Mark Udall: “when we considered this bill the first time, I voted for it--although I was very reluctant to do so--in the hope that…”

“when we considered this bill the first time, I voted for it--although I was very reluctant to do so--in the hope that the Senate would improve it sufficiently to make it acceptable. However, that did not happen. So, I could not vote for the conference report on the bill and will not vote to override the President's veto. I support ending the ``marriage penalty,'' but my initial support for the Republican leadership's bill was reluctant because I though that bill was not the right way to achieve that goal. That was why I voted for the Democratic alternative, a measure that would not have been vetoed. In some areas the Republican leadership's bill did too little, and in others it did too much. It did too little by not adjusting the Alternative Minimum Tax. That means it would have left many middle- income families unprotected from having most of the promised benefits of the bill taken away. The Democratic substitute would have adjusted the Alternative Minimum Tax. It did too much because it was not carefully targeted.”