[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 461]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY

  (Mr. MORAN of Virginia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, the problem is there is no 
surplus. Even though CBO has projected a $1.9 trillion surplus over the 
next 10 years, they made false assumptions in coming up with that 
surplus.
  For example, if we project the current level of appropriations and 
only increase by the rate of inflation, not assuming population changes 
or any attempt to improve quality of life of the American people, then 
more than a trillion dollars is going to be used up in meeting just the 
need to increase by inflation. It does not assume that we will sustain 
any of the tax extenders.
  Obviously, we are going to do that. It does not assume that we will 
fix the alternative minimum tax. If we do not do that by 2009, we are 
going to have more than 15 million people paying the alternative 
minimum taxes. It is going to reach down to people with incomes below 
$50,000 a year. That has to be fixed.
  It is going to cost as much as $230 billion just to sustain the kind 
of rational tax cuts that are necessary. We want the marriage penalty 
fixed but not when half of the people that are benefited are now 
getting a marriage bonus. Because they get married, they pay less 
taxes. Half of the money in today's bill that is being marked up would 
go to those families. That is not of the best use of our resources.

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