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Oct. 11, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:25
October 11, 2010, Monday, Hour #3
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The views expressed by the host on this program just dazzle people.
I mean, they just do.
Leave people speechless.
Some people are driven to insanity with a piercing accuracy and truth.
Great to have you here.
And others are inspired, of course, to greatness themselves.
Phone number 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the big program.
The email address, LRushbaugh at EIBNet.com.
Now, there are two headlines here for the Mark Halperin piece at time.com.
One is why Obama's in the jaws of political death.
And the other headline is why Obama is losing the political war.
And the answer is a jackass.
Oh.
I still am amazed that that's, of all the things, of all the criticism, that that's what bugs them.
They basically call him a Manchurian candidate here designed to destroy the country.
That's fine.
Don't even refute that charge.
Jackass just sends him into orbit.
You know, I've often asked the question.
You know, people say to me, my dog don't know how big she is.
Your dog doesn't know she's a dog.
Your dog has no concept of size.
A fish does not know that it's wet.
A fish does not know that it's in water.
Maybe Obama's kind of like that.
Maybe Obama doesn't even realize that he's a capitalist-hating socialist.
He's never met anybody who wasn't.
He's never formed a relationship or friendship with anybody who wasn't.
So maybe he doesn't even know.
This regime, I'm helping to answer Halperin's questions here.
This regime has spent two years, ladies and gentlemen, dragging America kicking and screaming in a direction it didn't want to go, that we don't want to go.
Now they wonder why they're so unpopular.
Why are we losing the political war?
Why are we in the jaws of political death?
It's policy, pure and simple.
Barack Obama is being politically crushed in a vice, writes Mark Halperin.
From above by elite opinion about his competence, from below by mass anger and anxiety over unemployment.
And it's too late for him to do anything about this predicament until after the November elections.
With the exception of core Obama administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions.
Politically engaged?
I mean, this is just out of the box now.
Here's who we are.
We are the elites.
We are politically engaged.
And we are the elites.
And Halperin is talking to and speaking for them.
I don't know how you pull the elites.
I guess the elites know who they are, HR.
It's sort of like, you know, when I said ban the ugly from the streets of daytime, people say how you're going to do it.
I said, make it voluntary.
The ugly know who they are.
Maybe the elites know who they are.
Halperin knows who the elites are because they don't wear signs.
You can tell by the way they talk, the way they speak, and you can tell by where they live, in many cases, or in some cases, what part of the town they live in.
With the exception of core Obama administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions.
The White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant, and clueless.
about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community, now infested with foreigners, or working-class voters.
This view is held by Fox pundits, executives and anchors at the major old media outlets, reporters who cover the what it is.
You mean to tell me that all these cable TV people, from Tom Brokaw to Bob Schieffer to Brian Williams, to Diane Sawyer to Katie Couric, all of these TV people, all these people, Washington Post, New York Times, they all think Obama's in over his head, isolated, insular, arrogant, and clueless.
Well, that's the view held by Fox News pundits, executives, and anchors at the major old media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democrat and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democrat business people and lawyers who raise big money for Obama, and even some members of the regime just beyond the inner circle.
On Friday, after the release of the bleak unemployment data, the last major jobs figures before the midterms, Obama said putting the American people back to work, expanding opportunity, rebuilding the economic security of the middle class is the moral and national challenge of our time.
But the elites feel the president has failed to meet that challenge and are convinced that he'll be unable to do so in the remainder of his term.
Moreover, there is a growing perception that Obama's decisions are causing harm, that businesses are being hurt by the regime's legislation, and that economic recovery is stalling because of the uncertainty surrounding energy policy, healthcare deficits, housing, immigration, and spending.
You know, if I didn't have a stronger, thicker skin, I would accuse this man of plagiarism.
How long have I been saying this?
Since before he was emaculated, I hope he failed.
Remember that?
Now the word failure is all through this piece.
Elites feel the president's failed to meet the challenge.
They're convinced he'll be unable to meet the challenge the remainder of his term.
Over his head, isolated, business hurt.
That's why jackass resonated, because everybody knows.
I just happened to cut through all the noise and say it first.
There is a lot of noise out there from all the punditry to all the media people.
I just cut through it.
It's a jackass.
It's an economic illiterate.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
That's why.
That's why it penetrated.
And now everything that I have said is being attributed by Mark Halpert at ⁇ I have nothing against Halpert.
Don't misunderstand the plagiarism.
I'm just trying to make a point.
It's not really plagiarism.
It's just these guys have just now arrived at this thinking when it's been true since before Obama was immulated.
This is the frustrating thing.
How is it that these so-called elites do not see this stuff before it happens?
When it's telegraphed, it's there for anybody at all to see it because we know what liberals are.
We know what people who think like Obama believe it are going to do.
We've seen it.
It doesn't take much to realize who his friends are and then extrapolate that and the kind of person he is.
It's not difficult.
I don't know if Halperin's calling me a member of the politically collected elite or connected elite, but I did, I've said all this.
My name's not mentioned in the story.
Probably wouldn't be good for me to be thought of as one of the elites.
So I'm happy I didn't mention a name here.
But see, I am mind over chatter.
That's what he's a jackass is.
I could be more respectful.
I could call him a jackass in chief, and I can call his policies jackassian.
I could do that.
Now, I'll tell you about Halperin.
Just to be fair here, almost immediately after the elections, Mark Halperin, he used to write the note at ABC.
Mark Halperin had the honesty to admit that the election media coverage was, quote, the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq War.
It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.
He had to get in and dig at the Iraq war, but still, he wrote that.
Now, this business that the president has failed, that sentiment is spreading, Halperin says.
Many members of the general public appear deeply skeptical of Obama's capacity to turn things around, especially, but not exclusively, those inclined to dislike him.
Tea partiers, John McCain voters, but also tens of millions of middle-class Americans, including quite a few who turned out for Obama in 2008.
So, elites feel the president has failed to meet the challenges.
And that sentiment's spreading to members of the general public.
Ergo, you are not elite.
So the elites, remember, the sentiment is spreading.
And this is crucial.
The elites came to this first, see.
You, you Dumkoffs, you Tea Party people, your later rivals to this notion that the president's failed.
The elites, the Fox News pundits, executives and anchors, the major old media outlets, reporters, congressional leaders, governors, business people, they, they knew all this first.
The sentiment that Obama's failed is spreading.
Many members of the general public now appeared deeply skeptical.
But Obama has exacerbated his political problems not just by failing to enact policies that would have actually turned the economy around.
So Halperin is admitting there are such policies that would turn the country around.
We have articulated those policies for 23 years on this program.
So here is a self-identified member of the elite writing about and speaking for the elite, admitting that Obama has exacerbated his problems by failing to enact policies that would have actually turned the economy around.
Mr. Halperin, can I ask you a question?
If he knows there are policies that would turn the country around and refuses to enact them, is there anything to conclude?
Also, I don't know how long Halperin's going to have his job at time because he's now referred to Fox News pundits.
Minettes, normally it's Fox News, But he's elevated them now to pundits.
So if there are policies that would turn the economy around and he knows about it and is not enacting them, is there anything we can learn or conclude from that?
Obama has also exacerbated his problem by authorizing a series of tactical moves intended to demonize Republicans and distract from the problems at hand.
Well, if he knows that there are problems he has created and that there are solutions for that he ignores, and then demonizes Republicans to distract from the problems he created, is there something to conclude from this?
Hmm, as in maybe Mr. Halperin, man up, guts time, could it be on purpose for whatever reason?
Throughout the year, we have been treated to Obama-led attacks on George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Congressman Joe Barton for his odd apology to BP, John Boehner, and Fox News, suitable Democrat targets in some cases perhaps, but not worth the time of a busy commander-in-chief.
So Mr. Halperin is now not only calling Obama a failure, also incapable of overcoming his failures, knows that there's solutions, he's ignoring them, trying to demonize and isolate people or distract people from the disaster around him, and now says he's busy.
Nobody has ever said Obama's busy.
He played his 52nd round of golf Sunday.
52nd, I don't play golf that much, to Hank Haney's chagrin.
I don't play golf that much.
I played golf Saturday for the first time in three weeks.
I've had some practice out there, but I mean, actually going out and spend four hours in a golf rabbit the first time in three weeks.
I've been busy.
And I'm in trouble again.
They say Obama is busy.
This is incredible here.
Attacking Limbaugh is not worth the time of a busy commander-in-chief.
Nobody's ever accused Obama of being busy before.
This is stunning.
One more observation before we go back to the phones.
Mark Halperin, about whom I just spoke and quoted from his Time magazine piece, was the co-author of the book Game Change.
And in the book, Game Change, that was a book where the reporters on the campaign trail saved up a bunch of stuff that they did not report during the campaign, saved it for afterwards for the money.
And also, I don't think Mr. Halperin in the book Game Change wrote anything to indicated he noticed Obama was in over his head.
But we all knew it.
It's amazing how this stuff.
Well, okay, yeah, I knew it and so forth.
I know this is a pragmatist.
This kind of stuff.
See, these elites, they're the smartest among us.
They're the ones that, this stuff doesn't exist until they figure it out.
Bottom line.
Anyway, Chance in San Antonio, Texas.
I'm glad you waited.
You are on the air.
Yeah, so pleased to finally get a hold of you.
You're a very well-protected and insulated individual, no doubt.
Very hard to get a hold of you.
But for what you do to this country every day in trying to disparage Barack Obama and anyone who voted for him, you're quite disgusting, okay?
We've got to bleep that.
We're going to bleep that.
Yeah, he's very mad.
He dropped the F-bomb in there, folks.
Very, very hot.
F-bomb, the A-word, did everything but call me a whore and a jackass in that call.
And there you have it, the typical.
I wish you'd hung.
Now, I was going to add, did you really vote for Obama?
Because this is the best evidence that we could have had of what's going wrong in the country.
But we had to go in there and bleep him.
We had a delay system.
We had to do it, folks.
It's just unhappy.
He's throwing everything he had at me.
His show is kitchen sink.
But of course, this is like trying to sink battleships of the BB.
He didn't throw a book at me.
I'd have seen the book.
Unlike Obama, I wasn't looking at the teleprompter.
Sue in Cincinnati, welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
What a great honor and pleasure this is.
Thank you.
And God bless you for all you do for our country.
And all I can say is, well, poor chance who just real name.
Oh, well, yeah, that's very possible, too.
I wouldn't want to give you mine if I were going to say things like that.
Rush, first I want to thank you that you do enable me every day.
I have to stay at home because of a disability, and I'm alone, and you keep me company, and you are just take care of me for three hours a day, and it's just wonderful.
Thank you very much.
I sincerely appreciate it.
What I called about was the $250 Social Security so-called benefit or extra.
Well, the check that went out there because there was no COLA.
Right, right.
But it really, the way I looked at it, because I am on disability, and we received it, but I just thought as a bribe, a bribe from, because it was the first year of the administration, and they knew they were going to be pushing health care and bringing it up.
And they wanted to call it a tax cut.
Well, yes.
I'll get to something about that in a second.
Because mostly seniors, of course, but those of us who are on disability also.
But when it came around to tax time last winter, and we were doing our taxes, and there was this new credit we hadn't heard of, this Make Work Pay credit, which I believe was Obama's thing that he could claim he had given everybody a tax cut.
Make work pay credit?
Yes.
Yeah.
That's not actually what he means.
Oh, no, no, I see that.
But I do think that was kind of one of his money.
You're going to pay for it if you dare to go get a job.
We're going to make work.
You're going to pay for it, damn it.
If you're going to work instead of sitting and subsisting off me, we're going to make you pay for it.
I'm glad you brought this up because I have.
He's talking about this $250 ends up being taxed as income.
And Obama passes it off as a social security cost of living increase and a tax cut.
There's a great piece in the New York Times yesterday, Saturday, from a professor who says, I can afford the higher taxes, but they're going to make me work less.
It's an amazing way to look at the counterproductivity of tax increases.
Be back with all that right after this.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's very simple.
Very, very simple.
You can hear the real story today, every day, on the Excellence and Broadcasting Network, or you can wait two years and read it in Time magazine.
Great to have you back.
800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.
You know, speaking of Obama, you know, he got the Nobel Peace Prize.
Don't you think, therefore, that he is qualified for the Nobel Prize in Economics?
Because obviously he's done as much for economics as he has for world peace.
So I think it's only natural he should be nominated for it.
N. Gregory Manku.
I don't know how you pronounce it.
It's M-A-N-K-I-W.
He's a professor of economics at Harvard.
He was an advisor to President George W. Bush.
A New York Times piece, October 9th.
An important issue dividing the political parties is whether to raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year.
The Democrats say that these taxpayers can afford it.
Republicans say raising taxes on those who already face the highest marginal tax rates will hurt the economy.
So I thought it might be useful to do a case study on one of these high-income taxpayers.
And fortunately, I have one handy.
Me.
As a professor at Harvard and the author of some popular textbooks, I am comfortably in the income range that would be hit by this tax increase.
So I've been thinking, narcissistically, to be sure, about how higher taxes would affect me.
Maybe these thoughts can shed some light on some of the broader policy issues.
First, I have to acknowledge that the Democrats are right about one thing.
I can afford to pay more in taxes.
My income's not in the same league as superstar actors and hedge fund managers, but I have been very lucky nonetheless.
Unlike many other Americans, I don't have trouble making ends meet.
Indeed, I could go so far as to say that I am almost completely sated.
Meaning, for those of you in Rio Lindy, he's got what he wants.
He doesn't want anymore.
He's fine as he is.
What do you think after your third turkey leg on Thanksgiving?
One reason, he says, is that I don't aspire for much more than a typical upper-middle-class lifestyle.
I don't fly around on a private jet.
I have little desire to own a yacht or a Ferrari.
I only own one home in which I've lived since 1987.
Paying an extra few percent in taxes would not create a lot of hardship for me, nonetheless.
As Republicans emphasize, taxes influence the decisions I make.
I am regularly offered opportunities to earn extra money.
It could be by talking to a business group, consulting on a legal case, giving a guest lecture, teaching summer school, or writing an article.
I turned down most of these, but I accept a few.
And I acknowledge that my motives in taking on extra work are partly mercenary.
For those of you in Real Indies, he's doing it for the money, which everybody does.
Those who say they're not are lying to you, but that's another story.
I don't want to move to a bigger house.
I don't want to buy that Ferrari, but I hope to put some money aside for my three children.
Now they will never lead lives of leisure, but I hope they won't have to struggle to find down payments to buy their own homes or to send their kids to college.
Now suppose that some editor offered me $1,000 to write an article.
Now this is where this gets good piece, a piece gets good folks, so stick with me here.
Suppose some editor offered me $1,000 to write an article.
If there were no taxes of any kind, this $1,000 of income would translate into $1,000 in extra saving.
If I invested it in the stock of a company that earns, say, 8% a year on its capital, then 30 years from now, when I pass on, my children would inherit about $10,000.
This is simply the miracle of compound interest.
Now, let's put taxes into the calculus.
First, assuming that the Bush tax cuts expire, I would pay 39.6% in federal income taxes on that $1,000.
Beyond that, then it's marginal because it's above and beyond his salary.
Beyond that, the phase-out of deductions adds 1.2 percentage points to my effective marginal tax rate.
I also pay Medicare tax, which the recent health care bill is raising to 3.8% starting in 2013.
And in Massachusetts, I pay 5.3% in state income taxes, part of which I get back as a federal deduction.
So putting all those taxes together, that $1,000 of pre-tax income becomes $523 of saving.
Now, that saving no longer earns 8%.
First, the corporation in which I have invested pays a 35% corporate tax on its earnings, so I get only a 5.2% dividend and capital gain.
Then on that income, I pay taxes at the federal and state level again.
As a result, I earn about 4% after taxes, and the $523 in saving grows to $1,700 after 30 years, instead of the $1,000 growing to $10,000 after 30 years.
Then, when my children inherit the money, the estate tax will kick in.
The marginal estate tax rate is scheduled to go as high as 55% next year, but Congress may reduce it a bit.
Most likely, when that's $1,700 after 10 years, it reaches $1,700 after 10 years.
It started at $523.
Let me get these numbers again.
No taxes.
$1,000 becomes $10,000 in 30 years.
With taxes, the $1,000 becomes $523.
And in 30 years, the $523 becomes $1,700.
Just barely triples.
After 30 years.
So after 30 years of taxes, the 10,000 equals $1,700.
Then when my children inherit the money, the estate tax will kick in.
The marginal estate tax rate scheduled to go as high as 55%.
Most likely, that $1,700 enters my estate.
My kids will get at most $1,000 of it.
Here's the bottom line.
Without any taxes, accepting that editor's assignment would have yielded my children an extra $10,000.
With taxes, it yields only $1,000 after 30 years.
In effect, once the entire tax system is taken into account, my family's marginal tax rate is about 90%.
Is it any wonder I turn down most of the money-making opportunities I'm offered?
By contrast, without the tax increases advocated by the Obama regime, the numbers would look quite different.
I would face a lower income tax rate, a lower Medicare tax rate, and no deduction phase-out or estate tax.
Now, taking that writing assignment would yield my kids about $2,000.
I'd have twice the incentive to keep working.
Now, you might not care if I supply less of my services to the marketplace, although because you're reading this article, you are one of my customers.
But I bet there are some high-income taxpayers whose services you do enjoy.
Maybe you're looking forward to a particular actor's next movie or a particular novelist's next book.
Perhaps you wish that your favorite singer would have a concert near where you live, or maybe you might need treatment from a highly trained surgeon, or your child may need braces from the local orthodontist.
Like me, these individuals respond to incentives.
Indeed, some studies report that high-income taxpayers are particularly responsive to taxes.
As they face higher tax rates, their services will be in shorter supply because they will not work.
Some work harder to overcome it.
Some say it's not worth the trouble.
Now, we're talking here additional income.
This guy's not talking about quitting his job.
He's talking about quitting money that comes to him outside of his job.
Marginal tax rates affect the last dollars you earn.
Now, reasonable people can disagree about whether and how much the government should redistribute income.
And to be sure, the looming budget deficits require hard choices about spending and taxes.
But don't let anyone fool you into thinking that when the government taxes the rich, only the rich bear the burden.
N. Gregory Manku, Mankow, Manku, is a professor of economics at Harvard.
He was an advisor to President George W. Bush, and this was in the New York Times.
And he's not advocating no taxes.
That's not realistic.
Just using that as one of his points.
This is illustration points.
But it is a stark difference.
$1,000, no taxes.
Invested at 8% becomes 10,000 in 30 years.
That same money under Obama becomes $1,700.
The same amount of money exists, just all of it's gone to government.
Less and less to the person who earned it and eventually his family via inheritance.
It's an interesting way to look at it.
And his point is, these are the people who hire.
These are the people who create jobs.
These are the people who invest in businesses and grow.
And if it's not worth the trouble, if you have to work so, so hard to pick up the 90% tax rate, what's the point?
Now, we folks have not suggested this overture in some time.
Every now and then, I do want to remind you of all that you get from listening to this program.
Of course, many of you are perfectly sated, i.e. satisfied with me.
What more could anyone actually want?
But there is more.
For example, if you are one of the 700,000 members of the Heritage Foundation in good standing, you know that you have an open invitation to actually ask Heritage a question.
The website's askheritage.org.
It's a place you can get information and analysis from your foundation as well as ask them questions.
Now, I don't know how much left is unanswered after this program, but let's say something strikes you in the evening and you want to put a question to the researchers at Heritage.
They try to answer your question, and it'll post the answer for all to read right at askheritage.org.
Even in the last three weeks of this midterm election period, they're going to make time for you.
Interaction.
You don't just get to see their output.
You get to chat with them back and forth in the form of, well, not actual chat, but post a question.
They'll answer it for you.
Askheritage.org, where you can ask your questions and become a member.
Works both ways.
So the Hutch heard me talk about Monday night football tonight.
The Minnesota Vikings and the New Jersey Jets.
He's suggesting I said the Jets appear to me to be the better team.
And Hutch said, Rush, you still don't understand.
Minnesota cannot afford to lose this game.
Season's over if they lose this game.
Therefore, they won't lose the game.
That's the Hutch.
But the Hutch played in a different era where they didn't have sideline hosts employed by the teams, distracting the players.
This Favre business.
I'll tell you what's going on here.
You know, this Favre business that did what a storyline.
Favre, Mr. Kleene, comes back, and all of a sudden there's this story that he texts lewd messages and photos to a New York Jets sideline host and now there are pictures of the sideline host.
Now, folks, I am well schooled in things NFL.
I know there are sideline reporters.
Sideline host whom I can imagine here one of these sideline hosts, scantily clad down there, their pictures, apparently attracted Favre's attention, and he sexted her, which is an art form now among people.
Sexting is an art form.
Certainly nodding in agreement.
He knows what I'm talking about.
So sideline host.
A team has sideline host.
It means there are people down there on the sideline who have to be hosted.
Anyway, I think what's going on here, I think the league is mad that the Vikings have two defensive tackles who have escaped suspension violating the substance abuse policy because the case is in court.
And therefore, they have not suffered competitively as other teams have by losing key players.
And I'm moving into Minnesota here on this Favre stuff pretty fast.
I wouldn't be surprised.
I'm just puffing off the top of my head here.
Let me grab a call.
This guy's been at home for a long time from Bakersfield, California.
Matt, thank you for waving and welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Thank you very much, Rush.
How are you?
Very well.
Thank you.
I live in California, as you announced, and the daily beating that the conservatives take in California from the liberal media regarding, you know, once again, Boxer Meg Whitman.
You know, it just, and then this weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Bakersfield Business Conference where I got, for the first time, got to actually listen to Sarah Palin and Carl Rove and Laura Bush and Mick Romney.
How do you, I mean, I'm trying to get a suggestion, and how do you keep positive about us winning and all of a sudden it's this daily beating?
Where's Gloria Allred when, you know, Meg Whitman is being called a whore?
Yeah, you know, if we find we've learned here, I think it was Jerry Brown's wife that actually called it a whore on that phone call.
Nice.
That's the latest I'm hearing on this.
That's what Fox News is reporting.
Derry Brown's wife called Meg Whitman the whore.
People ask me, how do I say optimistic?
I admit I have an advantage over all of you.
I've got this microphone.
I get to come here for three hours every day and I get to vent.
It's very healthy.
I see the changes that have resulted because I'm here.
I would be a fool not to be optimistic because it's the evidence of it.
And in the polling data that's out there now about where we're headed, I go back and forth.
I mean, there are times like you, I see people on our side being decimated and creamed and unjustifiably so and wonder, you know, where's the fairness of justice?
But then I realize it's the rules.
It's the league that we play in.
And the people on our side have to know those rules.
And be prepared to compete with those rules, which means you can't whine about it because it is what it is.
We'll be back.
Don't go away.
This has been fun.
The fastest three hours in media.
Seems like just three hours ago we started, which we did.
But it doesn't seem like three hours ago, actually.
And we'll be back in 21.
Don't forget the new Vince Flynn is out at your favorite bookstore and e-books as well.
It's entitled American Assassin Mitch Rapp, back in his younger days.
That should tell you all you need to know about it.
And we'll see you tomorrow, my friends.
Same time, same place.
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