Greta Van Susteren started her show by bringing on one of their Fox Business "analysts", Ashley Webster to respond to President Obama's speech in Cleveland where he went after John Boehner for wanting to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Van Susteren and Webster do their best to conflate the Bush tax cuts expiring with stimulus spending, with tax cuts for lower income earners. And after the irresponsibility of Wall Street and having our economy be brought to the verge of collapse by their reckless gambling and games with derivatives and betting both ways on the housing market, it's just astounding for me to hear someone talk about how we should trust them with our money now when there has not been enough done to re-regulate those markets. But here's a Fox Business hack coming on television and telling the viewers to trust them. Ashley, I think they've gotten enough of our tax dollars already.
I don't know how anyone can watch this station and take anything they say seriously. Don't forget to help to get this propaganda off the air if you see it airing in a local establishment or business. Ask them to Turn Off Fox.
VAN SUSTEREN: Joining us live, FOX Business Network reporter Ashley Webster. Ashley, in reference to what the president just said about whether it's a referendum, this election, on the economy, is the business world looking at whether or not it is instead a referendum on him and his policies?
ASHLEY WEBSTER, FOX BUSINESS: Yes, absolutely. I mean, we've got nothing new from the president, and here we are, we've already spent $862 billion on stimulus, and I'm still waiting for the return on that money. And here we have today another $350 billion of tax incentives.
The spending has to stop. And it's going to be very hard for Democrats going into the mid-term elections, I think, to carry through some of these policies, especially in those swing states. People are fed up with all the federal spending. I would much rather have my money go to Main Street businesses and Wall Street, let them handle the money, than I would federal bureaucrats who will just -- well, it just goes into the great abyss, doesn't it.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, so what's the difference? Because today President Obama took a lot of swipes at Minority Leader Boehner about his proposal. So tell me, what is the president proposing, and what is Minority Leader Boehner proposing? What's the difference?
WEBSTER: Well, it's (INAUDIBLE) philosophy of big government, isn't it. John Boehner says that he would like to cut federal spending. He would also like to freeze taxes at their current rates. And of course, I have to agree in one respect, that with the economy struggling as it is, the thought of raising any taxes just doesn't seem straight.
The president, on the other hand, says that those tax Bush cuts -- the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire for those very richest of Americans, those in the top 5, 4 percent. The rest of us, people earning less than -- $250,000 or less should be able to keep those tax cuts in place.
So it all really comes down to, How much money do you want the federal government to spend? And that's the issue. And I think Democrats, as I said, are going to have a hard time convincing their constituents that more spending is the answer. I don't think you can spend our way out of this problem.
VAN SUSTEREN: It seems to me that one of the problems, though, is also they're getting (ph) an infusion of money, whether it's tax cuts or whatever or to put stimulus money, whatever, is to put an infusion of money into the economy and to do it quickly and -- in order to rev it up because people are hurting in the short run. I cannot figure out -- and tell me if I'm dead wrong on this, but I looked at some number. If we did away with (INAUDIBLE) just a portion of the payroll taxes, what -- the withholding money -- in the year 2008, there was $900 billion of revenue in withholding. And it seems to me that we can almost throw the switch for a couple weeks and let the workers keep a little extra money in their pocket and it'd be a faster infusion, rather than these sort of grandiose, long- term uncertain programs.
WEBSTER: Yes, I absolutely agree, and that's a point that many Republicans have been making, that, come on, the payroll tax -- give them a break. Get that money straight into the pockets of the workers, who will then, as the theory goes, get the economy going. Yes, absolutely. We spend all this on the stimulus bill in infrastructure, but it's taking so long because of the red tape for that money to actually translate into jobs. And it hasn't happened yet. I think that's what we need look at, Greta, quite frankly, is a quicker way of getting the money to the people who need it to get economy going.
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, while they're both busy criticizing each other, both sides, we're not getting much farther ahead and people remain unemployed and businesses, small businesses across this country...
WEBSTER: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: ... continue to run into enormous problems. So the two sides, you know, they owe it to us to do something, at least to talk to each other.
WEBSTER: Absolutely, and the sooner the better.
VAN SUSTEREN: Yes. Don't hold your breath.
(LAUGHTER)
VAN SUSTEREN: Ashley, thank you.
WEBSTER: Sure.
