real. Let's not do a kind of cheap thrills, down-and-dirty
version where we get political credit. Let's do something that helps
people who are being hit with this marriage penalty.
What does all of this mean for the average family? We talk about
budgets of $1.8 trillion, we talk about an impact of a bill of $180
billion over 10 years. But what does it really mean for an average
family in this country? The average family with two incomes, when our
bill is fully in force, will have $1,400 more in income. That is 3
months of child care. That is a semester of tuition at a community
college. It is 4 months of the typical car payment. It can buy school
clothes and supplies for children. It can pay for a family vacation. It
helps with escalating health insurance premiums. For some families it
lets them keep a down payment. I got some e-mails from people who told
me when they were first married, they had saved two or $3,000, and then
they did their taxes and suddenly found they had to pay all of that in
extra income taxes and so their savings account that they had saved up
hoping that they would be able to afford a down payment on a house as a
newly married young couple suddenly was not there for them anymore.
This tax relief will make a big difference on the bottom line for the
average American family.

The marriage penalty is particularly bad for women. I often think of
it as the women's discriminatory tax provision, because what happens is
for many women in our society, they begin with a career, and then at
some point in their life, they start a family. They make a choice. Some
people do not have this choice but many make the choice of scaling
back, or stopping working for a period of time to raise their children.
When their children are old enough, they may want to go back into the
workforce and have a chance once again to pick up their careers. Today
if they do that and this marriage penalty tax is on the books, they get
hit effectively with a 50 percent marginal income tax rate, because all
of that tax comes out of that additional income.
The demographic statistics from CBO show that almost three-quarters
of America's families are two-earner couples. Obviously a record number
of women are deciding to pursue their careers and enter the workforce.
It is wrong that we have a tax provision, an antiquated tax provision
that penalizes and discriminates against women who want to contribute
to their family income.
The marriage penalty is also disproportionately burdensome for
minorities. African Americans are particularly devastated by the
marriage tax. The marriage penalty occurs when both spouses work and
make roughly the same income. Women in black families have historically
entered the workforce in much larger numbers and earn a much larger
percentage of the household income than society as a whole. In fact, 73
percent of the married black women are breadwinners and black women
contribute approximately 40 percent of their household income. That is
a much higher percentage than the typical family in our society. They
are paying more taxes when they are married and contributing to that
family income. Our legislation will bring fairness back to that, so
that minorities will not be hit with this unfair marriage penalty tax.
One of the things that people ask me is, ``Will it make a difference?
You have talked about needing the strength in families and one of the
reasons you bring this bill to the House floor is so that we can
strengthen families, but does it make a difference? You cannot tell me
that $1,400 really makes a difference in what people do in their family
life.''
I wish that were the case. Statistics show that financial difficulty
is the number one reason for breakdowns of families in our society.
I want to share with my colleagues an e-mail that I received. I have
received over 1,000 of them since we started 3 years ago on this
crusade to eliminate the marriage penalty tax. This one came from a
young man from Virginia, a young man named Tom Flynn. I will share with
my colleagues what he had to say about this:
``I am a very concerned young taxpayer who has been married for just
over 2 years.'' He wrote this in 1997. ``I am 26 years old and my wife
turns 25 in December. I cannot accurately estimate how much my wife and
I have been penalized by the marriage penalty since we just got
married. However, judging by the information you have posted on your
website, we certainly fit the category of those affected by this
outrage. My wife and I will now make approximately $70,000 in combined
income. We are trying to save as much as we can but it seems that we
just get by paying bill after bill month after month. Regardless, taxes
are killing my wife and I and many other young people just like us. We
hope to start a family next year. But are afraid to do so because we
feel we are not financially ready. When is Congress going to keep its
promise and deliver some real tax relief to people like my wife and
me?''
One of the things that we also received is an e-mail from a young
gentleman, also from Virginia, Andrew Barrington, who described what
happened in his life. They, too, had been married a little over 2
years. He goes on to say in his e-mail, ``We grew up together and began
dating when we were 18. After dating for 3 years, we decided that the
next natural step in our lives together would be to get married. I
cannot tell you how much joy that has brought us. But I must tell you
that the tax penalty that was inflicted on us has been the only real
source of pain that our marriage has suffered. The first year we paid
taxes and it was bad, but we were able to get on top of it and pay for
those taxes. The second year was more, and more than we could have ever
expected, and we are still paying the government monthly for it. It
scares us what next year will hold for us as far as taxes are
concerned. By the time we finish paying this year's taxes, we will need
to start all over again. If last year is any indication, it will only
get worse. Thank you for doing everything you can to eliminate the
marriage penalty tax.''

{time} 1430

I can share with you other e-mails. One young lady wrote to me that
her family, which was now a broken family, her marriage that did not
succeed,

[[Page H197]]

she thinks the problems started back when they first got married and
they did not realize they would get hit with this financial penalty and
they started fighting about finances. So she said, ``You know, in a
way, the marriage penalty probably was the reason our marriage broke
apart.'' It was a sad e-mail to read.
This is something we must take seriously. Strong families are key to
the success in our future and our community. It is no coincidence that
the marriage penalty went into the books 30 years ago and that we have
seen a steady decline in families and the health of families in this
country ever since.
For the average American today, the probability if they get married
of that marriage succeeding and not ending in divorce is less than 50
percent. Chances are, 60 percent of the time that marriage will fall
apart.
The percentage of married couples households has plummeted from 71
percent of all households to just barely over half the households, 55
percent. It is bad for single moms. You see more of them; it is bad for
single dads who have this pressure. And I have nothing against single
parents.
By the way, my mom raised me and my two sisters and a brother as a
single mom when my dad passed away from cancer when I was just 5 years
old. I have a lot of admiration for her and women like her struggling
to raise their families. But we knew life would have been better if my
father would have been there, and I think everybody in that
circumstance knows if you can have an intact family, you can do more
for your children.
Why put an extra burden in the Tax Code to families who are already
struggling to raise children?
Let me share with you what some of the studies show happens when the
family breaks apart. It is bad for parents. They have a shorter life
expectancy; they have a greater incidence of disease, suicide and
accidental mortality. The death rate among men who are non-smokers but
divorced is almost the same as married men who smoke, and we recognize
around here that smoking is deadly. But in fact the statistics show
that for men who are divorced and do not smoke, they are at as great a
risk as men who smoke in a married family.
Overall, the premature death rate is four times higher among divorced
white men than that amount for their married counterparts. They are in
worse physical health. They develop greater incidence of lung disease
and psychiatric disorder. They are at lower economic well-being.
Many divorced adults, particularly young mothers, are thrown into
poverty. Today, 50 percent of the single-mother families are poor. In
stark contrast, only 8 percent of families with a mother and dad are in
the category labeled poor. The average income for a single-mother
family is $13,000; $13,000 for average families with a single mom
raising their children. As I said, I know what it is to be there; and I
know the sacrifices those moms are making for those children, because
my mom did the same thing for me.
But contrast that to the average income in a married household with a
mother and father. The average is $40,000 in this country. Now, it is
even more problematic when you look at what is happening to our
children, because children from broken families are four times more
likely to use drugs; they are three times more likely to commit
suicide; and they are twice as likely to drop out of school.
Children of broken families end up being more likely to engage in
violent crimes. Seventy-two percent of the young people who end up
murdering someone grew up without a father. Sixty percent of America's
rapists grew up in homes without a father. Seventy percent of the
juveniles in State reform institutions grew up with a single-parent or
no-parent family. The influence of good families is critical for these
young people.
Again I ask the question, why should we make it harder for those
families to stay together by taxing them more when they are married? It
is wrong, and we must do something to eliminate that in our Tax Code.
Statistics show that alcohol and drug abuse goes way up. The absence
of a father, reports the Study on Fatherhood, from the home, affects
significantly the behavior of adolescents, and results in greater use
of alcohol and marijuana.
Suicide, 75 percent of the teenage suicides occur in households that
have been a broken household.
Poorer school performance, at least one-third of children
experiencing a parental separation demonstrate a significant decline in
academic performance. Fatherless children, as I mentioned earlier, are
twice as likely to drop out of school.
Welfare dependency, over 50 percent of the new welfare cases are due
to births of unmarried women. Ninety percent of children on welfare are
from homes with only one parent.

So we can see this is having a devastating impact upon our young
people, our children. And if it just helps one family to meet the bills
they need to pay, to be able to stay together through tough times, if
the love that they started out with when a young man and young woman
get married starts to dim because they are struggling to pay the bills
and struggling to make ends meet, if we can just help one of those
families make it through those tough times, to realize that a strong
family will bring them numerous joys and stick together and help their
children, then this bill would have been worth every penny of the $180
billion in revenue that stays in the hands of the American taxpayer.
By the way, I would share with my colleagues that the American people
are with us. There may not be a lot of lobbyists here in Washington
beating down our doors saying ``eliminate the marriage penalty tax,''
and there may be a lot of competition for other people for the tax
dollars that we collect here, but 85 percent of the Americans polled
say the marriage penalty tax is unfair, sixty-one percent think it is
extremely unfair, and 80 percent of the Americans favor elimination of
the marriage penalty tax.
We need to listen to those voices. They know intuitively that we have
to strengthen families in this country. They know intuitively it is
wrong for married couples to pay more in taxes just because they are
married. They know in their hearts that we must do better and we must
eliminate the marriage penalty tax.
I want to now turn to one of my colleagues who has been a strong
advocate of strengthening families in the Congress, a gentleman who has
been a leader in the Family Caucus, a strong supporter of our bill to
eliminate the marriage penalty tax, my good friend and colleague, the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).
Mr. WELDON of Florida. I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate his
yielding. I definitely want to thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr.
McIntosh) for the leadership he has provided on this critical issue.
We have had several Members of our Republican Conference who have led
the charge, so to speak. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) is
one, and the other one that comes to my mind is yourself.
The Tax Code, as everybody knows, is very complicated and so is
knowing how to repair it so that it is not a Tax Code that encourages
people to live out of wedlock, how do we repair it to make sure it is
not a Tax Code that discourages marriage. I first became interested in
this subject actually years before I got elected to the U.S. House when
I was still practicing medicine, and I had people coming in my office
who I knew were living together physically as husband and wife, but
they had different last names, not because the wife chose to keep her
maiden name, but because they had actually not married.
Some of these individuals were senior citizens, which was another
thing that amazed me. They knew when I talked to them about this issue,
they knew they were setting a bad example for their grandchildren,
living out of wedlock together, but always it was the same story. ``If
we get married, our tax burden would go up so much, that we live
together out of wedlock.''
To me, in my opinion, this is a moral issue. This is an example of
how our laws in Washington encourage a bad thing. It is actually
morally wrong to have a Tax Code that discourages marriage and
encourages people to live out of wedlock, especially people who say
they would like to get married, they want to get married, but they do
not do so because of the code.

[[Page H198]]

One of the biggest reasons why we have so many features in our Tax
Code like this is this desire on the part of so many liberals in this
city to create a Tax Code where tax breaks and tax benefits phase out
if you make above $60,000, or above $50,000, or above $80,000 or above
$100,000, this desire to always tax the rich. One of the consequences
of that is if you get two working people who come together, they are
immediately in this tax bracket where all of their tax benefits or
breaks disappear and they are better off not getting married.
One of the things that has been shown repeatedly by psychologists is
that one of the things that is most critical and most helpful to the
proper intellectual development of a child, growing up in a family, in
terms of are they going to stay off of drugs, are they going to have
good academic performance, are they going to do well in school, is a
healthy, stable, married family environment, that they have a mother
and a father in the home, and that every social scientist and every
politician who follows these statistics, they all go around saying that
we need to encourage marriage and we need to do what we can to support
marriage in the United States, but yet they will stand by idly and do
nothing about this problem.

I want to address this proposal by the President. This proposal by
the President is a day late and a dollar short, as far as I am
concerned. No, it is not a day late, it is 8 years late; and it is not
a dollar short, it is about $10 or $20 billion a year short.
His proposal just does not go far enough. It is going to help some
people, true; but for an awful lot of people, they will continue to
have the same choice put before them. It will be get married and pay
higher taxes or live together out of wedlock.
The Republican GOP plan is real marriage penalty relief. The
President's plan is, again, the same sort of status quo. The marriage
penalty will remain for millions of Americans. Actually, the difference
is about 17 million Americans.
Our proposal is easily paid for. We are looking at close to $2
trillion of surplus over the next 10 years, and this proposal is going
to cost $180 billion over the next 10 years. Essentially one-tenth of
the surplus would go to correcting this measure in our Tax Code.
It is a good plan. I believe the President should sign this. I
commend again the gentleman from Indiana for his work in this area. I
believe ultimately the President will sign this once the public begins
to see and analyze the features of this bill and how it really would be
good for our Nation to get rid of these problems in the Tax Code.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his good work
and strong support of this bill. I appreciate it enormously, working
with the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, let me now yield time to a good friend of mine, also
from Indiana, we have worked in the trenches together on this and many
projects, my good friend the gentleman from the 4th District of Indiana
(Mr. Souder).
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Indiana. It was great
to see our friend from Florida. This is such a Midwestern value; it is
great to see it is a Southern value as well, along with the gentleman
from Illinois (Mr. Weller) and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr.
McIntosh). But this has support from all across America because of the
inequity of the Tax Code.
I want to congratulate my colleague for his leadership and
persistence in pushing this and not going away when people said, no, we
want to do other things, and his persistence, along with the gentleman
from Illinois (Mr. Weller). If this indeed happens and with the
President at least paying lip service to part of it, this is the year
when this may actually happen, and it will be a great crowning
achievement as you go back to lead us in Indiana.
Let me mention a couple of things. There are different types of tax
cuts. Some types of tax cuts are oriented toward economic growth, where
we try to say how can we keep our interest rates down, how can we keep
our inflation down, how can we keep this tremendous growth going in the
economy. Capital gains, investment tax credits, targeted inheritance
tax relief, those things keep our economy going, but some tax relief is
necessary because they plain flat out are unfair.

{time} 1445

In the marriage penalty, one of the problems here is that it just
discriminates; it is a lack of equity and it catches and punishes one
group of people and benefits another group of people.
There are several letters and e-mails here to the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. McIntosh), but I wanted to read a couple of them because
sometimes when we hear statements like the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Weldon) made, well, people might make decisions on their marriage based
on the take liability, one goes, oh, no, come on, you right-wingers,
you are just making this kind of stuff up.
But here is one from Montana to Dave that says, my husband and I both
work. We are 50 and 55 years old. This is a second marriage for both of
us. We delayed our marriage for a number of years because of the tax
consequences and lived together. It caused a great deal of stress and
lots of anguish. My son and his fiance simply have not married also for
tax reasons. They would take a large tax hit if they married.
Do not say it is some hypothetical, paranoia, conservative thing.
There are actually people in America, right or wrong, who are making
these decisions because tax policy does have actual consequences on
people's behavior because it is a lot of money. They are trying to
figure out what can we do to start a home, how can we buy a house, how
can we get the best education for our kids, how can we get good health
care, and then the government hammers you if you get married. It can
cause people at the margin to do that.
Here is another letter to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh):
My husband and I are both 81 years old. Before we married our lawyers
advised us that we would be better off financially to remain single. We
listened but did not heed. The full impact of what we were told struck
us after our accountant computed our income tax. With approximately the
same income, my portion of the tax increased from $4,200 to $10,000. My
husband's portion of the tax also increased dramatically.
We were shocked, to say the least, and have actually considered an
annulment or divorce to avoid a recurrence of this situation.
This one is from Florida. I have had people call me on the phone,
come up to meetings, tell me they have calculated how much they would
have saved if they had each been single. They not only would have
gotten tax benefits, they might have been eligible for Pell grants for
college as opposed to having to fund their college. There are all sorts
of government programs that we have that are really penalties for being
married as opposed to being single, but the marriage penalty is the
most flagrant. We have it built into our Tax Code.
Let me make one other comment here. I find one of the greatest
ironies in America is right now is how we deal with the marriage
penalty. The President appears to want to cap this to only let some
people benefit from it. The irony with this is the primary beneficiary
in the marriage penalty relief is going to be working women. Because of
the way families are traditionally structured, it is that additional
income that is really getting whacked, and they are making decisions of
how many hours they work, how much they are in the workforce.
The President in the State of the Union address came down here,
talked about comparable worth. He talked about how women were not
making as much as men in society, talked about glass ceilings. The
marriage penalty is a glass ceiling on the income of women in America;
and if you cap that, as the President has proposed to do, rather than
the type of legislation that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh)
and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) are proposing to do, what
you are doing is saying it is okay for women to make a certain amount
of money but after someone adds a second income to their family, or in
cases of some families where the woman is the primary and the highest
income and the man adds a second income, after a certain point we are
going to tax them differently than if they stayed single.

This has inadvertently become one of the primary reasons we have a
glass

[[Page H199]]

ceiling in this country. It is one of the primary reasons why there are
earning differentials. The last thing we need to do is change the
marriage penalty to make it more progressive, to put a penalty on those
who are actually advancing. One does not want to be in an employer
situation where they have an outstanding employee and they say, well,
would you like to work additional hours, we would like to promote you
and that person says, but the marriage penalty is capped. If I go up in
a promotion here in this firm, my husband and my income will go over a
certain point and all of a sudden we will be taxed differently.
If we start capping the marriage penalty as some are proposing to do,
while it might sound good the fact is that the bias is being reinforced
not only against marriage in this society, but it is also
discriminating in the most degree against working women who are
advancing to higher income salaries.
I thought one of our primary goals was to open up opportunities for
women in this country to move up in the corporate ladder, to earn
higher incomes. In most cases, not all cases but in most cases, the
marriage penalty is a disincentive to women often who have not had the
opportunities, who have gone back to school, who have been homemakers,
they come back in and all of a sudden get whacked with this additional
tax. So the irony is the double standard in the same speech of capping
the marriage penalty and also talking about how to open up
opportunities for women and all Americans to increase their salary.
You cannot talk out of one side of your mouth one way and out of the
other side of your mouth the other. So I thank the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. McIntosh) not only for his leadership in the marriage
penalty but for having an elimination of the marriage penalty that is
actually responsive to the type of concerns that Americans are having
and that would really promote sexual equity in this country and
marriage equity in this country rather than the other types of forms of
this bill that lead to other unintended consequences.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana
(Mr. Souder) for his comments.
I would say to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) that his point
is really telling. The President wants to get political bonus points by
saying let us get rid of the glass ceiling and political bonus points
by saying let us have something on the marriage penalty, but when we
look at it, the way he does it, by putting that cap on there he undoes
everything we would want to do to help women who want to pursue their
careers.
I appreciate the gentleman making that point to our colleagues and to
the people listening.
Let me close today by saying it was 3 years ago, almost to the day,
when Sharon Mallory took out pen to paper and sent me this letter that
launched my effort in eliminating the marriage penalty tax. I have
teamed up with a great colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Weller), and another great colleague, the gentlewoman Missouri (Ms.
Danner). This has become a bipartisan effort, because everyone realizes
it is the right thing to do. There was a chart that was out here
earlier, I wish I still had it, that showed how that $1.8 trillion
surplus could break up over the next 10 years. Half of it went to
spending. There are plenty of lobbyists here in Washington who come and
tell us how we can spend more money.
Another portion went for tax breaks to business and others, and
farmers and others. There are plenty of lobbyists here to tell us how
we can give tax breaks for businesses and other interests, but there
was no place on that pie chart for families, because there are no
lobbyists in Washington for families.
Families are spending their money paying their bills, helping their
children to save for college, trying to make ends meet, planning for
the future, trying to provide a vacation for their family. We need to
do what is right even when there are no lobbyists, so that people like
Sharon Mallory and Darryl Pierce do not have to write their congressman
and say: Darryl and I would very much like to be married, and I must
say it broke our hearts when we found out we cannot afford it because
of the marriage penalty tax.
It will be a great day in this institution when we get rid of the
marriage penalty tax once and for all.
I urge my colleagues to join us in the coming week as the leadership
brings forth this bill so we can send a message and pass into law
something that would be good for families throughout this land, the
marriage penalty elimination bill.

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