Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I would love to address that issue. It is a valid point. We will not take away the break that a couple has in the…”

“I would love to address that issue. It is a valid point. We will not take away the break that a couple has in the one-income-earner family; that is, where people are ahead if they have one income in the family, they get a break on taxes. The people who get hit are the low-income people with two wage-earners in the family. They are the ones that often have to work to make ends meet, and yet they are penalized because they get married. It is a couple that makes $28,000 a year and $33,000 a year, and together they move into the higher bracket, but separately they would not be in the higher bracket, they would stay at the 15 percent bracket. What we are trying to do is create an equity for those lower- and middle-income two-earner couples that right now are paying a hefty penalty.”