Don Nickles: “this bill Senator Miller and I are introducing is the President's economic and growth package. This is a package the…”

“this bill Senator Miller and I are introducing is the President's economic and growth package. This is a package the President has put together that would help American families. This is a package that is profamilial and progrowth. It is a bill that will create jobs. It is a bill that will create an incentive to invest. It is a bill to eliminate unfair punitive taxes on corporate earnings that are distributed to the owners of the corporation. It is a bill that will help stimulate and grow our economy. I compliment the President for his work in proposing this. I am happy to introduce it. Let me talk about a couple of the provisions of the bill. This bill will expand the 10-percent bracket. This is to help people of all incomes. But the lowest income people will be the true beneficiaries of this package. It will accelerate reductions in the individual income tax rates that were passed in 2001. You might remember the 2001 tax bill that we passed which had individual rate reductions phased in over the years. There was a 1 percent reduction in most of the rates in 2004, and another percent reduction in 2006. These are accelerated to 2003. It means that the maximum personal income tax bracket would be 35 percent instead of the present 38.6 percent. It means that individuals would not have to pay taxes at rates greater than corporations.”