Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. From the left, from the right--I want to go ahead and finish this point, if I could--from the left and from the right. We had a former Black Panther there, a former Clinton administration official saying the real problem we have here is we have a breakdown in the families taking place. We have too little density of responsible adults per children. We are saying send a signal that does not decrease the density of adults per child. I think that is a responsible social policy instead of a social choice here that is actually contrary to the issue. Americans for Tax Reform support the Marriage Tax Elimination Act, offered in the House by Representatives Weller! and McIntosh. ``We believe that married working couples deserve the same treatment as singles.'' That is their statement. Now, isn't that pretty clear? Now is the perfect time for action because the Congressional Budget Office is anticipating an earlier- than-expected fiscal surplus. This is Americans for Tax Reform saying that this is a good way to go. For many Americans, the average marriage tax is approximately equal in value to half a year of car payments. Half a year of car payments we are talking about. With an extra $1,400 a year, a couple might be able to send a child to the school of their choice. The bottom line is, according to the Americans for Tax Reform, a marriage tax is very real to many working couples in this country. I ask people who are watching this, if you would look and figure up your own tax and see how many of you are paying a marriage tax penalty for being married.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Less than one-third. Out of every $5 surplus you have, $1.50 is going back to married families. Does that make any rational sense here, that we are getting $5 in and saying, OK, $1.50 is back. I think we ought to be doing far more. This ought to start the overall situation, but we are looking at least a start here. This is the sort of thing we need to do. We need to move. You ought to see the groups supporting this. The National Taxpayers Union, with 300,000 members, strongly supports the Marriage Tax Elimination Act. The Marriage Tax Elimination Act would address that and dramatically widen the scope of tax relief. This is a broad tax relief issue--21 million families, not just individuals, 21 million families, in America pay this tax penalty. Currently, laws force many married Americans to pay a higher tax bill than they would if they remained single and had the same combined income. Such a double standard is wholly at odds with the American ideal that taxes should not be a primary consideration in any individual's economic or social choices. I want to underline ``social choices'' because we have social problems in this country. We have social maladies in this country. I held a forum with Joe Lieberman last week about the overall issue of violence and teen violence taking place, and everyone there----

Mr. BROWNBACK. That money is indexed as to what we would actually already have budgeted. I point out to my colleague from Missouri, not only is that in excess of it, but we found a way to cut the taxes while we were in deficit. Now we are running a surplus, and we are saying, Can't we find a little way here to be able to cut taxes on hard-working married couples in America?

Mr. BROWNBACK. CBO has taken their budget projections now to $520 billion over the next 5 years, over half a trillion dollars in budget surplus.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Absolutely. I could not agree more with the notion that there are things that ought to be taken into consideration here. And the notion of a bonus in marriages is not an accurate notion here. I was willing to let my colleague from Kentucky go ahead and raise his amendment on this particular bill, if he would desire to, if he would let us be able to put this amendment forward and have a discussion, if he wants to try to refute that sort of argument taking place. But I do not think that we should be in the business, even if there is such a thing as a bonus, of removing that on married couples.

Mr. BROWNBACK. It would be raising taxes on a certain group of people. If you are saying, let us do away with this particular bonus, I do not have any problem giving bonuses to people who are married. I think this is a good institution that we ought to be supporting. I am not interested in raising taxes on anybody, particularly people who are married. I think that is not the way we ought to be going, particularly with the kind of money that we have flowing into the Treasury, and particularly with the American public being taxed at roughly 40 percent of their income annually. They are taxed to the max. And then we add on top of that--to working families--the marriage penalty. The tax repeal I am talking about applies to families that make a combined income between $20,000 a year and $75,000 a year. And that is the one that I want to pull off. And I hope that----

Mr. BROWNBACK. I am not interested in raising taxes at the point in time of the American public is----

Mr. BROWNBACK. If I can regain the floor, yes.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate the Senator from Utah taking the time to explain what we are hoping to go to next, the legislative branch appropriations bill. I hope we can discuss as a part of that legislative branch appropriations bill something that affects 21 million American families and it increases their taxes an average of $1,400 per family. It was done to them in 1969, the last year that we balanced the budget, until this year, and we have the ability to deal with it now. That is a thing called the marriage penalty, the marriage penalty tax. I don't know how much of the American public is aware of this tax, but in 1969, there was placed a tax, actually a change in the Tax Code to a point that married couples were taxed more for being married than if they were single. It amounts, on average, to $1,400 per family. It affects around 21 million American families, and it is wrong. It is the wrong kind of tax. It is the wrong kind of notion. It is telling people, in the Tax Code, that we are going to penalize you for being married. This is a wrong idea when we are struggling so much in America today with the maintenance of families, with trying to keep families together, when we are trying to say that the foundational units of a civil society is the American family, and then we are saying, ``Well, yeah, but we're going to tax you.'' We send by that signal that we think less of married families. It is time that we go back and do what we did prior to 1969, and that is not tax married couples more than if they were just single people living together. We were, up until 1969, operating that way, and then in that year, in an attempt to get more revenues into the Federal Government, we put this tax in place, taxing married couples. It is wrong. It is the wrong idea. It is the wrong signal. It is something that we have the ability to deal with now. The Congressional Budget Office this week stated that over the next 5 years, we will have $520 billion in surpluses over the next 5 years-- $520 billion in surpluses over the next 5 years, a half a trillion dollars. I just say to my colleagues, my goodness, if we have that resource there, we have families struggling so much, if the foundational unit of a civil society is the family and we are taxing that family more, let's give them a little break. This is the right vehicle on which to do it. We are talking about funding the legislative shop here, let's help fund the families a little bit. We have the ability to do it, and it will send the right signal. It will send a good signal. It is the time we can send a signal, and we ought to do it, and we ought to do it now. That is what we were hoping to propose on the legislative branch appropriations bill, to deal with the elimination of the marriage tax penalty for the working families. This hits mostly families between a combined income of $20,000 per year to $75,000 per year. That is the category of families that is hit by this marriage tax penalty. The amendment that I was going to propose and was sponsored by Senator Ashcroft and a number of others--Senator Inhofe, Senator Smith, and I think a lot of my colleagues would join on this amendment--the amendment I was going to put forward does a very simple thing: It just makes the standard deduction the same for married couples as it is for singles. I don't know how many people recognize this, but currently, if you file single, under the Tax Code, the standard deduction is $4,150, while the marriage standard deduction is only $6,900. Our amendment would simply raise the standard deduction for all married couples to $8,300, precisely double what it currently is for single people, so you don't have this penalty built into the system, so you don't have this signal to the American public that we devalue this institution of marriage. In 1969, and prior to that period of time, we said you get the same if you are married, and then after 1969, we said you don't. I guess there were a number of reasons this was put into effect in 1969. People were saying, ``Well, if you are single versus if you are a couple, you have living expenses that are a little less.'' If there are two singles versus two people living together in the same place--there are a number, I suppose, of different reasons, but I guess actually at the end of the day, the reason was to get more tax money out of people's pockets. It was done then, and now we are saying let's correct this wrong. When you ask the American public about this issue--and I raise it quite a bit with people--they think this is a ridiculous tax. We shouldn't be taxing couples more than we tax singles who live together. It just sends a signal that this is not the sort of thing we want to take place today, particularly when you look at what happens to our families across America. I don't think I need to remind many people about the problems we are having with marriage and with families in this country today. We are having at any one time nearly 50 percent of our children living in a single-headed household, and many of these families struggling heroically to raise a family, but yet we are sending a signal against the family at the same time we do that. We are also sending it to some of the hardest hit families who struggle the most in the economy today. This tax applies heaviest to families with incomes of between $20,000 a year and $75,000 a year. This is a good bracket of folks we are taxing more heavily, and we shouldn't be taxing them more heavily at this point in time. I direct my colleagues' attention to some of the reports that have been put out on this issue as well. The Congressional Budget Office did a report about a year ago on this particular issue. They state in their report: Federal income tax laws generally require that a married couple file a joint tax return based on the combined income of the husband and wife. As a result, husbands and wives with similar incomes usually incur a larger combined tax liability than they would if they could file individually. This is the opening statement of the CBO. I ask all of my colleagues, How many of you agree with that tax policy? That is something that the Congress put in place. How many people actually agree with that tax policy? I don't know that there would be anybody who would actually agree with that tax policy, yet it is in place and we have the time, we have the wherewithal, we have the vehicle here funding the legislative branch that we can do this and fund this now. I think it is appropriate that we should do that and take care of something that in 1969--relatively recently--was put in place. I draw my colleagues' attention to some editorials that have been written on this particular subject. The Indianapolis Star talks about the marriage penalty and that this is something from which we should get away. They have even a pretty nice cartoon about a couple and a car who are just married, and they are hooked to this big anchor, a marriage tax penalty, pulling them back the other way. Is that the sort of signal we want to send from Congress toward the institution of marriage? I don't think it is. The Christian Science Monitor: ``Bid to Make Tax Policy Friendlier to Marriage.'' They are saying, ``Look, this is something we ought to do.'' We have a number of editorials where this was raised across the country. We are just dealing with one aspect of this. In fact, according to the Joint Economic Committee, in a study on the marriage penalty, the Tax Code contains 66 provisions that can affect a married couple's tax liability. So it is a number of places. We are just getting at one particular feature of it which is that standard deduction. I think there are places we ought to look at overall in doing more in this area. That is the sort of thing that we want to take up--this ridiculous tax--that we want to put forward. I am hopeful that, with the manager of the bill who has been agreeable to this, we can get the Democrat ranking member to agree that we could bring up this ridiculous tax, and that he would consent to us having a debate, a vote on this particular issue, so we can say to the American public, this is something that is pretty important, and we can do this now, particularly since the CBO said we have the wherewithal to get this done. So I plead with my Democrat colleagues, let us bring this up. A marriage tax penalty is something important----

Mr. BROWNBACK. It is strange, but actually if you look at our tax policy, people would be paid to be able to--if they do get a divorce and live separately, they would actually have more money coming to them and less going to the Federal Treasury, which is an extraordinary, ridiculous notion that is built into the Tax Code.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I am just saying, if you want to bring your bill up, I would be happy to see that particular one brought up on this vehicle, as well dealing with the institution of marriage, I think, is an important thing to be able to do. My colleague from Missouri wanted to address this topic, too. I would be willing to yield to my colleague from Missouri if he desires to talk on this particular topic--or he may want to wait until another time. I point out, we have support from a number of groups that are interested in this moving on forward.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I would be agreeable to my colleague bringing his bill up on this bill if it will allow us to bring this one up on this bill. I would be agreeable to him putting that forward. That would be fine with me. I will not be voting with you on it because I just am not interested in taxing marriages more. But I would----

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I was glad to accommodate the Senator from Nevada. I have had similar situations come up. I understand the Senator from New York may have a similar time situation, and I would be willing to accommodate him, with a unanimous consent to obtain the floor after the Senator from New York is finished. He had previously been willing to yield the floor to some other individuals. I ask unanimous consent to yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New York, with the understanding that I retain the floor after that 10 minutes.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I am happy, if I retain the floor after the 7 minutes or the 8 minutes, to yield with that understanding.

Mr. BROWNBACK. In order to be able to eliminate the marriage penalty, there are different ways people have configured and looked at this issue. The bill we are putting forward has a $151 billion price tag over 5 years. So you are not even talking about dealing with the entire surplus with this marriage tax penalty.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, as I understand the proposal being put forward by the majority leader, it would not include the marriage penalty bill that I am requesting we get a vote on, that I know that he does support; we are getting some opposition from other places. If that is, indeed, the case, I must object to this bill.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Not at this point in time, but I think that will probably----

Mr. BROWNBACK. Probably around 30 minutes.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I don't know for certain who all will be interested in speaking on this.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to exceed the 10 minutes speaking as well.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes. I do want to show what is paid for in the legislative branch appropriations bill then as well.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes, I will.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota for his statement. I do want to note what is going on here. The leadership on our side is attempting to get the legislative branch bill to the floor for debate. That is appropriate and that is as it should be. I am simply saying, before we give the legislature its money, let's give some American families their money back in a small tax cut. Actually, I think we could do far better than this, but a tax cut that they should have. The leadership, Trent Lott, agrees with me on this and is willing to do that. We have an objection from the other side of the aisle. The Democrat side of the aisle is not willing to let us take this bill up at this time. The majority leader is in agreement and wants to do this, wants to have a vote on this particular bill. We cannot get agreement from our Democrat colleagues to agree to vote on this bill. The irony of that is, I think, if we were able to get it up for a vote, there would be a number of my Democrat colleagues who would agree that we should do away with the marriage tax penalty. This is a ridiculous notion, way out of step with all of our rhetoric, way out of step with the rhetoric of everybody running for public office in America, talking about the need to support family and family values. We tax families more than we do people who are not in a family situation--not that we should penalize those either, but this should just all be level. Many of my colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle, I am convinced, would vote for this. But we are being blocked by my Democrat colleagues from being able to take this up for a vote on a legislative branch bill, and I am just not willing to concede that we should not vote on this issue at this point in time when we are running budget surpluses--that we should just say, OK, we will fund the legislature, we will fund all the operations of these fine institutions, but we are going to keep taking more money from married couples who make between $25,000 and $75,000 a year. We are going to penalize them $1,400 a year, on average, while the legislature gets their money and while the Democrat side of the aisle objects to this being voted on. I do not think that is right. I do not think we ought to do that, particularly in light of what we know our financial situation to be. We can do this. It should be done. We used to do it. We used to treat married couples the same as single filers up until 1969. We treated them the same at that point in time. Then, at that point in time, we created the imbalance situation, to where married couples are taxed more. I do not know how many people recognize just how this works, because it is not even all married couples who are taxed more. The National Center for Policy Analysis, in a February 1998 policy background paper, puts it this way. They say: A marriage penalty results when a married couple pays more for taxes by filing jointly than each could be if each filed as a single person. That was the feature we talked about earlier--some economists--a man and a woman, economists, who each year at the end of the year divorce, file separately, retain the extra money, have kind of a special party, honeymoon, and then marry again the first of the year. That is just each year they do this to take advantage of this situation, which is ridiculous, that the Tax Code would actually encourage that. A couple files the marriage penalty only [only] when both spouses have earned income. Is that fair, that we only do this when both spouses have earned income? A large percentage of married couples, where both spouses work, work because they have to; they have to, to make ends meet, when you have a national effective tax rate--national, State, local--of 40 percent, and you have one spouse work to pay taxes and the other spouse work to pay for everything else. So we have, in this country, again because of tax policy, in many respects--we force both couples to work, whether or not they really want to, in their family arrangement. That is their choice of what they decide to do. But this marriage tax penalty then, to add insult to injury again, only applies when both spouses have earned income--only when both of them are working. Does that make any sense for a tax policy in America? Does that make any sense for struggling families at all? I think my Democrat colleagues ought to want to vote on that sort of issue. Single earner couples never pay a penalty; in fact, always get a bonus from the Tax Code. Single earner couples never pay a penalty; in fact, always get a bonus from the Tax Code, paying less taxes than they would pay as singles. This is single-earner couples. Is that good tax policy either? Is that the way we should be? I think my Democrat colleagues would want to vote on an issue like this. We are talking about returning a portion and not spending more in deficit and not hurting Social Security reform or saving Social Security. We can still save Social Security. You don't have to pick between marriage and Social Security on this. CBO says we will have $520 billion in surpluses over the next 5 years. We can help pay down the debt, we can support marriage, and stop this ridiculous tax on marriage, and we can save Social Security. Those are doable in the current situation we are in. Why on Earth would we not want to vote? Why on Earth would my Democrat colleagues be blocking us from voting on this particular issue that is so important? And, finally, we can help match our rhetoric to our actions on how important family values are. We need to do those things. They show, in this National Center for Policy Analysis backgrounder piece, just how this issue works. The marriage penalty fundamentally results . . . [and they have charts in here] ``Percentages of couples with marriage penalties and bonuses.'' I note it only applies to two-wage-earner families that you get the marriage penalty, which I think is wrong. But what happens is, when you hit into this penalty category, this is when you have two-wage-earner families making between approximately $20,000 a year and $75,000 a year, hit this penalty category, this tax increase category. Think about that. How many people in America would be impacted then by that? We are talking about two-wage-earner families making combined between $20,000 and $75,000 a year. That is a lot of people. It is an estimate that is affecting 21 million American families. That is just the two-wage earners. It is not the other children associated with the families who are getting this huge tax hit that on average is $1,400. Maybe some people don't think $1,400 is very much money. It is a half-a-year car payment for some people. It is a wrong signal to everybody. Whether you agree or disagree that this is very much or very little, it is the wrong signal to send at this time of such struggle that we are having taking place in America. It just hits that category of people.