Intelligence Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2007--Motion To Proceed

Floor Speech

INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - April 12, 2007)

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise today because it is that time of year again. Tax day is almost upon us. As millions of Americans rush to get their taxes done this weekend, and many having just completed the process, we all know what a pain it is to have your hard-earned dollars taken away by the Government.

Mr. President, if you thought this year was painful, I have terrible news for you. It is going to get a lot worse. Under the new management in Congress, the Democrats have proposed a budget that would result in the largest tax increase in America's history. That means more money will be taken away from families and small businesses. Since we all just completed one, or are about to do so, I want to have us look at how the Democrats are going to increase America's taxes on a typical 1040 tax form.

Let's start up here with filing status. Say you are a married couple filing jointly. The marriage penalty is back. That means married couples are going to pay somewhere in the range of another $1,360 more in higher taxes because of the return of the marriage penalty.

Some taxpayers are going to find their exemption of $3,300 get cut to zero.

Go down to dividends and senior citizens. Anybody who has a dividend in this country is going to see their taxes increased on dividends to 39.6 percent, which is an increase from the current tax rate on dividends of 15 percent.

Capital gains. Let's say you are a senior citizen and you have capital gains income. Your tax rate is going to go from 15 percent to 20 percent.

How about those families that are putting kids through college and are now taking advantage of the student loan interest deduction? Well, that, too, is going to be capped for families making more than $60,000 a year.

Let's move over to the taxpayers who itemize deductions, such as mortgage interest, charitable contributions, State and local tax deduction. What is going to happen there is you are going to see this go up; it will be capped, the amount they can deduct.

Take the alternative minimum tax, right down here. The alternative minimum tax is going to affect an additional 20 million Americans who are going to have to pay that.

How about the credit for child and dependent care expenses, which is something the working families in this country take advantage of. There again, that credit is going to be slashed by 31 percent.

The child tax credit that a lot of working families in this country take advantage of is currently at $1,000. That also is going to be slashed in half from $1,000 down to $500.

Let's take a look at the earned-income tax credit. Again, this is a credit which is taken advantage of by a lot of lower income working Americans and a lot of people who are serving their country--soldiers, men and women in uniform--slashed.

Let's take a look at the tax rate schedule, too, because I think this is very important. If you are a taxpayer today paying at the 10-percent tax rate, the 10-percent tax rate is boom, gone, boom, gone, boom, gone, boom, gone. If you are paying at the 25-percent tax rates, your taxes are going to go up to 28 percent. You lose the 25-percent rate. If you are paying at the 28-percent rate, your taxes are going to go up to 31 percent. If you are someone who is paying currently at the 33-percent rate, your taxes are going to go up--boom--to 36 percent. If you are someone who is currently paying taxes at the 35-percent rate, your taxes are going to go up to 39.6 percent.

So what does all this mean? Everybody wants to know, when they do their taxes, what the bottom line is; how does it affect me when it comes to the actual amount of taxes I am going to pay?

We took a typical family in South Dakota to see how it would impact them. A typical family in South Dakota, when it comes down to computing the amount they are going to owe in taxes under this Democratic budget, will pay an additional $2,596 in taxes on top of what they are already paying this year if this Democratic budget is enacted.

The point I am simply making is this: When you get behind and read through all the fine print in the Democratic budget, you come down to one simple conclusion: higher taxes--higher taxes for married couples because of the return of the marriage penalty. You are going to get penalized for being married. That is the ``benefit'' for being married, if the Democratic budget is enacted; higher taxes for seniors, who are going to pay a 39-percent tax rate on dividend income; a 20-percent tax increase, from 15 percent, on capital gains distributions; higher taxes on working families in this country who are trying to put their kids through college and who are going to lose some of the deductions they currently get for student loan interest.

If I take it over to the next chart, the credit for child dependent care expenses, child tax credit, impacting working families, higher taxes for working families, higher taxes for low-income Americans because of the earned-income tax credit, and again, most importantly probably in all of this, the 10-percent rate lower income Americans currently pay is gone, it is eliminated--gone, boom. Every tax rate on the rate schedule today is going to go up, from 25 percent to 28 percent, from 28 percent to 31 percent, from 33 percent to 36 percent, and from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. Every person in this country who pays taxes today is going to see a higher tax bill because of this Democratic budget. And as I said--every State can check this out for themselves--in my State of South Dakota, a typical bill is going to go up by $2,596 over this year.

That is the bottom line. That is the bottom line on the Democratic budget--higher taxes, the highest, biggest increase in taxes in America's history.

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