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Sept. 19, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:34
September 19, 2011, Monday, Hour #3
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Hi, how are you?
Welcome back.
Great to have you with us.
It's Broadcast Excellence hosted by me, El Rushbo, behind a golden EIB microphone at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program today, 800-282-2882 with an email address, lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
So Barack Hussein Obama, a trillion and a half dollars in new taxes to pay for a $457 billion new jobs bill last week.
Meanwhile, companies that Obama has backed have gone bankrupt.
Companies that Obama gave $535 million to have gone bankrupt.
Solyndra.
And after that company went bankrupt, then another 10 to 12 solar energy companies are being given the similar type of money, varying amounts, different amounts, with no evidence that there is a business there.
And of course, whether there's a business there or not is irrelevant.
It's not the way the money is being given.
So here's Obama unleashing the IRS on people, unleashing the Environmental Protection Agency on people, the Interior Department, the Justice Department, the National Labor Relations Board.
Every one of these agencies is now going after somebody.
How does any of this create jobs?
How does any of it save homeownership or reduce fuel or food prices or strengthen the dollar?
You know, what appears to me is that Obama was listening when Reverend Wright was preaching for all 20 some odd years.
I think he heard every year.
You look at Solyndra, the bankrupt solar panel company.
The irony of Solyndra is that if we would lower the corporate tax rate, probably, I don't know if they had unionized labor at this place or not, but they did get rid of that, cut EPA regulations, lower the minimum wage, maybe, maybe, I doubt it because really had some idiotic people running that place, but maybe they would have had a better chance against the Chi-Coms.
What does it tell you?
Folks, what does it tell you?
If any of you who have a small business go, if Obama gave you, in essence, $535 million, that's what a guaranteed loan is.
You think your business would fail?
Don't think so.
Any of you who run a small business today and the government comes along and just hands out $535 million, do you think you'd fail?
No, they did.
Solyndra did.
And many others like it will fail too.
They don't know what they're doing.
They haven't the slightest idea.
They are theoreticians who've sat around and fantasized while they have resented people who have a lot of money.
They get a chance at their turn to dig into the stash and give their buddies some.
They're theoreticians.
Can I be counted on?
Somebody called earlier talking about Obama and the most fortunate grab audio soundbite number two.
A couple more sound bites from Obama's, well, his speech, I guess you have to call it, at the Rose Garden today announcing the new tax increases.
I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare.
I think it's just the right thing to do.
Nobody wants to punish success in America.
What's great about this country is our belief that anyone can make it and everybody should be able to try.
The idea that any one of us can open a business or have an idea and make us millionaires or billionaires.
This is the land of opportunity.
That's great.
All I'm saying is that those who have done well, including me, should pay our fair share in taxes to contribute to the nation that made our success possible.
Wrong, wrong, entirely wrong.
You need to contribute by stopping this spending spree.
You and your fellow Democrats need to contribute by simply stop doing what you have been doing.
We do not have a problem of undertaxation.
When you add them all up at the state, local, federal level, we do not have a single person that's undertaxed.
We have an out-of-control, irresponsible spending program and an out-of-control, irresponsible, ideological problem called liberalism.
By the way, this hedge fund business, I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare.
This is, you hedge fund guys, you know he's coming after your carried interest.
I hope you, I'm sure you know that's what he's going after here, is their carried interest.
Hedge funds, because of the way they're structured, not all of their income, but a large part of it is taxed at the 15% capital gains rate.
He wants to go after that.
That's a brief junior high school definition of carried interest.
It's far more complicated.
These are people that are underwriting operations for a long time with no payoff for a long time.
And when they finally get their payoff, it's taxed at 15%.
Because they took the risk.
Yes, it's the law.
It's the law.
And to compare hedge fund people and teachers is, again, serves his purposes, but it doesn't make any economic, or it makes no common sense if people understand both definitions.
But most people don't know what carried interest is.
He didn't even mention it.
Most people don't know what a hedge fund really is.
All they know is it's a rich Wall Street fat cat.
Away, venture capitalists.
Everyone will look at it that way.
I don't want to get into the textbook definition of carried interest because it'll bore people.
But trust me, it's an investment you make.
You don't get a payoff for a while.
Yeah, they're starting the engine.
They're investing in things right.
They're taking risks.
Now, this question about millionaires and billionaires, ABC, CNBC, or I'm sorry, AP, CNBC poll.
About two in 10 Americans believe that they will become millionaires.
They are less optimistic than Australians, but more optimistic than Britons about becoming wealthy in the next 10 years, according to this poll.
In all three countries, more than seven in 10 of those surveyed said they were unlikely to become millionaires in the next decade, reflecting the psychic toll of the global economic doldrums.
Solid majorities of Americans, 61% and 63% of Britons, say it's extremely or very difficult for their countrymen to become millionaires today.
You know what that reflects?
That reflects the success of the Democrat Party.
It reflects the success of the media.
Who is it telling these people?
Who is it telling everybody you can't do something?
Who is it that's always putting obstacles in your way?
Who is it that's telling you you don't have what it takes?
Who's telling you that America's glory days are over?
Who is it that's running this country?
Who is it that's presiding over the decline of this country?
And who is it that happily reports that?
Democrat Party and their willing allies in the media.
This story.
Two in ten Americans think they can become millionaires.
That is a triumph for the American left.
That is a triumph for our news media who tell us every day it's impossible for anybody to get ahead in the capitalist system.
And you know why?
Because there are people going to cheat from you.
There are people going to steal from you.
You don't have a chance.
You'll never have a chance.
And the only way you can do it is to steal or what have you.
You're either born rich, lucky sperm club, or you're out of luck.
Nobody ever gets rich by honest effort.
You know, that's what people lived in the Soviet Union were told for 70 years.
And nobody ever gets rich in capitalism.
And then look what happens.
When the Soviet Union busts up, they've got more oligarchs.
It's stunning.
These guys are running around buying $100 million houses just to park the money.
Never move into them.
Never see them.
There's a guy who bought one here on Palm Beach.
He's never been to it.
Sent a representative in to buy it, pays the upkeep, has no business ever coming here, just someplace to park the money in the old Soviet Union.
They're all over the place now.
Not everybody, but certainly more than they had when they were communist.
The Americans that are in this poll here, I guess they haven't heard that Obama made untold numbers of millionaires and billionaires.
I guess he hasn't, has he?
In fact, no, Obama, maybe they're right with Obama running.
Now they stop and think about it.
Maybe it's not possible.
Maybe it is much more difficult now to become a millionaire with somebody like this running the show and his party in power.
Still, that's not the way you want people thinking of the country.
It's not the way you want people thinking of their opportunity.
Why millionaire and billionaire anyway?
I know millionaire has always been this grand carrot, grand achievement.
You don't have to get there.
You're not a failure if you don't become a millionaire.
Certainly a billionaire.
Hmm?
So I think it's.
We live in a country.
Everybody.
Millionaire.
Millionaire.
You just get there.
By God.
You're going to pay for it.
That's what he said.
You go ahead, try to become one.
If you get there, you're not going to last long because we're coming after you.
You better pay your fair share.
This is all this polling data.
There's a story we had last week.
Millionaires go missing.
The number of millionaires and billionaires in America is plummeting.
Well, China's increasing, but the problem with the Chikom millionaires is they want to leave.
They face a tremendous tax rate there, too.
But the Chikom millionaires, not all of them, I mean, a lot of them are trying to find a way out.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, Buffett.
Singapore.
A lot of them want to go to Singapore.
They don't want to get that far away from China.
Some of them want to come here, yeah.
Won't take them long to figure out.
Bad move if they do.
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owes $1 billion in back taxes, and yet he's agreed to have his name attached to a tax increase bill.
$1 billion in back tax.
Warren Buffett, not paying the fair chair and is arguing about it.
He doesn't argue.
He doesn't defend your right not to pay your taxes, but boy, when it comes to him paying his, he doesn't want any part of it.
Stop coddling the super rich.
That's what the Democrats and the left says to the IRS.
Stop coddling the super rich.
And they're trying to get Buffett for a billion dollars in back tax, and he's got it.
Why didn't he just pay it?
Get it behind him.
Get it over with.
Just pay it.
That's the price of a successful nation.
That's the price of doing well.
Doesn't he even listen to his own president's speeches?
By the way, a very important point about carried interest.
Taxing carried interest is double taxation.
It's no different.
Capital gains taxes are paid on money that's already been through the income tax cycle.
So it's carried interest money.
Where do you get the money to invest it?
There's no tax-free money out there.
Warren Buffett, if he's going to buy stock in, I don't know, company XYZ, he either gets the money by selling stock in an existing company that probably had a loss, in which case there's no tax whatsoever.
Or he sells stock in a company that is showing a profit, pays 15% on it, then invests it, and maybe not if he rolls it over.
But that corporation that he owns stock in is already paying a 35% tax rate, so the dollars available to him come after that.
So income is taxed so many times and so many ways to say that somebody is only paying 15% in that particular transaction, yeah, but the money didn't get there tax-free in the first place.
Here's Paul in Millersburg, Iowa.
Great to have you on the program, Paul.
Welcome.
Hey, Rush, you were way ahead of everybody a month ago and spot on when you said this was not going to be a serious proposal.
It's really, I'm just hoping the Republicans avoid the wonky details.
It's not about the deficit or economics.
And I'd suggest this really isn't even about politics.
Politics is a peaceful negotiation.
This is about ongoing social revolution.
He's trying to get his troops, his thugs, out into the street.
He's acting like Mormar Gaddafi.
He's willing to destroy the country to save himself.
And I think it's really dangerous.
Now, he's always been willing to destroy the country.
Now, if it becomes necessary to do that, save himself, that's just, that's possible.
But he's always, when I say destroy, other people might say transform.
But it's always been his objective is to get rid of the capitalist system and replace it, which is what he's doing here.
And you're right.
I like your use of the term revolutionary language.
He is trying to stoke his base.
There's no question he's trying to fire him up.
One thing I've never understood about trying to grow the economy with tax increases, it reminds me of medicine, the way it was practiced back in colonial times when they used to bleed people.
If they were sick, they would draw their blood out of their body and hope that that would make them get better.
That's how they're trying to grow the economy.
Exactly right.
In fact, the elites of our society believed that.
That was one of the most sophisticated medical remedies that was available at the time.
I remember John Adams Had a child that they nearly bled to death trying to get rid of some infection.
I'll never forget that.
Well, that's.
I think your percentage has gone up, Rush.
Well, I appreciate that.
I really do.
Here's, listen, give you an idea what Paul here is talking about.
Grab soundbite number three.
Here are the straw men and the usual ways that Obama creates them and the options that we have in order to create anger, class envy, distrust of fellow citizens, all wrapped up in this one bite.
Either we gut education and medical research, or we've got to reform the tax code so that the most profitable corporations have to give up tax loopholes that other companies don't get.
Stop the take.
Stop it.
Okay, here are the options.
We either gut, gut, end it, get rid of it.
Education and medical research.
We either end both things or raise taxes on corporations.
We can't do both.
He goes on to say here, we cannot afford to do both.
We've either got to gut education and medical research or raise taxes on corporations.
This is a cherry bomb thrown into the crowd.
This is incitement.
He's lighting a fuse, a little cherry bomb, throwing it in there and telling people, you know what?
We either get Exxon to pay more and GE or whoever it is, or you can say goodbye to your education and no more medical care.
We can't afford to do both anymore in this country.
Can't afford to do both.
And of course, nowhere here is the option to reduce spending on all the red number programs that we've got nowhere near.
Revolutionary language.
Great way to talk about it.
Send me getting emails.
Hey, Rush, you never did tell anybody who the 10 winners of the tea contest were.
Well, we don't put their names out there.
We've made it a policy or not to put the names of the winners out there, but we called them.
We called them last week.
We called all 10 of them.
And as you remember, all 10 won a full year supply of two if by tea, their choice of what kind.
And two of those 10 also won a select number bed from a sleep number bed from select comfort, their choice of bed.
Now, we call these people, and that's part of the promise that we made.
We'll call you.
Catherine and I will call you personally to tell you that you've won.
And I don't know what the ratio is, about 70% of the time we get voicemail.
So we simply leave a message, knowing full well they're not going to believe it.
So we tell them who's going to be calling them to back it up and make arrangements for the delivery of the tea if they want a bed, so forth and so on.
But out of 10 calls, two, sometimes three will pick it up.
And there was one guy that we call, I think it was, I forget what it was, either Indiana or Wisconsin, I'm not sure which.
He picked up the phone, didn't believe it was us at first.
After a while, had no choice but then to believe it.
I mean, who else would be calling to give them a year's supply of tea and a sleep number bed?
And the guy finally got his wife on the phone.
She didn't believe it.
And then they started lamenting the fact that nobody would believe them when they told people that we had called.
So I said, I'll tell you what, we'll do.
You hang up and we'll call back and leave a message on your answering machine.
And we'll just tell people that you didn't expect them to believe that we called.
So I'll call to leave another message identifying you as a winner so you can prove to people that we call.
So we had to call one person twice.
But they're great people.
And we've got a new two if-by-t promotion coming up starting Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
And this one involves me.
Yes.
Two if-by-t.
I'm not going to say any more to that.
I just tell you, it involves me, Rush Revere.
And we'll start it Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
I want to go back now.
I want to get the full soundbite here because Obama wasn't finished.
I just wanted to make one point here about this straw man.
Either we gut education and healthcare spending or corporations don't pay taxes.
That's how exactly what our caller said, how revolutionary language works.
By the way, oh, Dick Durbin.
For all of you out there who think Obama really, really cares about getting your job, Dick Durbin says that the Senate will not take up Obama's $447 billion jobs bill.
That was the thing last week until sometime in October, a month from now.
Dick Durbin said, as Obama was telling everybody how he's going to pay for it today, Durbin said, we'll get to it probably, won't reach the floor till after the Senate scheduled recess on September 26th or 30th, probably next month before we get to this.
The fierce urgency of jobs.
Delayed for three weeks for an Obama vacation.
Now delayed another three weeks.
The fierce urgency.
Because once again, it isn't about jobs.
It means it's about revolution.
Soft revolution.
Soft tyranny.
As a good friend of mine describes it.
Here's the whole bite.
Either we gut education and medical research, or we've got to reform the tax code so that most profitable corporations have to give up tax loopholes that other companies don't get.
We can't afford to do both.
This is not class warfare.
It's math.
The money is going to have to come from someplace.
If we're not willing to ask those who've done extraordinarily well to help America close the deficit, and we are trying to reach that same target, $4 trillion, then the logic, the math says everybody else has to do a whole lot more.
We've got to put the entire burden on the middle class and the poor.
There isn't $4 trillion among the people you're talking about, Mr. And he knows it.
There isn't $4 trillion of income above people who have a million dollars or more of income.
It just isn't there.
But you see, after the straw man, we can't afford to do both.
This isn't class warfare.
It's math.
Look it.
You've probably forgotten.
I told you months ago, this is what they're going to say.
Folks, we've got to go where the money is.
And the only people who have any money left, what he's really saying is we've got to go make sure that the people who have money left don't when we get through with them.
That's the objective here.
That's what this man and his party are all about.
It's math.
The money is going to have to come from someplace.
How about we cut spending?
You notice that's never, never an option.
It doesn't fly.
No way.
That boat is not going to leave the shore.
Dock, whatever.
That airplane, not going to leave the tarmac.
No spending cuts.
No, no, no.
This has got to come somewhere.
You people have been here responsible enough.
Yeah, it was our fault.
Obama spent $4 trillion we don't have.
And now it's up to us to pay it back.
Obama spent $4 trillion.
It's our fault for not having it.
And even though we don't have it, he's going to come take it from us anyway.
To make sure we never get it is the bottom line.
It's not math.
It is class warfare.
This, I'll tell you, folks, this latest Obama propaganda burp, and that's what this is, is further evidence to me that this guy hates capitalism.
Just can't stand it.
He hates private property rights.
He said last week he's got this big thing in his way called Congress.
He doesn't like small business.
He doesn't like private property rights.
He doesn't like private sector jobs.
He even says, hey, hey, Obama, I ought to pay more too.
You love these political leftists.
Obama and Clinton love to brag about how much money they've got.
Love, that's so devoid of any class.
But they love to keep telling us how rich they are.
And how did they get rich?
What did Obama do to get rich?
A couple of books that wouldn't have sold 15 copies if he hadn't run for president.
How did Clinton get rich?
Speeches.
In other words, politics.
These guys are not producing anything.
They're getting rich off politics.
Nobody would care about Obama's autobiographies if he didn't run for president.
So his supporters bought his books.
Clinton makes a fortune giving speeches because he used to be president.
Pure and simple.
Obama wasted $1 trillion on a stimulus.
Wasted it, folks.
Wasted it.
We've already spent close to a trillion dollars to create jobs.
And now another $457 billion, or whatever the number is, because the first trillion didn't work.
And we laugh about the fact that there weren't as many shovel-ready jobs as Obama thought.
So now it's actually another trillion and a half that he wants.
That's what it all adds up to.
By the time the Bush tax cuts expire, his proposals that he mentioned today and the new stuff coming in Obamacare, we're looking at a trillion and a half dollars in new taxes.
And don't forget now, to create jobs.
And I'll tell you this.
I don't even think Obama's book sold that well.
I think that was bulk purchased by a bunch of union thugs, just like Jim Reitz was back when he was Speaker of the House.
Got to take a quick break.
You sit tight, my friends.
We'll be back much more right after this.
I just checked out a lefty blog.
I want to see what the lefty blogs are saying.
And here's, I'm not going to tell you the blog.
I don't want to give them hits.
But here's an analysis of the soundbite that I just played for you.
Where Obama says this is not class warfare, it's math.
The money is going to have to come from someplace.
We either raise taxes on corporations or we gut education and medical research.
By the way, where does medical research take place?
Well, drug companies, in large part, Hospitals and drug universities, drug companies, the demonized portion of our economy is where medical research comes from.
Normally, Democrats hate when that happens.
But you see this draw man: either we raise taxes on you or we gut education and medical spending.
Wasted a trillion dollars on the stimulus.
Now wants another trillion and a half to throw away.
And what does any of this have to do with jobs?
This lefty blog.
The answer is nothing.
Here's the lefty blog.
You know, this is really brilliant.
What a great way to drive a wedge between the Republican anti-tax base and moderate independent voters who do support tax increases on high-income earners.
And then it goes on to point out what I did: that calling this thing the Buffett tax is not a bad idea because everybody loves Buffett.
Everybody thinks Buffett's a financial genius.
Put his name on it.
Oh, it must be good.
So the theory here is: see, Obama's lost the independence.
He's got to get the base back first.
This whole structure here is designed to appeal to his base, which he's going to have anyway.
But he's got to get the independence back.
And it is believed that the independents believe in high taxes on the wealthy.
They support tax increase on the wealthy.
It is said, people say they can produce the polling data for this.
So it's a wedge issue.
Obama's trying to drive a wedge between the Republican base and independents, trying to send the independence back to him.
Pure and simple.
So what do we have?
At the end of all of this, you have Obama, who destroys more jobs than any president in modern history.
Yeah, damn right I mean to say that.
Who else did it?
Were we doing anything like this before he was elected and emaculated?
We weren't on this course.
Yes, I damn well mean, yes, Obama has destroyed.
You know, I use the words I mean, snurdy, and I like hearing myself say them.
Remember, I love being right.
So when I tell you Obama has destroyed more jobs than any president in modern history, I mean it.
Same thing goes for homeownership.
Obama destroys homeownership more than any president in modern history.
Was any of that going on before he was inaugurated?
He runs up the debt more than any president in history, period.
He's spreading the wealth around to his political donors and supporters more than any president I can remember.
That's what Solyndra and all this green energy crap is about.
It's not about green energy or anything.
It's about spreading wealth so it comes back to him in the form of campaign donations and votes and what have you.
We're supposed to trust him with trillions dollars more.
And he says he'll create jobs with it.
He's got a two and a half year track record, folks, of not knowing the first thing about it and frankly not caring about creating jobs in the private sector.
He's the president of the wrong country.
He'd fit perfectly as the president of Greece or Spain.
He is the perfect socialist.
He uses all of their rhetoric.
He'd make a perfect Hugo Chavez.
He'd be a great Labor Party leader in Britain.
But he's ruining this country.
Pure and simple.
I just got an interesting note.
This would be an interesting thing to discuss, if I can remember it tomorrow.
And the note said, maybe the rich should fight back.
Maybe the rich should fight back.
And I wrote back, it's not going to happen.
There is no way.
I remember Andy Grove, who used to run Intel.
Back in 1994 on this week with Brinkley, Clinton wanted to limit CEO salaries, or at least the deductibility of a CEO salary at a million dollars.
They asked him what he thought of it.
I'm not going to get into these social things.
George, I'm here to talk about it.
The rich are never going to stand up and defend themselves.
Never going to happen.
A, they don't want you to know who they are.
B, there's no winning.
There's no winning.
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