Ron Lewis: “Mr. Speaker, there is a sense of fairness, as the gentleman just spoke of a minute ago. In this Nation, it is really a…”

“Mr. Speaker, there is a sense of fairness, as the gentleman just spoke of a minute ago. In this Nation, it is really a great privilege to live here and to have all of the blessings of freedom that we have and all the opportunity that we have. But along with that blessing and the wonderful aspects of what we have in this great country comes a certain responsibility. One of those responsibilities that we have is to pay an income tax. We have in our system a progressive income tax system where those who make a great amount or more money than someone else will pay a greater amount of taxes, and those that make less money pay less taxes, and those that reach a certain level in this country, they pay no income tax whatsoever. They may pay payroll taxes and other taxes. In order to offset those other taxes, there is the earned income tax credit that gives back to families that do not make enough to pay income taxes the money to offset the other taxes that they pay. Now it seems to me that we have tried in this country to be as fair as we possibly can to all those in whatever income level they may be.”