Fox News anchor Chris Wallace fact-checked Republicans on Sunday when he told Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) that the party had “lost credibility” when complaining about the federal deficit after pumping up the red ink during the Trump administration.
The fact arose in a discussion of President Joe Biden’s plan to invest in a $2 trillion national infrastructure program and raise corporate taxes after slashed under Donald Trump’s leadership, from 35% to 21%.
“Some of your colleagues in the Republican Party are complaining” that Biden’s infrastructure program is “going to explode debt … explode deficits,” Wallace noted.
But he pointed out to Blunt that under the Trump White House, the nation added more than $3 trillion to the national debt — even before the coronavirus pandemic — while slashing tax revenue by $1.5 trillion.
So “when I hear, for instance, [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell talking now about, ‘Well, debt and deficits,’ hasn’t the Republican Party, haven’t you, lost your credibility on this issue?” Wallace asked.
Blunt insisted that both parties have run up debt, and he defended slashing corporate taxes to boost the economy.
Biden is “talking about raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%,” Wallace responded. “When President Trump came in, it was 35%, so it’s still a tax cut from where it was in 2017.” The White House is going to say the Republicans are “protecting the fat cats and putting it all on the backs of the working class.”