Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) is necessarily absent. I further announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Coverdell) is absent due to illness.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), and the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), are necessarily absent. I further announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Coverdell) is absent due to illness. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) would vote ``no.''

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson), and the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison) are necessarily absent. I further announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Coverdell) is absent due to illness. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) would vote ``no.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I mentioned all of the Presidents. President Clinton has greatly exceeded the amount of new additions compared to any President, with the one exception of President Carter. To give a comparison, President Ford added 86 acres in national monuments in his tenure as President. President Reagan and President Bush added zero. Teddy Roosevelt added 1.5 million acres; William Taft, 32,000 acres. I could go on down the list. My point is, the amount President Clinton has added this year alone exceeds what almost any other President has done. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a copy of the Antiquities Act.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, seeing no other Senators desiring to speak, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order following the remarks of Senators Wellstone and Bryan.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Brownback amendment numbered 3849 be modified with the text that is now at the desk.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded and the amendment be laid aside.

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

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk to the pending bill on behalf of the majority leader.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, for the information of my colleague, I will speak on the marriage penalty for a few minutes and then go into the wrap-up. Mr. President, I compliment my colleagues, several of whom have worked very hard to make sure we eliminate the marriage penalty. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, Sam Brownback, Senator Ashcroft, and Senator Santorum have been pushing and pushing to eliminate one of the most unfair penalties in the Tax Code, the marriage penalty. Now we have a chance to do that. We are going to vote on that on Monday. We are going to pass it--at least I hope we do--and I hope the President will sign it. The President said in his State of the Union Address that we need to eliminate the marriage penalty. He didn't propose it. He had a little something in his budget but very little. We have taken that and we are now considering a bill to basically eliminate the marriage penalty. A lot of people don't know what that is. It says that if people file a joint return, they pay more than they would have paid as single individuals. Some people say: Wait a minute. The Republican proposal, or the proposal we passed out of the Finance Committee, does more than that; it has a marriage bonus. We say that we should basically double the income tax brackets for individuals and for couples. So if they are married and file jointly, they end up getting twice the income tax bracket before you step into the next bracket as individuals. That is really pretty simple. But it is as fair as it can get. It is the right thing to do. To give an example, we have several brackets in our Tax Code: 0, 15, 28, 31, 36, and 39.6. Actually, the maximum rate was 31 percent before President Clinton came into office. In 1993, he and Vice President Gore passed a tax increase to move the maximum rate up to 39.6. They also eliminated deductions and also took off the cap on the Medicare tax, which is another 2.9 percent. So they basically raised the maximum rate up to 43, 44 percent. As you jump into higher tax brackets, each income level, you are penalized under the marriage penalty. As an individual, you pay 15 percent up to $26,000. You would think a couple would go into the next bracket until it is double that amount. That would be $52,000. An individual pays 15 percent up to $26,000. So for a couple, when they go into the next higher bracket at 28 percent, that should be at $52,000. That is not the case. If you look at the Tax Code, a married couple filing a joint return goes into 28 percent not at $52,000 or $50,000 but at $43,000. So what that means is that the married couple is paying an additional rate of 28 percent on all income between $43,000 and $52,000. That is the marriage penalty. We would eliminate that. Whether there is one wage earner or two wage earners in the married couple, we eliminate that penalty. Another way of saying it is, we take the $26,000, on which you are paying 15 percent, and we double it. So if it is $26,000 for an individual, it is $52,000 for a couple. We do the same thing on the 28 percent bracket. So we eliminate this penalty. Another way of looking at it would be, if you have a principal wage earner and, say, he or she makes $40,000, and a spouse makes $20,000, under present law, the spouse that makes $20,000 pays the same income tax rate as the principal wage earner. That is not right. They should not be paying a tax rate of 28 percent. They should be paying at the 15-percent rate. So we are doubling the tax. The present Tax Code almost charges double for the wage earner that is making $20,000 just because they happen to be married to a spouse who makes $40,000. That is wrong. It needs to be eliminated, and we do eliminate that in this proposal. I have heard some of my colleagues say they are going to offer a Democrat substitute and change that Democrat proposal. I compliment my friend and colleague from New York, Senator Moynihan. I have the greatest respect for him. He says the way to solve it is to make individuals file as if they have individual returns. What does that mean? If you have an income of $40,000 or $20,000, there would be some tax relief. But what if you have a situation where somebody earns $60,000? There is no tax relief. Or if you have an income that is $50,000, there is no tax relief. You are paying a 28-percent bracket on any income between $43,000 and $52,000. So they get penalized. They doesn't solve that problem. I hope I am not being too confusing. Maybe it is kind of wonkish, but we are penalizing couples in the U.S. today for being married to the tune of an average $1,200 to $1,400. That is wrong. We have a chance to fix it. We should. I believe we will fix it on Monday. I am pleased. This week was a good week. We passed a bill to eliminate the death tax. That is good news for small business. It is good news for farmers and ranchers or anybody who is trying to build a business. They would like to know they can build the business and not lose half of it when they die. The tax rates right now on the death tax range from 37 percent once you get past the deductible to 55 percent and in some cases 60 percent. If you have a taxable estate of $10 million, you have a marginal rate of 60 percent. That is too high. A lot of people do not know that. Some press people said to me: I think you misstated it. The facts are, if you have a taxable estate of $10 million to $17 million, you pay a rate of 60 percent. That is way too high. We have taken care of that today. The only thing that will stop that from becoming law is President Clinton. He can sign it and we can eliminate the death tax and replace it with a capital gains tax. That is fair and equitable across the board. It is something we ought to do. It is the fair and right thing to do. Next Monday we can eliminate the marriage penalty. People shouldn't have to pay more taxes because they happen to be married. People shouldn't be bumped into higher categories because they happen to be married. We shouldn't be charging couples for marriage. They shouldn't be penalized for being married. We basically double the tax schedule for couples. To me, it is the fairest thing to do. You don't penalize somebody because they are working or not working. We don't penalize married couples. We have a chance to eliminate this gross inequity. We have taken care of one today on the floor of the Senate by eliminating the death penalty. On Monday, we can eliminate the marriage penalty. I compliment my colleagues, and especially several of our Democrat colleagues who were with us. Nine Democrats voted with us on final passage. We passed a bipartisan bill. It was bipartisan in the House with an overwhelming vote of a 2-to-1 margin. There was a good margin today in the Senate--59-39. Frankly, I hope that number will grow. We had several Members absent today, several of whom maybe would join us. Again, I compliment Senator Lott, and also Senator Roth, for bringing the bill forward this week. Next week, we have the opportunity to provide real tax relief for businesses, for families, and for married couples. I think that is some of the most positive news for taxpayers in a long, long time. I am going to proceed to several unanimous consent requests to help expedite consideration of these matters before the Senate next week. Amendment No. 3881

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

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

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded and the amendment be laid aside.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I concur with my friend and colleague from Nevada. I think for a lot of these amendments recorded votes are not necessary. A lot of these amendments will fall on procedure because they won't be germane to the reconciliation bill. I will work with my friend from Nevada energetically to reduce the number of amendments on this side, as I am sure he will on the other side, to see if we can't expedite the matter and finish this reconciliation bill to provide marriage penalty relief for married couples, and hopefully complete it on Monday evening. Mr. President, as a reminder, stacked votes are scheduled also for 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday with respect to the Interior bill. Therefore, Members should plan to stay in or around the Senate Chamber for those stacked votes on Tuesday morning as well. It is our intention to complete the interior bill on Tuesday and move to other matters. We are going to have a busy couple of weeks. We had a fruitful week this week. We passed the Defense authorization bill. We almost completed the Interior bill. We completed the repeal of the death tax bill. This has been a good week. We have 2 more weeks prior to the August recess, which are going to be very aggressive. Next week we plan to take up the energy and water appropriations bill and the Agriculture appropriations bill.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I would like to put all Members on notice that just under 40 amendments were filed on the marriage penalty reconciliation bill. Those votes will occur in stacked sequence beginning at 6:15 p.m. on Monday. Therefore, all Senators should prepare for a late night session on Monday with a lot of recorded votes.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson), is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Jeffords) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.