Fox News host Tucker Carlson questioned the motives of Democrats who want to pass a new tax increase during a short monologue on Thursday night’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
President Joe Biden’s administration is considering tax hikes on corporations and high-income earners that could bring $2 trillion into the federal treasury over the next decade. After playing a clip of Biden explaining that only those “making more than $400,000 will see a small to a significant tax increase,” Carlson argued against the concept of taxes in general given that the national debt has grown so large.
“The point is much bigger than that. The point is, why do we have taxes in the first place at this point?” the Fox News host asked rhetorically. “We don’t fund the government with tax revenue. We fund it with money that the federal reserve creates. How did we pay for a $2 trillion relief bill? It wasn’t tax money that did that. We just printed the money. So actually taxes are kind of beside the point at this stage.”
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Carlson argued that Democrats “could tax all the income in the United States” and still not be able to “balance the budget or pay off the debt.” He then went on to offer a possible explanation for the tax increase proposals, particularly on families making $400,000.
“To punish you, obviously,” he said. “Individual Americans paying taxes make up the largest part of the U.S. tax revenue. They account for about 42% of all the taxes the government takes in. What’s the smallest source of tax revenue? Ohh, the donors, corporate taxes. Those account for about 3.9% of all taxes. Joe Biden knows that tax increases aren’t gonna hurt corporations or private equity firms. They won’t touch ivy league endowments. They’ll leave the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation completely alone.” (RELATED: Congress Doesn’t Care About The Increasing National Debt Because Voters Aren’t Focused On It, Economists Say)
“No billionaire’s gonna suffer,” Carlson concluded. “You’re gonna suffer, and for no good reason, because to restate one more time, we don’t fund the government with tax revenue. We fund the government with money the federal reserve makes up out of nothing.”
The national debt currently stands at over $28 trillion, well over the entire national Gross Domestic Product in any given year. Federal tax revenue in 2021 is estimated to be $3.863 trillion.