> The folks who promote term limits are also attacking the marriage penatly
> tax, which makes me suspicious of their criticism of the tax. Can anyone
> help me understand the marriage penalty tax issue?
Congressional Budget Office did a report on it recently which may be on their web site; if it is, it can be downloaded for free. Also I would recommend either Taxing Ourselves (Slemrod and Bakija) or The Decline and Fall of the Income Tax (Michael Graetz).
I would pontificate myself but I don't have time right now.
In and of itself, getting rid of the so-called penalty would not be the worse crime against humanity; the Repubs like it mostly because it's another excuse for a tax cut and because they're afraid to go for anything bigger, like Jack Kemp's proposal for a 'trillion dollar tax cut.'
MBS