The Hollywood Liberal

Defending the “so-called rich”:?Fox News’?class?warfare

Over the past two weeks, Fox News has frequently defended the wealthy and derided the poor. Fox News figures have criticized the extension of unemployment benefits and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the “so-called rich,” all while accusing Democrats of using “class warfare rhetoric.”

Fox’s “controversial question” suggests disenfranchising Americans supposedly “not paying taxes”

Doocy: Should the “47 percent of Americans not paying taxes” be allowed to vote? Teasing an upcoming segment on the July 28 hypothesized that the “half who pays nothing” in taxes could “vote for higher taxes for the other half who pays everything.” Bolling then suggested that when the percentage of people not paying income taxes “hit[s] 50 percent, isn’t that the all-clear for whoever’s not paying tax to vote for whoever’s in office who got them to the point where they weren’t paying tax?” Varney responded that this is “the road we’re heading down,” and claimed that America is “looking like Europe,” and is headed toward “an age of ever higher taxes. A permanently high tax rate voted in by the people who do not pay.”

Hume: “When’s the last time one of these poor people offered you a job?” On the July 25 disputed the claim that those who make over $250,000 are rich. Doocy suggested that “what they consider rich,” in Washington, D.C., is “not necessarily part of the real world,” and that a couple in New York could make that much but “are not rich.” From the show:

DOOCY: First of all, you know, they talk about soaking the rich, and they’re going to — tax hikes for the rich. What do they consider rich in Washington DC? Because what they consider rich, not necessarily part of the real world.

VARNEY: I guess it’s that $250,000 a year cut off that the president has always mentioned. If you’re above that, you’re taxes go up. If you’re below that, he will never raise taxes on you. I guess he makes the cut off point at $250,000.

DOOCY: But you know, living in the New York City area, there are firemen who have wives that are in the teachers’ union and they make about that much, and they are not rich.

VARNEY: No they’re not.

According to Census Bureau data, the median household income in New York City was $48,631 in 2007.

Extending unemployment benefits helps people who need to “sober up” and get jobs

Kilmeade: “Maybe” not extending “unemployment benefits will get people to sober up” and get jobs. On July 15, Fox & Friends hosted the CEO of Partnership Staffing Inc., Bill Auchmoody, who edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly hosted Fox News contributor John Stossel and asked “what does the government owe unemployed Americans?” O’Reilly began the discussion by claiming that up until FDR launched his New Deal, “if you were unemployed, you were hosed unless somebody would be charitable towards you, as most Americans were. You know, towns took care of themselves.” O’Reilly then claimed that “[n]ow, we have a philosophy that the government owes people.”

Thompson: Obama is “going to base this tax cut on rich versus poor.” During a July 27 interview with Sean Hannity,Fred Thompson asserted that: “People are not as susceptible to — to having their envy played upon as this administration thinks. They think that if they can — can do something, even if it hurts the economy, that’s going to take something away from a group that they’re not a part of, the 2 or 3 percent, the way they like to put it, that that will go over well politically and they can win that, you know. Rich versus poor.” He added that the president is “going to base this tax argument on rich versus poor. Going to give everybody — everybody in America a tax cut, in effect, or let the tax cuts remain for them, except just two or three percent of the people. That just happens to be a third of our consumers and produce most of our jobs.”