Fox host David Asman began a “business block” discussion by “just asking,” “If Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wins the White House, would that put taxpayers in the poorhouse?” The fear mongering only ramped up from there.
Panelist Steve Forbes predicted “a severe recession or depression.”
FORBES: Bernie Sanders would make Barack Obama look like Ronald Reagan. Would mean massive new tax increases, which would hurt investment, turn already a troubled economy right off the road into a ditch into a severe recession or depression, he’d blow up the global trading system with his protectionism, and in terms of health care, he would socialize that as well which would crush new research and development.
Guest Mark Tatge was the only non-doomsayer and he wasn’t even a Sanders supporter. He said Sanders is “maybe” too liberal. But at least Tatge wasn’t the usual “Let me show off how much I agree with Republicans” kind of Fox liberal.
TATGE: He’s at least getting people to talk about what we need to talk about, and the Republican candidates want to essentially cut everything, cut taxes, give the fat cat, rich, one percent even bigger tax cuts. We’re not going to cut spending, and solve some of the problems we have in our society like infrastructure, like health care, like things relating to our aging population and what we’re going to do with Social Security. So the only thing I hear from the Republican mantle is cut, cut, cut and give people like Steve bigger tax cuts.
But the rest of the panelists were as inflammatory as they could be in their attacks on Sanders.
MIKE OZANIAN: Bernie’s plan would really suppress capital formation. …If you think the economy’s been bad under Barack Obama, it would be twice as bad under Bernie.
CARRIE SHEFFIELD: He wants to turn us into the United States of Greece, the United States of Argentina. …He wants to turn us into the United States of Italy which has tremendously high youth unemployment. …He wants to destroy Wall Street.
JOHN TAMNY: It would be a scary thought, and it would be one that would be one that would cause a market correction if the American electorate went socialist.
Asman turned back to Tatge, who added, “We forget that the last eight years of Republican rule brought us the worst downturn since the Great Depression.”
But Asman, who displayed a graphic showing that Sanders’ policies would cost $18 trillion and ignored evidence that it would more likely be $3.4 trillion, asked Forbes, “Could our economy, businesses recover from the imposition of these socialist ideas?”
FORBES: Yes, but in the meantime a lot of unnecessary damage would be done, and globally, a troubled United States is going to lead to even uglier politics around the world, and that’s going to lead to more violence, war, and bloodshed.
Watch the over-the-top fear mongering above, from the January 23 Forbes on Fox.
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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