O'Reilly Parrots Anti-Tax Group's False Claim That Obama Raised Taxes 442 Times

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly parroted a previously debunked claim that President Obama raised taxes more than 442 times since taking office -- a claim rated “Mostly False” by PolitiFact in 2014.

During the April 20 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly pointed to federal tax revenue to dismiss political rhetoric on income inequality, lamenting the tax rates of “Americans earning more than $400,000” and noting that “the U.S. has the highest tax rate on business in the world.” O'Reilly complained that President Obama has imposed “punishing taxation,” claiming that “since taking office, President Obama has proposed a whopping 442 tax increases” and asking, “how much more can the government take from the affluent without crashing the entire free market economy?”: 

But O'Reilly's claim that Obama raised taxes comes from Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative anti-tax group headed by Grover Norquist, and was rated as “Mostly False” by PolitiFact in 2014. According to PolitiFact, Americans for Tax Reform “overstate[d] the total number by a significant amount,” noting that “removing duplicates eliminates about 159 of the proposals” and “failed to account for other tax cuts that are part of Obama's record, including nearly $220 billion in tax cuts that were part of the federal stimulus.”