Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum is recommending that lawmakers respond to the debate over how to avoid a series of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts by adopting a tax policy long advocated by Republicans.

In a November 28 Fox News Radio appearance, Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum criticized President Obama for claiming that the rich haven't been paying their fair share of taxes, and advocated that lawmakers “flatten out the tax code and make it more equal across the board.” Despite co-anchoring America's Newsroom, one of the programs Fox defends as featuring objective, “A-section of the newspaper” coverage, MacCallum has frequently adopted Republican positions and falsehoods.  

MacCallum's remarks came during a discussion of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who recently said that increasing taxes on the rich as part of a deal to resolve the so-called “fiscal cliff” wouldn't hurt economic growth and would “raise the morale of the middle class.” MacCallum said that the idea that the rich aren't paying their fair share “is so poisonous” and “engenders animosity, and there really isn't any need for it. But the president has definitely perpetuated that line of thinking.”

MacCallum added that wealthy earners are “already paying about sixty percent of the tax base in the country. So, and I don't really think it matters over, you know, the difference between the Clinton tax rate and now three percent or two percent, but it's a philosophy in terms of where that tax base needs to be spread out.” Economist Paul Krugman has noted that “the rich are paying more taxes because they're much richer than they used to be. When middle-class incomes barely grow while the incomes of the wealthiest rise by a factor of six, how could the tax share of the rich not go up, even if their tax rate is falling?”

The Fox anchor concluded by pushing the idea that “tax reform should be very seriously considered to flatten out the tax code and make it more equal across the board.” Republicans have proposed various forms of a flat tax for decades. Steve Forbes made the flat tax a central part of his 1996 presidential campaign, while House Republicans and presidential candidates Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry offered flat tax proposals last year.

From the November 28 edition of Fox News Radio's Kilmeade & Friends:

MACCALLUM: This idea, I think, is so poisonous, this sort of, like, “They're not paying their fair share” idea. It just -- it engenders animosity, and there really isn't any need for it. But the president has definitely perpetuated that line of thinking. You know, “They're not paying their fair share. That's all I want,” he says, “is for everybody to pay their fair share.” They're already paying about sixty percent of the tax base in the country. So, and I don't really think it matters over, you know, the difference between the Clinton tax rate and now three percent, two percent, but it's a philosophy in terms of where that tax base needs to be spread out.

Should it be -- you know, I think tax reform should be very seriously considered to flatten out the tax code and make it more equal across the board.