John Joseph Moakley: “Mr. Speaker, just about everybody agrees we should get rid of the marriage tax. We just disagree on how to do it.…”

“Mr. Speaker, just about everybody agrees we should get rid of the marriage tax. We just disagree on how to do it. Democrats want to target marriage tax cuts to working families, the people that really need it. We want to make sure we fix social security and Medicare, as well as implement the plan to pay off the marriage tax penalty. Republicans, on the other hand, have a marriage tax bill that gives half of the benefits to people who pay no marriage penalty in the first place, and most of those benefits go to the top 25 percent of wage-earners. Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, it does nothing to strengthen social security or Medicare. Mr. Speaker, I am no tax lawyer, but I do know that if we increase the standard deduction without adjusting the alternative minimum tax, we end up just doing about nothing. By the year 2010, 47 percent of the people with two children will receive no relief whatsoever under this Republican bill. It is a tax by any other name, but it will cost just the same.”