[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 92 (Monday, July 17, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7004-S7006]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      MARRIAGE PENALTY TAX RELIEF

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, certainly, Kay Bailey Hutchison, our 
colleague from Texas, has led us on the issue of the marriage penalty 
tax. I think probably she has sensitized all of us to it as only a 
woman can. I mean that in the sense of understanding the true balance 
that ought to be in this Tax Code that isn't in the Tax Code. She has

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been persistent with the Congress and with this Senate to assure that 
we develop a sense of equity and balance in the Tax Code that our 
marriage penalty tax relief legislation will offer.
  Who pays the marriage penalty? In our country, about 22 million 
married couples do. They are not wealthy. They are modest- and middle-
income families. In my State of Idaho, that is 129,710 families.
  To really bring this home, if, from the time a couple marries, they 
were to put away, with interest, the difference in the disparity of 
taxes between $1,000 and $1,400 per year, on the average, for their 
first child, they could afford to pay 3 years of his or her education 
at a State institution in my State of Idaho. So it is significant. It 
is important. There is no question it would help, and can help, the 
American family.
  The usual suspects out there who are opposed to this, I think, are 
using the most tired and sad arguments against tax relief. They simply 
are arguing from a position of the wrong facts. We have heard them 
whining about tax cuts and saying the tax cuts are for the rich and 
somehow you ought not give the rich any opportunity. Of course, in this 
instance they have simply missed the mark, and they know it. They know 
they are on the wrong side of this issue.
  Tax relief, in the area of the marriage penalty tax, helps working 
families. It ends discrimination against married couples. It reduces 
the Tax Code's antifamily bias that no tax code should have in it. We 
have always said that the very foundation of our culture and our 
country is the family, and yet we take advantage of that union in the 
Tax Code by causing them to pay more in taxes.
  Low- and middle-income married couples are the ones who truly are 
hurt by this penalty. On average, a married couple hit by the marriage 
penalty will pay about $1,400 more a year in taxes than two single 
persons at the same combined income. That is where the penalty rests.
  In total, the marriage penalty overcharges couples in this country 
$32 billion a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office--that 
is right, $32 billion a year--that could stay out there with those 
young couples.
  I use the example in my State of Idaho that if they simply put it in 
a bank, with interest, by the time their first child is old enough to 
go to college, they can afford his first or her first 3 years at a 
State institution in my State.
  I think those who oppose marriage tax penalty relief oppose, frankly, 
all tax relief. The more they can get to spend on Government programs 
and Government solutions--and go home to their constituents and talk 
about what wonderful things Government is doing for them--somehow they 
think that most of our citizens are either undertaxed, and not giving 
enough to Government for all those wonderful solutions to their 
problems, or the current Tax Code is fair.
  They are not worried about a Tax Code that charges a family an extra 
$1,400 or more, when a family certainly needs that additional income as 
they become a family unit. They are opposed to all tax relief. If you 
pay taxes, somehow, in this argument, you are rich; and the rich do not 
need the relief.
  How many times have we heard that? At least I have heard it in the 
good number of years I have been in the Senate. Every time we talk 
about tax relief, somebody over there on the other side of the aisle 
says: Gee, those darn Republicans want to give that money back to the 
rich, and the rich don't need tax relief.
  Low- and middle-income families do need tax relief. So the opposition 
on the other side always ponies up some kind of what I call tax-relief 
``lite'' amendments to offer, so they can show some degree of 
compassion. Yet at the same time they offer nothing except a new 
Government program.

  Let me break it down into the three most significant ways that the 
Tax Code extracts the marriage penalty for us to understand.
  First of all, it is discrimination in the standard deduction area. 
About two-thirds of the taxpayers take the standard deduction. For a 
married couple, the standard deduction this year is $7,200. For two 
single taxpayers with the same combined income, it is $8,600. This is 
the first $392 of the marriage penalty. Lower and middle-income 
taxpayers are more likely to take the standard deduction than upper-
income persons. Many middle-income families who itemize are still hurt 
by standard deduction discrimination because the amount of the standard 
deduction determines whether they itemize. In other words, one element 
triggers the other element in our Tax Code.
  The Senate bill would provide relief to 25 million couples by making 
the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly equal to the 
standard deduction for two singles with the same combined income. That 
is a little complicated, but it is easy to understand that for those 
who take the standard deduction--and those tend to be the lower and 
middle-income families--the benefit is immediate and, as we have said, 
is approximately $1,400 a year.
  The second area deals with discrimination in the earned-income tax 
credit area, the EITC. We are all familiar with the EITC. It is 
supposed to reward work, ease income tax and other tax burdens, and 
supplement incomes for low-income working families with children. It is 
astonishing, in a program designed to help lower income families, the 
phaseout schedule for EITC benefits again imposes an antimarriage, 
antifamily penalty. This is the very program Congress designed to help 
low-income families. Yet when we look inside the code, the way the IRS 
has interpreted it and administers it, there is an antimarriage, 
antifamily penalty. The Senate bill would begin addressing marriage 
penalty inequity in the EITC by first increasing the maximum credit by 
$526, starting the phaseout range $2,500 higher than it was at an 
income level just above $15,000.
  The third area of discrimination is in the tax brackets. For the 
average couple paying a marriage penalty, bracket discrimination 
charges them another $1,000. Bracket discrimination usually takes the 
lower income earned by one spouse, which would be taxed in the 15-
percent bracket if he or she were single, and taxes it at the other 
spouse's 28-percent rate. This devalues the spouse and the spouse's 
work that provides the second income for the family. Of course, in some 
instances, both spouses are professional and choose to seek their 
profession in the marketplace. In other marriages, one spouse simply 
wants to supplement the overall family income to broaden the ability of 
that family to earn, to save, to invest, and to provide for its 
children. In this instance, this particular structure of the Tax Code 
actually devalues the value of the income of that spouse who goes into 
the marketplace to earn additional income for the family.
  For folks with modest means, this adds what we could easily call 
insult to the very injury that the Tax Code levees to the taxpayer. 
Time after time on this floor, we hear how many families are forced to 
earn a second income to make ends meet. Currently, the heavy hand of 
Government has the first claim on the second income. For anybody who 
would choose to vote against this particular provision, shame on them. 
Especially shame on them if they then turn around and argue that 
circumstances are so tough out there that every family needs two 
incomes. Let us work today to lessen that burden, to make it less 
tough, to give that family unit greater choices as to whether they both 
want to work in the marketplace or one would choose to stay home.

  The Senate bill provides help for 21 million couples, including 3 
million senior citizens, by expanding the 15-to-28 percent bracket for 
one couple to a range equal to that for two singles. In addition, this 
bill preserves the full effect of the family tax credits enacted in the 
1997 Taxpayers Relief Act. We now find that particular provision taking 
effect. More and more middle-income families are slipping into the 
alternative minimum tax or the AMT. In fact, even some EITC families 
are now being affected by this. The AMT is already a dubious tax. It 
requires thousands of taxpayers to figure their returns according to 
two different tax systems. I don't think anyone really intended the AMT 
to apply and wipe out the family tax credits we enacted in 1997, 
including the $500-per-child tax credit, the HOPE education credit, the 
lifetime earnings credit, and the ongoing dependency care credit. It is 
time to cut back on the antifamily AMT, and that is exactly what this 
provision will do.

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  In conclusion, we want a Government that is truly profamily. 
Certainly all of us--and in a sincere way--want to make sure our laws 
are profamily. Yet those who will vote against the marriage tax penalty 
are talking about two different systems. They are being very 
inconsistent with honesty and integrity in debating this kind of an 
issue. You cannot talk profamily on one side of the issue and turn 
around and vote against this provision that we will be voting on on the 
floor this evening.
  Our Tax Code says, unless we change it tonight, don't get married. 
And if you do, you are going to pay higher taxes. We say it is time we 
create equity in this equation. Our Tax Code says you will pay a 
penalty if both spouses work and you will be the most heavily taxed if 
your incomes are about equal. We say the best antipoverty program is a 
family and a job in America, or two jobs in America taxable at a lower 
rate, leaving more money inside the family unit to provide for that 
family and those portions of the American dream they seek to secure. We 
encourage our citizens to dream a better dream, of a fairer and freer 
society. Our Tax Code has a great deal to say about the size and the 
scope of their dreams.
  I hope we will vote tonight to strike a blow for a profamily, pro-
American, American-dream approach, not have the Tax Code constantly 
confusing the message and sending a negative signal. We are going to 
pass it, I do believe, and seize the opportunity.
  In closing, I say to the President: Come on. Quit playing the 
political games you are playing right now. You have to have this new 
spending program and this new spending program with a multitrillion-
dollar surplus. Give the highest taxed generation in history just a 
little break. When this bill gets to your desk, sign it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Democratic 
side be permitted to reclaim the 15 minutes accorded to the other side 
of the aisle earlier today so that I may speak at this particular 
moment.
  Mr. CRAIG. Reserving the right to object, and I will not, I ask 
unanimous consent that Senator Collins retain 15 minutes in morning 
business prior to the Interior bill following the comments of the 
Senator from Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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