Roy Blunt: “I am here to talk about what happens to working families in 2011 if we do not go ahead and act now, act in a way that…”

“I am here to talk about what happens to working families in 2011 if we do not go ahead and act now, act in a way that responsibly assures that we do the right thing for the children of those families. Mr. Speaker, $460 billion of tax increases for families where moms and dads are both working over 10 years, $460 billion taken away from those families where 2 people every day get up, go to work, do their very best to provide for their families, and we decide that we want to reinstate a marriage penalty on January 1, 2011. That is not acceptable; it is not something this Congress should be considering. What we have a chance to do today is to really be sure that this relief becomes permanent. The fact is that when you get married, you should not have to have a penalty in the Tax Code. If anything, there should be a bonus in the Tax Code. A marriage penalty works against the very things that we want to encourage: families working together, people going to jobs every day to try to create a better life for their families. We do not want to have a $42 billion annual tax increase that goes into effect January 1, 2011 because people are married.”