[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4673]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY REPEAL

  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, later this week, we will again vote to remove 
the marriage penalty from our Tax Code, and this time we have a 
President who will sign the bill.
  Eighty-five percent of the American people want us to do this, and 
with good reason. Forty percent of all first marriages end in divorce, 
single-parent families have increased 248 percent since 1960, and the 
percentage of children born out of wedlock has gone from 10 to 33 
percent during the same period. Mr. Speaker, we need to strengthen 
families in this country.
  The Tax Code is not the only reason this has happened. For 30 years 
we had a welfare system that tore families apart. Fortunately, a 
Republican Congress reformed that system. We still spend $1,000 
supporting single-parent families for every $1 we spend encouraging 
couples to marry and stay together.
  Clearly, we have a lot of work to do to strengthen marriages in 
America. This week we will have a chance to change the Tax Code that 
penalizes couples for getting married in the first place. I urge all my 
colleagues to support this very important bill.

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