Charles Rangel: “Mr. Speaker, I am certain that newspapers around this country have been able to see through what is a Valentine's Day…”

“Mr. Speaker, I am certain that newspapers around this country have been able to see through what is a Valentine's Day gimmick. The truth of the matter is that even in our local Washington Post, the editorials would indicate that we are not talking about relieving the marriage penalty. Democrats, Republicans, the President, we all want to do it. The problem that we have, and we will be showing the chart from the Joint Committee on Taxation, is that the majority would have us to do this to take care of a tax problem that they see that those in the higher incomes are paying too much taxes, but it has nothing to do with the marriage penalty. They would pay $182 billion to take care of people who pay less than that because they are married, and they should, but at the same time, they would do this without bringing a budget to the House floor. So once they find out that the President needs a budget, needs to take care of social security, needs to take care of Medicare, wants to pay down the national debt, if they decide not to do any of these things, then they are saying they do not want relief from the marriage penalty.”