Despite laughably insisting, “We report, you decide,” Fox & Friends decided for themselves that the House Democrats' vote to extend tax cuts for the middle class was a “bad move” and that Democrats “just placated their base” with the vote, despite polling showing that a majority of Americans agree with Democrats on taxes.

Co-host Gretchen Carlson opened this morning's show by asking, “What happened to compromise?” before discussing the House vote. After airing House Minority Leader John Boehner's criticism of the vote as “chicken crap,” Carlson asked, “Is it really the time to play games?”

Of course, Carlson could easily ask the same questions of Senate Republicans, who declared just days ago, as The Associated Press noted, that they “intend to block action on virtually all Democratic-backed legislation unrelated to tax cuts and government spending in the current postelection session of Congress.” What happened to compromise?

And despite Carlson repeating the Fox News mantra, “We report, you decide,” Fox & Friends made the decision about the House vote for their viewers. As you can imagine, they didn't like it:

Later, after again airing Boehner's criticism of the vote, Carlson asserted, “Yup, so Republicans are infuriated, and Democrats have placated their base.”

But polling data released Thursday by CBS News shows that, far from merely appealing to their “base,” the House Democrats' position on extending the Bush tax cuts for only the middle class is in line with that of a majority of Americans. The CBS News poll found that “53 percent of Americans want the Bush-era tax cuts extended only for households earning less than $250,000 per year.”

From CBS News' report on its polling:

Republicans have argued that the midterm elections have given them a mandate on what they are calling one of the most important issues facing America, the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.

“The American people want us to stop all the looming tax hikes and to cut spending, and that should be the priority of the remaining days that we have in this Congress,” incoming House Speaker Rep. John Boehner said Thursday. Boehner added that a House vote Thursday to extend the cuts for all but the highest-earning Americans amounted to "chicken crap."

According to a new CBS News poll, however, Boehner is off-base in his claim that Americans “want us to stop all the looming tax hikes.”

The poll finds that 53 percent of Americans want the Bush-era tax cuts extended only for households earning less than $250,000 per year. That roughly matches the proposal put forth by the White House, which wants to extend the cuts only for incomes less than $250,000 for families and $200,000 for individuals.

Just 26 percent of Americans say they support extending the cuts for all Americans, even those earning above the $250,000 level, which is the GOP proposal.

Fox & Friends, not to mention their viewers, could have benefited from a bit more reporting and a lot less deciding on this one.