Pete Sessions: “We are paying down the national debt in record amounts. As the Senator knows, we are down $175 billion this year. That…”

“We are paying down the national debt in record amounts. As the Senator knows, we are down $175 billion this year. That will continue. The tax reduction that would be affected by this bill represents only, let us say, a small fraction of the total surplus we will be looking at in the next number of years. If these so-called bonuses that the Senator refers to are primarily given to the one-income earner couple where a mother stays home and is not working, they receive some benefit from that. I think the bonus is not sufficient to make up for the fact that one of them stays at home. Also, one of the most pernicious parts of this bill--the Senator from Texas has talked about this previously--is that we are attempting in America today to break through the glass ceiling to have women move forward and achieve equal income in America. That is happening to a record degree. But under the present Tax Code, the more equal the marriage partners are in income, the more tax penalty falls on them. In a way, as a practical matter, it seems to fall against working women in a way that you would not expect it to, and it is something we would not want to see happen. We have unanimous agreement that the marriage tax penalty is a matter that ought not to continue. This legislation deals directly and squarely with that. It doubles the standard deduction. It doubles the brackets for married couples, which is the simplest and best way to achieve that.”