NAN A. S. HAYWORTH: “Mr. Speaker, I do welcome my friend from Louisiana to this House and the 108th Congress. I look forward to working with…”

“Mr. Speaker, I do welcome my friend from Louisiana to this House and the 108th Congress. I look forward to working with him in a spirit of bipartisanship. I thank him for his first vote for tax relief and again would point out the four letters that my friends on the left just cannot bring themselves to mention tonight, EITC, earned income tax credit. My friend from Arkansas either cited another example or gave a different total than I thought I initially heard about his constituent. Earning $25,000 a year, let me review what that constituent, who is paying no income tax, receives through the earned income tax credit according to the Tax Foundation. That person, that head of household with two kids earning $25,000, the tax liability before the credit is $885. After the child tax credit, the $1,000 per child, there is no tax liability. The remaining refundable child tax credit, $565. The refundable earned income tax credit, $1,717. The total check from Uncle Sam to that person, the head of household with two kids earning $25,000 under the earned income tax credit, is $2,282. The percent of the payroll tax erased for that head of household is some 60 percent. What we are saying, Mr. Speaker, is simply an acknowledgment that our friends who are not paying income tax are indeed working Americans, and I find it ironic tonight that the earned income tax credit has been avoided by my friends on the left as if it were a plague.”