Fox hosts launch attacks on child tax credits, calling them “destructive,” “illegitimate” “welfare”
Steve Hilton: “Once these entitlements are established, it’s incredibly hard to get them back because they’re things that people like. And that’s why this is so destructive”
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From the July 19, 2021, edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom
BILL HEMMER (FOX NEWS ANCHOR): Here is how it breaks down — 35 million families with nearly 60 million kids, for a total price tag, $15 billion, depending on how many children you have determines how much money you are getting right now in direct deposit. Some would call it welfare. As you heard from [Democratic Sen.] Sherrod Brown, he thinks it’s progress. What do you think?
STEVE HILTON (FOX NEWS HOST): Well, look, before we even get to the details, Bill, there’s two massive underlying problems with this. First of all, is this incredible example of the centralization of our economy and society we’re seeing under this Biden regime.
Look at the Constitution, the 10th Amendment, we always forget that, but everything that is not specified in the Constitution is the responsibility of the states respectively, or the people. I’m not against helping families in need, but that shouldn’t be the federal government doing it. It should be state and local government doing it, and yet we see this huge expansion of federal responsibility over things that really have no business being handled at that level. The second underlying problem is that this is a remaking of American society. They’re turning it into a welfare society, the kind of thing you see in Europe. That was not on offer from Biden in his election campaign — they have no mandate for any of this. This goes way beyond the kind of centrism and return to normalcy that Biden promised. And so this is fundamentally illegitimate to do this.
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[HILTON: “Impossible to kill,” is at the heart of this. Look at those child welfare payments, the family payments. You think it’s going to be easy to take them back, $300 to each child? Once these entitlements are established, it’s incredibly hard to get them back, because they’re things that people like. And that’s why this is so destructive, because it is undermining the things that make America distinctive and strong, create innovation, and the progress that we all rely on to fund the government in the first place —entrepreneurial spirit, that sense of personal responsibility, not looking to the government, let alone the federal government, for your every need. It’s a completely different thing from anything that’s happened in this country before.