Yesterday, Fox & Friends discussed a Forbes article about 11 states in bad fiscal shape because "takers" outnumber "makers." The article identified a "taker" as "someone who draws money from the government, as an employee, pensioner or welfare recipient. A maker is someone gainfully employed in the private sector." It's bad enough that Forbes likened firefighters and police officers to welfare recipients but Fox piled on by suggesting that the pensioners are the ones bleeding the states dry. 

As I wrote in my post on Crooks and Liars about this, while Fox portrayed retirees as a bunch of greedy moochers living high on the hog at everyone else's expense, the truth is more complicated:

As Susie Madrak has explained, state legislators’ past sleights-of-hand have hidden pension liabilities rather than pay for them. Now that the bills are coming due, and have been compounded by the recession, conservatives and others are blaming the retirees by arguing that pensions are too lavish and expensive.

But for some reason, Fox prefers to use language reminiscent of Mitt Romney’s “47%” comments:

After a graphic asking, “Who’s Ruining the ECONOMY?” took over the screen, Gretchen Carlson asked, by way of introduction, “Are you thinking about buying a house right now?Well, make sure you avoid these 11 states… Why? Because they’re more worried about helping the takers in those states, apparently, than the money makers.”

You can read the rest of my post at Crooks and Liars.