Richard Gephardt: “I rise to support the ending of the marriage penalty, to say that the Democratic alternative did that for people that…”

“I rise to support the ending of the marriage penalty, to say that the Democratic alternative did that for people that actually have a marriage penalty, and our problem with this bill is that it extends about 60 percent of its benefits to people that earn above the middle class and have many more means than the middle class and, frankly, do not have a marriage penalty. Our problem with the bill, and the President's problem with the bill, and the reason the bill was vetoed, is that it goes ahead and does a lot of things that have nothing to do with the marriage penalty. We are all for getting rid of the marriage penalty. For about $100 billion over 10 years, we could do that for the people that have a problem. We could be carrying on a discussion today about a bill that the President would sign that would end the marriage penalty, but that is not what was chosen to do. So we are wasting time today, again, working on a bill that has been vetoed that will never see the light of day. I go door to door in my district; I went door to door last weekend and people talked to me about all kinds of issues, prescription medicine and Medicare, a Patients' Bill of Rights, helping public education and trying to get smaller classroom sizes. And they talk about tax relief; but they want tax relief that is affordable, reasonable, feasible, and is targeted at the people that really need it.”