Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
July 21, 2000 -- Page: S7417

MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I commend the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee for not giving up on marriage tax penalty relief for hard-working American families. He deserves praise because there is no doubt this has been a rugged road.

We passed marriage tax penalty relief last year and sent it to the President in a bill that had other tax relief measures. The President said: No, that is too much tax relief for the American people; send me smaller bills.

Under the leadership of Senator Roth, and with the help of our distinguished assistant majority leader, Don Nickles, Sam Brownback, John Ashcroft, Spencer Abraham, Rod Grams, together as a team we said we were going to send the President a clean marriage tax penalty relief bill; we were going to make sure that hard-working American families who are paying a penalty for being married got relief this year. That is the result of what we have done today.

Sixty percent of the Senate today is sending this bill to the President. Over 60 percent of the House passed the same bill this week. We say to the President: You asked us to send you a smaller bill, and we are doing it.

Most of us wanted to give tax relief in a bigger way. We wanted to go all the way through the 28-percent bracket, but the President said no. We came back with 15 percent, doubling of the standard deduction through the 15-percent bracket. What that means is a couple earning between $43,000 and $52,000 combined will stay in the 15-percent bracket. If one person in a couple makes $25,000 a year and the other makes $35,000 a year, they will stay in the 15-percent bracket longer.

It means tax relief for every American couple. Every American couple who uses the standard deduction is going to get relief because that standard deduction is doubled. Fifty million people in our country will get tax relief if the President signs the bill.

We are increasing the amount of the earned-income tax credit because we believe married couples who have just come off welfare or who are the working poor deserve that earned-income tax credit so they know that working is better than being on welfare. We want them to have the incentive to do that. We want them to have the pride of going to work and contributing to their families every day because we know they think better of themselves when they do that.

I do not see how President Clinton can use an excuse to veto the bill we are sending him today. I do not see what excuse remains. We have taken all of the excuses off the table.

He said in his State of the Union Message to Congress and to the American people he favored marriage tax penalty relief. We sent him a bill last year; he vetoed it. He said there were too many other tax cuts in the bill. Today, we are sending him a plain, simple marriage tax penalty relief bill for hard-working Americans who earn in the $25,000 to $35,000 range of income. That is who will benefit.

I have heard people on the other side say that this is a tax cut for the rich. There is no way anyone who has visited in the home of a couple, each of whom make $25,000 a year, can say that those people are rich. We say they have earned this money and we want them to keep more of the money they earn. The fundamental difference is we believe the money that people earn belongs to them. We do not believe it belongs to the Federal Government.

We have a non-Social Security surplus. This is only letting them keep more of the money they earn rather than sending it to Washington because we are being good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars today. We are setting aside the Social Security surplus for Social Security only, we are paying down the debt, and we are giving back to the people part of the money they earned if the President will sign the bill.

This week has been a good week for hard-working Americans, for small business people, and for people who own farms and ranches because we have given relief from the death tax to small businesses and family-owned farms so their heirs will not have to sell that business and put people out of jobs, and we have given marriage tax penalty relief.

This is the right thing to do, and I urge the President of the United States to hear 60 percent of the Senate and 63 percent of the House of Representatives who said they believe in marriage tax penalty relief, and we urge the President of the United States to sign this bill and give relief to Americans today because this will take effect immediately.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.