Fox Business host: The super rich should pay no more than a 33% tax rate
Published
Citation From the August 14 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
PETE HEGSETH (GUEST CO-HOST): Do we need more business owners to go on the offensive on capitalism and just say profit is a good thing?
STUART VARNEY (FOX BUSINESS HOST): Oh, I'd like that. Yes. I think that's exactly what we should be doing. At the moment business is under attack. Wealth is under attack. Tax it, take it away from them. Confiscate it. I don't agree with that at all. We should come out more forcefully and say we can do more good with our money than the government can do.
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): What percentage of our money would you like to see taken out of our paychecks? To pay for our schools, and roads, and --
VARNEY: What I'd like? You offering me a choice of tax rate?
EARHARDT: You have to give some. I mean, we have to do schools, and roads, and bridges, and all that.
VARNEY: Well at the moment, if you live in a high-tax state, you're losing more than 50% of your income, if you make serious money. The 1% loses more than 50%. That's wrong, absolutely wrong. No government should ever take more than half of any person's income. What would I be satisfied with?
STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): Two percent.
VARNEY: No, no, no. Be reasonable. The government has to be funded.
DOOCY: Sure.
VARNEY: And wealthy people should pay more than poor people. I got that, not a problem. But I think the limit should be about one-third.
EARHARDT: I like it.
VARNEY: Are you stunned? Did you think I was going for 10%?
EARHARDT: No, I thought you were going to go for zero.
HEGSETH: I was thinking 17, maybe, flat tax or something.
VARNEY: Well, I could go with that too.
EARHARDT: The fair tax.
VARNEY: But look, if you put it at 33% and that's my total tax bill, I'll pay it.
DOOCY: Thankfully, Washington spends the money so wisely.
EARHARDT: Right.
VARNEY: Yeah, whoop dee do. Which planet do you come from?
EARHARDT: Shrimp on a treadmill, we all remember.