THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
                            (Okinawa, Japan)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                      July 22, 2000

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

While I strongly support targeted marriage penalty relief, the marriage penalty bill promoted by Republicans in Congress is one part of a costly, poorly targeted, and regressive tax plan. This plan would risk our fiscal discipline and continued prosperity, while giving more benefits to the top one percent of taxpayers than to the bottom eighty percent of all Americans. At the same time, the Congress has ignored tax cuts I have proposed for college tuition, long-term care, savings, and childcare. This latest bill just passed by the Congress is even more costly than the earlier versions passed by the House and Senate. In the interest of fiscal responsibility, I will veto this and any subsequent legislation that threatens our ability to pay down the debt and strengthen Medicare and Social Security.

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