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Feb. 28, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:32
February 28, 2011, Monday, Hour #2
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That is absolutely right, Johnny Donovan.
And it is Walter E. Williams coming to you from Washington, D.C. at the Heritage Foundation, who have been very courteous and very friendly about allowing me to have their studio for three hours.
And the reason why I'm here is because Rush is not.
Rush has a cold, and we understand he will be here tomorrow, holding forth.
Anyway, if you want to be on the show with us, call 800, put the one in front of it, 282-2882.
And let's talk about what I'm going to call just plain common sense and morality.
Now, whether Americans realize it or not, the last decade, I'm not blaming this all on Obama.
The last decade of congressional spending is unsustainable.
We just cannot do it.
Spending must be reined in, but then you have to ask the question: what should be cut?
Now, the Republicans, they hold the majority in the House of Representatives.
And I doubt whether they're going to be very, very bold because they fear being booted out of office and are understandably timid.
And actually, I don't hold them totally responsible.
Because, you know, this was brought up to me, oh, so many years ago, during the Reagan administration.
I was having lunch with Jesse Helms, senator from North Carolina.
And Senator Helms, during our lunch, this is, I think, the second lunch we had, and he knows that I was very critical of farm subsidies.
And Jesse Helms said to me, he says, Walter, I agree with you 100%.
I don't think that we should cut farm subsidies.
But he said to me, if I do what you say, the people in North Carolina, they're going to run me out of town.
And they're going to put somebody in worse than I am.
And this is the first time I ever thought in my life.
I asked myself the question, is it reasonable for us to expect a politician to commit what he considers to be political suicide?
And I say no.
It's unreasonable for us to expect politicians to commit political suicide because politicians get elected to office to do what the people elect them to office to do.
And I'll talk about that in a few minutes.
I'll let you think about what the average politician gets elected to office to do.
I'll talk about that in a minute.
But let's look at the House majority and ask the question, what are they going to cut?
Well, from what I see, their rule for what to cut appears to be: look around and see who are the politically weak recipients.
Now, cutting the politically weak recipients, that's just a drop in the bucket.
That's just peanuts.
Most spending done by the federal government is the so-called non-discretionary spending.
That takes up almost 60% of the federal budget, which is about $3.8 trillion this year.
So if you're not talking about cutting or doing something about the non-discretionary part of the budget, and the non-discretionary part of the budget is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drugs, that's the bulk of the non-discretionary part of the budget.
And people saying, oh, well, let's deal with the budget by cutting some defense.
And I admit that defense, there's a lot of wasteful spending and misallocated spending in defense.
But look, think about this.
Think about how far we've come.
The defense budget is $685 billion.
The federal deficit is $1.6, $1.8 trillion.
We could eliminate all defense spending, tell all the soldiers to go home, no more flying planes, and that would reduce the deficit by a third, roughly a little bit over a third.
And so we have to ask the question: where's the huge federal spending?
Now, as I left you last hour, I said, well, some congressmen, some congressmen in the House and also in the Senate, I think it's like almost 200 members of the House and roughly 50 senators have co-sponsored a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution.
Well, I've always argued that a balanced budget amendment is no protection against the growth of government and the loss of our liberties.
Let me give you an example just to highlight what I'm saying.
The GDP, our gross domestic product, is about $15 trillion.
That's $15 trillion is what the American people produce every single year, or they're going to produce this year.
Now, I would like for you to tell me, somebody out there tell me, that they would be happy if federal spending was $15 trillion and federal revenue was $15 trillion.
We'd have a balanced budget, wouldn't we?
But we'd be slaves.
So having a balanced budget is no protection to our liberty.
Right now, let's get down hard and fast numbers.
Estimated federal revenue for 2011 is $2.2 trillion.
Federal spending is $3.8 trillion, leaving us a $1.6 trillion deficit.
Now, the budget can be easily balanced simply by Congress taking more of our earnings and making us greater congressional serfs.
Ladies and gentlemen, the true protection requires that Congress, forget about a balanced budget, that Congress There be an amendment to the Constitution limiting congressional spending to limit the federal congressional spending to a certain percentage of the GDP.
Now, back in 1978, I had the honor of being a member of a very, very prestigious group formed by the National Tax Limitation Committee.
And some of the members in the group were Milton Friedman, Bill Niscanon, James Buchanan, Judge Bork, and a very, very distinguished economist.
And what we pushed for was a spending limitation amendment to the United States Constitution.
And we wrote one up, and it was shepherded through the Senate.
And in fact, in 1982, it passed the Senate, but it did not pass the House.
And then when it was introduced, reintroduced in 1986 in the Senate, it didn't even pass the Senate.
And what the spending limitation would have done, and I believe that I'm almost right on it, if I recall properly, and matter of fact, it's in the appendix to Milton Friedman's book, Free to Choose, and it would have limited federal spending to something like 18% of the GDP.
And matter of fact, back during that time, people were saying, yeah, I was arguing for 10% of the GDP.
And the people said, well, our political advisors say, oh, 10% will never fly.
And some people say, well, Walter, why do you say 10%?
Well, I say, well, if 10% is good enough for the Baptist Church, it ought to be good enough for the United States Congress.
And it ought to be good, particularly in light of our history.
I mean, look, in 1787, during the congressional investigation and when we became a country, an independent country, federal spending from 1787 until 1920 never exceeded 3% of the GDP except during wartime.
Today, during peacetime, federal spending is 25%.
Excuse me, folks, federal spending is 25% of the GDP.
And here's my question to you.
How in the world did our country go from a third world poor country in 1787 and to become one of the world's richest countries in 1920 with the federal government spending only 3% of the GDP?
How in the world did we do that?
Well, I'll tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the very reason that we became the richest and most prosperous country on the face of this earth was because federal spending was such a small part of the GDP.
We'll be back with your calls after this.
Okay, we're back, and you can be on with us by calling 800-282-2882, and I am filling in, Walter Williams filling in for a rush.
Now, I know what some of you people out there are saying.
Okay, Walter, what would be your rule for getting our fiscal house in order?
Well, I think that we need a rule or a concept that combines our Constitution with simple morality and common sense.
Let's look at the moral part of it first.
I think, now you people call in, let me know whether you agree with me or not.
I think that it is immoral for Congress to forcibly take the earnings of one American and give them to another American to whom they do not belong.
Now, I'm not making the argument against paying taxes because, yes, we need the constitutional functions of government done that are enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.
But I just think that's plain immoral.
For example, suppose I see, and I brought this up to you before, but you people might not have heard me before, might not remember, but I could see an elderly lady sleeping out in the grate in downtown Washington.
It's winter, it's cold, she's hungry, she needs some medical attention.
And I walk up to one of you with a gun in my hand and I say, give me your $200.
And then having gotten your $200, I buy the lady some medical attention, some food, some clothing, and some shelter.
Would you find me guilty of theft?
I'm pretty sure you would, regardless of what I did with the money.
And so I'm asking you that if a person did the same thing privately that Congress does collectively, he'd be convicted of theft and sent to jail.
And so what we should do, ask ourselves whether acts that are clearly immoral and despicable when done privately are they any less so when done by Congress and close to two-thirds of the federal budget?
So-called entitlements, represent exactly what thieves do.
And what do thieves do?
They redistribute income.
They're involved in income redistribution.
Matter of fact, I've often told people that that I think thieves.
In many ways thieves are better than congressmen, and the reason why is that a thief will take your money and be on his way.
A congressman will take your money and then stand there and bore you with the reasons why you should be happy about it.
Now you say well, Williams.
You say well, what about people who need help?
I do believe in helping our fellow man, but I think that to help your fellow man by reaching into your own pockets to help your fellow man is praiseworthy and laudable.
Reaching into somebody else's pockets to help your fellow man in need is despicable and worthy of condemnation.
And those people, those people I know there are a lot of Christians in the audience and I'm pretty sure that when God gave Moses the commandment thou shalt not steal, he did not mean that thou shalt not steal unless you got a majority vote in Congress, And I'm very sure that if you say, well, God, I'm not really involved in stealing,
but is it okay to be a recipient of stolen property?
I'm sure that would be deemed a sin as well.
So that's the moral aspect to it.
Now, some people, some of you might be saying, well, Williams, the programs that you'd cut are vital to the welfare of our nation.
When someone says that, I always ask the question, what did we do before?
I mean, for example, when the poor Irish in the 1840s fleeing the potato famine, when they landed in New York City with only the clothes on their backs, was there a food stamp program for them?
Did they starve to death?
And how in the world were they able to make it without a food stamp program?
Or, as I said a little earlier, we went from 1787 to 1979.
And during that interval, we produced some of the world's most highly educated people without the Department of Education.
And since 1979, since the Department of Education's creation in 1979, American primary and secondary education has become a joke among industrialized nations.
Do we need a Department of Energy?
How much energy has it produced?
From the founding of our nation to 1787 until 1965, our nation went from a third world country and we built the world's mightiest first-class cities, such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Philadelphia, without the benefit of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
How do we manage without it?
And then after HUD was created in 1965, many of our formerly great cities are in decline.
Now, nobody's saying that HUD is responsible for the decline, but neither was HUD responsible for their development.
So the questions that we have to ask, you know, if I were a congressman, and which I'm not, which explains why I'd never be one, is that I would push for the elimination or the defunding of Department of Education,
Department of Energy, HUD, HUD, and I mean, Housing and Urban Development, and many of the other alphabet agencies who are in the business of creating favors for one group of Americans at the expense of another group of Americans.
I know we run up against the clock and my clock.
One of the hazards of not being at the golden EIB microphone is that I don't have all of the goodies that we normally have, like a clock on the wall telling me how much time that I have.
But how much time do we have?
Okay.
Now, one of the questions that we might ask, and when I come back from the break, I'm going to tell you, and I know people out there are going to get kind of angry with me, I'm going to tell you the distinct group of Americans who bear the largest burden, in my opinion,
For today's runaway government.
Okay, Walter Williams sitting in for Rush, who will be back tomorrow, all well from the cold that he's experiencing.
And you can be on us by calling 800-282-2882.
Okay, in the last segment, I left you with a question or a statement.
Actually, it was a statement.
And I said that there's a distinct group of Americans who bear a large burden for today's runaway government.
So I know you're asking, well, Williams, who are they?
Well, it's the so-called great generation of Americans.
It was those Americans who were born during, you know, maybe 1910, 1920, 1930.
But however, when the great generation of Americans were born, federal spending as a percentage of GDP, as I've already mentioned, was 3%, as it was from 1787 to 1920, except during war.
Now, no one denies the sacrifices made and the true greatness of a generation of Americans who suffered through our worst depression, a depression caused by government, by Hoover and FDR.
This great generation of Americans also managed to conquer some of the meanest tyrants during World War II and later managed to produce a level of wealth and prosperity heretofore unknown to mankind.
But this generation of Americans also laid the political foundation for the greatest betrayal of our nation's core founding principles, namely limited government, limited federal government exercising only constitutionally enumerated powers.
It was on the watch of this great generation that the foundation was laid for today's massive federal spending that tops 25% of the GDP and going higher.
And so let me just kind of say before I get to the phones, a good part of that generation is still alive.
And before they depart, they might do their share to help us have a federal government exercising only constitutionally enumerated powers and give us back the kind of constitutional respect that we've had for most of the time we've been a nation.
Let's go to phone and welcome, oh, let's say, welcome Dean from Redondo Beach, Deanne from Redondo Beach, California.
Welcome to the show.
Hello, Mr. Williams.
I want to address an issue that really kind of relates to what you're discussing right now, is the taxpayers and the homeowners of these cities and communities that require and demand so many services from the cities, and this costs so much money.
They want the parks maintained.
They want the pools maintained.
They want the libraries open, you know, five, six days a week.
They want the potholes fixed in their streets.
They want the cracks fixed in their sidewalks.
These services require a large amount of money from the cities.
And the minute they don't get them, they're the first ones that go to the meetings and holler and scream that, why can't you fix my pothole?
Why don't you fix my street?
You know, the city my daughter works for, they have free trash pickup.
Whoever heard of having free trash pickup?
They have free cleanout for their sewers from their homes to their streets.
Nobody covers things like that.
That costs a lot of money.
You know, and it's time that people maybe be a little more responsible.
Well, I think one of the things that can be done, one of the things that can be done is to charge fees for these services.
That is, if I don't want a park down the street with beautiful swings on it, why should I have to pay my property taxes to fund that?
If you like such a park, well, you contribute fees when you enter and leave the park.
That was just one example.
And so I think that fees for service, I think, is a very good idea and reduce the taxes that the ordinary people.
That is, here's a question that we have to ask ourselves.
It's a moral question.
If you benefit from something, who should be forced to pay for it?
Who should be forced to pay for it?
Now, keep in mind, you have to really pay attention to this because, like, a thief doesn't care who pays for it.
All that he wants to do is benefit from it.
But we're not thieves.
At least we hope we're not thieves.
And so we have to ask the question, if you benefit from something, who should be made to pay for it?
Let's go take another call from Jim from Boston.
Where's Boston, Jim?
Hi, Dr. Williams.
Thank you for taking my call.
I have two quick points to make, and then I'd love to hear what you have to say.
I've been a big fan of yours since I first saw the State Against Blacks back about 20 years ago.
And what you're talking about today reminds me of something that Frederick Bastiat said in the law, that the law cannot create justice.
It can only prevent injustice.
And the problem we're having today is our school system doesn't teach history.
And because of that, the old adage, those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.
So that's my call on that.
Jim, I think you're absolutely right.
And I'm going to get into some of that the next hour.
But you're absolutely right.
That is, it's almost sometimes I think of it as a conspiracy to dumb down the Americans so that Congress can take on measures that otherwise could not take on unless the American people were dumbed down.
Thanks a lot, Jim, for calling.
Let's go to Will in Columbus, Ohio.
Welcome to the show.
Hey, Walter, I agree with a lot of what you said, especially the last segment.
But I guess where my concern is, is your focus is in the wrong direction.
I mean, we're focusing on unions when, in fact, we should be focusing on the politicians.
Because effectively, what you're saying is politicians are sold to the highest bidder.
And corporations, do you think there's not large corporate donations or large individual donations that can afford millions of dollars going to various candidates on the right?
There is.
That's the only way to counterbalance that is when the people can collectively organize their money in a form of a union.
So I think the bigger question is, is are our politicians available for sale?
And do we not hold our politicians accountable to the people, not to any one individual group, not to the unions, not to the corporate world, but are we holding our politicians accountable?
Well, I think one of the problems, you're absolutely right.
I think that politicians have too much power.
And so if they have the kind of power of life and death over businesses, over contracts, then somebody's going to buy that.
What we need to do is to strip a politician's ability to do favors.
That's the only long-term solution.
If you ask the question, why in the world would a union give millions of dollars to a politician?
Why would a corporation give millions of dollars to a politician?
Most of the answer is, is that they're not giving millions of dollars to a politician for him to uphold and defend the United States Constitution.
They're not giving him millions of dollars to protect free speech.
They're giving him millions of dollars to do a favor for one American that will be denied another American.
Or they're giving these millions of dollars for a politician to take the property of one American and bring it back to them.
And so what we have to do to save our country from ultimate disaster, we have to limit the ability of politicians.
We'll be back with more of your calls after this.
We're back, Walter Williams, holding it forward for Rush.
He'll be in tomorrow.
Hey, look, folks, don't think, do not think for a second that unions, I spent a lot of time talking about unions at the federal trough or the state trough.
And the reason why I talk about unions, because that's what's in the news with Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Indiana.
But look, there are many Americans, for example, ethanol.
Ethanol messes up engines and it pollutes the atmosphere.
Why do we have ethanol in our engines?
Well, it's because of the power of huge operations giving handouts, paying politicians such as Archer Daniel Midlands.
Or why do Americans pay two, three, and four times the world price for sugar?
Well, it's the sugar producers in our country that pay politicians to keep foreign sugar out so they can charge us higher prices.
Or you take, for example, the California Naval Orange Administration.
Well, they get together and agree on how many oranges can be brought to the market.
And those that, if a guy produces more oranges than he's allowed to produce, well, then he has to sell them for cattle feed or to byproduct factories.
Or look at all the companies, corporations in Washington that have these huge lobby organizations and they lobby on all kinds of things.
Let's say most of them, they lobby a whole lot on tariffs to keep foreign goods out so they can charge you and me higher prices.
And so our government has become so massive that people are descending from all over the country to say to their congressmen, do me this favor, do me that favor.
And it makes good economic sense for them to do that.
That is, for example, imagine I'm running for the Senate in your state.
Let's say your state of North Carolina.
Or California, any state.
And I go back and forth across your state and I say, look, I'm running for the Senate.
I have read the United States Constitution.
I swear to uphold and defend the United States Constitution, both its letter and spirit.
So if you elect me to the United States Senate, don't expect for me to bring back aid to higher education.
It's not in the Constitution.
Don't expect for me to bring back highway construction funds, meals on wheels, prescription drugs.
It's not in the Constitution.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you, do you think I would get elected to the Senate from your state?
No, I wouldn't.
And why wouldn't I get elected?
Well, because I would not be doing what the people want me to do.
And what do the people want me to do?
To use the power of my office to take what belongs to one American and bring it back to them.
And from a strictly economic point of view, that makes absolute sense.
That is, for example, let's say I'm the senator from North Carolina.
I'm the senator from Virginia.
And let's say I give the spiel to my fellow Virginians.
Well, if I don't bring back billions of dollars of goodies to the citizens of Virginia, it doesn't mean that they're going to pay a lower federal income tax.
All that it means is that Maryland will get it instead.
That is, once legalized theft begins, it pays for everybody to participate.
And those who don't participate will wind up holding the brown end of the stick.
And you people who with a rural background know what I mean by that.
Let's go to the phone.
Let's talk to Tom in South Holland, Michigan.
Welcome to the show, Tom.
Well, let's take a break.
I think Tom is gone, but let's take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk to somebody else who's been waiting.
We'll be back after this.
We're back and let's go right to the phones.
And Tom, you have a reprieve.
Walt, I'm sorry, Boston.
It's a pleasure to talk to you.
Customers called as a, we do a very little known thing in the United States anymore.
Now it's called working for a living in the manufacturing part of the steel industry.
And the reason I had called and told your screener, I guess the second time we're talking about the taxes, the percentage of taxes, and how many taxes since 1920, my wife brought it up on a computer today.
There's like 75 taxes that are in place today that weren't in place when, like I said, I have the original tax code in front of me here in 1913, 1% up to $20,000.
And geez, if you made up to $50,000, you were whacked another 1% on your taxes.
And matter of fact, just to interrupt a second, though, when Congress, during the legislative debate over these taxes, income taxes, Congress said that 95% of the people will never pay income taxes.
Oh, yeah.
Well, you know, they say a lot of things.
They used to say, don't fight the seatbelt laws in Illinois because if you don't fight them and you let us pass them, you'll never, ever get pulled over for not wearing your seatbelt.
Guess what?
You know what I mean?
Right, absolutely.
Pinocchio syndrome in place at this time, you wouldn't be able to walk out there for all the noses you'd see left and right.
I mean, it would be a mess.
That's right, absolutely right.
And the complexity of just simply complying with the tax code is very, very costly.
I understand, and I'd have to look up the figures again, that if you took all the time that Americans spend just complying with the tax code, I'm not talking about paying the money, just complying with the tax code, keeping records, getting accountants to get interpretations of the tax codes and things like this.
If you took all those hours that Americans spend and put them in Detroit, they could have produced the entire annual output of automobiles in the country.
They could have produced the entire truck output and most of the airplanes built in the United States.
That's a huge cost.
That's like throwing away a lot of wealth just right in the ocean by people having to comply with the tax code.
So you're absolutely right that taxes have gotten too complex.
By the way, before I leave the subject of what government should be doing, I have an idea for the Congress to deal with, let's say, the insolvency of Social Security.
The government owns a whole lot of wasting assets.
Namely, they own most of the land in Nevada, Utah, I believe California, and Alaska.
I'll tell you what I would do.
I will make a deal with the United States Congress.
I will exchange all of my Social Security payments in the future for 100 acres of land in Alaska anywhere.
Yeah, that's right.
And they can keep the mule that they promised my ancestors.
Just give me 100 acres of land and I will give up all of my rights to Social Security.
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