Fox News’ Eric Bolling has recommended a new holiday for the US to adopt. He’s calling it “Dependence Day,” and like much of what comes from Fox News, it’s built upon false statistics and misinformation.
During the commentary portion of “Cashin’ In,” Bolling said “We were once a strong and proud people built on a rock solid work ethic. Independence recently however [sic], we’ve evolved for the worse. A massive 55 percent of all Americans have relied on the government for an entitlement. 46 million Americans are receiving food stamps. That’s up over 14 million since Barack Obama took office. Nine million workers are now on disability, up 20 percent under Obama.”
Bolling then said that nearly half of all US households don’t pay federal income tax, and that “more and more takers are in the cart and fewer and fewer makers are pulling the darned thing.”
What Bolling failed to mention is that of the 43 percent of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes, about half of those did not make enough income to qualify, including those retired workers who are living on Social Security, according to the Tax Policy Center. Remaining households most likely qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit and/or the Child Tax Credit. Out of those households that don’t pay federal taxes, nearly two thirds do pay payroll taxes, meaning they are, in fact, helping to pull the metaphorical cart Bolling spoke of.
Bolling also conveniently did not mention how the tax breaks given to corporations cost the US government billions each year. In fact, 280 Fortune 500 companies raked in a total of $27.3 billion in just three years because of the “excess stock option” tax break, which Facebook used to eliminate it’s entire tax liability and take home a $429 million tax rebate in 2012.
Apparently Bolling only considers it “taking” when it’s the American people getting help, and not when it’s corporations exploiting tax codes, or simply hiding trillions of dollars overseas from the government. Rather than celebrating “Dependence Day” on Jan. 20th as Bolling suggested, maybe “Corporate Greed Day” should be held on April 15th instead.
Watch the full commentary segment below.
