Fox Business anchor says struggling families don't need child tax credit: “There are plenty of jobs”
Fox anchor Bill Hemmer denigrates tax payments as “welfare”
Published
Citation From the July 14, 2021, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom
CHERYL CASONE (FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR): The Biden administration included this credit in the American rescue plan back in March, when the country was just beginning to emerge from the pandemic and reopen. The expanded child tax credit will go out to about 39 million families, affecting around 65 million kids. But there's a lot of confusion about it.
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What's interesting, guys, here is that President Biden and others are suggesting they make the enhanced benefits go on for years. Some are saying -- some Democrats -- make it permanent.
DANA PERINO (CO-ANCHOR): Of course they are.
BILL HEMMER (CO-ANCHOR): Up to 2025. We'll find out whether or not they can do that next year. We went into the way back machine because we went back to 1996 when a Democratic president in the White House said this about welfare in America.
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HEMMER: Oh, so now the terms of the debate have been flipped entirely, Cheryl. We are going back right into that with this law.
CASONE: And look what has happened. This was passed back in March, right? We still hadn't seen much of the country reopen. Vaccines were just getting underway. So the big question mark is do people really need this money? And there is a lot of arguments on the financial side to say no. But take a look at the labor shortage. You can't get people to come back to work because they are getting the extra unemployment benefits of $300 a month. So now to say that you want to make these credits to help struggling families permanent makes no sense when there are plenty of jobs and you have got an economy and stock market and companies that are -- we have bonuses going up for thousands of dollars just to get people to come back and manage a restaurant, OK? To come back and be a waitress.