Thomas Daschle: “The Republican bill has very little to do with the marriage penalty. In fact, I was just commenting that if the…”

“The Republican bill has very little to do with the marriage penalty. In fact, I was just commenting that if the Republicans were trying to treat an illness, they would be sued for malpractice--given the bill they are proposing this afternoon--malpractice because they are not curing the disease. In fact, in some ways they are causing the disease, this marriage penalty disease, to be even more problematic, more difficult. They are actually creating another disease--a singles penalty. We need to be aware of the repercussions of what the Republicans are attempting to do with their legislation this afternoon. The singles penalty is something I will talk a little bit more about. To begin, I don't think there is any doubt that if you asked all 100 Senators: should we fix the marriage penalty, the answer would be emphatically yes. The question is, How do we fix it, and are we really intent on fixing it? Our Republican colleagues only deal with three of the marriage penalty provisions incorporated in the law today. If you were going to completely eliminate the entire marriage penalty, you would have to deal not with 3 but with 65 of the provisions incorporated in the tax law that have caused the imbalance or the inequity to exist today.”