[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 265-272]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, this is a great opportunity this evening to 
talk about an issue that many of us have raised in this Congress over 
the last several years. That is an issue that really is a fundamental 
issue of fairness, an issue of fairness that the American people have 
been asking some pretty basic questions about over the last several 
years.
  I represent the south side of Chicago, the south suburbs in Cook and 
Will Counties, as well as bedroom communities and farm communities in 
Illinois. And I found, whether I was in the steel workers union hall in 
Hegwish or a neighborhood in Chicago or at the local legion post in 
Joliet or the local grain elevator in Tonica, people often ask a basic 
question: Is it right, is it fair that under our Tax Code that the 
average married working couple pays higher taxes just because they are 
married? They say why do the folks in Washington allow a Tax Code to be 
in place that tells us that if we choose to get married and work, we 
are going to pay more in taxes?
  Mr. Speaker, they are stunned when they learn that 28 million married 
working couples pay an average $1,400 more in higher taxes just because 
they are married.
  Clearly, the marriage tax penalty suffered by working married people 
is fundamentally wrong and something we should change. I am so pleased 
that the leadership of this House, the Speaker of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), has made reduction and 
elimination of the marriage tax penalty the first priority this year. 
First out of the box and on a fast track as a tax-related initiative to 
help middle-class families.
  The marriage tax penalty has been in place for almost 30 years, and 
no one has gone back to fix it. I am pleased this Republican Congress 
has made a decision to bring fairness to the Tax Code by working to 
eliminate the marriage tax penalty.
  The marriage tax penalty is something that affects real people. I 
have a photo here of a young couple from Joliet, Illinois, Shad and 
Michelle Hallihan, two school teachers. They teach in the local public 
schools in Joliet. Shad and Michelle suffer a marriage tax penalty of 
almost a thousand dollars because they are married. They recently had a 
child, a baby. And as Michelle Hallihan pointed out to me, she said 
that $1,000 the marriage tax penalty that they suffer, that is 3,000 
diapers that they can buy for their child that goes to Uncle Sam 
instead of taking care of their child. It is real money.
  Mr. Speaker, $1,400 in Joliet, Illinois, where Shad and Michelle live 
is one year's tuition at Joliet Community College, and it is 3 months 
of day care at a local day care center.
  Let me explain how it came about. Our Tax Code has grown more 
complicated and since the late 1960s, married working couples, moms and 
dads, husbands and wives with two incomes have paid higher taxes just 
because they are married. Of course, we have made this a priority, and 
I would like to announce, of course, this Wednesday, the Committee on 
Ways and Means is going to be marking up, committee action will occur 
on legislation essentially to wipe out the marriage tax penalty for 
almost 28 million married work couples. A real change that is going to 
help people.
  Mr. Speaker, this is how the marriage tax penalty works. Take a 
machinist and a school teacher in the south suburbs of Chicago. They 
have identical incomes. This machinist is making $31,500 as a single 
person. Under our Tax Code, he is going to be taxed at 15 percent rate. 
So he meets a school teacher, a gal with an identical income of 
$31,500, and they choose to get married. And at the point they choose 
to get married, they begin filing their taxes jointly.

[[Page 266]]

  When we file our taxes jointly, we combine our two incomes. In this 
case, this machinist and school teacher who previously were taxed at 15 
percent, because they chose to get married, their combined income 
pushes their combined income to $63,000. They pay almost $1,400 more in 
higher taxes because they are pushed, under our Tax Code, into the 28 
percent tax bracket, the higher tax bracket. That is wrong, but today 
that is the current situation for working married couples. So, really, 
the incentives is in the wrong place. Marriage is one of the most basic 
institutions in our society, and our Tax Code punishes marriage.
  I would point out that had this machinist and school teacher chose to 
live together outside of marriage, they would not suffer that extra 
tax. Only when they choose to get married do they pay that higher tax. 
And I think we all agree, that is wrong that we impose higher taxes on 
married working people.
  I am proud to say that the House Republican leadership, under the 
leadership of Speaker Hastert, has made elimination of the marriage tax 
penalty our first initiative in an effort to bring fairness to the Tax 
Code and lower the tax burden on working families. This afternoon, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer) unveiled the legislation that will 
provide tax relief for 28 million married working couples. It is 
similar, almost identical in many ways, to the Marriage Tax Elimination 
Act, H.R. 6, legislation that we introduced earlier this year which now 
has 230 cosponsors, and overwhelming majority of Republicans; and I am 
pleased that 12 Democrats have joined with us in an effort to make this 
a bipartisan proposal.
  Mr. Speaker, let me briefly share what the proposal that we will be 
working on in the Committee on Ways and Means on Wednesday will do. It 
is the goal of the House to act and approve and send to the Senate by 
February 14, Valentine's Day, our effort to wipe out the marriage tax 
penalty.
  Think about it. What better Valentine's Day gift to give 28 million 
married working people than elimination of the marriage tax penalty. 
This legislation will essentially wipe out the marriage tax penalty for 
almost everybody who suffers it. That will be a big change in our Tax 
Code.
  The legislation that we will be acting on and voting out of the House 
in the next couple of weeks will help 28 million married working 
couples. For those who do not itemize their taxes, they will see 
immediately $230 dollars in marriage tax relief. For those who itemize 
because they own a home, they will see $1,400 marriage tax relief under 
this legislation.
  I would point out that this makes a big difference. Under our plan, 
we provide immediate marriage tax relief in 2001, next year, helping 
millions of couples. And because we double the standard deduction for 
those who do not itemize for joint filers to twice that of singles, 3 
million married working couples will see their Tax Code simplified 
because they will no longer need to itemize and fill out extra forms. 
So we make filing for taxes easier.
  And for those who do itemize, primarily homeowners, they will see 
marriage tax relief as well. Twenty-eight million married work couples 
will see up to $1,400 in marriage tax relief as a result of what the 
Committee on Ways and Means will approve on Wednesday, and I expect 
that an overwhelming majority of this House will see it approved before 
Valentine's Day. What a great Valentine's Day gift that we can give 28 
million married working couples, elimination of the marriage tax 
penalty.

                              {time}  1915

  I am joined by a number of my colleagues today who have been real 
leaders in the effort to eliminate the marriage tax penalty.
  As I pointed out earlier, of the 435 Members of this House, we need 
217 to pass a bill. So an overwhelming majority of the House have 
joined in cosponsoring this bill. I am joined today by a number of 
cosponsors of this legislation who have stepped forward and fought hard 
to eliminate the marriage tax penalty.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield to the gentlewoman 
from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert). I appreciate her participating in today's 
special order.
  Mrs. BIGGERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for 
yielding.
  I would like to commend my colleague from Illinois (Mr. Weller) for 
his dedication and commitment to the issue of the marriage tax penalty 
that we are discussing here tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, certainly the Federal Government taxes work, savings, 
investment, entrepreneurship, risk taking, creativity, ingenuity, even 
death. And you name it, Washington taxes it; and sometimes Washington 
taxes it twice or three times. So it should come as no surprise that 
the Federal Government taxes marriage.
  That is right: 28 million working American couples pay higher taxes 
simply because they are married. The Tax Code punishes working couples 
by pushing them into a higher tax bracket, effectively taxing the 
income of the second wage earner at a much higher rate than if he or 
she were taxed only as an individual.
  We are not talking about pennies, either. These families pay an 
average of $1,400 more in taxes. This is money that could be used to 
buy a family computer, improve their homes, or save for their 
children's education.
  For years, Republicans, led by my colleague from Illinois (Mr. 
Weller), have led the fight to eliminate the marriage penalty. A 
bipartisan majority of the House supports his legislation to do away 
with the marriage penalty. We included it in our tax relief bill last 
year.
  Unfortunately, the President vetoed that bill and the significant 
marriage penalty relief it provided. Now we hear from the President 
that he wants to provide marriage penalty relief. I think that is 
great, and I think we would welcome his support. So next month, when 
the House passes the significant marriage penalty relief for the second 
time in the 106th Congress, and I think it is a great idea to have that 
on February 14, Valentine's Day, when we pass that in the House, the 
President will have the opportunity to prove that his support is more 
than the State of the Union talk.
  There is no way around it. The Tax Code attacks one of society's most 
basic institutions, marriage. So with the President and the Congress in 
agreement on the need to provide marriage penalty relief, now is the 
time to back up our words with action and bring tax equity for working 
families.
  So, again, I commend my colleague from the district right next to 
mine for the work that he has done. I think it is important to note 
that the bill that will be before the House Committee on Ways and Means 
will provide even more benefits and actually improves the bill that has 
been before us before in that it will provide relief in a shorter time 
and more relief. This is an area that we have been working on for so 
long.
  Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I want to thank my 
friend and colleague from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) for her leadership 
and efforts to eliminate the marriage tax penalty.
  In suburban districts like my colleague from Illinois, we have many 
homeowners; and one of the provisions that is so important in our 
legislation that the committee will be acting on on Wednesday and the 
House voting on around Valentine's Day is that we help those who 
itemize who suffer the marriage tax penalty, as well.
  If they own a home and they have to pay mortgage interest and they 
pay property taxes and they combine those two, that usually causes them 
to itemize their taxes. So I appreciate very much her leadership.
  One other area I would like to point out that is so important about 
the legislation that we will be acting on in the Committee on Ways and 
Means and the House voting on within the next 2 weeks is that we help 
28 million married working couples, and also we help those poor 
families, working families, who participate in earned income tax credit 
by working to offset a marriage tax credit that they suffer, as well. 
So low-income families and low-income working families benefit from the 
legislation that we are passing, as well.

[[Page 267]]

  Another thing I would like to point out is that people often say, if 
the House moves quickly and the House is really showing leadership on 
this, is the Senate going to act on it, too? I would like to point out, 
too, that Chairman Roth of the Senate Finance Committee today praised 
the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Archer) for the speedy start of the 
House in this effort to eliminate the marriage tax penalty and that he 
intends to move similar legislation in the coming months.
  That is good news because we want to make elimination of the marriage 
tax penalty our top priority first out of the box and on a fast track 
to help 28 million married working couples.
  Mr. Speaker, I see the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), my 
friend, who has been a tremendous leader here on this effort to 
eliminate the marriage tax penalty and who is one of the first ones to 
say this is something that the House needs to do. I want to thank him 
for that.
  I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Illinois for 
yielding.
  The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) and I came together in the 
Class of '94, and there were a number of things that we learned when we 
first came here. First of all, we had this huge budget deficit that we 
were wrestling with, $240-plus billion.
  When we first came here, the Congressional Budget Office told us 
after the President submitted his first budget that we would see 
deficits of over $200 billion as far as the eye could see.
  There were a number of problems here in Washington. One of the first 
things we did is that we said we are going to make Washington live by 
the same laws as everybody else and so that Congress is no longer 
exempt when we pass new laws.
  We balanced that budget. We reformed the welfare system. And today 
over half of the people who were receiving welfare checks 5 years ago 
are now receiving payroll checks. We made a tremendous contribution, 
and I think we have moved the country in the right direction. This is 
just the next installment of the Republican agenda.
  I was surprised to learn how many people in America were paying extra 
taxes just because they were married. That is just not bad tax policy; 
that is not just bad family policy. At the end of the day there is 
something almost fundamentally immoral for us as a Federal Government 
to say they are going to pay extra taxes just because they have a 
marriage license. That is bad policy, and we are finally in a position 
where we can stop it.
  I want to remind my colleagues and others who may be watching this 
that if they would just like to check and see, if they have got a 
married couple where they are both working, both earning approximately 
the same income, and I think the example of my colleague is a good one, 
I was in several schools in the last couple of weeks in my district 
talking with teachers about education policy and other things, but it 
was interesting how many times the issue of the marriage penalty came 
up in my conversations with teachers.
  The reason is that there are an awful lot of teachers who are married 
to each other and they pay this marriage penalty. And so we have set up 
on our Web site and if people would go to ``gil.house.gov'' there is a 
calculator there and they can do a quick calculation. Now, it is not 
exactly IRS approved, but it will give them a very close calculation of 
what they are paying currently in terms of extra taxes just because 
they are married.
  So if any of my colleagues would like to check that, they can go to 
my Web site, I think some other Members have it on their Web sites as 
well, but ``gil.house.gov'' and they can actually find out how much of 
a penalty in extra taxes they may be paying simply because they have a 
wedding license. Bad tax policy. Bad family policy. And as far as I am 
concerned, fundamentally immoral.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) 
for his leadership. And I want to remind people that we are going to 
continue to do the hard work of balancing the budget, of saving Social 
Security, of paying down debt, and providing real tax relief for 
working families. They are not mutually exclusive.
  One of the other issues that I have been pushing and I know my 
colleague has as well is that we are going to take these things one 
thing at a time. Last year we had a very good tax bill. It was $692 
billion. But unfortunately I think in the eyes of a lot of Americans, 
692 billion is sort of an amorphous thing. And so, this year we are 
going to tackle these issues one at a time as the resources, as the 
surpluses actually develop.
  We are going to take the marriage penalty tax first. I would hope 
then very shortly afterwards as we develop more surpluses as the 
revenues come in that we would take a serious look at the death tax. 
And if we cannot eliminate it, let us at least simplify it and make the 
system fair. Because, again, I think it is fundamentally immoral to 
have a 55 percent tax rate, a tax rate that quickly escalates to 55 
percent. That is confiscatory and, as I say, it is fundamentally 
immoral.
  So there are some other things we need to tackle in this year, and I 
think we are going to demonstrate early on that we are going to 
continue to do the hard work of balancing budgets, of saving Social 
Security, of actually paying down some of that national debt, and at 
the same time providing significant and important tax relief for those 
working families out there who work so hard every week. We know, at the 
end of the day, those families know how to spend this money a whole lot 
smarter than bureaucrats here in Washington.
  So I just wanted to rise and speak in strong support for this bill 
and do what we can to work through the process to get it through the 
House, get it through the Senate, and get it to the President's desk. 
Because I am convinced we are going to have overwhelming majorities on 
both sides of the political aisle here in the House and as well as the 
Senate; and I think that, at the end of the day, the President will 
sign this bill and very soon couples like this one will not have to pay 
extra taxes just because they are married.
  Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman 
from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) for his leadership and for his 
participation tonight in explaining the marriage tax penalty, what it 
is and why it is wrong and what we are going to do about it.
  I look back, in listening to my colleague's comments, to 5 years ago 
when he and I were elected as part of the Class of 1994; and if we 
think about it back then, think of the issues that were facing us. 
Congress and the President had just imposed the biggest tax increase in 
the history of this country on the American people, putting the tax 
burden at the highest level it had ever been in peacetime history. The 
Federal Government was looking at $200 billion to $300 billion in 
deficit spending for the foreseeable future. More children were living 
in poverty than ever before. There was a rogue IRS running amuck 
amongst families and small business.
  We brought about some fundamental changes during the last 5 years. We 
balanced the budget for the first time in 28 years. We cut taxes for 
the middle class for the first time in 16 years. And in the State I 
represent, in Illinois, 3 million Illinois children now benefit from 
that $500-per-child tax credit that was part of our middle-class tax 
relief.
  Remember all those times we were told time and time again that it was 
radical, it was crazy, how can you balance the budget and cut taxes at 
the same time?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, 
I think the comment was that, if you go ahead with these reckless tax 
cuts, lowering capital gains tax rates, remember, we were going to 
lower the top capital gains tax rate from 28 percent to 20 percent. 
That represents a 30-percent cut. And some of our colleagues on the 
left said, well, you are going to blow a hole in the budget. I wonder 
how many times we heard that expression.

[[Page 268]]

  Well, the interesting thing is we lowered the capital gains tax rate, 
and we have actually seen more revenue coming into the Federal 
Government. As more people convert assets that are not producing the 
way they want to into other assets, they recognize that gain, they pay 
the taxes. When you increase economic activity, you increase revenue to 
the Federal Government. When you allow people to keep more of their own 
money, revenue to the Federal Government goes up because they spend 
that money, and it gets recycled through the private economy.
  Here again is one classic example. This marriage penalty is the next 
big log that is going to fall. And this will be a tremendous victory. I 
was surprised to learn, 28 million American couples paying a penalty of 
an average of $1,400.
  We have made tremendous progress. There is still a lot to be done, 
but we are not going to give up with just this. This will be the next 
step. As we go forward, I think more and more Americans will see that 
this will benefit not only a lot of working families but it will 
benefit the economy as well.
  Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, as the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) pointed out, there has been fundamental 
change over the last 5 years, balancing the budget, cutting taxes for 
the middle class. We, of course, passed welfare reform into law, the 
first real welfare reform in a generation. In my home State of 
Illinois, we have seen a 50-percent, one-half of our welfare roles have 
been cut in half as a result of welfare reform. We reformed the 
Internal Revenue Service, shifting the burden of proof off the backs of 
taxpayers onto the IRS. That is a fundamental change.
  We also did something this past year that was very much in response 
to what I hear from the folks back home in Illinois. We stopped the 
raid on Social Security. For the first time in 30 years, we balanced 
the budget without spending one dime of Social Security, setting aside 
$137 billion of Social Security for Social Security and Medicare, a big 
fundamental change.
  I am also asked about what are people doing about paying down the 
national debt. We have paid down $350 billion of the national debt. We 
are going to adopt a budget later this year that is going to eliminate 
the national debt over the next 13 to 15 to 20 years. That will be 
another fundamental change.

                              {time}  1930

  That is why I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Goodlatte) who has been another real strong leader in our efforts to 
eliminate the marriage tax penalty and help 28 million married working 
couples. When we think about that, 28 million married working couples, 
that means 56 million working Americans suffer higher taxes just 
because they are married. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from 
Virginia.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I especially want 
to thank and congratulate him for his effort in this matter. I know 
that he has introduced, along with the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
McIntosh) and the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. Danner), a Democrat, 
H.R. 6 to eliminate the marriage tax penalty. I am pleased to be a 
cosponsor of that legislation along with the gentleman from Minnesota 
and many others because it is long overdue.
  As has already been noted, we attempted to do that in the tax package 
that we passed last year that was unfortunately vetoed by the 
President. This time we are going to go back, put it right on the line 
and say that we are going to introduce a bill, produce a bill that 
simply eliminates the marriage tax penalty.
  For the last year and a half, I have discussed it at every single one 
of the dozens of town meetings that I have conducted across my 
congressional district. Every time I bring this up, I can just see 
everybody in the audience nodding their heads in agreement. They 
understand this issue. I use exactly the illustration that the 
gentleman from Illinois referred to earlier and he has provided to 
other Members. I take that to them. I say, you have a couple, each 
earning $31,500 per year for a combined income of $63,000. If they are 
married, they will pay nearly $1,300 a year more than the same two 
people with the same two jobs living in the same household with the 
same income. People understand that that is totally contrary to good 
public policy. It discourages marriage, it discourages people from 
being forthright with their income and their taxes.
  We need to change that. Fairness is fairness. The American public 
understands this. Poll after poll has reflected what each one of us 
knows from our meetings with our constituents as well.
  There was a recent poll by Wirthlin Worldwide that showed that 85 
percent of Americans believe that the marriage tax penalty is unfair, 
and 80 percent of them favor the elimination of the marriage tax 
penalty. Eighty-nine percent of married women and 89 percent of working 
and married mothers are among those who strongly believe that the 
marriage tax penalty is unfair. And more than two-thirds of all 
Americans, according to a Harris Poll, believe that the budget surplus 
should be used to eliminate or reduce the marriage tax penalty.
  I think that this is something that the American people expect us to 
do. It is a disappointment when we put forward an effort like that 
along with other very reasonable tax cuts directed at improving our 
economy, creating more jobs and helping hardworking American families 
who right now face the highest level of taxation they have ever faced, 
to veto something like that. I am hopeful that this time we will have 
the President's help in getting real, meaningful tax cuts in place 
here.
  If we look at the average American family, not wealthy people but the 
average American family, when we add up what they pay in Federal, State 
and local taxes, it comes to about 40 percent of the average family's 
income. That is more than the average family spends on food, clothing 
and shelter combined. When we add on top of that a penalty for being 
married and having both members of the household having to go out and 
work in order to support their family, it is truly an outrage that this 
condition in our tax code has been allowed to persist as long as it 
has. I am pleased with the commitment of our leadership to move this 
legislation forward. I know we will have bipartisan support for it. It 
is my hope that we will pass this legislation as quickly as possible 
and get this tax relief to working families as quickly as possible.
  Mr. WELLER. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his leadership 
and efforts on working to eliminate the marriage tax penalty. When we 
think about it, $1,400 in Washington, D.C. is a drop in the bucket. 
There are always those, particularly on the far left side of things, 
who think that we should keep this money in Washington. They think that 
$1,400 really does not matter much back in Illinois or Minnesota or in 
Virginia; and, of course, that is really nothing here when they spend 
billions of dollars in the Congress. But let me just share with my 
colleagues what $1,400 means in the south suburbs, in the south side of 
Chicago:
  $1,400 is 3 months of child care at a local day care center in 
Joliet, Illinois. It is a year at Joliet Junior College, our local 
community college, 1 year's college tuition. $1400, the average 
marriage tax penalty, is 4 months of car payments for the average 
family. It is school clothes for the kids. As Michelle Hallihan pointed 
out, that $1,000 marriage tax penalty that Shad and Michelle Hallihan, 
two public school teachers in Joliet, Illinois, that they have to pay 
just because they are married, that $1,000 is 3,000 diapers for their 
newborn child.
  Of course it is a family vacation. It is a computer for the kids to 
help them in their school. It is several months of health insurance 
premiums. It is a down payment for many first-time homebuyers on a 
home. It is also a majority of the contribution to an IRA. It is real 
money for real people. For some in Washington, it is no big deal. But 
for folks in Minnesota and Virginia and Illinois and all across this 
country, 56 million married people, it is real money, $1,400, the 
average marriage tax penalty.

[[Page 269]]


  Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman from Illinois will yield, it is 
interesting, we have had several of my staffers over the last couple of 
years who have gotten married. In fact, we had two people working on my 
staff who married each other. We did the calculation for them. It was 
$1,400, an extra $1,400 in taxes that they were going to have to pay 
that they would not have had to pay if they would have simply lived 
together.
  We look at this wonderful picture of these two young people here and 
we think principally about young people getting married. But I was at a 
meeting with some seniors and one of them came up to me with kind of a 
funny look on his face and he said, ``I hope you do something about 
this marriage penalty.'' I said, ``Really? Why?'' He said, ``Well, I'm 
facing kind of an ethical dilemma myself as to whether or not this 
woman I'm now seeing and I should get married, because we realized with 
our particular financial situations, we're going to pay a penalty of 
over a thousand dollars if we get married. It really puts us in sort of 
a moral dilemma because we know what the right thing to do is but the 
government shouldn't encourage you to do the wrong thing.''
  As we look at the reforms that we have passed in the last 5 years, 
since the Republicans took control of this place, they really are about 
reversing what I think is one of the unwritten rules of Washington, 
and, that is, no good deed goes unpunished. That was the rule for many 
years in Washington. If you worked, you got punished. If you saved, you 
got punished. If you invested, you were punished. If you tried to 
create jobs and create wealth, you were punished, whether it was the 
EPA or the tax code or whatever.
  There was sort of this unwritten rule. In fact, it even applied to 
Medicare. Some of us know that live in more rural parts of the country 
that our hospitals get lower reimbursements because they have lower 
cost hospitals. No good deed goes unpunished. This is one more example 
where we can strike a blow and say that unwritten rule of Washington 
needs to end.
  It is not just about young people. It is about people of all ages. It 
is bad tax policy. We have a chance to eliminate it. I am delighted we 
are going to take this tax issue one slice at a time, starting with the 
marriage penalty. Let us put them on the President's desk and let him 
explain why if he thinks he should not sign this bill. Because I think 
the American people are way out in front of us on this.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. If the gentleman will yield, I think the gentleman 
from Minnesota is right on when he points out that this is not just for 
newlyweds, it is for anybody who is married at any time in their life, 
for senior citizens who may have lost their spouse and are considering 
remarrying and they have got a whole host of questions to be answered 
about does it make sense to remarry or not or should we just live 
together, which I think is a real concern for a lot of senior citizens. 
We should take this issue off of the table for them. They should feel 
like if the thing that they need is to have a loved one sharing their 
home with them, that they can feel free to be married and not pay a 
$1,400 or more penalty.
  The other point to make here is that while there is a diverse array 
of people who are benefited by this, one thing, the overwhelming 
majority of them have in common and that is that these are middle class 
and lower middle-income people in our country who are benefitting from 
this overwhelmingly. The vast majority of people are where the larger 
wage earner of the two is between $20,000 a year and $75,000 a year.
  So we are talking about people who are working hard and needing every 
bit of the money that they earn in order to meet all of their 
obligations that they have in raising children and paying rent and 
putting food on the table and so on. This is something that really 
reaches out to people across all across America. I think it is 
overwhelmingly of benefit to, as I say, hardworking American families 
who are pressed into that category of spending an average of 40 percent 
of their income on taxes. They do not feel like they are getting 40 
percent back of all that hard work in the form of benefits for those 
taxes compared to what they get for food and clothing and shelter that 
they spend less on than they spend on those taxes.
  Mr. WELLER. The gentleman from Virginia made a good point. The 
marriage tax penalty is an issue that is faced by average, middle class 
Americans. If you pay the average marriage tax penalty, you make about 
$62,000 a year in combined income, between two hardworking Americans, 
husband and wife, joined together in marriage who under our tax code 
they file, they file jointly when they are married, are now paying the 
marriage tax penalty. It is very much a middle class issue. Of course, 
a proposal that we are going to be acting on in the Committee on Ways 
and Means on Wednesday and the House voting on by Valentine's Day, of 
course, will also help low-income families as well.
  As I pointed out, we are working to address the marriage tax penalty, 
but for those who participate in the earned income credit, a program to 
help particularly families with children make ends meet, those who work 
hard, have low incomes and ensure that they have got enough to get by 
to take care of the kids' and their families' needs. We are not only 
working to help the middle class but we are also helping lower income 
working families as well with this initiative this House is going to 
vote on.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman will yield, we are probably going to 
hear from some of our friends on the left that if we provide this tax 
relief, it is going to mean that there is going to be less money to 
spend on education and health care and some other important things. But 
to paraphrase one of our colleagues over in the Senate, the other body, 
he once observed that this is not a debate about how much is going to 
be spent on children or education or health care, it is a debate about 
who gets to do the spending.
  I know the family and I know the Federal Government, and I will bet 
on the family every single time, because that couple which represents 
those other millions and millions of couples around the country, I have 
every confidence that they know how to spend their money smarter than 
Washington does on their behalf. They are going to spend that money on 
children. They are going to spend that money on education. They are 
going to spend that money on health care. They are going to spend that 
money on making certain that their family's needs are met.
  As our colleague from Virginia indicated earlier, right now in 
America today, this is a shocking statistic, that the average family 
spends more on taxes, we are talking about State, Federal and local but 
in total taxes, that average family spends more for taxes than they do 
for food, clothing and shelter combined. There is something wrong in 
America today when the tax collector takes first interest on all the 
money that families earn.
  This is just one very small, well, not small, this is one major but 
very important step that we can strike on behalf of American families 
around the country. Again, I congratulate the gentleman from Illinois, 
I congratulate the leadership in this Congress. I do believe that it is 
going to pass overwhelmingly on a bipartisan vote and then go to the 
Senate.
  I think some people are going to throw out the thing, well, it is 
going to blow a hole in the budget. That is not true. If we control 
Federal spending, there is more than enough money to balance the 
budget, make certain that every penny of Social Security taxes goes 
only for Social Security, there is more than enough money to begin to 
really pay down that debt, and there is more than enough money to make 
certain that American families are treated fairly. That is really what 
this is all about.
  Mr. WELLER. The gentleman pointed out something that is so true. That 
is, that this year as we work to balance the budget for the fourth year 
in a row, we are going to be adopting a plan that once again sets aside 
100 percent of Social Security for Social Security, walling off the 
Social Security trust fund so it cannot be used for anything

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else, stopping the raid on Social Security. Again which is one of the 
Republican priorities.
  We are also going to, of course, strengthen our schools; and we are 
going to pay down the national debt. But as we work to address the 
issue of fairness in the tax code, I find in the south side of Chicago 
and in the south suburbs that I have the privilege of representing in 
Illinois, people say, ``My tax burden is too high.'' They point out 
that 40 percent of the average Illinois family's income goes to 
government in Washington, in the State capital, the local courthouse, 
of course in local, State and Federal taxes and that it is the highest 
tax burden in peacetime history.
  Only at the end of World War II has our tax burden on our Nation been 
higher than it is today. They complain about that. They are unhappy 
that this tax burden is so high. They are frustrated because they feel 
they can better spend those dollars. The other point they always make 
to me is they are frustrated about how complicated and unfair the tax 
code is. They think it is wrong that under our tax code that 28 million 
married working couples pay higher taxes just because they are married.

                              {time}  1945

  That is wrong. Think about it, $1,400, one year's college tuition. 
The gentleman from Minnesota also brought up another point. It is not 
just young couples, like Shad and Michelle Hallihan, but it is older 
Americans, retirees; and they have two pensions that they are 
collecting, and with their two pensions they are paying a marriage tax 
penalty.
  If you think about it, those in their later years, health care costs 
are higher for them at that time, they are concerned about prescription 
drugs, and one of the priorities for this Republican Congress this year 
is passing a prescription drug benefit under Medicare that takes care 
of those 15 million seniors who do not have prescription drug coverage.
  Well, by eliminating the marriage tax penalty for senior citizens who 
suffer it, they will have more of their own money to keep to meet their 
own needs, rather than going to Washington. It is just wrong.
  We have all heard the story about the elderly couple that decided to 
get divorced because they found they could save money. That is wrong, 
that under our Tax Code, the incentives are to get divorced, rather 
than to get married, or not to get married in the first place. We want 
to strengthen families in our country, and that is why elimination of 
the marriage tax penalty is so important.
  I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Just in closing, Congressman Weller, I wanted to again 
thank you, because there are two issues that you have worked very hard 
to help reinforce that I think are sort of the mortar between the 
bricks that holds our whole culture and society together.
  First of all, strong marriages, because we know that societies that 
have strong families are societies that need less government, they need 
less police protection, they need less in terms of criminal 
apprehension, they need less in terms of other social safety nets, if 
you will. So strong families are important, and this is one very 
important step to reinforce those.
  The other area you have worked so hard on, and that is home 
ownership. The one thing we know is that societies that have strong 
families and a high level of home ownership are strong societies.
  So I want to congratulate the gentleman on both of those fronts. I 
hope the Committee on Ways and Means will report out a strong bill in 
the next several days that we can have on the floor and get at the 
President's desk by Valentine's Day. I think that is a fantastic gift 
to give those millions of American couples.
  Again, I thank the gentleman for his leadership and look forward to 
working as best we can to make certain that this one unfairness in the 
Tax Code is eliminated this year.
  Mr. WELLER. Again, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from 
Minnesota for his comments, and his leadership. The gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) has been a real leader, one of the original 
leaders in our effort to eliminate the marriage tax penalty, one of the 
items of unfinished business that we have decided under the leadership 
this year of House Speaker Dennis Hastert to make first out of the box, 
put on a fast track, to help families by addressing the need to make 
our Tax Code more fair and more simple, and we will benefit 56 million 
working Americans who will benefit by eliminating the marriage tax 
penalty.
  We have often asked over the last several years as House Republicans 
have worked to eliminate the marriage tax penalty, is it right, is it 
fair that under our Tax Code that 28 million married working couples 
pay more in taxes just because they are married.
  The average marriage tax penalty is $1,400 in higher taxes just 
because they are married. In the south side of Chicago, the south 
suburbs and rural communities that I represent in Illinois, $1,400 is 
one year's tuition at the local community college; it is three months 
of daycare at the local daycare center; it is 3,000 diapers for a 
newborn baby if they suffer the marriage tax penalty.
  I am so proud that this House has made it a priority once again. I 
was disappointed, in fact it broke my heart last year when President 
Clinton and Vice President Gore vetoed our efforts to eliminate the 
marriage tax penalty.
  We sent to the President legislation which would wipe out the 
marriage tax penalty for a majority of those who suffer it. 
Unfortunately, because it was part of a package with a number of other 
initiatives, the President vetoed it. He said he wanted to spend the 
money on other things. Unfortunately, it fell victim to his desire to 
create new government programs.
  We believe, and our hope is, this year the President will join with 
us. He mentioned in the State of the Union the other night the need to 
address the marriage tax penalty. We want to take him at his word. He 
has now made a promise, and we want him to keep it. We are going to 
eliminate the marriage tax penalty.
  When you think about it, that $1,400 we are going to allow the 
average married couple to keep, that is going to be a big help to the 
folks back home. We believe that by sending the President stand-alone 
clean marriage tax elimination legislation, legislation that only has 
one item in it, which is our effort to eliminate the marriage tax 
penalty, that we will help 28 million working married couples, because 
it should receive overwhelming bipartisan support.
  As I pointed out earlier, an overwhelming majority, almost 220 
Republicans are cosponsoring the Marriage Tax Elimination Act, about a 
dozen Democrats. Hopefully more Democrats will join with us, because I 
believe our legislation that will move out of the Committee on Ways and 
Means this Wednesday will pass with overwhelming bipartisan support, 
and I believe that that signal that will be sent to the Senate will, of 
course, help the Senate maintain the discipline to move a bill quickly 
through the Senate to eliminate the marriage tax penalty; and, of 
course, then we can send it to the President, helping 28 million 
working married couples.
  Frankly, what better gift to give 28 million married working couples 
on Valentine's Day than passage of legislation out of this House, which 
wipes out the marriage tax penalty for 28 million married working 
couples.
  Let me again explain what the marriage tax penalty is for all those 
that are interested. And for my friends in the House I would like to 
point out, you know, the marriage tax penalty is a middle-class issue. 
It is a working family issue, because if you are a married couple and 
you work, you pay taxes, and if you are married, you pay higher taxes 
under our Tax Code.
  In Joliet, Illinois, I will give you an example of a machinist and a 
schoolteacher. A machinist who works at Caterpillar, they make big 
heavy equipment, those big tractors and bulldozers in Joliet, and the 
machinist that works there, he makes $31,500.
  As a single person this machinist at Caterpillar, at the Joliet 
Caterpillar

[[Page 271]]

plant, he pays at the 15 percent tax rate. He pays taxes at the most 
basic rate for average Americans, which is 15 percent. It is the lowest 
bracket in our Tax Code.
  But if he meets a schoolteacher with an identical income, a tenured 
schoolteacher with an identical income, $31,500, of course, she pays in 
the 15 percent bracket if she stays single and is single, but if this 
machinist and schoolteacher in Joliet, Illinois, decide to get married, 
they have to file jointly, which means they have to combine their 
incomes.
  Under our Tax Code today, this machinist and schoolteacher in Joliet, 
Illinois, they are pushed into the 28 percent tax bracket, and under 
our Tax Code, they pay almost $1,400 more in higher taxes just because 
they chose to get married.
  Now, if they chose not to get married and made the choice of living 
together, they would not pay that marriage tax penalty; or if they were 
married and chose to get divorced, they would save money. Those 
incentives are just in the wrong place.
  Now, under the proposal that the Committee on Ways and Means is going 
to act on on Wednesday, we are going to help this machinist in Joliet, 
Illinois, and this public schoolteacher in Joliet, Illinois, because we 
are going to pass legislation out of the Committee on Ways and Means 
and out of this House by Valentine's Day which will essentially wipe 
out the marriage tax penalty; and for couples, such as this machinist 
and schoolteacher, they will no longer be punished for being married 
with passage of our legislation that we are going to move out of the 
House the next couple of weeks.
  What we do is we double the standard deduction immediately so that 
joint filers have a standard deduction twice that for single filers. 
Now, if you itemize your taxes, and most people who itemize their taxes 
are homeowners and you itemize because you combine your property taxes 
with your mortgage interest, and if that totals more than the standard 
deduction, you itemize your taxes.
  But under our proposal that we are going to pass out of the House in 
the next couple of weeks, we double the standard deduction for joint 
filers to twice that of singles, so that wipes out the marriage tax 
penalty for those who do not itemize. We do that immediately in the 
year 2001, this coming year. Next year we double the standard deduction 
for those who do not itemize. So they are helped quite a bit.
  I would point out by doubling the standard deduction for joint filers 
to twice those of singles, we also simplify the Tax Code, one of our 
other goals, because 3 million married working couples will no longer 
need to itemize their taxes because we double the standard deduction 
for joint filers to twice that of singles. So we simplify the paperwork 
they are required to file when they file taxes on April 15th. So it is 
a two-fer. We wipe out the marriage tax penalty, and we save them time 
on their taxes.
  Now, for many homeowners, in fact, an awful lot of homeowners, 
particularly in the suburbs of Chicago and rural areas that I 
represent, they itemize their taxes, because when you add together your 
property taxes, you add together your mortgage interest and some of the 
other items you might be able to itemize, charity deductions, they are 
more than the standard deduction, so you itemize your taxes. We help 
them as well.
  What we do in our proposal to help those who itemize their taxes in 
eliminating the marriage tax penalty is we widen the 15 percent 
bracket. Right now if you are single, you can make about $24,000 or 
$25,000 a year and be in the 15 percent tax bracket; but if you are 
married and you file jointly, you can only make about $44,000 a year.
  That is wrong, because if you choose to get married, you pay higher 
taxes because of that. So we double it under this legislation. We widen 
that bracket so those in the 15 percent bracket that are joint filers 
can earn twice as much in their combined income as single filers, 
wiping out their marriage tax penalty as well. That is good news for 
married working couples. We help those who itemize; we help those who 
do not itemize.
  One of the other points I would like to make as well, I am often 
asked, if you are going to eliminate the marriage tax penalty, does 
that mean you are going to raise taxes on single people in order to 
offset the loss of revenue for the Federal Government?
  Well, we have addressed that issue. Under the legislation that the 
Committee on Ways and Means is going to act on on Wednesday and this 
House is going to pass by Valentine's Day, we wipe out the marriage tax 
penalty for almost 28 million married working couples, and we make the 
Tax Code essentially neutral, so you pay no more in taxes if you are 
married or single, so two people with identical incomes in identical 
circumstances pay no more in taxes if they are single or married.
  That is fairness, bringing fairness to the Tax Code, because it 
responds to that fundamental question, and that is, is it right, is it 
fair that under our Tax Code that you pay more in taxes just because 
you are married.
  I am so pleased and really pretty proud that the House leadership 
under the leadership of House Speaker Dennis Hastert has made 
elimination of the marriage tax penalty priority Number 1 when it comes 
to addressing the need to fix the Tax Code to make it fairer and 
simpler, and that we are going to give a Valentine's Day gift to 28 
million married working couples by passing out of this House by 
Valentine's Day our legislation which will essentially wipe out the 
marriage tax penalty for a majority of those who suffer it.
  I often refer to this young couple that came and talked to me about 
the need to eliminate the marriage tax penalty and what it meant to 
them. Whenever we talk about the marriage tax penalty, I think of 
couples such as Michelle and Shad Hallihan, two public school teachers 
in Joliet, Illinois, who made the decision to get married; and they 
made that decision knowing full well that under our Tax Code they were 
going to pay more in taxes just because they are married.
  Well, it is young people like Michelle and Shad, as well as older 
folks who are retirees who suffer the marriage tax penalty, that we 
want to bring fairness to the Tax Code by eliminating the marriage tax 
penalty.
  I really believe that this year we have an opportunity. 
Unfortunately, the President and Vice President Gore vetoed last year 
our efforts to eliminate the marriage tax penalty for a vast majority 
of those who suffer it, and it fell victim to the President's desire to 
spend more money on government programs. And while we wanted to 
eliminate the marriage tax penalty, we made a commitment last year that 
we were going to try again.
  I am pleased that this House in the next 2 weeks is going to vote on 
legislation which will wipe out the marriage tax penalty for a majority 
of those that suffer it. That is good news. That is good news for 28 
million married working couples. Fifty-six million Americans who are 
married and work will benefit from this legislation, and they will see 
anywhere from $230 to almost $1,400 in marriage tax relief as a result 
of this legislation. That is good news.
  My hope is this entire House will vote yes. Now, there are 12 
Democrats that have joined along with us, out of the 231 cosponsors of 
the Marriage Tax Elimination Act. The gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. 
Danner) has been a real leader. My friend, a Democratic Member from 
Missouri, has been a real leader in the effort to eliminate the 
marriage tax penalty, and I am so proud to have her as a partner, and 
she has been able to bring about a dozen of her Democratic colleagues 
with her.
  My hope is and we want to extend an invitation to our Democratic 
friends to join with us and make this a bipartisan effort.
  The President said in his State of the Union speech the other night 
that we should address the marriage tax penalty. We want to take the 
President at his word, so that when we place on the President's desk a 
stand-alone bill, clean marriage tax elimination legislation, that he 
will sign it into law, because it is going to provide real relief

[[Page 272]]

and address the need to bring fairness to the Tax Code when it comes to 
marriage.
  You know, you think about it, our Tax Code has the incentives in the 
wrong place. We should be working to strengthen society's most basic 
institution. We can do that by eliminating the marriage tax penalty.
  My hope is over the next 2 weeks we will be able to garner 
overwhelming bipartisan support to send with a strong message to the 
Senate our desire to eliminate the marriage tax penalty. I appreciate 
the comments of Chairman Roth of Delaware, who has been a real leader 
in working to bring tax relief for middle-class families.
  Again, as I pointed out earlier, Chairman Roth, chairman of the 
Senate Finance Committee, praised the gentleman from Texas (Chairman 
Archer) for the speedy start to open this issue. Of course, Mr. Archer 
is chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, part of our 
leadership here in the House. Chairman Roth indicated he intends to 
move shortly over the next few months similar legislation to eliminate 
the marriage tax penalty.
  Let us keep this legislation on a fast track. There are 28 million 
married working couples, 56 million hard-working married people that 
are out there who need help. They need fairness in the Tax Code as it 
affects married people. We want to help them.
  My belief is we have a tremendous opportunity, a clean stand-alone 
effort to eliminate the marriage tax penalty. It deserves overwhelming 
bipartisan support. It deserves to be signed into law. It is all about 
fairness.
  Let us bring fairness to the Tax Code. Help couples such as Michelle 
and Shad Hallihan, public school teachers in Joliet, as well as 28 
million other working couples, by eliminating the marriage tax penalty.

                              {time}  2000

  I thank the Speaker for the opportunity to address this House and our 
efforts to eliminate the marriage tax penalty and bring fairness to the 
Tax Code.

                          ____________________