Still desperately trying to paint President Obama as having done nothing but raise taxes during his presidency, Fox News falsely claimed today that Obama wants to “raise everybody's taxes” as well as “taxes on small businesses.” Both claims are not only false, but are actually the reverse of reality: the president's recently released American Jobs Act calls for tax cuts for the vast majority of working, middle-class Americans, as well as tax cuts for businesses, and more tax cuts for businesses that hire the long-term unemployed.
Fox & Friends ignored reality, though, and today hosted Fox Business' Charles Gasparino to claim that Obama “wants to raise everybody's taxes. He wants to raise taxes on small business.” From the show:
GASPARINO: Jobs are created because you create economic conditions that the free enterprise system works. I mean, it's people owning businesses and hiring people, because they have the right incentives. I will say this, whether you're -- you know, if you like the president or not, the incentives are not there right now. And it's not just the general economy -- it's the tax structure. He wants to raise everybody's taxes. He wants to raise taxes on small businesses. Why would any small business want to hire when you expect higher taxes from Obamacare or you're even -- forget about the millionaire's tax, people -- families making 250 are going to have their taxes increased in two years if Obama gets re-elected. That's the bottom line. By the way, that hits small businesses. So the incentives aren't there, and when the incentives aren't there -- listen, the government can spend all it wants, you know, 200,000, a million, 3 million whatever -- it's not going to create lasting job growth.
Despite Gasparino's claims, more than half of the cost of the president's recently proposed jobs plan consists of tax cuts for employees and employers. Here's a graphic The Washington Post published in a September 8 article about the plan:
As the Post article noted, $175 billion of the plan would be an extension of the employee payroll tax cut Obama already passed, along with a 50 percent increase in that tax cut. The plan would also cut payroll taxes for employers to the tune of $65 billion total. A recent post on You're the Boss, the New York Times' small business blog, broke down the tax cuts and credits for small businesses that the plan proposes: tax credits for hiring the long-term unemployed, a payroll tax cut for all employers, and a full payroll tax holiday on any payroll growth -- that is, on any new employees hired or hours extended for current employees.
Obama has indeed in the past suggested that the Bush tax cuts be repealed for those making over $250,000 a year -- but it turns out only 2 percent of U.S. households earn that much money.
Yet somehow, Gasparino spun $175 billion in tax cuts, with a possible tax increase on 2 percent of Americans, as Obama's desire to “raise everybody's taxes.”
Watch: