Fox Business panel panics over Democratic proposals to tax the wealthy: “That is communist”

Dagen McDowell: Democratic presidential hopefuls are promoting “crazy” proposals that are “basically confiscating money from Americans who earned it”

From the February 1 edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria Bartiromo

Video file

DAGEN MCDOWELL (FOX BUSINESS HOST): Let's break them down quickly. AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, highest tax rate on income taxes; she wants at 70 percent for income over $10 million. That has -- that's based in, at least, reality. Reality that's ugly. It goes back to literally the 1960s --

MARIA BARTIROMO (HOST): The top rate is 37 percent. She wants to go to 70 percent.

MCDOWELL: And it was north of 90 before -- 

KEVIN KELLY (BENCHMARK MANAGING PARTNER): That's on income over $10 million. 

MCDOWELL: Right, but that was before John F. Kennedy and then [Lyndon Baines Johnson] actually lowered taxes -- those big Democrats. But what Bernie Sanders is doing by tweaking the estate tax is, in some way, what Elizabeth Warren is trying to do, and that is confiscating wealth. At least Bernie Sanders is operating off the existing tax system in this country. Elizabeth Warren is literally trying to promote something that is communist. 

BARTIROMO: Yeah, it's confiscation. 

MCDOWELL: That would be unconstitutional; that would never fly. So, what does it hurt her to throw out this crazy idea about taking -- basically confiscating money from Americans who earned it? It doesn't hurt her because she can throw it out and she knows it will never go anywhere. 

BARTIROMO: You know what, I think what was really struck me yesterday (sic), is when she started to -- she was back against the wall having to compare capitalism to socialism, and she said in a radio interview, “I like capitalism. It's just that we can't have capitalism with all the cheating,” and I'm thinking, “Where's the cheating?” She's been a senator for how many years? She was running the Consumer [Financial] Protection [Bureau]. She was basically legislating. So, who's -- if there's cheating, I mean, is it her fault?

...

MCDOWELL: Elizabeth Warren, again, like, is it cheating that Howard Schultz grew up in a housing project in Canarsie and worked his way up to build one of the greatest American success stories in the last, literally, century. This is a brand that you -- that resonates with people, which is very hard to do with a modern day corporation. And both her, and AOC, and all these Democrats who are in deep fear of this man can't find anything nice to say about him. 

BARTIROMO: Tiana, what about that? Jump in here because how is it possible that the left believes that this is a winning idea -- to confiscate people's wealth or punish people for working hard their whole lives and actually gaining some success?

...

MCDOWELL: We need to stop talking about this wealth tax like it's going to happen because it's poppycock. It's just fiction for her to basically be as left as she can possibly be without joining the Communist Party. 

BARTIROMO: You know what else is fiction, though? Getting rid of fossil fuels within 12 years. I mean, does that mean we're getting rid of airplanes? Are we getting rid of cars? I mean, these pie-in-the-sky ideas. 

Previously:

Fox guest: “If we dismiss Ocasio-Cortez and socialism right now, it's at our own peril”

Fox & Friends host whines that socialism is “the new battle cry of the left”

Fox panel panics over public disapproval of Trump's tax law: “Socialism is back, socialism is now acceptable”