[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 1158-1159]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY ELIMINATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise before this 
body and remind everyone of what we did last week that I think was very 
good for America. Last week, the House

[[Page 1159]]

passed with bipartisan support; and I think that is important, a tax 
bill. It was the marriage tax elimination act, which gives the average 
couple in America $1,400 in tax relief that they would not have had 
otherwise. It will apply to 21 million families in America. In my State 
of Arkansas, it will apply to over 200,000 families.
  It is a penalty that they pay because they are married that they 
would not pay otherwise. It is a penalty in the form of higher taxes. 
Today, Mr. Speaker, as we know, is Valentine's Day and many of us are 
away from our spouses, but it is a good time to remember our 
sweethearts. I think back on my sweetheart that I married over 26 years 
ago. We had struggles just like everyone else. Many of those struggles 
center around finances. My wife is working, I am working, and this is 
typical of couples. Couples struggle today and part of that struggle is 
simply financial.
  If we can help the married couples in the United States, the married 
couples in Arkansas by providing some tax relief in the form of doing 
away with a penalty they should not pay, then I think we have done 
something very good for America, very good for our couples and this is 
certainly an appropriate day to remind America of what we did in this 
Congress.
  Now, I say this Congress. We passed in the House, and we still of 
course need to have that same marriage tax penalty elimination act 
passed by the Senate and presented to the President for his signature, 
and we hope that he will sign that. To give an example as to how this 
works, a typical example would be a single mom that might make $30,000 
per year decides that she can get married and meet someone that she 
loves and she gets married to a gentleman that makes an equivalent 
amount of money, say $30,000 per year. If you combine those two incomes 
under a fair tax system, their tax should simply double. But under the 
present tax code, because of the unfairness, it does not double but it 
doubles and then you add about $1,400 more in a penalty because they 
got married. This hurts that single mom who decides to get married, it 
hurts any couple that decides to unite in matrimony, and it is a 
penalty because they are married.
  I believe that it is unfair. The essence of a tax code in the United 
States should be fairness. We should work not just on tax relief but 
tax fairness and that is what this bill does. It remedies an unfairness 
in the tax code. They have this penalty because they are forced into a 
higher tax bracket because of the progressive system, and they also 
lose part of their standard deduction. It is a penalty because they got 
married. And so we need to remedy this unfairness.
  Some people say, well, it is not a whole lot of money, it is just 
$1,000 or $1,400 per year. But think what this means to a struggling 
young couple. It could mean 3 months of child care that they could not 
otherwise afford. It could mean a semester of community college that 
helps them get ahead in life. It could mean 4 months of car payments, 
school clothes for the children, perhaps they need a vacation. And it 
could mean the difference of having that vacation to help that 
relationship or not. It could mean a down payment on a home. All of 
this helps the couples, the struggling families in the United States.

                              {time}  1915

  What does it cost? Well, it costs about $117 billion over 10 years. 
Contrast this to the tax bill that we passed in the last Congress, $792 
billion over 10 years, and this was vetoed by the President. He said it 
was too big, he did not like it all lumped together, so this year we 
break it apart. The first part of that is the Marriage Tax Penalty 
Elimination Act.
  So it does not cost something that we cannot afford. It all comes out 
of the non-Social Security surplus. That is what we have to remember. 
It does not come out of Social Security. The funds that go into the 
trust fund for Social Security, it all comes out of our operating 
surplus, so it is fair in that sense.
  What are the objections to it? Well, some people say, the 
administration says, well, it is not limited to low-income couples.
  I believe that if you have a penalty on married couples, that 
everyone should have that penalty removed; not just those that are on 
the low-income scale, but everyone should have that penalty removed. 
The penalty does in fact hurt more low- and middle-income people, so if 
we do away with the penalty, that is who we are helping the most. But 
we should help all couples who have that same penalty. We should remove 
it for everyone.
  The second objection is maybe it reduces the money that could be 
available to shore up Social Security. Again, it comes out of the non-
Social Security surplus. It does not impact that in any way whatsoever.
  So, I would urge, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues to continue urging the 
other body to pass this, let us get it enacted into law, get it signed 
by the President. I believe it is a good bill for American couples and 
those people who are trying to celebrate another Valentine's Day.

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