In another ridiculous segment from Sunday’s so-called “Reliable Sources,” CNN host Brian Stelter was joined by some so of his liberal cohorts from other left-leaning outfits to bemoan how their industry supposedly didn’t praise President Biden’s legislative agenda enough. But a nearly week-old segment from Fox News Channel’s Special Report undermined their premise by showing what the liberal media was truly ignoring: how multiple economic reports showed Biden’s tax hikes would be paid by the poor.
“And frankly, I also think that everybody seems to be missing the bigger picture of what $3.5 trillion over ten years actually could mean to American families,” TIME magazine national correspondent Charlotte Alter obnoxiously proclaimed.
Adding: “Even if the number is smaller than that, we're still looking at the potential of a massive investment in a social safety net that would be the largest investment in childcare and in climate change, and in paid family leave, in a generation.”
Stelter pivoted to Huffington Post senior national correspondent Jonathan Cohn to reinforce Alter’s clownish assertion:
I'm 100 percent with Charlotte on this. It is amazing how little attention over the past few months to these potentially really transformative pieces of legislation.
Charlotte mentioned a couple, childcare, paid leave. Every other country in the world has a paid leave law. We don't. We could get one. This can be transformative to hundreds of thousands and billions of people who are elderly or disabled, and can't get home care and they end up in nursing homes.
And that's not even to mention the profound change in policy on climate change, which is really, you know, an existential crisis for the planet.
“So, there's a lot in this bill, and we probably should be talking a lot more about it,” he said.
The idea that the liberal media was not busy carrying water for the administration as they did the yeoman’s work to sell it to the American public was laughable to anyone who watched the morning and evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC. That’s not to mention the work of cable outlets or the work the media was doing to pressure and stoke hate against the moderate Democrats who opposed it.
Back in reality, Fox News was trying to give air to the facts the rest of the media were trying to hold under the water.
In his September 28 broadcast, Special Report anchor Bret Baier reported: “The nonpartisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation is saying that low and middle-income people will pay two-thirds of the President's corporate tax increase because of the transfer that businesses put to the consumer.”
It was basic economics, costs on businesses get passed to the consumer resulting in higher prices on goods and services. A similar mechanism can be seen when one does out to a restaurant and they have a variant of a ‘recover fee,’ meant to bring in more money to make up for lost revenue due to the COVID lockdowns and increased cost for supplies. They’re passing their extra cost off to their customers.
But it wasn’t just that nonpartisan organization that came to those results. “The Tax Policy Center, a left-leaning group says the President's plan would raise taxes on 75 percent of middle-class families within a year, possibly further down the road,” Baier added. He even spoke with a business owner who warned it would happen, saying it was inevitable if they received a tax hike.
So, perhaps these pompous journalists should be looking out for average Americans and not just for their buddies in the Democratic Party. But we won’t hold our breath.
The ridiculous notion that the media wasn’t pushing President Biden’s agenda enough was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Sandals Hotels and Resorts and Gillette. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the biased news they fund.
The relevant portions of the transcripts are below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Reliable Sources
October 3, 2021
11:41:11 a.m. Eastern(…)
CHARLOTTE ALTER: And frankly, I also think that everybody seems to be missing the bigger picture of what $3.5 trillion over ten years actually could mean to American families. Even if the number is smaller than that, we're still looking at the potential of a massive investment in a social safety net that would be the largest investment in childcare and in climate change, and in paid family leave, in a generation.
And I sort of worry that everyone is kind of missing the big picture about what the potential outcome could be here.
BRIAN STELTER: Jonathan, is that true? Is the media missing the legislative forest from the individual trees?
JONATHAN: I'm 100 percent with Charlotte on this. It is amazing how little attention over the past few months to these potentially really transformative pieces of legislation.
Charlotte mentioned a couple, childcare, paid leave. Every other country in the world has a paid leave law. We don't. We could get one. This can be transformative to hundreds of thousands and billions of people who are elderly or disabled, and can't get home care and they end up in nursing homes.
And that's not even to mention the profound change in policy on climate change, which is really, you know, an existential crisis for the planet. So, there's a lot in this bill, and we probably should be talking a lot more about it.
(…)
Fox News Channel’s Special Report
September 28, 2021
6:15:25 p.m. EasternBRET BAIER: The Biden administration is dismissing projections that the President's tax and spend plans include massive tax increases on some of the poorest Americans, not the wealthiest and on businesses.
The nonpartisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation is saying that low and middle-income people will pay two-thirds of the President's corporate tax increase because of the transfer that businesses put to the consumer.
The President's press secretary fighting back against that concept that businesses would pass along higher tax costs to customers.
[Cuts to video]
PRESS SEC. JEN PSAKI: We feel that that is unfair and absurd and the American people would not stand for that.
CORINA MORGA (CR Construction Services, owner): When your costs go up, especially when you are talking about increasing tax, those costs the business have to make up for it in some capacity. And those costs are almost always going to be directly affected to the consumer or the cost of doing business itself.
[Cuts back to live]
BAIER: Business owner there.
The Tax Policy Center, a left-leaning group says the President's plan would raise taxes on 75 percent of middle-class families within a year, possibly further down the road.
