I think there's some people misunderstanding me on this proposal that I have made to raise taxes in California.
I mean on everybody.
Not just the rich, everybody, the people that aren't paying taxes now, make them pay taxes.
If you want to end this, you make this cost people something.
I know it goes against the grain of everything, but California's beyond hell.
Even when Reagan was out there, when he was governor for eight years, California's budget grew 122%.
The bureaucracy grew by 22% when Reagan was governor.
He was trying to fight it.
So my idea, look, I know it isn't going to happen.
Well, I don't know.
The deficit reduction panel is out now and they've got their ideas.
What did I do?
Here it is.
50-page PDF report.
The word tax shows up 62 times in the Deficit Commission report.
They want to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction.
I told you, Snerdley, how many times have I told you that this is being targeted?
Here it is.
In a nutshell, our plan makes five basic recommendations.
Enact tough, discretionary spending caps and provide $200 billion in illustrative domestic and defense savings in 2015.
Number two, pass tax reform that dramatically reduces rates, simplifies the code, broadens the base, and reduces the deficit.
Number three, address the dock fix, not through deficit spending, but through savings from payment reforms, cost sharing and malpractice reform, and long-term measures to control healthcare cost growth.
Number four, achieve mandatory savings from farm subsidies, military, and civil service retirement.
Number five, ensure social security solvency for the next 75 years while reducing poverty among seniors.
Now, they don't say how they're going to do any of this in these recommendations.
Now, the New York Times has put out their version of what's in the deficit reduction panel report, deep cuts in domestic and military spending starting in 2012 and overhaul of the tax code to raise revenue, which is tax reform, dramatically reduce rates, simplify the code, broaden the base, reduce the deficit.
That would work.
That would work.
By reducing rates and simplifying the code, broadening the base means more people will be employed, more people will be paying taxes.
And the lower the rates are, the more people will admit their income and not try to shelter it or hide it or otherwise cheat.
The plan would reduce Social Security benefits to most future retirees, low-income people, would get a higher benefit, and it would be subject to higher levels of income to payroll taxes, or it would subject higher levels of income to payroll taxes to ensure Social Security solvency for at least the next 75 years.
So along with the proposed tax reform, and this is just the first cursory look at this, we'll have more detail as I actually have a time to immerse myself in it, but raise the income level subject to payroll taxes while simplifying the code.
Well, I mean, you can be surprised all you want, but there's not a whole lot you can do here.
I mean, there's nothing you can do that doesn't affect some third rail.
There's nothing you can do, nothing you can suggest that's not going to cause some caterwauling somewhere.
And why is he going to cause caterwalling?
Same reason as rot-gut protests in the U.K. is causing a bunch of catawars because a bunch of people expect something for nothing.
Well, you can say that Social Security is something people have paid into, and it is.
But they're going to change the rules of this.
You know, Bush tried in his second term for Social Security reform, privatizing it and a small portion of it, not all of it, privatizing a portion of it, and then raising the retirement age for certain people.
Current retirees would not be affected to avoid the caterwauling.
But with so many people dependent on the federal government, there's nothing that this is going to cause havoc out there.
The more people think some of this stuff is actually going to happen, the more havoc it's going to cause.
Go to any federal building, folks.
I just, if you have time, just go to the Social Security office, go somewhere and take a look, and you will see what I'm talking about.
It's actually a crying shame that so many Americans trudge every day to some government building for some government check, menial subsistence, because it's all they've got.
Because they've been conditioned to think.
Like that twerp that called here, this new Castrati guy, I guarantee you, that little twerp thinks that there's a guaranteed lifestyle in America.
I guarantee you, he believes that as an American, he is entitled to a great standard of living.
Just because he's an American, not that he has to have any role in producing it for himself.
Just because somebody else has a great standard of living, he's entitled one too, regardless how much effort he puts into it.
Now, there's a story out here.
Let me find this.
Classic, classic example.
Well, here's another one too.
Let me put this aside.
This is about a new electric car and what they're going to have to do to get people to buy the damn thing because nobody wants it.
Here it is.
It is, what's this?
This CNNmoney.com.
Juicy tax breaks for electric cars.
The Nissan Leaf will carry a price tag of $32,500, but some California residents could drive one for just $17,000, roughly the cost of a typical gas-powered compact sedan.
That low, low price is thanks to incentives from the federal government, which offers a $7,500 tax credit to buyers of plug-in cars.
The state of California, which offers a $5,000 rebate.
They don't have the money to give away.
And local governments in California, San Joaquin Valley, which offer another $3,000 in rebates.
The incentives are designed to encourage car buyers who are willing to do their part to help the environment, provided it doesn't cost them anything.
So here we have a total hoax.
Man-made global warming, propelling the manufacture of a worthless piece of crap car that nobody wants.
Proof that nobody wants it is it's going to cost twice what a similarly priced or manufactured gasoline car costs.
And to get people in one, they're going to have to reduce the price with incentives and give backs and rebates and all that.
Basically, bribe people to drive these pieces of crap cars that they really don't want.
And the only people who are going to get in them are these new castrati types, these idiots who've had their testicles cut off and are eating them every day, thinking they're saving the planet.
We got a bunch of people who have lost their manhood, have lost their guts, they're falling prey to all this hoax garbage.
And we're making policy to appease these people who produce literally nothing.
They contribute nothing to the overall growth or functioning of the country.
All they can do is sit around and call radio shows, Mithril, Mithrid Limbaugh.
What are you giving back?
Only thieves give back anyway.
So, in light of this, juicy tax breaks for electric piece of crap car.
When's the last time you bought an iPhone on sale?
When's the last time somebody paid you to buy an iPod?
When's the last time somebody gave you a rebate to buy a Mac?
Is Apple having any profit problems?
Is Apple making crap that nobody wants to save the planet?
In fact, Apple's got a bunch of new castrate types that buy their products.
But these new castrati types are willing to pay for it.
I wonder why that is because it's good stuff.
And it works.
It does what it's advertised to do, and it gets better every time they make a revision in one.
What's happening in a car business, they're making crap.
They're inventing and selling crap that they can't sell, and they're enticing people to buy it.
And they're going out to these deadbeats who think they're saving the planet by buying a piece of crap.
And all they're going to be doing is raising everybody's electricity rates because you plug in the damn thing to charge it.
Guess what?
You're using coal, which does what?
According to these creeps, pollutes the world and destroys the climate.
So these deadbeat new castrator people being succumbed into buying crap cars to save the planet are actually causing more of the substance they believe destroys the planet to be used.
Which it doesn't destroy the planet anyway.
The whole thing is a Crocs and a hoke.
A crock and a hoax.
Then, after all of this, I have a story from Allison Lynn, senior business writer at Life Inc..todayshow.com.
Here's a crazy idea for reviving the economy.
Employers give your workers a pay raise.
John Landry, a contributing editor to the Harvard Business Review, proposed the idea in a blog earlier this week.
According to John T. Landry of the Harvard Business Review blog, in 1914, Henry Ford decided to double his workers' salaries from $2.50 an hour a day to $5 a day.
The move had the effect of making workers more loyal, and it also made Ford's primary product, the Model T, more affordable to them.
So on the basis of that, this Harvard guy says, you know what you employers do?
The simplest way to save the economy is just give everybody a raise.
Google's giving everybody a what, a 10% raise, their entire workforce, a 10% raise and a $1,000 bonus.
Why?
I'll tell you why.
They've got the money.
And B, they got a lot of competition.
Silicon Valley, Facebook, and other places are trying to steal Google employees.
So Google is having to pay to keep them.
Google is not doing it to help the economy.
Google is not doing it to be nice guys.
They're doing it to keep the quality people they've got because their business is working.
When's the last time Google had to entice you to use anything they offer by paying you to do it or giving you a discount or what have you?
Never.
Doesn't happen.
But put Obama and these boys in charge of the car companies and lick, lick, lick, lick, wahoo.
Guess what we get?
A bunch of absolute manufactured crap that nobody wants based on a hoax, leading Harvard business people to blog that what we need to do is simply give everybody raises.
Oh, that's easy.
Henry Ford might have done this.
You know why he did it?
Henry Ford had a startup.
Henry Ford had to make sure the people making a damn car could own one.
If it was ever going to become a mass appeal product, he had to make sure that the people making it could buy one.
And so he did.
It was part of his overall business investment strategy.
He didn't do it out of the goodness of his heart.
He wasn't doing it to revive the economy.
He was doing it to sell his brand new product to make it appeal to the masses.
He knew it wasn't going to make it if only the super rich like the Kennedys could afford one.
So you have these people who believe that, like this new Castrati guy called, and believe me, there's a lot of them that think there's a guaranteed super lifestyle in this country.
All you have to do is be born that you're going to get a brand new and better iPod or iPhone or iPad every year, a brand new newer computer every year, and a new car.
It's just going to happen without the slightest bit of understanding how it happens.
It's just an expectation.
Now, Henry Ford's $5 a day salary is equal to $111 a day in $2008.
I got this website that does this inflation calculation, this figuring stuff.
You can put in there any number for any year, find out what it would be equivalent to.
$5 a day in Henry Ford's day is $110 a day.
You think you could buy a car for $111 a day today?
Well, you could buy a car, but I don't think you could buy top-of-the-line car, what have you.
You certainly couldn't buy the state-of-the-art, which the Henry Ford car was at the time.
You know, basically $700 a week.
It's not chump change.
Not chump change.
But my point is, a lot of people are already earning that anyway.
Those that are still working.
And if you work at the government, it's even more than that.
Look, I got to take a break here.
I'm a little long, but we'll be back.
We'll continue right after this.
Don't go.
By the way, another thing I should point out to this Harvard business guy, Henry Ford had to pay him five bucks a day because he's having trouble finding people to work for $2.50 a day.
That's what they don't tell you.
Back in a moment.
By the way, there might be a way, if you really want to talk about it, if you want to talk about giving everybody a raise, there might be a way to partially inspire it, and that would be to cut the corporate tax rate to zero.
Well, I mean, if the idea is to put more money in circulation in the private sector, who better than the people who live and work there?
So rather than corporations pay taxes to the government or charge higher prices to cover their costs of taxes, why not just corporate tax rate to zilch and raise the compensation of people who work for you?
Too radical.
Too radical.
Never, never fly.
Who's next?
John in Centerville, Oregon, or Ohio.
I'm sorry.
Welcome to the program.
Nice to have you here, sir.
Hey, Rush, good to speak to you again.
You bet.
Hey, the last time I talked to you, the media had proclaimed you the leader of the Republican Party, and I called in to say their real fear was that you were fast becoming the leader of the Independents and the Democrats also.
You may remember that.
I do remember that, yes.
Well, since that time, with all of the calls that you have been getting with Democrats leaving their party and the election, I would say their fears have arrived.
Well, you may have a point.
A lot of independents did flee and move to the Republican side.
I can't, you know, all humility give myself all the credit.
Obama deserves quite a bit.
Yeah, but I think you deserve a lot of the credit, Rush.
Well, if you want to, I mean, I'll be glad to take it.
I'm giving it to you.
All right.
All right.
Thanks very much.
I appreciate that.
Do we have time to say?
Yeah, I think we do.
Derek in Fort Myers, Florida.
Nice to have you on the program, sir.
Hi.
Rush, thank you for taking my call.
You're the anti-toxin for so many of us.
My question to you is: do you think in a last-ditch effort to get re-elected, Obama will play the war card against Iran, possibly somewhere else, but especially Iran?
Do you think he would do that in order to get re-elected?
Because I know he dithered when the population had that uprising before the elections in 2009.
He did nothing.
Maybe he thought that they would be a person over there.
Let me tell you where I am on this.
Honestly, my mindset right now is that Barack Obama's got no prayer of getting re-elected.
I'm not contemplating scenarios in which he does.
And that's just my mind.
I don't think there's anything he can do.
If we have anything to say about it, there won't be anything he can do to be re-elected.
Iran, war, what have you.
All right, I just got a note that coming in all over the place.
I got a note from a pilot listening to this program on his HF while at altitude.
He heard the call from the guy who talked about this might be a missile at Point Mr. Magoo.
He said he used to work at Point Mr. Magoo, and there's no way a missile came from Mr. Magoo.
Point Magoo.
But, oh, yeah, if you heard that call, a pilot at altitude listening on EHF said that nothing came out of Point Magoo on this thing.
Just putting it out there.
Also, get this.
From the UK Mail, women who want to calm down their husbands after a stressful day of the office should serve him a big steak, scientists said today.
Steaks and lamb chops calm down stressed out men by bringing out their caveman instincts.
Now, how sexist can you get?
How sexist can you get?
Guy comes home from work stressed out.
Wife says, Okay, steak, time for you, buddy.
You got to bring out your caveman aspects.
Isn't it the caveman aspects that are causing the guy to be stressed out in the first place?
That missile was 35 miles out to sea, and Point Mr. Magoo is not 35 miles out to see.
It had to come from a submarine, folks.
Look at there are certain things here that are just obvious.
It had to come from a submarine.
It's not a jet contrail.
There's no, I've seen jet contrails all my life, and you don't see them.
You never see them on the horizon.
You never see them on the horizon.
Well, I don't know what's going on.
We might have fired a damn thing.
Who knows what it was?
Well, Chi Coms might have a sub out there.
Who knows?
Somebody give us a warning.
Don't worry about it, snurdly.
The Pentagon says they don't know what it was, but it's nothing to worry about.
Now, I have another question.
This deficit report wasn't supposed to hit until December.
It's not even Thanksgiving.
We're not even at the middle of November.
Now, why is this deficit report hitting today?
This deficit report hits today, and by the way, it's hitting with a lot of detail.
Now, I'll tell you what I think.
I think this deficit report's coming out timed for the lame duck congressional session.
And guess what?
This is designed to give Democrats either some leverage or cover for dealing with the Bush tax cuts argument.
That's exactly what this is.
However, the Democrats want to play this.
Because if you look at the tax suggestions here, they really are talking about simplifying the code, reducing rates all over the place, not just extending the current Bush tax rates, but actually cutting rates, simplifying the code, and to broaden the base.
At the same time, gasoline taxes are being increased.
Well, they're being proposed.
The retirement age for Social Security is being suggested to go up to age 68 by what year, 2050?
I've got it all here.
I'm trying to make sense of it.
Yeah.
On Social Security, gradually increase the retirement age when people can start receiving benefits to 68 at around 2050 and 69 by 2075.
Federal subsidies to agribusinesses would begin to be slashed by $3 billion a year.
Ho ho ho!
Wait a little ethanol crowd hears about that.
The gasoline tax, federal gasoline tax, increased by 15 cents a gallon starting in 213, 2013.
Also proposed cutting the federal workforce by 10% for a further savings of $13.2 billion this by 2015.
There's nothing in here about tax breaks for piece of crap electric cars.
Now, folks, this wasn't supposed to hit till December.
December's well after the election.
December getting close to the quote-unquote holiday season when people are in quote-unquote good cheer and so forth.
Guys coming home from work and not getting a steak, but rather heading right to the vodka and the eggnog and what have you.
But now it's out.
The full 50, well, this is a draft report.
I mean, it's going to be far more detailed sooner than later, but the draft report's out, 50-page PDF file.
And this tax code stuff is fascinating.
Nobody, nobody's suggesting this kind of except us.
We conservatives have been suggesting stuff like this forever.
Lower the marginal tax rates for everybody across the board, broaden the tax base, simplify the code.
And all this comes out timed for the lame duck session.
I'm just wondering how this helps the Democrats in the lame duck session, or does it give them cover or gives them leverage?
Because they're adamantly opposed to extending the Bush tax cuts for everybody.
There's some talk now about Obama's, okay, maybe I'll extend them a year.
Maybe I'll extend them two years for everybody.
But I'm going to get the rich at some point.
What needs to happen is a rate reduction, a marginal rate reduction.
That's what needs to happen.
The one thing that would have a demonstrably instant positive effect on this economic recession and start turning things around would be that.
Now, we know that's not going to happen with this guy in the White House.
But these tax suggestions in this deficit panel report, if you want to be, if you want to look at things on the optimistic side, you can say this is designed to give the Democrats cover to go along with extending the Bush tax cuts.
Remember, the purpose of this commission is to take out of the hands the dirty business of making decisions by elected officials.
Well, I was opposed to extending the Bush tax cuts, of course, of course, but the experts in the Blue Ribbon Panel and the Irksome Bowls Alan Simpson Commission have suggested something far, far, far more drastic than tax-wise.
I think we need to look at it.
We'll see.
Time will tell in enough time.
Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Travis, welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Great to be on your show, Rush.
Thank you.
I don't even know where to start.
First of all, it's an honor to speak with you.
Highly disappointed in you today.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
You're on the radio, got off from one of my calls, and you're for raising taxes.
Well, no way.
No, you've got to unleash this economy before you can see the kind of revenues we'll be able to pay down our debt.
And if you raise taxes, you'll never get the economy.
Wait a minute.
I am not suggesting we raise taxes to fix deficits.
I'm not suggesting we raise taxes for any reason other than to make Californians pay for this profligacy that they are voting for.
So it raised taxes on Californians.
Yeah, we're getting extra benefits, and they're the ones that run their deficit into such biggest.
Well, if we don't raise taxes on Californians, guess whose taxes are going to be raised?
Everybody.
That's right, because they're going to get bailed out.
Okay, okay.
Well, I'm glad I got that clear.
Yeah, that's exactly.
And it was not just for the rich, it's for everybody.
I mean, the poor and everybody.
It's got to be a crossbow.
I'm Ohio Flat tax.
These people realize what this irresponsibility is costing them and everybody else.
My whole point is there are way too many people going through life who don't want to pay for what they have, pay for what they want, pay for what they get.
And it's just, it's my tipping point today.
If you want, if you live in California and you're going to elect people and got to run your state that way, then you pay for it, not us who don't live there.
Agreed.
All right.
All right.
I misunderstood.
Well, it's not your fault.
You caught the tail end of it.
And I can understand the shock and awe when you hear El Rushball talk about raising taxes.
I can understand you pulling off the road to call me.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
If I've got the time, I'd like to talk about Social Security as well.
Sure, go right ahead.
I'm 25 years old.
I've been told my whole life, I mean, literally since I was 10 years old, that I'd never have Social Security.
You better take care of your retirement.
You're not going to be able to carry on Social Security.
My whole generation has heard this their entire lives.
I think that being told that for as long as we have, completely prepared to not get Social Security.
There are people much older than me that have paid into it, you know, 15, 20, 30 years.
I think that those people, I think my elders, the older generation, deserves to get the Social Security they've paid into for a much longer time.
And I would even be willing to pay the rest of my life into a Social Security system that I saw no benefit from.
Let me ask you.
As long as I got one concession, if I got one concession, that is my retirement does not get taxed a dime.
I will pay for everybody older than me to have their Social Security.
Well, you can't make that deal because they'll renegue on it.
You had it right the first time.
You had it right the first time when you said go through your life as though it isn't going to be there, meaning take care of it yourself.
Yeah.
Now, every time I say this, I have people sending me vicious emails.
Well, easy for you to say is the reaction.
Now, I, in my life, have been fired a bunch of times, which those of you who have listened to regularly know.
And I have been broke a couple of times.
And I've had periods of time where my rent, house payment, and my MasterCard bill came in the same two-week period a month, and I couldn't either pay the rent and eat at the same time because a MasterCard wouldn't change my due date to the second half of the month.
And I hated it.
And I vowed that when that happened to me, I was never, ever going to be in a situation like that again where I was going to have to depend on somebody else, particularly for my needs.
Wants, that's a whole different thing.
But, you know, well, I don't want to depend on other people for my wants either, but needs.
I mean, that's when I am depending on others for necessities, that to me is failure.
I'm not going to do it.
I don't want to be dependent.
I don't want to be that obligated.
So I have, at that point, it became a goal of mine that no matter what I wanted, I had to be able to pay for it to get it.
And it's interesting.
My parents and grandparents who went through the Great Depression, they tried to drill this into me.
And I was, you know, a typical kid in one ear and out the other.
Okay, dad, fine.
Yeah, sure, sure.
You don't know what you're talking about.
But they came from the attitude of thrift.
They had gone through the depression.
Everybody was in debt.
Nobody could get a job.
And it was the irresponsible thing to go into debt other than for your house.
Because that was one thing that you couldn't just write a check for.
When that set of circumstances happened to me, is when I finally said, you know, I'm whatever, I'm going to not live beyond my means.
And I'm certainly not going to have expectations that others are going to support me.
So I have done that.
And I mention this every time I bring this up to people.
Now, easy for you to think.
Well, it wasn't easy to do.
It was not easy to do.
It might be easy for me to say, but it has not been easy to do.
And it has required a lot of commitment.
And so I do have a bit of a tipping point when I see a bunch of spoiled, rotten people expecting to live off of everybody else simply because they were born.
Simply because they're alive belief.
That's why communism, socialism offend me.
The idea that it's up to everybody else to take care of everybody else.
Nobody's going to get anywhere doing that.
And that has never worked for overall prosperity, economic freedom, or opportunity anywhere.
It just doesn't work.
And it creates resentment.
It promotes failure, sameness, lack of inspiration.
It destroys the human spirit.
Liberalism, socialism, communism, it all.
Marxism, it destroys the greatest things about humanity.
And that's ambition, dreaming, creativity, entrepreneurism, charity, you name it.
It destroys all of that.
And I get up and I watch these long-haired, maggot-infested, ingrate students complaining about how much education costs.
Fine.
If you can't afford it, don't go to school or find some place that you can afford.
Well, so what all the rest of us that accept the responsibilities of life have had to do, why should they be exempt just because they've had a bunch of irresponsible leaders who lied to them?
It's time to face the piper.
Back in a second.
Neil Diamond, thank the Lord for the nighttime.
El Rushbo and the EIB network.
Back to this California tax.
I'm sure a lot of people misunderstood it.
It's just about paying your way.
If you want a state that's going to pay people $40 million a day not to work, fine.
Raise the taxes and you pay it.
$40 million a day in unemployment benefits in California.
Fine.
Tax the poor, tax the unemployed, tax everybody.
Not just their show us how this is done.
It's like with anything else.
If you want less of it, you tax it.
So if you want fewer stupid Californians, you raise taxes on them.
You know, if I wanted to be selfish, you know, I could look at this deficit reduction panel stuff.
Social Security retirement age going up 68 by age by 2050.
Fine, do it.
Won't affect me.
I'll be dead.
Go right ahead.
It'd be easy.
And don't you love all of these major changes happening in 2050, 2045, 2040?
None of them happen until after 2012.
And most of them until 2014 until after these guys are all dead.
None of this stuff kicks in till these guys on the panel are all dead, which is going to be next week for some of them if they're not careful.
When certain people find out what these guys are suggesting, it's For one that hates riots, it's going to be fun for me to watch them.