[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7586]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) is recognized 
during morning hour debates.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, this week the House will take aim at a 
looming injustice. The marriage tax penalty was a relic of 40 years of 
persistent tax hikes codified by Democrat Congresses into Federal law. 
In essence, it punished married taxpayers simply for being married. The 
standard deduction married couples could take was less than that 
allowed for two single taxpayers, thus the Tax Code discouraged 
marriage and sent a message to married couples around the country that 
they were not as entitled to their own money as singles were.
  In 2001, a Republican Congress passed and a Republican President 
signed a tax relief package that corrected this injustice and brought 
marriage equity to the Tax Code. In 2003, as the economy worked to 
recover from 2 years of recession, terrorism, and war, we moved to 
expedite marriage penalty relief. Unfortunately, the marriage penalty, 
like some B-movie vampire, just will not die. It keeps rising from the 
dead to wreak more havoc on the paychecks of American families.
  The marriage penalty is hoping to reappear next year in a smaller 
form and to be fully revived in 2010. So this week the House will take 
up legislation to make sure that the marriage tax penalty does not get 
its sequel. Instead, we will pass a bill to extend full marriage 
penalty relief through 2010 and beyond so that marriage tax equity 
becomes a permanent principle in Federal law.
  Any way you look at it, marriage tax equity just makes sense. In the 
first place, any time we can establish flatter, fairer, and lower taxes 
on working families, we are doing right by the national economy. We are 
creating jobs, careers, and opportunities all across this country. And, 
second, we are telling those married couples struggling to make it that 
we will not turn our backs on them.
  Allowing the marriage penalty to resurface in the future would 
represent a targeted tax hike on married couples and a direct attack on 
family budgets around the country. We can and must protect families 
from such an attack, and the bill we will take up this week will 
accomplish that goal.
  Though the economy continues to rebound, working families still need 
our help. This week we will have an opportunity to provide it to some 
of the people who need it the most.

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