Kent Conrad: “this amendment is about fairness and simplification. If we look at the bill before us, it gives the biggest rate…”

“this amendment is about fairness and simplification. If we look at the bill before us, it gives the biggest rate reduction to the highest income-tax payers of all. Only seven-tenths of 1 percent of the taxpayers are in the 39.6- percent bracket, but they get 20 percent more rate reduction than the 36-percent bracket, than the 31-percent bracket, than the 28-percent bracket. And in the 15-percent bracket, where the vast majority of taxpayers are in this country, 70 percent of the taxpayers get no rate relief--none. My amendment simply takes the additional rate relief that the very wealthiest receive, the additional six-tenths of 1 percent--that is 20 percent more than the other brackets--and shifts it to the lowest 70 percent of the tax filers in this country. It says: Let's give fairness when we are giving tax relief.”