CBS’s Idea of Average Minnesotans: Two State Employees and a Moderate
CBS turned to three Minnesota residents on Friday's Early Show for their take on the recent state government shutdown there, but their panel had a definite slant, as two out of three were state government workers, with one of them calling for ” taxes on millionaires … to help the rest of us out .” The third Minnesotan called on both sides to work it out. None of the three were clear conservatives. Anchor Erica Hill interviewed Jenn Theis, Chris Lapakko, and Harley Reed during a segment 40 minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour, as they were sitting in a diner in Minneapolis. Hill first turned to Ms. Theis, who was identified on-screen as a “laid-off government worker,” and asked her some softball questions about whether she was getting her job back and her feelings about the tentative resolution of the state budget impasse. The journalist also mentioned that the state employee has “gone through two weeks of no pay” and has a 13-month-old child. The CBS anchor then turned to Lapakko, first mentioning that he had been “laid off at the beginning of the month” and that he has been “protesting at the state capitol.” She asked him, “If you could talk to lawmakers at this point, who are trying to hammer out something in Washington, what would you ask them to do?” The second government employee let his liberal colors show: LAPAKKO: Well, I think they would have to consider raising taxes on millionaires in this country . We've had- basically, the middle class in this country for the last 40 years has been slowly chipped away at, and the top income earners have gotten a bigger piece of the pie every year. It's about time that they pay a little more in taxes to help the rest of us out, and they haven't created the jobs . You know, people say that we can't raise taxes on them now. They're going to- not create jobs if we raise taxes. Well, they've had their tax cuts and they haven't done anything. We need to talk about entitlement reform. I'm not unrealistic with that. Republicans need to understand that we can't do it on the backs of everyday Americans. We need to actually raise income [taxes] on people that have been doing well since 2000 with the Bush tax cuts . Though Lapakko
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on July 15, 2011. Filed under