[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2073-2074]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I believe all in government in 
Washington, DC, and in every State, need to ask ourselves: Do our 
legislative acts, the public policies that we create, enhance or 
nurture our better instincts as a people? Are we conducting activities 
and passing laws that further benefit the better instincts of our 
Nation as a people?
  A payment to somebody or some institution is an incentive to them, 
for whatever reason, that incentivizes and encourages that activity 
that got them the payment.
  A tax, likewise, is a penalty. It discourages, it penalizes, it 
hurts. It sanctions certain kinds of behavior. That is so basic as to 
be without dispute. Frankly, our Founding Fathers knew this.
  Professor Sindell, at Harvard, has written a book. I have not read 
the book, but I read the article, I believe in the Atlantic Monthly, 
about how in the first 150 years of our Nation's history, if you look 
at the debate that occurred in Congress, the Senate and the House, they 
were constantly debating what to sign and what to veto and what bills 
to support; they were always debating this principle.
  (Mr. KYL assumed the chair.)
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, is this going to make people better? Is 
it going to encourage their best instincts or will it encourage poor 
instincts? Will it encourage bad behavior? If they vote for or against 
bills on that basis, will it make us better people? That is an 
important issue. We ought to think about it.
  We encourage a lot of activities in America through our tax policies. 
We encourage people to give to charitable institutions, churches, and 
schools by making those contributions tax deductible.
  We help families raise their children by providing a deduction or a 
child tax credit, which we passed a few years ago.
  We encourage savings by making the interest on individual retirement 
accounts tax free.
  I have introduced a bill to make the interest that accrues on savings 
for prepaid college tuition plans tax free because we ought to 
encourage saving for education and have families and children invest in 
their education.
  In many States--Kentucky, for example--the average contribution to 
those plans is $47 per month. They are middle-income people who care 
about their children's education. They are saving for their children's 
education, and we are taxing them on the interest that accrues on that 
savings for college education.
  In my view, that is bad public policy. We discourage and penalize 
other activities we feel we can do without but we do not want to 
prohibit entirely. We tax cigarettes at a very high rate. We know that 
tobacco is bad for our health. It is not a good thing to do, and we 
have pretty high taxes, higher taxes every year it seems, and rightly 
so.
  We tax gasoline. We can talk about the cost of gasoline. Last year in 
Alabama, gasoline was under $1 a gallon in a lot of places. Forty 
percent of the cost of that gallon of gasoline was State and Federal 
tax because we do not want people to use more than they need, we want 
to keep supplies strong. We do not want to import anymore than we have 
to, and we want to reduce pollution.
  There are other taxes and penalties on people who pollute. That is 
one of the policies.
  We have higher taxes on alcohol than we do a lot of other products.
  We do not tax, for example, prescription drugs--most States do not. 
There is sales tax on all kinds of products that are sold in our 
grocery stores, but we do not tax prescription drugs because we know 
people need those drugs, and we do not want to penalize that.
  Another thing we tax which I must add to that list is marriage. We 
are taxing and penalizing marriage to an extraordinary degree.
  At church Sunday in Alabama--it was a pleasure to get back home--my 
minister told a story about an old man who had never been to town. His 
grandchildren said: Grandpa, you need to go to town. He finally agreed. 
He had never seen a zoo, so they wanted to take him to a zoo. They took 
him to a zoo, and he came upon a giraffe. He stood there and just 
looked at that giraffe. He walked around that giraffe, he studied that 
giraffe, and he spent 2 hours looking at that giraffe. He finally said: 
I still don't believe it.
  We are at that point with the marriage penalty. Some people do not 
believe it is happening, that we are taxing marriage. It is very real. 
Talk to young people all over America today and ask them about what is 
going to happen to their taxes when two of them, particularly if both 
are working, are married. It costs them a lot of money.
  We have to end this. We need to end this tax penalty. The President 
said he was for it. The proposal he made in his State of the Union 
Address and subsequently is insignificant in meeting that challenge, 
but it is an admission that he believes there is a problem.
  Let's look at it. Soon we are going to be seeing legislation in this 
body to deal with it. I hope we will study it carefully and end this 
governmental policy of penalizing and discouraging marriage. That is 
wrong. We need to encourage marriage. We do not need to penalize 
singleness, but they ought not have a financial incentive to remain 
single. We should not have public policy that favors singleness over 
marriage. We should have a fair policy that does not favor one over the 
other.
  I have a young staff member who married recently. He had been dating 
his fiancee for over four years and they finally married. He tells me 
they will pay over $1,000 a year more having married. They married in 
July of last

[[Page 2074]]

year, and they have to pay the marriage tax for the whole year. It is 
$1,000. That is roughly $100 a month out of their budget simply because 
they quit being engaged and were married. That is not right. That is 
wrongheaded. We do not need to continue this.
  A good friend of mine, a fine person, unfortunately went through a 
divorce. She divorced in January a year ago. She told me that had they 
divorced in December, it would have saved them $1,600 on their tax 
bill. That is approximately $130 a month. They gave up that much 
because they did not divorce earlier. Can you imagine a governmental 
public policy that provides a subsidy, an incentive, a bribe almost, to 
divorce? That is wrong. We do not need to do this any longer. I believe 
in this strongly.
  This is a disadvantage too often to women. Women are just now 
breaking through the glass ceiling and making higher incomes. Many on 
the other side of the aisle and the President say: We do not want to 
deal with this problem of higher income people; we only want to have a 
marriage penalty elimination for the lowest income people.
  What is wrong with two people working and doing modestly well today? 
Here is an example. Heather's income is $33,000. Her husband Brad's 
income is $37,000. Their total income is $70,000. It is the American 
dream, to do well and make those kinds of incomes. That is not rich. 
You cannot buy a house, buy a car, and educate your children well if 
you are not making in that range. It is harder and harder to do those 
things if you make less than that. Everybody knows that. Those are 
salaries one wants to see more and more Americans achieve.
  Because they are married, they may take a standard deduction of 
$7,100, as well as two personal exemptions of $2,700. This leaves them 
with a taxable income of $57,500. If they were cohabitating, living 
outside marriage, Heather and Brad could each take a standard deduction 
of $4,200. Heather's taxable income would be $26,000; Brad's would be 
$30,000. Their combined taxable income would be $56,000. Because they 
are married, Heather and Brad must pay $1,400 more than if they were 
cohabitating. To them, it means approximately a $40-a-month charge.
  That is a policy we should end. I believe this Congress is committed 
to it.
  We are going to continue to proceed to work through the fine details 
of all these tax regulations and the thousands and thousands of tax 
pages to make sure we are doing it right and fair. But I do not think a 
couple making $80,000 or $90,000 or $100,000 ought to be denied equity. 
Why should they be taxed more than two single individuals making 
$100,000 collectively? They do not have to pay the extra taxes.
  We are dealing with an issue whose time has come. The marriage 
penalty must end. We are not against singleness. I do not think there 
should be any battle between people who are single, who think it is 
some sort of tax advantage, and those who are married. We do not 
believe there should be any tax advantage. We are simply trying to 
level the playing field. This is a move toward equity and fairness at 
its basic level. It is a move to encourage good public policy, good 
activities, such as marriage and raising a family, and not taxing them. 
It sets a goal for us that we ought to pursue.
  We ought to quit discouraging marriage, quit taxing and penalizing 
it, and allow people to make their choices in this country as they 
choose without having the tax man sticking his nose in their financial 
and personal matters.
  I thank the Chair for this time. I am glad to see the Senator from 
Wyoming here. I appreciate his leadership. I know the Presiding Officer 
has been a champion in eliminating a lot of inequities in the Tax Code. 
I thank him for his leadership in that regard.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the remarks of the 
Senator from Alabama. We have lots of choices when we talk about tax 
relief, but this is one choice that is not only good for our country 
economically but certainly as a fairness issue is one that each of us, 
I think, supports.

                          ____________________