Emanuel Cleaver: “I would not support giving any additional tax cuts to people who are already paying virtually no taxes. The earned…”

“I would not support giving any additional tax cuts to people who are already paying virtually no taxes. The earned income tax credit, I think, adequately, appropriately and significantly deals with the people who are at the very lowest end of the income level in this country. And they are paying virtually no taxes. However, I do think that the tax cuts are inevitably going to be disproportionate because of the disproportionate income. But the problem that I am having with that, in addition to the fact that they are not as equitable as I think we could design them, we are the only Nation in the history of the planet that I can find out that actually moved for a tax cut during a time of war. Generally during a time of war, we ask the people of the Nation, particularly our Nation, to make sacrifices. And so we are making significant spending a part of our day-to-day living in this country with a conflict going in Afghanistan, a conflict going in Iraq, and who knows what will happen with all of the troubles now in the Palestinian territories as well as in Lebanon. So I think that we missed a rare but a very, very key opportunity to challenge the people of our country to make sacrifices during this particular time. And one of the sacrifices I think we should have pushed on the American public is that we cannot have tax cuts at a time of war. Because we are borrowing all of the money.…”