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Jan. 7, 2019 - The Dan Bongino Show
59:12
Ep. 888 The Democrats Are Descending into Madness

In this episode I address the latest outrageous comments by prominent Democrats about tax policy and immigration. These Democrats are lonely lying to you and this episode throughly discredits their nonsense. News Picks:This piece debunks silly liberal myths about tax policy.   What is “Pay Go” and why do we need it?   The government-class gets to do whatever they wish, seemingly without consequences.    Even left-leaning Politifact debunked the “terrorists are not crossing the southern border” myth.    The media is terrified of President Trump’s Immigration message. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
Alright, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
It will be an ensemble of liberal myth-busting today.
A cornucopia.
Cornucopia!
Of debunking liberal nonsense today.
So much liberal nonsense came out over the weekend.
I couldn't wait to get back on the air today.
Producer Joe, how are you today with your mega high-speed new internet connection?
Are you doing alright?
Well, you see what it did to my hair, don't you?
I know, I'm seeing Joe in a different light now.
I'm seeing oil spots on his forehead.
You're going to have to use one of those oil strips I have to use on Fox.
Those clean and clear rubber-like plastic sheets that take the oil off your face.
I call them squeegees.
Yeah.
Squeegees!
Oil squeegees!
Oil squeegees on your face.
I know.
I am very greasy too.
But a great connection.
We're pumping a lot of money through the studio, folks.
Just before we get going, I have big news coming up about a couple of different things.
My future, what's going on.
If you're interested, if not, I understand.
But some of you may just be here for the content and also some stuff Joe and I are putting together for you.
For the show that I think will be very eye-opening.
You're going to love it.
All right.
I want to start out.
I want to hit two things today.
The myth of the 90% tax rate that is now due to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, far-left radical congresswoman from New York, and Julian Castro, who's now going to announce he's running for president, former Obama administration official.
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percent tax rates. There are so many myths out there. I want to hit that. And I also want to
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All right.
Let's get right to it.
Joe, please play.
Wait, wait, one quick disclaimer.
Folks, I get it.
There's an argument brewing within the conservative circle and space right now, and I understand it, that we should ignore Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
I'm telling you what some folks are saying.
They're out there.
They're saying, listen, she's a left-wing radical, first-term congressman.
We're giving her too much attention.
If we would just leave it alone, you know, she would go away.
And she's not going away.
She won a seat in Congress and you know what?
For that, she has my respect on that front.
Ideologically, I have no respect for her ideas because they're just dumb and they've been debunked by facts, data, and history.
But she did win a seat in Congress.
She is not going away.
She has millions of followers on social media.
She's charismatic and us ignoring that is exactly what the left did to Donald Trump.
They tried to play down his influence upon Americans who felt left behind by the political process And look what we did.
We slammed them right in the face with a huge Electoral College victory.
Let's not make the same mistake with people like Ocasio-Cortez.
Granted, she's too young to run for president, but her influence over the party is substantial.
We are moving towards a dangerous form of liberalism.
It's moving away from Let's say high tax rates to confiscatory tax rates.
It's moving away from government intervention in the healthcare system to government takeovers of the healthcare system.
It's moving away from infringements on liberty to outright confiscations of your liberty.
We can't ignore it.
I don't get the logic there.
These ideas have to be challenged.
I had to put that out there because I'm telling you, my life is content.
Content production for you.
And this is a significant debate going on right now in conservative circles.
If people like Ocasio-Cortez should just be ignored, do not ignore them.
This ideology she's promoting of the government confiscation of your money, your healthcare, your liberty, and your freedom is pernicious and dangerous.
She's not the only one.
No, she's not the only one.
That's why I mentioned Julian Castro.
And others who are now promoting confiscatory tax rates of upwards of 90 percent.
Joe, cue up the play of Ocasio-Cortez.
This was her on 60 Minutes this weekend with Anderson Cooper in a rather lengthy interview they conducted.
One of the criticisms of you is that your math is fuzzy.
The Washington Post recently awarded you four Pinocchios.
Oh my goodness.
For misstating some statistics about Pentagon spending.
If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they're missing the forest for the trees.
I think that there's a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.
But being factually correct is important.
It's absolutely important.
And whenever I make a mistake, I say, OK, this was clumsy.
And then I restate what my point was.
But it's not the same thing as the president lying about immigrants.
It's not the same thing at all.
Okay, that's an outright lie.
She does not restate her point and admit she's clumsy.
She doesn't.
She rarely does that.
What she does is she claims the Republicans Pounce Show.
Republicans and conservatives are pouncing on her mistake and she plays the victim card.
That is not what she does.
The mistake she made, she was awarded four Pinocchios by the Washington Post fact checker.
The Washington Post, not the Washington Times.
The liberal Washington Post awarded her four Pinocchios.
The biggest lie designation possible was her assertion that there was nearly 21 trillion dollars in Pentagon savings.
It was so absurd, I'm having a tough time categorizing what she meant.
That we could pay for government Controlled healthcare, the gist of her statement was by saving money from the Pentagon, there was upwards of $20 trillion or $21 trillion in savings.
That figure is so ridiculous.
The entire government budget for this year and last year is only around $4 trillion.
Where she came up with a $21 trillion, seven times our annual budget figure, is so absurd and outrageous.
And she does not correct them and say she's clumsy in the way she just stated it.
She plays the victim card all the time.
Ladies and gentlemen, she cannot be ignored.
Now, I played that because there's another thing she said.
She's like, well, all of you people out there focused on, you know, the facts and the semantics and precision.
No, precision matters, Ms.
Cortez.
Precision matters.
You are now a lawmaker.
You are a lawmaker with massive responsibilities.
You earned your job.
I'm not knocking that.
I ran for Congress.
Listen, folks, I lost.
I fought hard.
It sucks.
It hurts every day.
I'm sorry.
I lost.
I couldn't get it done.
It was a massively Democratic seat.
I did my best.
We came within one point.
I put my name on that line, knowing full well the consequences of a win or a loss.
It was hard.
But I'm proud of what I did.
I'm proud of the effort I put in.
But I didn't win.
She managed to win against a very established lawmaker, and I mean it.
For that, she has my respect.
It's hard to do.
But she does not have my respect for stating illogical things and then claiming victim status and then lying about how she, oh, I just claim I'm clumsy sometimes.
That is not what you do.
I'm trying to think, but nothing happens.
That's right.
Nothing is happening.
Connections aren't made.
Neurons are not connecting here.
Saying some nonsense like, oh, well, you know, facts and stuff.
It's the general point about it.
She sums up the entire essence of liberalism in one absurd, outrageous statement.
This is liberalism, Joe.
This is why I wanted to play this cut.
Yes, sir.
I sent it to Joe yesterday.
Liberalism?
Don't worry, folks.
This is liberalism in one statement by Ms.
Cortez.
Don't worry about the facts.
It's just the general point and the emotions around it that matter.
No, it's not!
The facts do matter!
We are limited in a national economy dictated by tax flows and tax revenues.
We are limited by actual facts like the amount of money coming in, the amount of debt going out, by facts like what the interest rate is going to be, facts like what the volume of money coming into the government is going to be on any given cycle of finance programs you want to support.
This stuff matters!
It's not about emotion.
Now I bring this up because in the same interview, she's been proposing and Julian Castro upped this game.
You see folks, we're in a dangerous spot right now.
This is why it's a debunk-a-thon.
The left in this presidential 2020 election, we've now seen Elizabeth Warren come out and announce Julian Castro, who is an Obama cabinet level official, is now a former Texas elected, I believe he was a mayor somewhere.
They are going to come out now, and they are going to start announcing, and what's going to happen is, Joe, you're going to see this race to the liberal bottom.
You're going to see them all trying to out-radical each other for the votes of progressive, liberal-based voters in a primary.
You're going to see one person like Ocasio-Cortez in this interview with Anderson Cooper who proposes a 60-70% marginal tax rate.
Julian Castro comes out, one-ups her, Joe.
Well, what about a 90% tax rate?
The Democrats are in a race to the bottom.
They know liberal voters are upset.
They know the whole entire liberal movement has been taken over by radicalism.
They are now lobbying for economic confiscation and basically at a 90% tax rate, at a certain marginal tax rate, government control of your money.
Where you keep 10% and the government takes 90.
Folks, now here's their argument.
Remember what I told you about how liberals work.
One of the best things you can do And one of the reasons I really, and listen, I get it, some of you may not, you know, may think there's some kind of vested interest in me saying this outside.
This is not.
This is from my heart.
One of the reasons I've always appreciated the opportunity to debate on Fox, because I read your feedback.
A lot of you love it.
I'd say 90% of the emails about my debates on Judge Jeanine with Chris Hahn, my debates on The Five with Marie Harf, 90% of the emails are positive.
10% of them, not so much.
They say, listen, Dan, I like your stuff, but I don't want to, I can't tolerate the liberal side of it.
Folks, I'm telling you, listen to me, that's a mistake.
It's a mistake.
It's the best thing Fox does.
Why?
Why does it matter to you?
Because, folks, these debates... Yes, yes, Joe.
He's pointing to his melon, his noggin.
These debates are not going to go away.
You as conservatives, libertarians, republicans, and even moderate democrats who listen to the show are smart.
I know you're smart.
I read your emails.
They're brilliant.
I'm brilliant.
I'm not kidding.
I wish you would allow me to post some of my post email of the week and you all, I put it on my website and you all can read it and be like, darn, that's a smart audience.
You guys and ladies out there are brilliant.
But the reason you're brilliant is because you're conservatives and you've been subjected to media, academic and liberal propaganda for so long.
You've been forced to discover the facts and the data on your own in this.
You become very erudite and educated just by fighting back against the nonstop onslaught of liberal propaganda.
Liberals don't have to do that.
Liberals are bathed in it.
It's the de facto default position in Hollywood and academia and in the media.
There's nothing to fight back against.
It's considered the default status of truth.
You have had to educate yourself to find out that it is in fact not true.
It's made you sharp.
It's made you frosty.
It's made you intellectually sound in a debate.
Having these liberals come on these shows, The Five and these other shows, Judge Jeanine, where I debate on, is a brilliant move because it exposes you to their focus group tested talking points and forces you to think this stuff through.
That way when you encounter it in your political life, your activist life, or you encounter your neighbors who can be convinced that they're on the wrong side of the ideological spectrum, your liberal neighbors, you are already prepared with the mental ammunition you need to go to battle in a debate with them.
That's the purpose of this show.
Now I bring this up because this race to the bottom is going to be dictated now to justify this increasing call for higher tax rates.
Ocasio-Cortez's call for a 60-70% marginal rate and Castro's call for a 90% rate is going to be dictated by nonsense liberal talking points which, listen to me, they are all going to share.
And the talking point out there now is Well, the economy didn't do so bad in the 50s and 60s when we had a 90% tax rate, so why shouldn't we do it again now?
Folks.
Please.
This is a garbage nonsense talking point.
Resident fact checker and debunker Matt Palumbo was kind enough to put together a pretty exhaustive yet short piece that's loaded with facts in a short format on my website debunking the myth that the 90% tax rate against the rich was the genesis of our economic success in the 50s and 60s.
The piece is up at Bongino.com.
The piece is also in my show notes, leading the pack.
Please subscribe to my email list.
I will send it to you.
I will hit some of the important points here and right now, so you have what you need to fight back against your liberal friends.
Just search Twitter, search social media.
This is going to be their argument.
That a 90% tax rate was good for the economy in the 50s and 60s.
Point number one, debunking this nonsense.
Ladies and gentlemen, stated and posted tax rates are largely irrelevant.
Effective tax rates matter.
What's the difference?
Just because a tax rate is 90%, a posted nominal tax rate, does not mean that's the rate people are paying the federal government of their revenue.
Why?
Because in the 50s and 60s, an exhaustive list of deductions and loopholes existed, which got the very wealthy folks who were forced to pay that 90% tax rate.
In real money at the time, in the 50s and 60s, it was roughly people who made over $3 million.
There were exhaustive deductions and loopholes where only a small portion of the population in the 50s and 60s was actually even subjected to that rate.
So we should ask ourselves, well, if they got out of paying the rate, what was the effective rate people paid in contrast to today?
If your suggestion is massive hikes in taxes, the top marginal rate now is roughly 37%, folks.
If you're talking about a top marginal rate, Over 40 to 50 points higher where we are now, depending if you go with radical Julian Castro's policy or radical Ocasio-Cortez's policy.
40 to 50 points higher.
40 to 50 points higher.
You should at least be able to make the case that the effective tax rates of the day were substantially higher too.
You can't because you'd be wrong.
The effective tax rate in the 60s Was roughly about 31 percent.
In contrast to mid-2000s, roughly now about 25 to 28 percent.
Depending on the last available accumulated data we have from the IRS.
In other words, you're talking about a difference of a few percentage points.
And the effective rate, do you see what I'm saying Joe?
The effective rate.
Wealthy folks were paying across the economy in the 60s.
Was roughly 31%.
Keep in mind that we're so advantaged on the corporate side as well.
The effective rate today is between 25 and 28%.
You may say, well, it's still higher.
Fine.
That's fine.
It was, I'm not, by the way, I make no mistake here.
I am not arguing that the taxes should be higher at all.
The taxes should be lower.
When the top marginal rate was 28% in the Reagan era, when it was lowered to 28% we had growth rates of 6, 5, and 4%.
A massive explosion in government revenue as well as the economy grew.
Bigger pie.
Government, even though it got a smaller percentage slice of the pie, the pie was so big they got more money.
So if they can explain to me the difference between effective rates and marginal rates, I'd love to hear it.
They won't explain that though because they're arguing for a massive 30, 40, 50 point hike in the top marginal rate when the answer on the effective rate is only a few points higher.
Joe, is this point making sense?
Yes, it is.
The posted rate of 90%?
Nobody paid it, folks!
It applied to less than .02% of filers.
Applied to!
I'm not suggesting those filers even paid that.
I'm saying it only applied to .02% of filers because it was $3 million or above.
Also, if you look at Matt's piece at Pongino.com about the 90% tax rate, ask your liberal friends first to explain, okay, the 90% rate, great.
Ask them the simple question, what was the effective rate?
Listen, they won't know the answer.
You now do.
Say the effective rate was close to 30%.
The effective rate now is 25 to 28%, a minuscule difference.
It wasn't a 40 point difference.
Also, ask them what the revenue collected by the government as a percentage of GDP was.
Obviously, going by nominal dollars is an irrelevant number because of inflation.
We could correct for today's dollars, but the way they collect tax revenue and they measure tax revenue, Joe, is as a portion of the GDP, as a percentage of GDP.
In other words, of all we produce, what percentage of what we produce is taken in taxes?
Ladies and gentlemen, you realize that number has been steadily 19 to 20 percent despite the
rate being 90 percent, 70 percent, 28 percent, 35 percent, 39.6 percent, and the 37 percent it's now.
You may be saying this doesn't make any sense, Dan.
So the government's taking in generally the same amount of money despite the top rate that Ocasio-Cortez wants up to 70% and Castro wants to 90%.
You're saying that how is it that the money that comes into the government is the same?
Folks, it's very simple.
When you up the top marginal tax rate to upwards of 90% where it was in the 50s and 60s, you empower a whole lot of accountants to find rich people a golden path out of it.
They're not paying that.
They're paying accountants.
They're investing in muni bonds.
They're setting up trust.
They're not going to pay it.
It's called Hauser's Law.
Houser, a financial analyst, I believe from the West Coast, who determined that regardless of the top rates in the United States, the amount of money confiscated by the government is roughly 17 to 20 percent of the economy.
Every time!
Look at the charts in the piece, folks.
In Matt's piece, look at the charts.
The blue line, flat.
Percentage of GDP and tax revenue, 19-20%.
Look at the marginal tax rates.
It goes all over the place, Joe.
Up, down, up, down, up.
The tax rate goes up, accountants get rich.
Tax rates go down, accountants get less rich and people pay their taxes.
It's as simple as that.
Remember, tax evasion is illegal.
Tax avoidance is a national pastime.
Tax avoidance is not illegal.
Tax evasion is.
Tax avoidance by taking advantage of legal loopholes is not illegal.
By definition, tautologically, it's the law.
I can take advantage of depreciation schemes.
Okay, I'll do that.
That's a tax avoidance measure.
John Kerry parking his boat in Rhode Island or whatever he did to avoid paying taxes.
This is what Democrats do.
Everybody does it.
Folks, look at the charts.
Democrats can't explain that away.
And I want to make a couple more points on this.
Point number one was just so we dial back a bit and rehearse where we are so we have these arguments ready for our liberal friends.
Point number one, and listen to me, this argument is going to get hot and heavy.
The tax rates in the 50s were 90% in the 60s and look at the economy then it grew.
And by the way, that 90% tax rate was instituted under Truman, not Eisenhower.
So I believe around 1951.
Don't buy that nonsense by the left.
Those tax rates were not effective tax rates.
They weren't what people actually paid.
They paid about 31%, about 25, 28% now.
Second point you're going to hear them try to make, which is even more disingenuous.
You heard Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez again say it in her Anderson Cooper interview.
It's time for the rich to pay their fair share.
This is just dumb.
Okay?
It's dumb because they never tell you what their fair share is, the wealthy, because when they tell you the share they pay now, it sounds like more than a fair share.
Matter of fact, it sounds like an unfair share.
Ladies and gentlemen, the top 1% of taxpayers, 1 out of 100 taxpayers, currently pays 37.3% of the tax load.
1 out of 100 taxpayers.
currently pays 37.3% of the tax load.
One out of a hundred taxpayers, those blessed with success,
pay 37.3%!
Think about what I'm telling you.
One out of a hundred people paying taxes pays over 37% of every dollar in taxes to the government.
Please explain to me, if you can, which you cannot, how that is a fair, that's not a fair share.
The top 10% of earners, earners, earn your money here.
The top 10% of earners, Joe, pay 69% of the tax load in this country.
10 out of every 100 people.
10 out of every 100 people pay nearly 70 cents of every tax dollar coming into the government.
Please explain to me again, Ms.
Cortez, with all due respect to your victory and your position right now, you have a prominent voice.
What percentage should the top 10% pay if 70% of the tax load isn't enough?
Try explaining that to the people who've worked for a living to grind their way out of lower income categories, middle class categories, finally have some money in their lives.
By the way, a lot of these people are seniors, Joe, who've accumulated some capital and wealth over a lifetime of grinding and hard work and arthritic shoulders and joints and hands from your labor and strong investments and delaying gratification.
You finally have capital.
You are now paying 70% of the tax load and Ms.
Cortez and Mr. Castro want even more.
Explain that.
Get them on the record, Joe!
Get them on the record!
All right, I've got one more here that really upsets me on this.
Don't go anywhere.
I want to make sure you hear this, because this has got me fired up, too.
Very upset about this.
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folks, one of the things that's really got me juiced right now
is Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Castro want to propose 60 to 70 percent, 90 percent tax rates for people
who finally made it in their life, worked for their money, finally got ahead.
But Libs, you can do that now.
You can do that now.
You big frauds.
You big phonies.
You libs out there now, Ms.
Cortez and Ms.
Castro, the first question to them should be, listen to me, if you believe, if you believe that giving your money to the government is going to lead to some net good for society, your point here, I assume, let me make your point clear for you because liberals never make their point clear because obfuscation is the name of the game with them, okay?
Joe, if this point doesn't make sense, immediately stop me.
It is critical you do this.
Aye, sir.
We already debunked the 90% myth and the effective rate.
We already debunked the nonsense that rich don't pay their fair share.
But here is a critical, critical point.
The point they're trying to make is we should be paying more of our money to the government if we're successful, upwards of 90%, because the government is a net positive in our life that leads to societal benefits, positive externalities, and direct effects, right?
The government's a good thing.
That's what they're saying.
They're not arguing, if you listen to them, that give more to your money to the government because the government stinks.
That's not what they're saying.
They're suggesting to you that government is some net positive force in your life and therefore turning over more of your assets, turning over more of your income, and working hard daily to finance the government, not your own well-being or your family's well-being, is somehow going to lead to a better life for you.
That is their point.
Now I ask you this, and you should be asking your liberal friends.
Immediately respond to them when they suggest these confiscatory 90% tax rates.
Why don't you pay that rate now?
Why?
That's a terrible idea.
Why don't you pay it now?
Joe, it is voluntary.
That's right.
There is a box that's posted tax rates you have to pay.
The income tax tables are minimum rates, folks.
I have to pay as a portion of my income about, I don't know, 30 to 37 percent depending on, you know, what kind of deductions we get every year.
I can't pay less than that.
But I can pay more.
Give it up, baby!
Give it up!
You know why I... Joe, why do you think I don't pay more?
Why would I not want to pay more?
Why would I not want... This is not a trick question.
Why would I not want to give my money to the government?
Why don't you?
Because I work for it!
And I'm taking it!
And I don't have to!
And the government is a disaster with your money!
Outside of our military and our courts and some basic constitutional functions of government, the government largely flushes your money down a toilet bowl.
I'm not a hypocrite.
I believe government's not a net force for good in your life.
I believe the government's an obstacle to your prosperity, hence the Bill of Rights, which is supposed to limit the government and the Constitution as well, what they can do.
Article 1, Section 8 was supposed to limit the powers of Congress, stated what they could do and What happened?
We've had this expansive, outrageous role of government in our life that they're now suggesting that once you work past a certain point, upwards of 90% of your time should be spent working to finance the government.
Do it now, liberals.
Go ahead and pay.
Lead by example.
Nobody's stopping you.
Tax season's in effect right now.
You're all getting your forms in the mail.
You're all getting people auditioning out.
W-2s, 1099s, all kinds of different tax forms.
You're getting together with your accountant.
Tell your accountant you want to pay 90%.
Show us.
Start a petition online, liberals.
Everybody sign it.
Tell you what.
Block out all the personal data.
Post your receipt.
Post your check to the government showing us you paid 90% of your income.
You want Trump's tax returns?
Show yours.
Start a movement.
Start a big national movement.
Lead by example.
None of you frauds will do it.
Not one of you listening will do it.
Because you don't believe government is a net force for good in your life.
You know it's a fraud.
This is a power trip for you.
This is about the theft of other people's money to control their time, their assets, and their economic output.
You are frauds, and I can prove you're frauds.
Because Joe and I believe in charity.
There is no legal obligation whatsoever for me, Joe, or any of our listeners to donate money to charity.
None!
But we do it!
Why?
I donate time and money.
Believe me, I am in no way saying this to be self-laudatory.
At all.
I'm making a simple philosophical point, not a moral one.
The philosophical point I'm making here is on principle, I believe the charities and the things I give money to are forces for a net good in society.
I believe my money, in the case of our donation of the scholarship fund for the store, the setting up of the store on our website, where we donate all of our proceeds to charity and will continue to if you'd like to help, the Chum store, all of our, all of them go to charity.
We just wrote a nice check thanks to you.
Why did we do that?
I could have kept it.
It's my store!
Again, I'm not even making the moral point, because I believe that money that you guys donated, $18,000 plus dollars, you didn't donate, you bought church, but you get the point.
You de facto donated.
I believe that $18,000 will serve a better societal good, giving scholarships to three kids whose families can't afford their education at a pretty good local school here, will do far more good than it could for me right now.
I believe that.
But I don't believe giving that money to the government will do anything other than get it flushed down the toilet and wasted on a bunch of nonsense liberal programs that do nothing to better our society and frankly, candidly make it worse.
And liberals, I've got news for you.
You believe the same darn thing.
There is no legal penalty if I don't donate to charity.
But me and thousands and millions of other conservative Americans donate substantial portions of their time and their money to charitable causes despite no legal obligation to do so because they believe.
Because they believe it works.
They believe it's good, it's benevolent.
They believe it is the right thing to do.
Why don't you do the same?
If government's your charity, and government is such a positive force in your life, then why don't you just donate more?
Why?
Why do you refuse, despite constantly trying to claim the assets, hard work, blood, sweat, and tears of others?
Why do you adamantly refuse, you phony fraud hypocrites, to give an extra dime of your money to government?
As a matter of fact, you're double frauds!
Not only do you insist on not giving extra money to the government despite your absurd, ridiculous, disingenuous claims that it is somehow a force for positive good in our lives, you actually do your best.
A lot of leadership liberals like John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and others, you do everything in your power to avoid paying taxes.
To avoid it!
It's absurd!
You are frauds!
Go ahead!
Pay more!
Stand up!
Stand for something!
Stop being the phonies you are!
The next time Ms.
Cortez, or Mr. Castro, or Ms.
Warren, Elizabeth Warren, bring up these ridiculous tax claims, your first question media people should be, you think this is a net good for society?
I'm curious, are you paying those tax rates now?
No, I'm not paying them!
Why not?
I thought you believed!
I thought you believed!
You don't believe.
You're frauds.
Oh, well, my money's not gonna make a difference.
Oh, no, that's not what we say with charity!
My money does make a difference!
My money does make a difference.
Yes, sir.
I know some local kid, three of them as a matter of fact, their lives are being changed because of your generosity.
I know that!
I'm not suggesting that this was some kind of a cure-all, that society's ills have been fixed, but I know my money makes a difference.
By acknowledging that your individual tax donations will not make a difference, you are arguing for the very futility of the government you support, you fake, phony frauds.
I'm daring some entrepreneurial media type, daring them to ask Ms.
Cortez, Ms.
Warren, Mr. Castro, Bernie Sanders, and anyone else running for president, what rates they pay.
Daring them.
You watch the answer.
All right.
I want to get to this.
By the way, one quick note before I move on to my next story, because this, The talking points out there of the liberals are just growing and magnifying and you need to be armed with the information to fight back.
Folks...
There's been a manufacturing renaissance under Donald Trump, and it frequently gets lost in the outstanding economic numbers.
We had 312,000 jobs created in those monthly figures I gave you on Friday's show, which is just a staggering number.
It was nearly double the estimate of the job creation numbers.
But one quick note on this.
Because remember, your liberal friends claim to be a champion of the working class, the manufacturing men and women, people who work on these lines and use their blood, sweat, and tears and get dirt under their fingernails to build America, and thank you for everything you do.
A sincere, heartfelt, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for busting your caboose to make sure we have the products and services we need.
You work hard.
I did manual labor for a long time.
It ain't easy.
Cleaned a lot of mausoleums, loaded a lot of grocery cases, lifted, gosh, 10,000 boxes on delivery lines in the back of a supermarket.
It's rough.
Cleaned a lot of cars, painted a lot of houses.
Folks, what's frequently forgotten is the manufacturing renaissance under Donald Trump.
I thought the liberals were in it for the little guy, the working man.
Ladies and gentlemen, how many manufacturing jobs you think were created net in the Obama administration?
Created.
I'm not even going to ask you to guess, Joe, because I know if you don't know these numbers, it's... I would say none because it's a negative number.
They lost 20,000.
So let's just do a basic comparison here, Joe.
Joe, you have Jay's abacus?
We haven't brought out Jay's abacus in a while.
Grab it.
For those of you who are new listeners, this was a frequent component of our show a long time ago.
We had a new listener named Jay who sent us an abacus.
This is where we do difficult math equations, okay?
So Joe, the Obama administration on manufacturing jobs is at negative $20,000.
They lost $20,000.
So get the abacus here.
I want you to tell me what a bigger number is, okay?
Because remember, Obama was in it for the little guy, the manufacturing man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Donald Trump has only been in office for now two years.
Roughly two years now.
How many manufacturing jobs do you think the Donald Trump administration has lost like the Obama team did?
The answer is none!
They have gained 400,000, so get the abacus out Joe.
What is the bigger number?
Negative 20,000 manufacturing jobs under Obama, or is the bigger number positive 400,000 under Trump?
Do the abacus, move the things around, and please tell the liberals what the bigger number is.
Moving it around, I see him working the abacus.
Yeah, Trump's got the bigger numbers, babe.
He does!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Jay, the listener, was kind enough to send us the abacus because liberals have a difficult time with simple math.
I checked it.
So it's right, you double checked it.
$400,000 is bigger than negative $20,000.
Thank you!
Thank you and shout out to Jay again.
Your abacus always comes in because people then ask us who Jay's abacus is.
There is no Jay's abacus.
It's Jay's Abacus.
You old listeners know that.
Some of you have been with me from the beginning.
We used to use it all the time.
We haven't brought that out in a while.
No, no, it's getting a little rusty.
Just so you know, facts are really stubborn things, right?
400,000 jobs, manufacturing jobs, created under Trump.
Negative 20,000 in the eight years of Obama.
Again, don't let that get in the way of another dopey liberal argument.
How about that?
This Week in Baseball.
All right, final read of the day.
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Okay.
So Joe, cue up that, uh, that sound for me, if you don't mind.
Uh, we had a, uh, I was listening to an interview this weekend by Chris Wallace with Sarah Sanders, and it was about the immigration crisis at our southern border.
And the topic came up about terrorists slipping into our southern border.
And Chris Wallace was very aggressive with Sarah Sanders, and I'll cover this fairly, but if you say something and you say something wrong, fine.
Nah, play the cut and I'll get to it.
I'll tell you what I mean.
The president talks about terrorists potentially coming across the border.
And here is Secretary of Homeland Security Nielsen.
Take a look.
CBP has stopped over 3,000 what we call special interest aliens trying to come into the country on the southern border.
Those are aliens who the intel community has identified are of concern.
But special interest aliens are just people who come from countries that have ever produced a terrorist.
They're not terrorists themselves.
And the State Department says that there is, quote, their words, no credible evidence of any terrorists coming across the border from Mexico.
We know that roughly nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally, and we know that our most vulnerable point of entry is at our southern border.
Wait, wait, wait.
I know this statistic.
I didn't know if you were going to use it, but I studied up on this.
Do you know where those 4,000 people come, or where they're captured?
Airports.
Not always, but certainly a large number.
The State Department says there hasn't been any terrorists that they've found coming across the southern border from Mexico.
It's by air, it's by land, and it's by sea.
Let's dig into this.
Now, Wallace's job is to play the middle.
He's a news guy.
He's not an opinion guy.
Chris Wallace's job is to call out what he believes to be misstated facts on both sides.
I'm not just saying this because I do work at Fox, but that's his job.
He's supposed to call out both sides.
And he's using what he believes to be a fact by the State Department that is just wrong.
I don't know what to say.
It's just not accurate.
There have been incidents.
Now, notice the nuance there, though.
Terror-related suspects.
There's no documented cases.
Folks, all of this stuff is basically nuanced.
PolitiSpeak meant to disguise the fact that, yes, terror-associated, terror-related suspects have been caught at the southern border.
This is not even mysterious.
Let's go down and break it down.
By the way, PolitiFact, which is a left—it's a joke.
It's not even like a serious site.
They're left-leaning propagandists.
Even PolitiFact, which is supposedly a fact-checker, it's really a left-leaning site, this left-leaning editorial site disguised as a fact-checker has even acknowledged themselves that people who've made the claims, notably Ron DeSantis, who's now going to be the governor-elect here in Florida, who have made claims about terror-associated suspects trying to cross the southern border, they've designated that mostly true.
I put the- I rarely put PolitiFact stuff in my show notes today, but read it yourself!
Here are some of the highlights.
From that piece and others.
From PolitiFact.
It further stated that they're talking about a report that one U.S.
citizen had smuggled 272 Somalis into the United States through Cuba and Mexico until January of 2010.
Although he claimed he had been approached by Al-Shabaab, a terror group members, for help supporting people, he said he refused, the report said.
Okay you say all right well he said he refused maybe he didn't smuggle any terrorists despite acknowledging a terror group wanted him to smuggle people across the border and in fact he helped smuggle 272 Somalis in.
This is it goes on I'm not done.
Also detained is at the southern border were three Sri Lankans one of whom said he was a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and was on his way to Canada.
By the way a terror group Folks, this is the easiest debunking.
I'm just reading to you what's open source information you can look up yourself.
Oh, the State Department.
Who told you that from the State Department?
I'm not sure.
Did they read this report?
Goes on.
There are many more instances in what was detailed by Texas officials, too.
A 2006 House Committee on Homeland Security report said that, quote, Joe, who are you going to take the word of?
The State Department or Homeland Security?
Nah.
Here's a Homeland Security.
Hands down, Homeland Security.
Here's a quote.
Each year, hundreds of illegal aliens from countries known to harbor terrorists or promote terrorism are found trying to cross the border along the Rio Grande Valley.
It's said members of Hezbollah have already entered the United States across the border prior to 2005.
Are we missing something here?
Here's a report from immigrationreform.com discussing a CIS report with Center for Immigration Studies report, which I'll get to in a second.
The CIS report cites, amongst others, the case of Islamic convert, Virginia native, Anthony Joseph Tracy, who was prosecuted for providing 270 Somalis with fraudulently obtained Kenyan passports, Cuban visas, and travel documentation to help them be smuggled across the U.S.
border.
According to 2010 prosecution records, Tracey admitted the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab asked him to provide fraudulent travel documents to its operatives.
In court, in court, these are court documents!
In court, investigators produced an email from Tracy to an associate in which he admitted,
"I helped a lot of Somalis, and most are good, but there are some who are bad, and I leave them to Allah."
I had a tweet about this this weekend.
Because liberal media types jumped on this clip from Wallace.
And Wallace is doing his thing.
This is what he does.
He's going to go after both sides and he's going to do background information.
Just the background investigation he got by beef with us is wrong!
And liberal media types from outlets that are slanted far left jumped all over this, like, look, Trump's promoting, and Sarah Sanders, the debunked talking point that terrorists and terror-related suspects have tried to cross the border, southern border.
Did you miss this stuff?
Here's cis.org, Joe, Center for Immigration Studies.
Here's a report from them, the key findings from their background.
From only public realm reporting.
In other words, you can look this up yourself.
15 suspected terrorists have been apprehended at the US-Mexico border or enroute since 2001.
This likely represents, Joe, a significant undercount since most information reflecting border crossers resides in classified or protected government archives and intelligence databases.
Well, that is a sucker punch to the gonads.
Oh, it sure is, babe!
Sure is!
One more.
Affiliations including al-Shabaab, ISIS, Hezbollah, the Tamil Tigers.
These people affiliated with these groups have all been nailed at the southern border.
At least 15 of them were prosecuted for crimes in North American courts.
Folks, this is publicly available information you can look up yourself.
I get tired of doing this.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
I don't get tired of the fight.
I get tired of debunking easily refuted nonsensical liberal talking points that are promulgated in the liberal ecosystem as if they're fact and then used as fodder to attack Trump.
Trump keeps promoting this debunk talk.
Debunked what?
There have been terror associated suspects nailed trying to cross the southern border.
That's a fact!
Can you not do basic research?
We're living in a post-fact pseudo-intellectual society where journalist types are exclusively there to gaslight you, to lie to you over and over and over again and repeatedly in an effort to get you to believe that reality is not in fact real.
Oh my gosh, is it frustrating.
Folks, I just want to rewind a little bit before I get to my last point because today's show is important.
First, we slam the liberals on their tax policy nonsense.
No, the wealthy did not pay 90% tax rates in the 50s and 60s.
That was not an Eisenhower policy.
It was done under the Truman administration.
The effective rates were 30% roughly compared to the 25 to 28% now.
In other words, roughly the same.
Tax revenue to the government as a percentage of GDP was the same because wealthier people got to be experts in paying good accountants and getting out of these 90% tax rates.
Secondly, Hauser's law, the amount of money into the government's been consistent regardless of what the tax rates is.
That's a simple fact.
Look at the charts in Matt's piece.
Finally, liberals are frauds.
They suggest tax rates they're not willing to pay themselves because they don't believe this money is going to contribute to a net good in society.
It will be flushed down the collective government toilet bowl like nearly every other dollar you give to our broken government.
Second point I made about the manufacturing renaissance.
It's been robust under Donald Trump.
It was an absolute failure under Obama who claims to support the middle class himself.
Third point today, terrorists have tried to cross the southern border.
Terrorist associated suspects have repeatedly tried to cross the southern border.
It's public source information.
Also, it's likely a significant undercount because many of these cases of terrorists being apprehended at the southern border are classified or not available to the government.
Even left-leaning PolitiFact debunked this silly nonsense that no terror-related suspects have been trying to cross the border.
It's not true.
I'm sorry.
It's Chris's job to do that, but the facts he got were not facts.
They were myths.
I don't know who at the State Department told him that, but they should check with Homeland Security.
They should read the news.
My last point for the day.
Regarding this ongoing government, partial government shutdown.
Folks, I said something on Fox this week, on The Five, I want you to really consider, especially if you're a moderate Democrat, you're just coming around to Republican ideas, you found my podcast through a friend or something, you know, you agree with some of what I say, you don't agree with other stuff, that's fine, you're all welcome.
You don't have to agree with anything I say, you're always welcome.
Don't you find it a little odd that collectively as a country we pay four trillion dollars for an entity that has been partially shut down for closing in on 20 days soon and almost nobody has noticed the difference in their lives at all?
Think about that.
Think about how useless a venture government has become in your life.
That you pay $4 trillion a year.
Alexandria Cortez and Julian Castro want you to pay upwards of 90% of your income past a certain rate of earnings.
They want you to work 90% of the time to finance an entity that costs $4 trillion, has been partially shut down for days, and almost nobody has noticed the difference.
Now, I thought of an analogy, Joe.
An analogy to make this make a little bit more sense for some of our liberal friends who may be having a difficult time with this.
Yes, sir.
Joe, you have a smartphone?
Yes, I do.
What brand is it?
An Android?
Yeah.
So it's an Android, right?
I have an Apple, I have an iPhone.
Let me ask a simple question to our audience.
If a corporate entity worth a fraction of four trillion dollars like apple or google android or samsung that manufactures the phones right if a corporate entity worth thousands one one thousandth less than i mean a fraction a decimal point of what the federal government is air quotes worth to you and their four trillion dollar enterprise if they were to shut down for 10 days
Do you understand the chaos that would ensue?
Can you imagine if your iOS simply, your Apple operating system simply stopped functioning?
If they just shut down?
If iPhones just stopped working, there was no tech support, nothing?
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an enterprise worth a sliver, a hair on the head, a grain of sand on the beach of government.
If it shut down for 10 minutes, there would be mass chaos.
You may not like Apple.
I'm not a huge fan.
Although I do, I bought some stock recently.
Um, you know, you may not be a fan of Google.
I'm certainly not.
I wish these companies would stop the liberal propaganda nonsense, right?
But let's be candid.
These are free market enterprises.
If they shut down for 10 minutes, there would be chaos.
Yet a $4 trillion enterprise shuts down for what may be up to 20 days, maybe up to a month soon.
And no one's life has skipped a beat outside of people employed by that very same enterprise.
Think about when I try to explain that one away to your liberal neighbors.
How useless an entity government has become in your life.
Despite the massive effort you have put forth to finance this disaster.
It's a good point, isn't it Joe?
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be, you know, self-congratulatory.
I just, I thought about that this morning.
I said it on the, on the five last week and I could not get out of my head this thought that government shut down and no, almost nobody cares.
I mean, cares, cares, like outside of the politicians and the political class, government workers will eventually get paid.
Almost nobody cares because it doesn't affect your life.
Garbage is picked up by local government here in Martin County.
And frankly, a lot of it's run by a private company we can pay ourselves.
I still get to the gym.
The gym's open.
I still work.
The internet still works.
My phone still works.
Email still works.
My life is fine.
My kid goes to a private school.
It's still open.
Schools would continue to function.
I mean, this is all unbelievable that this is happening right now and almost nobody notices.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate it.
Please check out the show notes today.
There's another great piece, too, by Victor Davis Hanson, and read that piece and check out the charts by Matt Palumbo.
They're about the 90% tax rate.
They're worth your time.
Also, please subscribe to the show on iTunes, on iHeart.
You can follow.
It helps us move up the charts.
It's always free, of course, but it's the subscriptions that helps other folks find the show.
We really appreciate it.
Thanks again, folks.
I'll see you all tomorrow.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
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