Doris Matsui: “Mr. Speaker, Democrats favor relief on the marriage penalty. In fact, when the President spoke, more Democrats stood up…”

“Mr. Speaker, Democrats favor relief on the marriage penalty. In fact, when the President spoke, more Democrats stood up quicker than the Republicans stood up during the State of the Union message. The President, in his budget that he gave us last week, has relief for the marriage penalty. In fact, Members on both sides of the aisle in a couple of hours will be able to vote on the substitute offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), which will deal with the problem of the marriage penalty. The problem with this bill, talking about extreme, is that this bill really is not a marriage penalty relief bill. It is in name only. It is kind of like the Trojan horse. It does not really exist. The Republicans will have to admit, maybe they will not want to talk about it, but over half the relief in this bill of $182 billion, one-half of the bill of the gentleman from New York, $182 billion, that goes to people who do not even have a marriage penalty. So how can Members call this really a marriage penalty bill? There are a lot of problems with this bill, because we did not have a hearing, we did not have discussions. Nobody talked to the President or the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) or any Democrat on this piece of legislation. It was just kind of put together at the last minute.”