Pew Poll Finds 59 Percent Support For ‘Completely Changing’ Federal Tax System, Networks Ignore
Pew Poll
Finds 59 Percent Support For ‘Completely Changing’ Federal Tax System, Networks
Ignore
By Joseph Rossell | March
23, 2015 | 4:21 PM EDT
Tax Day is
rapidly approaching and most Americans say the federal tax system “should be
completely changed.”
The Pew
Research Center recently conducted a poll that
found a majority of Americans supported “Congress completely changing the
federal tax system.” Pew announced the findings March 19, which showed 59
percent of its respondents agreed with a total overhaul of federal taxation.
Taxpayers’
views were clear from the Pew survey, but the broadcast news networks ignored
that clear sign of tax system dysfunction. ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening
news shows all ignored Pew’s new poll between March 19 and March 22. Not once
did those broadcasts mention majority support for total reform of the federal
tax system.
On other
questions, Pew survey participants also opposed higher taxes for themselves.
Ninety-three percent of individuals said that they already pay “about the right
amount” or “more than their fair share” in taxes. Only four percent said they
were paying less than their “fair share.”
Conservative
groups responded to the poll saying it looks “like a movement” for tax reform,
and shows a “bipartisan majority” want the federal code overhauled.
“The bottom
line of the Pew Poll: Four percent of Americans think the tax system is
fair. Four percent think they pay less than their fair share. Thus 96
percent of Americans want tax reform that does not raise taxes,” Americans
for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist told MRC Business. “That looks like a
movement.”
National
Taxpayers Union Federal Affairs Manager Nan Swift said while the “Pew
Research Center’s recent poll on federal income taxes shows that Americans
may not agree on how much, and who should pay, a bipartisan majority does agree
that it's time to scrap the code.”
“This is
an opportunity for Congress to enact reforms that would create a fairer,
flatter tax code, one that's less complex and doesn't carve out favors, and
most importantly - one that doesn’t punish success, but spurs economic
development and prosperity,” Swift added.
The
networks’ coverage of taxes revealed far different views on taxes than Pew’s
latest research. ABC, CBS and NBC anchors and reporters often advocated for
higher taxes and slanted coverage of President Barack Obama’s tax policies.
ABC World
News anchor David
Muir implied that
Americans wanted higher taxes during a discussion with current ABC News
Political Director Rick Klein in December 2010. Muir argued that extending tax
cuts contradicted taxpayers’ wishes, since “voters in the midterms seemed so
concerned about government spending and the deficit.”
Klein then
said that “all this talk in Washington about deficit and debt, and everything
that Congress is set to do is going to make those problems even worse.” This
included tax cuts, which Klein said meant “less revenue coming in.”
NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer, who earns
somewhere between $22 million and $25 million annually according to Celebrity Net Worth, has also pushed for higher
taxes. He pressed Speaker
of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, about whether he would support “tax hikes”
in order to reduce the national debt in an interview May 2011. "Why not
use an increase in revenues? Tax hikes to help with that debt problem?” Lauer
also challenged Boehner about the economic benefits of tax cuts during the
interview.
This liberal
bent on taxes also showed up during NBC’s Sunday talk show Meet
the Press. Host David Gregory argued that
raising taxes on the middle class was required for creating a balanced budget
during an interview with Norquist November 27, 2011. “If you really want
to get serious about the deficit, let the Bush tax cuts expire for everybody,”
Gregory said.
In July
2012, CBS This Morning co-host Norah O’Donnell absurdly suggested that
raising taxes on middle-class Americans would actually save them money. She
said that middle-class tax cuts cost taxpayers $150 billion that year. She said
later added that Republicans wanted “to make permanent all of the Bush-era tax
cuts, including those for households earning over $250,000. The cost to
taxpayers? An additional $850 billion over the next ten years.”
Even though
the networks frequently opposed tax cuts, they still chose overwhelmingly to
portray Obama as a tax cutter before
and after winning his first presidential election. The networks described Obama
as cutting taxes more than four times as
often as increasing them between September 1, 2008, and August 31,
2010. This occurred despite the fact Obama’s potential tax hikes were nearly 20
times the size of his tax cuts.
Obama’s
signature triumph, ObamaCare created or increased at least 13 taxes, costing the middle class an estimated $377 billion, according to a March 12, 2013, Washington Post Fact Checker article. The networks
ignored that ObamaCare would increase taxes in 87 percent of
stories between November 17, 2014, and February 17, 2015.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/joseph-rossell/2015/03/23/pew-finds-59-support-completely-changing-federal-tax-system-networks
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