[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 7, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1923-S1925]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               TAX RELIEF

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Wyoming for 
talking about taxes because I don't think we can talk about tax relief 
enough. There is no question but that we have the chance of a lifetime 
to bring tax relief to every working American and also give increased 
benefits to earned-income tax credit recipients. It is in everyone's 
best interest that we do this.
  I thank my colleague from Wyoming for starting this debate and 
starting the process of educating everyone about the importance of this 
tax relief.
  Let me say that when we talk about the tax relief package, we really 
are talking about good stewardship of our tax dollars. We have a 
projected $5.6 trillion surplus. We have a bright red line between the 
Social Security surplus and income tax withholding surplus. We are 
taking half of the $5.6 trillion--roughly $3 trillion--that is in 
Social Security surplus, and we are going to leave it intact in a 
lockbox so that Social Security will be totally within itself, solid 
and firm.
  The other half of the $5.6 trillion--the $2.6 trillion or so--is the 
income tax withholding surplus. That is very different from people who 
are paying into Social Security and expect that money to go to Social 
Security. But people who are sending $2.6 trillion in income taxes 
above and beyond what government reasonably needs to operate should 
have some relief. That is money coming right out of the pocket of every 
American and going to Washington which we know it does not need for 
legitimate government expenditures.
  It is our responsibility to be careful how we spend taxpayer dollars. 
With that $2.6 trillion surplus in income tax withholding, we have a 
proposal that takes $1.6 trillion and gives it back to the people so 
they don't even have to send it to Washington. We have $1 trillion 
remaining. That $1 trillion is going to be for the added expenditures 
that we know we need in priority areas to do the right thing.

[[Page S1924]]

  So what are the priority areas?
  We are going to spend more for public education because we know 
public education is the foundation of our freedom and our democracy. If 
we allow public education to fail, or not produce, then we are taking 
away the strength that has been the foundation of our Nation.
  We are going to spend more on public education.
  No. 2. We are going to spend more on national defense.
  Our national security forces have been deteriorating. We do not have 
a solid plan to upgrade the quality of life for those serving in our 
military. These are people who are pledging their lives to protect our 
freedom. We owe them a quality of life that allows them to do their 
job. We are going to increase their housing quality and health care 
quality. We are going to increase salaries. We are going to increase 
education for military children, spouses, and military personnel. All 
of these will add to the quality of life.
  We are going to invest in the technological advances that will keep 
us ahead of any adversary we might have and also make sure that our 
allies are strong.
  We are going to increase spending in national defense.
  No. 3. We must address the prescription drug issue in this country.
  Ten years ago, you would have to go in the hospital and have surgery 
for an ailment that today can be treated with prescription drugs. 
Hospital stays are much shorter. Sometimes it is just an office visit 
because prescription drugs are so much more effective. They are also 
more expensive. We need to treat prescription drugs as one of the 
mainstays of quality health care, just as hospital stays and surgery 
used to be the avenue for treatment of a major problem.
  We have to deal with this big expense and this big part of health 
care that has changed our quality of life in America, but which many 
people cannot afford or they have to make such tough choices that it 
just isn't right. People on fixed incomes cannot afford a $400-a-month 
prescription drug bill. Some people are making other kinds of choices. 
We are going to have to have more benefits and more options for 
prescription drug help for people who need it.
  These are the areas where we want the ability to have added income, 
to make sure we can do the job we are expected to do. I certainly think 
$1 trillion should be plenty if we are running the Government 
efficiently and making sure taxpayer dollars are not being wasted or 
misused.
  I think the tax relief plan is much more than tax relief. It is good 
stewardship of your taxpayer dollars and my taxpayer dollars. It is a 
balanced approach that pays down the debt, protects Social Security, 
and adds spending in the priority areas where we must add spending. And 
it lets people keep more of the money they earn in their own 
pocketbooks because we believe they can make better decisions for their 
families than someone in Washington, DC, can do.
  What is in the marriage penalty relief? What is in the tax bracket 
lowering? What is in the inheritance tax relief?
  The biggest part of the tax cut is an across-the-board lowering of 
each tax bracket, so if you pay in the 15-percent bracket today, you 
will either pay no taxes at all or you will go to a 10-percent level. 
The most benefit of this tax relief is at that level. And then you go 
to a 15-percent bracket, a 25-percent bracket, and a 33-percent 
bracket. So everyone gets a lowering of their bracket.
  We believe no one should pay more than 33 percent of their income in 
Federal taxes. That is a fair tax. It could be lower, but at least that 
is a fair cap on taxes for any individual. That is the biggest part of 
the tax cut plan.
  It will also increase the earned-income tax credit for people who are 
not paying taxes at all but get a refund because we want them to have 
the incentive to work rather than be on welfare. This is a good 
incentive, and it works.
  In essence, the earned-income tax credit is a rebate of the payroll 
tax. For people who do not pay income taxes but they do pay payroll 
taxes, they are going to get a bigger rebate. So that is the big part.
  The next part of this tax relief plan is relief from the marriage 
penalty tax. Why on Earth should two single people, earning the incomes 
they earn, who get married, be thrown into a higher bracket and pay 
more in taxes just because they got married--not because they got a pay 
raise but because they got married? That is wrong. It is a wrong 
incentive in this country, and it was never meant to be that way. This 
was a quirk in the Tax Code, and we must fix it.
  You should not have to pay a marriage penalty. Today--and this is in 
my legislation I have introduced--if you take the standard deduction, 
you do not get the standard deduction if you get married. You do not 
get it doubled. In fact, the standard deduction is $4,550 for a single 
person. For a married couple, it is $7,600. Under my bill, the standard 
deduction for married couples will increase by $1,500 to $9,100, which 
is double the single standard deduction. So if you do not itemize and 
you take the standard deduction, we want you to have double the single 
rate when you get married.
  Secondly, we want to widen every bracket so you will not have to pay 
more in income taxes because you go into a higher bracket just because 
you combined incomes. We want to widen the brackets so your combined 
income will be taxed at the same rate as if you were single making two 
incomes that added up to that. So we are going to try to widen the 
brackets.
  And third, on the earned-income tax credit, we will increase the 
adjustment on the income levels and make the earned-income tax credit 
also come in at the same level as if they were two single people rather 
than penalizing people who get the earned-income tax credit when they 
get married.
  It is very important that we relieve the pressure on 21 million 
American couples who pay the marriage penalty tax. This is not right, 
and we are going to change it. That is another major part of the tax 
relief bill that will be before us in the coming weeks.
  The third area is doing away with the death tax. There is no reason 
for someone to have to sell a family farm, a ranch, or a small business 
in order to pay taxes to the Federal Government. We must take the lid 
off the death tax.
  The people of America understand the death tax as being unfair. Even 
if they are not going to have to pay the death tax or their heirs will 
not have to pay the death tax, they still have a fundamental sense of 
fairness that it is wrong to tax money that has already been taxed when 
it was earned and when it was invested. There is a sense of fairness in 
the American people.

  There is also a sense of hope. Every parent hopes that his or her 
child is going to do better than they have done. So they want their 
children to have that opportunity to be able to keep the family 
business and to do better. And they most certainly do not want a family 
business to be sold off to pay taxes because they know that not only 
affects their own families but the jobs of the people who work for a 
family-owned business.
  Fifty percent of the family-owned businesses in this country do not 
make it to the second generation, largely because of the inheritance 
tax. Eighty percent do not make it into the third generation.
  Do we want to be a country that does not have family-owned 
businesses? Do we want everything to be a big international 
conglomerate? I do not think so. I think we want the family farm to 
succeed in this country because we know that family farmers are 
contributing citizens to the community; they are contributing to the 
agricultural greatness of this country; and they are a stability for 
our country to make sure that we control our own resources.
  I do not want a big international conglomerate to take the place of 
the family farm in this country. And that is what death taxes produce. 
It is in our interest that we have small family-owned hardware stores. 
It is in our interest that we have small family-owned service companies 
that contribute to a community.
  I hope we will eliminate the death tax, or at least modify it greatly 
so that any reasonable description of a family-owned business would be 
covered, so that there will not have to be a sale of assets that would 
break up that business, that farm, or that ranch.
  The fourth major area of our tax relief plan is to double the child 
tax credit. Whether you have child care or not,

[[Page S1925]]

we believe you should have more than the $500-per-child tax credit 
because we know how much it costs to raise a family. So we would double 
that to $1,000 per child.
  A $1,000-per-child tax credit isn't nearly enough to offset the costs 
of raising children. We know that. But we do not have children to get 
tax credits; we have children because we love them and we want them to 
be strong, to continue the great heritage that we have in this country. 
But we should give tax relief that is focused on helping families raise 
their children in as conducive an environment as we can possibly give 
them.
  That is our tax relief plan. It is our stewardship of tax dollars to 
give more money back to the people who earn it, and to pay down the 
debt at the most rapid rate that we possibly can. Over 10 years we will 
have paid down the debt to the absolute minimum. And to help people 
with prescription drug benefits, to rebuild our national defenses, and 
to make bigger investments in public education, we are saving $1 
trillion back from the surplus. And last, and most important, we are 
keeping Social Security totally intact. That is good stewardship of our 
tax dollars.
  I am proud to support a tax relief plan that saves Social Security, 
and keeps it secure, that adds spending where we need it, and makes 
absolutely sure that we give back to the people who earn it more of the 
tax dollars they deserve to keep in their pocketbooks, rather than 
sending it to Washington for decisions to be made that they will 
probably never realize.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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