NAN A. S. HAYWORTH: “Nobody said the working poor do not pay taxes. What we said was we are offering help already, and to somehow willfully…”

“Nobody said the working poor do not pay taxes. What we said was we are offering help already, and to somehow willfully blind ourselves to the case of the head of household making $10,000 a year getting a refundable earned income tax credit of over $4,000 is to be, I believe, derelict in our duties to recognize the policy that already exists, and that is what we should remember today, that we have those programs in place to help the working poor. To the extent my friend from Maryland champions what the other body has done and what he says is fiscal responsibility, I would simply point out there are tax increases which abound in what came out of the other Chamber. When my colleagues move to reduce the child credit from $1,000 to $700, after the next election, they have just increased taxes on the American people, Mr. Speaker, and here I guess is the ultimate paradox. If it is so wrong to reduce taxation, if it is so wrong, if we accept my friend's logic, that somehow it imperils growth or fiscal accountability in the country at large, why any motion to instruct? Why not just a straight ``no'' vote from my friends on the left? The logic escapes me, but the truth does not, and it is this: The working poor are championed under existing policy by the earned income tax credit.”