Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
July 29, 1999 -- Page: S9719

MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, this amendment is cosponsored by Senator Ashcroft of Missouri and Senator Brownback of Kansas.

This is an amendment that, very simply, moves the marriage penalty provisions from taking effect in 2005 to giving an early effect starting in 2001. By beginning to phase in the doubling of the standard deduction, we give married couples relief from the marriage tax penalty that I have to say I think is the most unfair part of the Tax Code in the Internal Revenue Code that we have in our country.

It isn't that anybody ever meant to have a marriage tax penalty. Congress didn't enact one. But it was a consequence that was unintended and unexpected when there were changes in the brackets in the Tax Code. We are going to correct it with this amendment. We are going to do it earlier than is in the bill.

I think Senator Roth and Senator Moynihan did a terrific job. They had a very difficult time, particularly because they were quite responsible in saying we were not going to have tax cuts except as we have a surplus that comes from income tax deductions.

The first decision the Finance Committee made was to say: We are setting aside Social Security. We are not going to touch it.

If we were to spend the Social Security surplus, we could have a lot more tax cuts a lot faster. But they were right. They said: No, we are not going to do that. Social Security was off the table.

We have smaller tax cuts in the early years because we are dealing with income tax deductions that should go back to the people who earned it. They sent too much to Washington and we want to return it to them.

The question is, What is the most important of the tax cuts and the least we can give? Senator Ashcroft, Senator Brownback, and I believe the marriage tax penalty is the highest priority for relief.

We are offering this amendment by delaying a few of the other tax cuts until later. We don't change any of the tax cuts in this bill. We do not eliminate any of them. I support all of them. But we say the highest priority is the marriage tax penalty relief and everything else can be delayed a little bit to give hard-working American families that relief.

We are talking about a schoolteacher who makes $33,000 a year and a football coach who makes $41,000 a year. They are paying taxes, when they are single, in the 15-percent tax bracket. They get married. Guess what. They go into the 28-percent tax bracket at a time when they need their money the most.

We have almost doubled their tax bracket just because they have gotten married. Not only that, we don't even give them double the standard deduction. Instead of $4,300, and $4,300 when they were both single, they now together get $7,200. All we are going to do is phase in $8,600 in the standard deduction right up front. We are going to delay a few other things to let that happen.

In 2005, the real marriage tax penalty kicks in because that is the first time we have the money to let people file as singles when they are married. That is the best marriage tax penalty reduction of all because it eliminates it. That is simply what the amendment does.

I commend Senator Roth for all of the effort he took to be responsible with this tax cut bill. This tax cut bill has across-the-board rate reductions that help every taxpayer in America, expands the tax brackets for middle-income taxpayers, and a number of positive pension provisions that are particularly helpful for women.

I spoke to Senator Roth about the inequity for women in the workplace, because women have children and they have to lay off a few months. Some choose to lay off for six years until their children go to school. Some choose to lay off 18 years.

Women live longer. They are in and out of the workplace more--that is a fact--and they get penalized not only in their working years, but they get penalized in their retirement years. That is not fair.

This bill attempts to give them catchup provisions for their pensions. It is a great part of this bill. I support it totally.

We also have increases in charitable giving. This is a provision of mine that was put in this bill by Senator Roth. It allows a person to roll over IRA contributions to charities without tax consequences. If a person has saved and done the right thing and sees that they are not going to need their IRA money, they can give it to charity without tax consequences. That is in this bill.

We are helping farmers with risk accounts in this bill, so that farmers will be able to plan and put aside money tax free until they need it in bad times. Heaven knows, the farmers of this country have seen bad times.

We have $12 billion in education tax relief.

Mr. President, this is a good bill. It is a balanced bill. It has marriage tax penalty relief, but it is in 2005. That is my only real concern about the fairness of this bill.

Senator Ashcroft, Senator Brownback, and I want to phase in some of the other tax cuts a little bit further down the road and say to the 40 million American married couples who are being penalized because they are married, we believe it is the highest priority to give relief. That is what we are saying in our amendment.