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202/224-2934
Phil_Gramm@gramm.senate.gov |
January 2001
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370 Russell Senate Office
Building
Washington, DC 20510-4302 |
TAX
CUTS FOR TAXPAYERS
"Our plan grants tax relief to
everyone who pays taxes. It also eliminates the marriage penalty and
repeals the death tax."
Statement
by U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm
January 22, 2001
Mr. President, I am introducing legislation today with my colleague,
Senator Miller of Georgia, to provide tax relief for America's families
by returning a portion of the tax surplus to the working men and women
who are responsible for creating it.
Our proposal consists of the core elements of the plan that President
Bush outlined during his campaign for the Presidency. There are three
principle components: Lower income tax rates for all Americans, relief
from the marriage tax penalty, and repeal of the death tax. The bill
replaces the current tax rate structure with rates of 10, 15, 25, and 33
percent. Lower income Americans get a larger percentage cut in rates,
higher income Americans get a smaller reduction, but obviously this is a
tax cut for taxpayers.
The next provision of the bill begins the effort to repeal the
marriage penalty. There is no reason in America that people who
need
and fall in love should have to pay $1,400 a year in additional taxes as
the price of getting married. Sen. Miller and I are for love and
marriage, and /we don't think they ought to be taxed.
The final major provision of the bill is repeal of the death tax. A
death tax is double taxation in which people work their whole lives,
build up a business or a family farm, and pay taxes on every penny they
earn. Yet when they die, their children have to sell the business or the
family farm in order to give the government up to 55 cents out of every
dollar of its value. This is fundamentally unfair.
Finally, since our President was elected three things have happened,
and every one of them argues for this package of tax cuts. No. 1, the
economy is weaker and investment is falling off. Secondly, our estimates
of the budget surplus have gone up, not down. And lastly, that surplus
is being spent at an unprecedented rate.
We believe that Congress should enact the Bush tax plan, continue to
pay down the debt, and resist the urge to spend the tax surplus so that
we can return a portion of it to the working men and women who produced
it.
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