Kent Conrad: “I would like to hear an explanation of how it harms the economy of the country to address the marriage penalty this year…”

“I would like to hear an explanation of how it harms the economy of the country to address the marriage penalty this year rather than wait 4 years. How is that? How does that hurt the country? How does it hurt the country to address the marriage penalty now instead of waiting 4 years? Just the opposite is true. It strengthens the country to address the marriage penalty now and not wait 4 years. The fact is, on this side I offered a budget plan that had half as big a tax cut, but it dealt with the marriage penalty. In fact, it had more money to address marriage penalty than is in this bill. So it is not a question of since you supported a smaller tax cut that you were then preventing addressing the marriage penalty. There are other choices to be made. How much you provide at the top end of the income spectrum is a key issue. Here is the problem with this bill. The top 1 percent get twice as much of the benefits as the bottom 60 percent. That is the problem with this bill. If you didn't design the tax proposal in this way, you would have no problem doing what I am doing with this amendment, which is to provide marriage penalty relief starting now, not waiting, as the legislation before us does, for 4 years to do anything. The problem they have is summed up very well in this chart. The top 1 percent get 33.5 percent of the benefit of this bill. The bottom 60 percent get 15 percent of the benefit.”