Steve Largent: “This is a great day when we have an opportunity to vote on marriage penalty relief. Finally, 25 million couples in this…”

“This is a great day when we have an opportunity to vote on marriage penalty relief. Finally, 25 million couples in this country that have been penalized simply for the fact that they have been married will see some tax relief. This is a great day in this country, that this Congress is sending a message to Americans that we think you, as couples, know how to spend your money better than we know how to spend it here in Washington, D.C. I fully anticipate that we will see a very significant bipartisan vote on this bill later this afternoon, as soon as we finish the debate on this measure. Mr. Speaker, there is really more good news, and it has been trumpeted in Washington here quite a bit, and that is the fact that the CBO has announced that the projected surplus, non-Social Security surplus is going crazy. They first anticipated a $15 billion surplus, non-Social Security surplus. This Republican Congress has pledged not to touch the Social Security surplus, so we are talking about everything else, non-Social Security surplus is now going to be not $15 billion but $128 billion in the year 2001 alone.”