John Spratt: “the gentleman who just spoke said that our resolution, the substitute which I am offering on behalf of the Democratic…”

“the gentleman who just spoke said that our resolution, the substitute which I am offering on behalf of the Democratic Caucus, makes no effort to mitigate the marital tax penalty, and that is not correct. Section 11 says, it is the sense of the Congress that the Committee on Ways and Means should undertake high-priority tax relief of at least $30 billion over 5 years and lists four things we would like to accomplish; and the fourth is mitigate the Tax Code marriage penalties in a manner at least equal in scope to the 1995 tax relief provision of H.R. 2491, which was a Republican bill. We are endorsing that. Twice the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, has moved a marital tax mitigation bill. Twice the majority on the committee have rejected it. Last year, he moved it in the Committee on the Budget, and they rejected it. We are calling for action this year in our resolution also.”