Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. No, we did not change the marriage bonus.

Mr. GRAMM. I send a motion to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I think we have had a defining moment in this debate. Throughout this debate, our colleagues, who have brought to the floor of the Senate a bill that will raise $700 billion in taxes, have said that they are not interested in the money, that the money is incidental, that what they want to do is raise the price of cigarettes. We have made the point that this increase in the price of cigarettes, this tax, will fall very heavily on blue-collar workers. Those making $15,000 or less will pay 34 percent of the cost, the taxes that are built into this bill. Those making $22,000 or less will pay 47 percent of the cost. Those making $30,000 or less will pay 59.1 percent of the cost of the taxes embodied in this bill. Even if this bill only raised the price of a pack of cigarettes by $1.50--and most estimates are that it will raise it by $2.50 at a minimum--it would mean that an average smoker in America would pay $356 of additional taxes as a result of this bill, and a blue-collar family where both the husband and wife smoke, would pay $712 a year more in Federal taxes. In fact, the table put out by the Joint Committee on Taxation shows something that, over and over, those who support the bill have tried to deny or neglect, which is that for those Americans who make $10,000 or less, their Federal taxes will rise by 41.2 percent as a result of the taxes embodied in this bill. Now, what Senator Domenici and I did earlier was send an amendment to the desk that tried to give some of this money back to blue-collar workers in the form of a tax cut. Our colleagues say, it is not the money we want; they say, we just want to raise the price of cigarettes. So Senator Domenici and I took them at their word, sent an amendment to the desk that said raise the price of cigarettes; but since this is going to impose a bone-crushing tax on moderate-income Americans, let's take at least $1 out of every $3 that will be collected in this tax increase and let's give it back to working families by repealing the marriage penalty for families that make $50,000 or less. In other words, it gets the impact on smoking that may come from a higher price as a result of the taxes in this bill but with our tax cut we avoid lowering the real income or living standards of blue-collar Americans who, after all, are the victims here. The whole objective of the bill is to basically say people who smoke have been induced to smoke by the tobacco companies, and yet, paradoxically, the tax we are imposing is being imposed on the very people who have been exploited. In fact, the bill before us has an incredible provision which says every penny of the tax has to be passed through, and it is illegal if a tobacco company absorbs any of this tax increase. Every penny of it, 59.1 percent of the tax increase, is on families that make less than $30,000 a year. The victims of the smoking campaign by the tobacco companies are the people who are paying the taxes. What Senator Domenici, Senator Faircloth, and I have said in our amendment is this: Raise the tax, but give a third of the money back to working families by repealing the marriage penalty for couples who make less than $50,000 a year. So you get the price impact on smoking, but you don't end up brutalizing economically moderate-income people. I think it is very instructive that after 3 days of debate where our colleagues have said don't accuse us of wanting this money, we just want to raise the price of cigarettes, that we sent an amendment to the desk asking that $1 out of every $3 we are collecting in taxes be given back to moderate-income working families, and the Senate reacts in a convulsion, and the leadership uses right of privileged recognition to amend our amendment and to deny us the ability to offer a tax cut for the very people who are going to find themselves crippled economically as a result of this tax. So let me just suggest two points: No. 1, I think this is further evidence this bill is about money. Our amendment is hardly a far reaching amendment. We are just simply asking that roughly one out of every three dollars of the tax be given back. Second, it also suggests, it seems to me, the objective here is to prevent us from having an opportunity to vote on a tax cut. I want to assure my colleagues--and I know Senator Domenici feels exactly the same way--that there is no way we are going to be denied the right to offer this amendment. This won't be the last tax cut amendment that we are going to have. Quite frankly, I don't understand if those who are for the bill are saying what they really mean, why there isn't overwhelming support in both parties for giving a third of this tax increase back to working families. Let me say very briefly what the amendment does and then yield the floor so that Senator Domenici, the cosponsor of the amendment, will have an opportunity to speak. Under current law if two individuals, a man and a woman, both of whom are working in the economy outside of the home, fall in love and get married, under current law they pay on average an additional $1,400 a year in income taxes. So that, for example, if you had two single people, and they didn't get married, and they filed an income tax return jointly, they don't pay taxes on any income of less than $10,200 a year. But if they fall in love and get married, even if they file separately, they have to pay taxes on income of above $6,900 a year. So we have an incredible provision of law that, in terms of deductions, penalizes working people who fall in love and get married by taking away $3,300 of deductions from them. Mr. President, I think it would be a general bipartisan consensus that the family is the most powerful institution for progress and human happiness in history. Yet our Tax Code penalizes people who get married. If you want to state it in a dramatic way, you can say that the tax code provides an additional $3,300 of deduction by simply living in sin rather than getting married. This has been much discussed. There is a strong basis of support for repealing it. What we could do is simply this: Eliminate the marriage penalty imposed by the tax code for all families that make less than $50,000 a year--and those families will pay about 75 percent of this tobacco tax. Smoking is primarily a blue-collar, moderate-income phenomenon in America today. What we will do for couples that earn less than $50,000 a year is give them the additional $3,300 deduction so that there will be no economic penalty for people getting married. We will also allow those who get an earned income tax credit to take the deduction before they figure their eligibility for the earned income tax credit. So that even people who make very modest incomes will benefit from this tax cut. This tax cut will take roughly $1 out of every $3 raised in taxes by the tobacco tax and give it back to working families. So those who want the higher price for tobacco to discourage consumption will get it, but we will not crush economically moderate income people who have become addicted to nicotine and who smoke. We will not have the terrible paradox that while talking about firing bullets at these big tobacco companies our bullets are actually hitting the victims who have become addicted to nicotine. So on that basis, Mr. President, I yield the floor. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President. No amendment is in order.

Mr. GRAMM. Could we have order, Mr. President? I can't hear.

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator not agree with me that whether the tobacco companies agreed to it or not, that article I of the Constitution gives the Congress the power to tax? and that we ought not to be delegating that power to a poll?

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GRAMM. Just two questions. No. 1, you are not here to represent the industry, are you?

Mr. GRAMM. Second, when you put your hand on the Bible and you swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, you were not saying, well, I'll uphold the Constitution and article I, the power of Congress to tax, only in those cases where the tobacco companies didn't agree to let a pollster raise taxes, did you?

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, we have debated this thing all week. We are in morning business and we are carrying on the debate, so I guess it shows people feel strongly about it. I want to make it very clear what the issue is on this look-back provision. The Senator from Arizona acts as if by the tobacco companies agreeing to the procedure that somehow that sanctifies this procedure. The Senator from Arizona acts as if by the public health experts believing we should have a penalty that somehow that sanctions this look-back provision. My concern with the look-back provision is not that it is a penalty; my objection to the look-back provision is that it is clearly patently unconstitutional. And it is unconstitutional on two bases. No. 1, the Constitution, in article I, says it shall be the power of Congress to lay taxes. The most fundamental power of Congress is to tax. This bill delegates the power to tax to a public opinion poll and to the Secretary of the Treasury --clearly unconstitutional. Secondly, this bill puts a company in a position that if they have no control over the decision of a 14-year-old, and the 14-year-old makes a decision, that company can be punished for the decision of the 14-year- old, even though there is no evidence whatsoever that they have had any impact on that decision. Clearly, that violates British common law and it violates the Constitution of the United States. So the point I am making is not that public experts don't have a position, not that tobacco companies don't have a position, not that the Senator from Arizona doesn't have a position, but there is a Constitution. When we all stood right down there below that first step and put our hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, we made a commitment, one I take very seriously. So the problem with this provision besides it being absolutely comical--who would have ever thought we would have a bill where you would do a public opinion poll, and based on what 12- and 13-year-olds say in a public opinion poll, you would have a pollster, in essence, empowered to raise taxes? Who ever heard of such a thing? Not only does this not pass the Constitution test, this doesn't pass the laugh test. This is one of the most absurd provisions I have ever seen. Now, granted, if our only defense of it is, well, the tobacco companies supported it, I didn't know that we had turned the writing of law over to the tobacco companies or the health experts or the public choice advocates. My point is, this provision is embarrassingly silly and unconstitutional. I would be ashamed to vote for a bill that had a provision in it where you let a pollster's finding trigger tax increases, rather than an act of Congress, where Congress, in general session, assembled, passes a tax bill that is signed by the President. That is the issue we have raised here--not who cut what deal and who signed off on what, but, basically, two very relevant tests: No. 1, the Constitution test; and, No. 2, the laugh test. I think this provision fails both of those tests. I think the more people know about these provisions, the less support there is going to be for this bill. To the extent that we draw public attention to this, perhaps we will come to our senses, and if we want to make taxes higher, make them higher. But don't empower some pollster to take over the constitutional powers of the Congress. It won't stand constitutional muster for a minute, and it makes us potentially the laughingstock of the public. That is what the issue was about--not that all of these so-called advocates for the public interest support the provision, not that the tobacco companies have endorsed it. The question is: Is it constitutional, and is it laughable? The answer is: No, and yes. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Thank you.

Mr. GRAMM. In that case, it is not worth it.

Mr. GRAMM. Would it be possible for us to just have a short final statement on this issue? Or would you prefer we do it--

Mr. GRAMM. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me first say if we pass this bill I hope that we will be successful in inducing not only teenagers but other Americans to come to their senses and to stop smoking. Once in my life I was an economist. And any economist will tell you, other things being the same, at a higher price people will consume less of a given product. The problem, of course, in the real world is generally other things are not the same. A concern I have raised that has not been dealt with is that no country in the history of the world, so far as I am aware, has ever imposed a tax at the level we are debating here and not had a black market for cigarettes develop. In Britain, 50 percent of cigarettes are sold on the black market. In Italy it is 20 percent. Canada raised cigarette taxes to try to induce teenagers to stop smoking, but then their country was inundated with illegal cigarettes. The effect was to actually lower the price of cigarettes bought on the black market. Canada, in an extraordinary action, actually repealed the tax increase. And the minister of health said that by repealing the tax increase, and thereby forcing teenagers to attempt to buy cigarettes through legal channels they would reduce teen smoking. By limiting the economic foundation of the black market, they might be more successful in reducing teen smoking. I am hopeful that, if in fact we raise taxes to the degree we are talking about, something good will come from it. Obviously, inducing teenagers to smoke less would certainly be a good thing. The issue I want to address today, and the issue that I hope we will vote on before we go home for the recess, is the issue of what we are going to do with this money. We can debate endlessly what the tax increase is going to do and what it is not going to do. I am still very much troubled by the impact of this tax increase on real people. In listening to many of the strongest proponents of this bill, you get the idea they are taxing tobacco companies. That somehow we are getting revenues from companies that have conspired to deceive the public, that have conspired to induce teenagers to smoke. Therefore, not only are we getting the good of higher prices and the impact that might have on consumption, but in fact there is almost a retribution quality to it. I guess I have to temper that with a cold recognition that in this bill we are not taxing tobacco companies. In fact, we have an extraordinary provision in this bill that makes it illegal for tobacco companies not to pass the cost increase through to consumers. So except for a look-back provision, where we are actually going to poll teenagers, and if we find that teenage smoking has not declined, we will have a look-back tax on tobacco companies and target those who we find, through the poll, are the preferred brand names. It is interesting, because article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to impose taxes. Nowhere has it ever been contemplated we would allocate that power to a pollster. And it is clear to anyone that provision is unconstitutional. But beyond that provision every penny of taxes we impose in this bill will be paid for by people who consume cigarettes. Now, we might wish that were not the case. I wish it were not the case. But, unfortunately, that is the way the bill is written. In fact, as I said a moment ago, the bill is actually structured so that tobacco companies could not pay the tax if they wanted to. They are forced, by law, to pass it through to the consumer. One of the things that troubles me is who this consumer is. I mentioned these numbers the other day, but they are relevant to the amendment I want to talk about today. Thirty-four percent of the new tobacco taxes in this bill will be paid for by Americans who make less than $15,000 a year. They do not own Philip Morris or any other tobacco company. These people are, by the logic of this bill, victims. They have been induced to smoke. They have, in the logic of this bill, become addicted to nicotine. And if you had to classify them into a category, it would be the category of ``victim.'' And yet for people who make less than $15,000 a year, they are going to pay 34 percent of these taxes. This is not a trivial amount of money. When you add up all the tax provisions in the bill, most of the estimates tend to indicate that a pack of cigarettes, which in my State sells for about $2, will rise in price to about $4.50 to $4.75 a pack. These prices are for a $1.50 per pack increase, which is substantially less than this bill will produce when you add up all its provisions. An individual who smokes an average amount would pay $356 a year in new tobacco taxes. And for a couple making less than $15,000 a year, they will pay a whopping $712 in tobacco taxes from an effective increase in price of $1.50 per pack. To someone making less than $15,000 a year, $712 a year is a lot of money. So what concerns me, and obviously does not concern many of my colleagues, is the impact of this tax on blue-collar workers. When I listen to the proponents of the bill, they make two things very clear. They care about driving up the price of cigarettes, and they don't care about the money. In trying to respond to the fact that 70 percent of Americans believe this bill is about taxes and not about smoking, over and over again they say, ``We want the higher tax because we want to discourage smoking, not because we want the $700 billion.'' Senator Gregg has an amendment pending which I do not believe will be tabled. I intend to vote against tabling the Gregg amendment. The Gregg amendment says that we shouldn't be granting immunity to tobacco companies for future suits. Basically the Gregg amendment strikes the provision that caps liability. I intend to vote with Senator Gregg. I don't believe his amendment will be tabled. When his amendment is acted on, I intend to offer an amendment that addresses what to do with the money. I hope my amendment will have very broad-based support. I thought I would take the time now to explain it so that if the Gregg amendment is not tabled, and I can offer the amendment at that point, people will know what is in dispute, and those who want to come and speak on it can do so. I will offer the amendment for myself and for Senator Domenici. I know he will want to come over at that point and speak, and I am sure many others will want to speak for and against it. The issue here is the following: If we pass this bill, blue-collar Americans making $15,000 a year or less will pay 34 percent of the taxes the bill will impose. Individuals making less than $22,000 a year will pay 47 percent of the taxes that will be imposed by raising the price of cigarettes. Those making less than $30,000 a year will pay a whopping 59.1 cents out of every dollar of taxes collected under this bill. In other words, this is not a tax that is randomly distributed among the general population of the country. The plain truth is, with a few exceptions, smoking in America today is a blue-collar phenomenon. The vast majority of people in America who smoke, and therefore who will pay this tax, are blue-collar workers. Almost 60 percent of this tax will be paid for by Americans who make less than $30,000 a year. Now, this produces some extraordinary results. Were the following numbers not from our own Joint Tax Committee, they would be difficult to believe. Let me give you just two numbers. For Americans who make less than $10,000 a year, the taxes embodied in this bill will raise their Federal taxes by 41.2 percent in 1999. In the year 2003, when this bill is fully implemented and the tax is fully phased in, Americans who make less than $10,000 a year will see their burden of Federal taxes rise by 44.6 percent. If our objective is not the money but to get people not to smoke by raising the price of cigarettes, shouldn't we take some of the money we are taking from very moderate-income Americans and give it back to them by cutting other taxes? Couldn't we find a tax cut that would apply to moderate-income Americans so that we wouldn't be lowering the real standard of living for people who are the victims of cigarettes by having become addicted to smoking and to nicotine? If a motion to table the Gregg amendment fails, I will offer an amendment with Senator Domenici. This amendment aims to take roughly $1 out of every $3 collected in these cigarette taxes and give it back to Americans with family incomes of less than $50,000 a year. We do it by repealing a provision of the Tax Code that is generally known as the marriage penalty. Let me basically explain how the marriage penalty works, what our amendment will do, and then wrap up. I see other colleagues are here to speak. Under the existing Tax Code, we have an incredibly destructive provision that actually says when two young people meet, fall in love and get married, if they both work outside the home, they actually have to pay more taxes as a married couple than they would have to pay if they were single. Under our Tax Code, that average marriage penalty is about $1,400 a year. Now, I think I speak for many people who are married in saying that my wife is easily worth $1,400 a year. I would gladly pay that price and more for the privilege of being married, but I don't think the Federal Government should get that money. Maybe my wife should get that money. Also, I don't understand discouraging the creation of families when families are the most powerful instruments for human happiness and progress that have ever been created. Let me remind my colleagues, if anyone has followed this debate, they know that everyone who has spoken in favor of this bill has said the money is incidental; that this is not about the money, they just want to raise the price of cigarettes. I will offer this amendment with Senator Domenici to help them fulfill that commitment and prove that is what they want. So our amendment is a very targeted tax cut that takes roughly $1 out of every $3 raised by this tax and gives it back to Americans with family incomes of less than $50,000 a year. Here is how our bill will work. It will target families that make less than $50,000 a year. Right now, a married couple filing a joint return can earn $6,900 before they have to start paying Federal income taxes. If they filed separately and they weren't married, they could jointly earn $10,200 a year. If you wanted to state it dramatically, you could say that if they live in sin they can earn $10,200 without having to pay any income taxes, but if they get married they have to start paying income taxes after they earn $6,900. Now, almost everyone realizes this is a destructive tax policy, but we haven't been able to fix it. What the amendment that I will offer for myself and for Senator Domenici will do is: for those who make less than $50,000 a year as a family income, we will give them an additional deduction of $3,300 a year. They will pay the same taxes whether they get married or whether they don't. The net result is a substantial tax cut for moderate-income working families. We will adjust this for inflation to assure that we preserve the real value of this deduction. Finally, we apply it to the earned-income tax credit. As almost everybody here knows, if you work and you make modest incomes, you can get an earned-income tax credit. What we will do in our amendment is allow the marriage penalty in tax terms to apply above the line so that a working couple, a very-modest-income working couple, can deduct this correction for the marriage penalty before they calculate their eligibility for the earned-income tax credit. Among the largest beneficiaries of the amendment that Senator Domenici and I will offer will be very modest income, blue-collar workers earning very low wages. What we will do is allow this deduction to apply to the earned-income tax credit. If our amendment is adopted, roughly one-third of the tax that is collected on cigarettes would be given back to the very blue-collar families that will bear the largest burden of taxation as a result of taxing cigarettes. Some couples will pay $712 a year in new cigarette taxes under this bill. Under our amendment, the price of cigarettes would still go up as mandated by the underlying bill. To the degree that people respond to the higher price, we will have the impact of that rise in the price of cigarettes, but we will not be making modest-income workers poorer by the amount of the tax because we will take $1 out of every $3 of the tax and give it back to the very same families by repealing the marriage penalty for middle and moderate income couples. Now, why is that important? It is important because the very people who are going to be hurt the most by this tax are moderate income people who have been victimized by tobacco companies. I am sure my colleagues are having their offices flooded with letters and postcards, as I am, from people who are basically saying, ``I have a very modest income and I smoke, don't raise my taxes; tax the cigarette companies.'' Well, what we are doing here in our amendment is allowing the increase in the price of cigarettes therefore discouraging smoking, but we are giving at least part of the money back to middle-income and moderate-income families. So I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. I think it is very important that we vote on a tax cut as part of this bill before we adjourn. If we don't do this, we are going to have done something extraordinary in this bill, and I can't help but be struck by the paradox of it. In this bill, we are saying that people who smoke have been victimized by the tobacco companies; yet, we are turning around and taxing the people who smoke because the bill prohibits tobacco companies from not passing the tax through to the people who smoke. So while many people view this bill as firing a shot with a tax at the tobacco companies, in reality, the tax is hitting very moderate- income, working Americans. It is hitting the very people who have been victimized by the tobacco companies. The amendment that Senator Domenici and I will offer after the motion to table the Gregg amendment fails says, since the proponents of the tax pledge that this is not about the money, that it is not the money they want, it's the higher price of cigarettes, go ahead and take the tax, but, as a modest down payment, let's take $1 out of every $3 we collect in cigarette taxes and give it back to moderate- and modest-income families. Let's make it subject to the earned-income tax credit so that very low-income, working Americans will not be hurt as badly. If both members of the married couple smoke, they will be paying $712 a year in Federal taxes under this bill. Let's eliminate the marriage penalty under the Tax Code for middle- and moderate-income families so that while the price of cigarettes goes up, they don't find themselves economically crushed by it. They will have an incentive to quit smoking, but at least a third of the money would come back to them by eliminating a discriminatory provision in the Tax Code. I would like to go further than this amendment, and we will have an opportunity to do that. But this is a first installment. I think it is very important that we vote on this amendment before we recess, since it is clear that we will not finish the bill this week. I hope that my colleagues will support this amendment when Senator Domenici and I offer it to the Gregg amendment, hopefully, immediately following the motion to table the Gregg amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. I ask unanimous consent the Senator from California have 5 additional minutes.

Mr. GRAMM. If the distinguished Senator from California needs a couple more minutes, I have no objection.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. So that would mean roughly $4 a pack, depending on what State you are in?

Mr. GRAMM. Is the Senator aware that in Illinois, Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Nebraska teenage smoking has increased as cigarette taxes have risen?

Mr. GRAMM. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President.

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield on this point?

Mr. GRAMM. Let me finish my question.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I thank the Presiding Officer. Madam President, we have a dilemma in that our colleagues assure us that while this amendment raises hundreds of billions of dollars, that it is not about money. They say they don't want the money, they want the impact of higher cigarette prices. But yet the cold reality is, those prices are going to be paid in higher out-of-pocket costs by blue-collar workers all over America. Thirty-four percent of the cost of this tax increase that is now pending as an amendment here in the Senate will be borne by Americans who make less than $15,000 a year. Forty-seven percent of it will be borne by Americans who make less than $22,000 a year. And 60 percent of it will be borne by Americans who make less than $30,000 a year. None of this tax increase will be paid for by tobacco companies. Sixty percent of the tax increase will be paid for by Americans who make less than $30,000 a year. So if the motion to table the Kennedy amendment fails and the Kennedy amendment remains pending, it would be my objective to offer, along with Senator Domenici, a second-degree amendment that will repeal the marriage penalty for working Americans in families that earn less than $50,000 a year. In doing so, Senator Kennedy would have the higher cost of tobacco, but the same people who are paying that tax, while seeing the cost of cigarettes rise would, by having the marriage penalty eliminated, where Americans who fall in love and work at the same time and get married now end up paying higher taxes for the privilege of being married, have that penalty eliminated, so that we would still get the impact of a higher price on inducing children not to smoke. But blue-collar working Americans, a waitress and a truck driver who are married and who both smoke, under this bill will pay an estimated $712 in new taxes, new excise taxes. We should give that money back to them in a tax cut so that we don't dramatically lower the living standards of blue-collar workers. I want to remind my colleagues of the incredible fact that the amendment before us, the Kennedy amendment, will mean that Americans who make less than $10,000 a year will see their Federal taxes rise by 53 percent. So I urge my colleagues, in this rush to tax tobacco companies, to remember that the Kennedy amendment does not tax tobacco companies, it taxes Americans who basically make less than $30,000 a year. It will drive up the Federal tax burden of those who make less than $10,000 a year by over 50 percent. So I hope my colleagues will table the amendment. But if they don't table the amendment, Senator Domenici and I will offer an amendment which lets the tax increase stand but simply takes the money and gives it back to blue-collar working families who are, I have to remind my colleagues, the victims in this debate. There is a terrible paradox that, instead of taxing the tobacco companies, we are taxing the very people who have been induced to smoke, and therefore the victims are being punished with an excruciating, bone-crushing tax increases so that a working couple will pay $712 in taxes a year as a result of the Kennedy amendment. If, in fact, our colleagues are only interested in the impact on teenage smoking, then they won't object to the amendment that Senator Domenici and I are offering because we don't take the tax off, we simply say take that money, eliminate a discrimination in the Tax Code against married, working people, blue-collar families making less than $50,000 a year, and give them the money back. Also under our provision, we would adjust for the marriage penalty before you calculate the earned income tax credit so that the substantial amount of the benefits would go directly to those Americans who are making less than $10,000 a year who are going to see their Federal tax burden grow by over 50 percent under this bill. I would like to first ask my colleagues to remember, this is not Joe Camel that this bullet is getting ready to hit. This is not a big tobacco company. This is Joe and Sara Brown, two hard-working Americans who have been induced to smoke. They are the victims in this whole process. And, yet, we are getting ready to take $712 a year out of their pockets. If we don't table this amendment--and I hope we do table it--Senator Domenici and I will offer an amendment that will take the money that is raised from this tax increase and we will give it back to the very people who are going to pay these higher taxes. But we will give it back to them by eliminating the marriage penalty, so that they will have to pay more for tobacco, and hopefully they will stop smoking. But they won't be poorer. They won't see their Federal tax burden go up by 50 percent. They won't be crushed by an oppressive and very, very punitive and regressive tax. Let's remember, it is the victim of the process who is being assaulted by this amendment. I hope my colleagues will vote for the McCain motion to table it. But if they don't, Senator Domenici and I will try to give our colleagues what they claim they want. That is, they want the tax; they don't want the money. Well, let's give the money back to blue-collar working families in West Virginia, in Texas, in New Mexico and across the country who make less than $50,000 a year and who need every penny they get. They are the people who are outraged about the fact that they have been exploited by being induced to smoke and in many cases have become addicted to nicotine. They are the ones who are being harmed by the amendment we have before us. I think the issue is clear. I hope my colleagues will not impose this massive tax increase of $712 on a blue-collar working family where both the husband and the wife smoke. I hope they will not crush them with this tax. But if they decide to, if they decide to do it, then Senator Domenici and I will have an amendment to give the money back to married taxpayers by eliminating the marriage penalty for American families that earn less than $50,000 a year, and we will make the adjustment above the line so that those who receive the earned income tax credit, the poorest people in America who work, will receive the benefit of our tax cut. I yield the remainder of my time.