Kay Hutchison

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I yield the Senator from Kansas, Senator Brownback, 2 minutes.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. The Senator is correct. There are delays. Nothing is eliminated, but there are delays in several provisions because we are trying to say this is our first priority.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. Is the 4 minutes from my 7\1/2\ minutes?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I now yield 2 minutes to Senator Ashcroft of Missouri.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, under the previous unanimous consent agreement, I send a modification of the amendment to the desk to amendment No. 1472.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, today I recognize the remarkable achievements of Lance Armstrong, winner of the prestigious Tour de France bicycle race. On Sunday, July 25, less than 3 years after being diagnosed with testicular cancer, he sprinted to an inspirational victory in Paris. Lance Armstrong is a Texan who is an example of strength and courage to all cancer patients and athletes. He is only the second American in history to win the Tour de France, one of the world's most grueling athletic contests, and he is the first cancer survivor to achieve the feat. Lance Armstrong was born in Dallas, Texas, and grew up in nearby Plano. He first competed in athletics as a swimmer and took up the triathlon, which includes swimming, running, and cycling, at age 14. At 17, after his potential was recognized by the U.S. national cycling team coach, he switched to cycling full-time. Lance Armstrong trained and competed at the highest level in the world, and began focusing on distance bicycle racing in his early twenties. Then, in the fall of 1996, when he was just twenty-five years old, Armstrong was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer, which had already spread to his abdomen, lungs and brain. He was given a fifty percent chance of survival and underwent two operations and twelve weeks of chemotherapy. Throughout his fight with the disease, Lance Armstrong never gave up. After each one-week cycle of chemotherapy, he would ride 30 to 50 miles per day on his bicycle. By the summer of 1997, Armstrong had conquered cancer and began to pursue bicycle racing with new determination. Lance Armstrong dominated this year's Tour de France and after three weeks, 2,290 miles, and two mountain ranges, he won cycling's most prestigious and rugged race by more than 7\1/2\ minutes. Lance Armstrong dedicated his victory to other cancer survivors, whom he hoped would be inspired by his success. He was motivated by his determination to encourage other cancer patients and said upon winning, ``I hope this sends out a fantastic message to all survivors: We can return to what we were before--and even better.'' Lance Armstrong is one of the success stories in our ongoing fight against cancer. After overcoming the disease he dedicated himself, not only to cycling, but also to fighting cancer by founding the Lance Armstrong Foundation, whose mission is ``Fighting Urological Cancer through Education, Awareness, and Research.'' Unfortunately, Lance Armstrong is not alone in his battle with cancer. Rates of testicular cancer have increased sharply over the past thirty years, especially among young men. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 7,600 new cases of testicular cancer are diagnosed each year in the U.S. But due to advances in early detection and treatment, many of them the result of research funded by the National Institutes of Health, U.S. statistics show a 70% decline in death rates from testicular cancer since 1973. As our commitment to cancer research continues to grow hand-in-hand with advances in the fight against cancer, and as more and more courageous Americans like Lance Armstrong show cancer can be beat, I am increasingly confident that we will beat this dreaded disease. I am proud that Lance Armstrong is an American and a Texan. His athletic victory and personal triumph make him a role model, not just to cancer survivors, but to all Americans. His remarkable achievements and inspirational influence on others can be simply summarized in the words written on a banner which was flown along the course of the Tour de France on Sunday: ``Victory is sweet. Living is triumph. Where there's a will, there's a way. Thank you for showing us a winning one.''

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I will not delay because I believe we are about to wrap up, and I will have 15 minutes equally divided tomorrow. This is a significant victory. I appreciate so much Chairman Roth and Senator Baucus, who is here on behalf of Senator Moynihan, working with me on this amendment. The bottom line is, by delaying a few other very important tax cuts, we have been able to put at the top of our priority list $6 billion more in marriage tax penalty relief for the 43 million people in this country who are suffering just because they are married. That is not right. We have been needing to correct this for years. You should not have to choose between love or money in America, and yet 22 million American couples are doing just that. This amendment will take part of the marriage tax relief and put it up, starting in 2001, so there will be immediate relief phased in to give couples that opportunity to save more of the money they earn to spend as they choose because, in fact, if they were not married, they would be paying that much less in taxes. But they are married. We want to encourage them to do that, if that is what they want to do, and we certainly should not be penalizing them. Tomorrow I will talk about what is in the amendment, what it does, but tonight I want to say thank you to Senator Roth and to Senator Baucus for working with us. This is a significant improvement in the bill because it will give married couples throughout our country the relief they deserve. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would just like to reserve the remainder of my time for the modification when it is ready, which I understand will be in the next 15 to 30 minutes. So I yield now and will reclaim that time when we have the corrected amendment.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I appreciate the fact that the committee made a priority of the marriage tax penalty. The real marriage tax relief is in the bill in the year 2005 in the responsible timeframe. That was actually the first year you could do it because you cannot phase that in. I appreciate the effort that was made. My amendment just doubles the standard deduction earlier. The Senator from Delaware has been working with me on the floor, as has Senator Baucus. I very much appreciate their helping me work through this so that we are going to have the early relief on the standard deduction now in the year 2001, starting the phase-in to 2005 when we are going to give the real relief, which the chairman had in the bill originally. I give him the credit for that, and I appreciate his remarks very much.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator yield?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Kansas that we can do income splitting down the road as well because, in fact, it is very important that we give every married couple the best shake we can give them; that treats them totally fair. Whether they are a two- income-earner couple or a one-income-earner couple, we want them to have the same treatment that they would have under any other circumstance. So I do support income splitting. I think after we get the money accumulated in the surplus we will be able to give them much more relief, real relief, in fact elimination of the penalty. That is the goal of all of us. I yield 12 minutes also to Senator Ashcroft. Senator Ashcroft has been fighting along with Senator Brownback and myself, side by side, on this issue. Ever since he came to the Senate it has been one of his highest priorities. I am so appreciative that he has been the stalwart soldier on the marriage tax penalty that he has because I think we are going to win this victory in the end. I yield 12 minutes to Senator Ashcroft.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Senator Brownback has been a leader in this effort. We have been fighting for this for a long time. I am very pleased he is with us on this amendment. We made some tough choices, but we think it is the right priority to send. I yield 12 minutes to Senator Brownback.

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. How much time remains?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Dr. Greenspan said: If it is a choice of tax cuts versus spending, he takes tax cuts. Paying down the debt is exactly what the Republican plan does. So I think it is very important we keep Dr. Greenspan's comments in context. If you look at the President's plan, he takes $1 trillion and spends it. The Republican plan takes the same $1 trillion and gives $792 billion back to the people who earned the money, and we have a cushion for spending on issues such as Medicare and education in the rest of the $1.3 trillion in surplus that comes from income tax withholding. The Republican plan takes all of the payroll taxes that we heard the Senator from North Dakota talk about and puts that into Social Security reform and stability. So when we are talking about a lockbox, we are saying all the payroll taxes for Social Security that people pay in will be set aside for Social Security. That is $2 trillion. That is exactly what the President's plan sets aside for Social Security. It also has the effect of paying down debt by about 50 percent, according to the estimates. So you pay down debt and you stabilize Social Security with $2 trillion that is set aside from the payroll taxes that people pay in. But for the other $1 trillion we are looking at that comes from income tax withholding, we have very different plans. The President would spend it. The Republicans would let the people who earned it keep it, and we would hold the rest in abeyance for spending on Medicare, education, national defense. Why do we want the people who earn this money, who work so hard for it, to be able to keep it? Because we believe the people who earn it need the relief for their own purposes--for them to decide how they want to spend their money. The typical American family is paying more in income taxes in peacetime than ever in our history--38 percent in income taxes. A 10-percent across-the-board tax cut is fair to everyone. Because when people paid their taxes last year--they know what they paid, and they can take 10 percent off that. That is the most fair of all tax cuts, to let people keep more of what they earn. In fact, our tax relief package is less than the tax increases that President Clinton put in place in 1993. At that time, President Clinton said he was going to tax the rich and he put in that category people on Social Security who earned $34,000 a year. That is what he declared as rich. I think these people deserve a break, and that is what we are trying to give them. We are giving marriage tax penalty relief. This morning at my constituent coffee, I met a schoolteacher and a football coach. I am going to estimate they earn about $35,000 and about $40,000 apiece. They get hit right square between the eyes with the marriage penalty because when you put their incomes together, they go into a new bracket. They are earning, then, $65,000 to $70,000 for a family of four. That is wrong. We should not tell people because they get married that they owe more in taxes, just because they got married.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I will yield on your time.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I want to address some of the issues I just heard from the Senator from South Carolina. The first is quoting of Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. I believe Dr. Greenspan's comments have been taken far out of context. Because if you look at what he said, plainly it is if the choice is more spending or tax cuts, I will take tax cuts. It is true he said he would be very cautious.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 1472 be modified with the changes that are now at the desk.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, it is time we provide marriage tax penalty relief, tax relief across the board, death tax relief so people will not have to visit the undertaker and the tax collector on the same day and give up the family farms that have had to be sold because of death taxes. That is wrong. This amendment will correct that situation. It is time we give relief to the hard-working people of our country. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, did Senator Hollings' question come off his time or mine?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1472.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I move to waive the Budget Act for consideration of the Gramm amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I look forward to the debate as well. I think it is very important that we give across-the-board tax cuts, and I think everything that we can give back to the people who earn it is something I am going to support. Mr. ALLARD addressed the Chair.