Russ Feingold: “the bill before us is a major tax bill. Because the bill sunsets in 2004 to comply with the Senate's Byrd Rule, the…”

“the bill before us is a major tax bill. Because the bill sunsets in 2004 to comply with the Senate's Byrd Rule, the Joint Committee on Taxation's official estimate is that the bill would cost $55.5 billion. And in the likely circumstance that Congress fails to sunset the bill, it would cost nearly $250 billion over 10 years and $40 billion a year, or $400 billion a decade, when fully phased in. In a matter of this importance, it is appropriate to consider where the money goes. It is appropriate to consider whether we could make other, similar changes to the tax law that would benefit more Americans. This Senator believes that it is a priority to simplify taxes and free people from paying income taxes altogether. My amendment would accomplish both of these goals by expanding the standard deduction. The amendment would increase the standard deduction for individuals by $250, from $4,500 to $4,750. It would increase the standard deduction for heads of households, as well, from $6,650 to $7,500. And it would maintain the underlying bill's policy of increasing the standard deduction for married couples to twice that of an individual. Seven in 10 taxpayers take the standard deduction instead of itemizing. My amendment would benefit all of those 7 out of 10 taxpayers. It would reduce their taxable incomes by hundreds of dollars and thus make it so that many middle-income working Americans would not owe any income taxes at all.”