HELP with apt-get

[Superstoned]

How come when I tried to use apt-get to remove a package to regain disk space, it starts to install extra packages that take up more space than before?

See output below... (and another question is: when I'm thru with apt-get can I remove all the files under /var/cache/apt? this is to make room for a knoppix liveCD remaster)

# apt-get remove emacs21
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  gettext-el libcompfaceg1 libdb3 libtiff4 xemacs21 xemacs21-basesupport
  xemacs21-bin xemacs21-nomule xemacs21-support
Suggested packages:
  xemacs21-supportel
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  emacs21
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libcompfaceg1 libtiff4 xemacs21 xemacs21-basesupport xemacs21-bin xemacs21-nomule xemacs21-support
The following packages will be upgraded:
  gettext-el libdb3
2 upgraded, 7 newly installed, 1 to remove and 569 not upgraded.
Need to get 26.3MB of archives.
After unpacking 73.9MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

I guess you can't remove emacs, some functionallity it offers is needed - so if you remove it, a substitute has to be installed.