JOHN LINDER: “My understanding is, and the gentleman from Georgia could tell better than me, we spend about $34 billion a year on the…”

“My understanding is, and the gentleman from Georgia could tell better than me, we spend about $34 billion a year on the earned income tax credit. The reason it was put into place many years ago was to relieve people at lower income, $17,000 to $23,000 or $24,000 a year from the payroll tax. These people do not pay income taxes, so they are not paying for the military or the parks or the Justice Department or the FBI, and the earned income tax credit relieves them of paying for their own retirement. Nine billion dollars of that $34 billion is considered to be fraud. Under our system, since nobody will have a payroll tax, there will be no reason to have an earned income tax, an earned income tax credit, and we will save a ton of money.”