[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5356-5357]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



            MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY RELIEF ACT OF 2000--Resumed

  Pending:

       Lott (for Roth) amendment No. 3090, in the nature of a 
     substitute.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair, in his capacity as a Senator from 
the State of New Hampshire, suggests the absence of a quorum.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from 
California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I know the majority leader is looking over 
amendments that Members on this side of the aisle want the opportunity 
to offer to the bill on the marriage tax penalty. I certainly hope the 
majority leader will be able to accommodate us. After all, if we were 
using the regular rules of the Senate, we could offer any and all 
amendments; that is, the rules of the Senate provide Members can, in 
fact, offer amendments on bills that come before the Senate.
  The Senator from Montana, who has done so much work on this marriage 
tax penalty issue, and I were talking about how much the procedure 
around here is like the House of Representatives with tremendously 
restricted opportunities for debate and restricted opportunities to 
offer amendments. We are working very hard, on our side of the aisle, 
to fight for the right merely to put matters before the Senate. We may 
not win every time, but the fact is we are here for a reason and that 
is to legislate; it is to bring these matters before the American 
people in this forum called the Senate.
  The bill purports to take care of the marriage tax penalty, but I 
have big news for everyone: It does not take care of the marriage tax 
penalty. Why do I say this? I get this directly from Senator Moynihan's 
work on this issue as the ranking member of the Finance Committee. We 
know there are 65 marriage tax penalties in the code for all 
taxpayers--65.
  So if you really believe the marriage tax penalty is your biggest 
priority and that is all you want to do, that it is the most important 
thing as you look at the Tax Code--and, frankly, from my point of view, 
it is not the only thing I want to do and there are more important 
things we can do to help the middle class in this country--the most 
honest thing to do is repeal the penalty in these 65 occasions in which 
it appears in the Tax Code.
  However, the GOP plan fully eliminates only 1 of these penalties, 
partially eliminates 2 others, and it leaves 62 marriage penalties in 
the code.
  We have a situation where we are told we can do away with the 
marriage tax penalty, but when we look at the fine print, we are not 
doing away with the marriage tax penalty at all. We are only doing it 
in one place, completely, where it appears, and partially in another 
couple. And we are leaving 62 penalties in place.
  So I do not really think this is a good way for us to proceed because 
it is so expensive and we have not taken care of the marriage tax 
penalty. It is another one of these risky tax schemes that is going to 
come back to haunt us because it is going to rob us of debt reduction.
  When you add it to all the tax bills that have already passed the 
Senate with majority support from the Republicans, it is breaking the 
back of the non-Social Security surplus. We will have no surplus. 
Pretty soon, we are going to start eating into that surplus.
  We are going to hear Senator Baucus talk about why he believes this 
plan is flawed. It actually hurts some people at the lower end of the 
scale. It does not do what it purports to do.
  We are going to hear from Senator Bayh, who has another idea that is 
certainly more affordable and would allow us to do other things we need 
to do for our people, such as the prescription drug benefit.
  We now know for sure that our people are suffering because they 
cannot afford prescription drugs. If we listen to Senator Wyden, who 
has spoken on this eloquently, we know our senior citizens are not 
taking their prescription drugs. They are cutting their pills in half. 
They risk getting strokes. They risk getting heart attacks. They cannot 
afford the prescription drugs.
  While we are talking about a marriage tax penalty--and a lot of 
relief goes to people who are earning a lot of money in this country--
what about the prescription drug benefit? What about a tuition tax 
break for parents who are struggling to send their kids to college and 
college tuition goes up each and every year?
  We cannot do these things in a vacuum. We have to look at the entire 
picture. We have to ask ourselves: Do we want to give tax breaks or do 
we want all the money to go to debt reduction? I myself would like to 
give targeted tax breaks that we can afford to the middle class, who 
needs them, and use the rest of the money for debt reduction and for 
investments in our people, in our children.
  In closing, there is something we can really do for married people 
here, those at the lowest incomes who are working at the minimum wage, 
more than 60 percent of whom are women. Raising the minimum wage would 
go a long way to doing something good for people who are married and in 
the low brackets. A tuition tax break for people who send their kids to 
college would go a long way to helping married people and their 
families. A prescription drug benefit would help those families who are 
seeing their moms and dads struggling along, not being able to afford 
prescription drugs.
  So the question we face, just to sum it up as we look at this 
Republican plan, is this: Why would we do something that says it is 
relieving the marriage tax penalty when it leaves 62 marriage tax 
penalties in place? Why would we do that? It is not real. We are 
telling people we are doing something we are not doing. We are 
backloading it. We are breaking the Treasury. We are eating into the 
non-Social Security surplus. Why would we do that?
  Why not look at a more modest plan? We have some ideas on that. We 
are going to hear about one of them today. Why don't we look at raising 
the minimum wage? Why don't we look at the prescription drug benefit or 
the tuition

[[Page 5357]]

tax break for our families who are struggling to send their kids to 
college? Why don't we look at this economic recovery and together, both 
sides of the aisle, say we do not want to derail it by doing these tax 
breaks, one after the other after the other after the other. They are 
adding up to hundreds of billions of dollars.
  If our President were not so strong in saying let's keep this country 
on a fiscally sound basis, we would be in a lot of trouble, if those 
bills had been signed.
  I asked of the Senator from Montana yesterday--I was talking to his 
staff--how many tax bills have already gone through here with the votes 
of the other side of the aisle. I think his staff told me it was about 
$500 billion at this point, $500 billion of tax breaks--by the way, 
most of them to people who do not want them, who do not need them, who 
are asking us to keep the economy strong, reduce the debt, and do 
targeted tax breaks for the people who really need them.
  I hope the majority leader will accept these amendments we have come 
up with, allow us to debate as Senators, not turn us into the House of 
Representatives which gives its Members very few rights to offer 
amendments. I hope we will reject this Republican plan because it does 
not do what it says it does. It is fiscally irresponsible, and it stops 
us from doing the good things we need to do for our families.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from 
Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I support legislation which would provide 
tax relief to the working families who are currently paying a marriage 
penalty. Such a penalty is unfair and should be eliminated. However, I 
do not support the proposal the Republicans have brought to the floor.
  While its sponsors claim the purpose of the bill is to provide a 
marriage penalty relief, that is not its real purpose. In fact, only 42 
percent of the tax benefits contained in the legislation go to couples 
currently subject to a marriage penalty. The majority of the tax 
benefits would actually go to couples who are already receiving a 
marriage bonus and to single taxpayers. As a result, the cost of the 
legislation is highly inflated. It would cost $248 billion over the 
next 10 years.
  As with most Republican tax breaks, the overwhelming majority of the 
tax benefits would go to the wealthiest taxpayers. This bill is 
designed to give more than 78 percent of the total tax savings to the 
wealthiest 20 percent of the taxpayers. It is, in reality, the latest 
ploy in the Republican scheme to spend the entire surplus on tax cuts 
which would disproportionately benefit the richest taxpayers. That is 
not what the American people mean when they ask for relief from the 
marriage penalty. With this bill, the Republicans have deliberately 
distorted the legitimate concerns of married couples for tax fairness.
  All married couples do not pay a marriage penalty. In fact, a larger 
percentage of couples receive a marriage bonus than pay a marriage 
penalty. The only couples who pay a penalty are those families in which 
both spouses work and have relatively equivalent incomes. They deserve 
relief from this inequity, and they deserve it now.
  We can provide relief to the overwhelming majority of the couples 
simply and at a modest cost. That is what the Senate should do. 
Instead, the Republicans have insisted on greatly inflating the cost of 
the bill by adding extraneous tax breaks primarily benefiting the 
wealthiest taxpayers.
  A plan that would eliminate the marriage penalty for the overwhelming 
majority of married couples could easily be designed and cost less than 
$100 billion over 10 years. The House Democrats offered such a plan 
when they debated this issue in February. The amendment which Senator 
Bayh intends to offer to this bill would also accomplish that goal. If 
the real purpose of the legislation is to eliminate the marriage 
penalty for those working families who actually pay a penalty under 
current law, it can be accomplished at a reasonable cost.
  The problem we have consistently faced is that our Republican 
colleagues insist on using marriage penalty relief as a subterfuge to 
enact large tax breaks unrelated to relieving the marriage penalty and 
heavily weighted to the wealthiest taxpayers. The House Republicans put 
forward a bill which would cost $182 billion over 10 years and give 
less than half the tax benefits to people who pay a marriage penalty. 
That was not enough for the Senate Republicans. They raised the cost to 
$248 billion over 10 years. A substantial majority, 58 percent of the 
tax breaks in the Senate bill, would go to taxpayers who do not pay a 
marriage penalty.
  Nor is this the only tax bill the Republicans have brought to the 
floor this year. They attached tax cuts to the minimum wage bill in the 
House of close to $123 billion and tax cuts to the bankruptcy bill in 
the Senate of almost $100 billion. They have sought to pass tax cuts of 
$23 billion to subsidize private school tuition and reduce the 
inheritance tax paid by multimillionaires. Not including the cost of 
this bill, the Republicans in the House and Senate have already passed 
tax cuts that would consume $443 billion over the next 10 years. The 
result of this tax cut frenzy is to crowd out necessary spending on the 
priorities which the American people care most about--education, 
prescription drugs for senior citizens, health care for uninsured 
families, strengthening Medicare and Social Security for future 
generations.
  Finally, I want to bring another matter to the attention of the 
Senate. It is another marriage penalty, and that is, there are 13 
States--which represent 22 percent of the American people--that have 
laws saying when one gets married, they lose the coverage under 
Medicaid they might otherwise have if they were single. For example, in 
the State of Maine, one is eligible as a single person for Medicaid up 
to $14,000, but if it is a couple, each earning $7,000 so the family 
income is $14,000, neither of them gets Medicaid coverage. That is true 
in 13 States.
  If we are going to take a look at the marriage penalty for the 
wealthier individuals in this country, what about the marriage penalty 
for some of the working poor who are trying to make ends meet? That is 
an issue I hope to have an opportunity to debate when we get into a 
discussion of the proposal put forward by the Democratic leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of New Hampshire). The Senator from 
Arkansas.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
up to 15 minutes on an unrelated topic.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, we are now on the marriage penalty bill. I 
suggest to the Senator, since there are no other Members on the floor, 
he can take time off the majority side on the pending measure.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, since this is coming off our time on 
the marriage tax penalty bill, I commend Senator Hutchison and all 
those who have worked so diligently on both sides of the aisle and in 
the House of Representatives to provide relief on this onerous and 
perverse provision in our Tax Code that puts the institution of 
marriage in a disadvantageous position and costs American families 
thousands of dollars each year. It is something that should have been 
eliminated long ago.
  I look forward to supporting the Marriage Penalty Relief Act. I hope 
there will be an overwhelming vote in the Senate for this bill.

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