Fox News countered President Obama’s call for the rich to pay their fair share with a demand that taxes be raised on the poor.
Here is the video from Media Matters:
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Gretchen Carlson said, “So I think when the president says fair share, I think there’s a couple of points here, and earlier this hour I said I think there should be a disclaimer underneath, which is the reason why we’re putting up this graphic for you. Because if in fact you’re paying tax on ordinary income and you’re in the highest tax bracket then you’re paying thirty some percent, but then if you take that money that you’ve already paid taxes on and you go and invest and you make a profit, a long term profit more than a year of investment, then you pay another fifteen percent on top of it. And by the way, with the fair share argument forty seven percent of Americans don’t pay federal income tax….But that didn’t get into it, but that is also part of the fair share. So if we are going to be fair to everyone, should those people then start paying something?â€
Steve Doocy added, “Kick in a buck. Kick in something.†Brian Kilmeade jumped in with, “And in many cases some are getting refunds on money they haven’t earned for the year come April, so that’s where a lot of that tax money is going.â€
Fox News tried to label most Americans deadbeats who pay no federal income tax, but the truth is that 86% of Americans pay taxes. The group of 14% that pays no taxes is largely made up of senior citizens and disabled people. The 47% figure that Carlson cited was an anomaly that occurred in 2009 because of the combination of the recession and the temporary tax credits in the Obama stimulus.
The Fox and Friends crew was arguing for a tax system where the wealthy aren’t taxed at all on profit derived from their investments. As we have seen with Mitt Romney, most of the super rich pay less than the income tax rate, because their income is largely comes from investments. Fox News also neglected to mention that President Obama only wants to increase taxes on millionaires and above. Obama is not coming after mom and pop retirement investors. His tax increase is aimed at the wealthy Americans who are using various loopholes to avoid paying their fair share.
The reality is that poor and middle class Americans are already carrying the vast majority of the total tax burden, but this isn’t good enough for those wealthy Americans who believe that they should not have to pay anything.
The most ironic point of all is that Fox News has the oldest audience on television, and those viewers don’t seem to realize that the only network that they trust for news is trying to convince them to support raising their own taxes.
Note to Fox News viewers. Those tax deadbeats that Gretchen, Steve, and Brian were talking about are you.
