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April 20, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:34
April 20, 2012, Friday, Hour #2
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It is our number two on the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show.
It's open line Friday.
On Monday, Mary Mateline will fill in.
And then on Tuesday, Rush returns.
Okay, Secret Service, Secret Service, Secret Service.
But first, when you're as ADD as I am, you should not do this.
But it kind of works for me and against me because I'm getting a lot of tweets and stuff like this.
Follow me on the Twitter if you want to.
The tweeter at Mark Davis, M-A-R-K-D-A-V-I-S.
The book I mentioned yesterday, seems like yesterday, last hour.
And I'm fascinated by this genre of 9-11 fiction.
I guess it's not too soon where people can start writing novels about 9-11.
Extremely loud and incredibly close was one.
That was fine.
That's kind of a tough read.
The submission by Amy Waldman was the one I mentioned.
A lot of people are asking about that.
The Submission by Amy Waldman.
Now, if we're doing a guest host bibliography book reading list, the Mark Book Club, let me throw you a bit of nonfiction while I have you for a moment.
And that is, because in this world, in Rush's world, in my world, and various other people doing talk shows, if there's any route that we travel, usually fairly delicately, it's in looking at conservatism and not just conservatism, in looking at problems we have to solve.
And some of them seem to be fiscal nuts and bolts kinds of problems.
Some of them seem to be national security problems.
And some of them seem to be social issues and moral problems, right?
And we compartmentalize them as if, well, we have social issues over here and the fiscal issues over there.
And they are problems of a different type.
But my very, very, very good friend, James Robinson, and his very, very good friend, who is now my good friend Jay Richards, have a magnificent book.
So if I can give you one more book before we're done today, it is Indivisible.
Indivisible, which of course invokes that term out of the Pledge of Allegiance, but also points out what the meaning of the word is with regard to the book, is that they say that all these problems, you can't separate them from each other.
There is a direction we have to follow.
There is a path that we should take.
That if you break it down and say that the fiscal issues are over there and right-to-life issues and marriage issues are over there and they have nothing to do with each other, that you make a horrible mistake.
These issues are in fact indivisible.
There is a path we should follow.
And of course, being James Robinson, it's going to be a path that has a heavily faith-related flavor.
So if that's your cup of tea, great.
If not, we'll read it anyway, see if it becomes your cup of tea.
But James Robinson and Jay Richards have penned Indivisible, which takes a look at all kinds of issues and actually offers a way, and here's a much maligned concept for us to come together and solve them.
Come together and solve them.
Usually when people talk about coming together and solving problems, it is under the guise of bipartisanship, one of the strangest concepts ever born of something that I think actually does not, in fact, exist, except in the rarest of circumstances.
What is bipartisanship?
What is consensus?
What is common ground?
I believe there are two, I mean, more than two, actually, but really two large ways of looking at the world, liberally and conservatively.
I've always believed let conservatism and liberalism come to the table with their best ideas.
Let the right come unapologetically with its best ideas.
Let the left come unapologetically with their best ideas.
Let the voters decide which way they want to go and then go that way and see how it works.
And if people aren't liking the way it works, then go the other way.
Rather than this watered down, mushy, middle ground, moderate middle-of-the-roadism that gets us precisely nowhere.
I was in a room with Grover Norquist in Texas not long ago.
He had come to do a speaking engagement, and he pointed this out perfectly.
If you think of it geographically, you are in Chicago, right?
You are in Chicago.
And there are two people who have your attention.
One of them wants to take you to New York, and the other wants to take you to Los Angeles.
What is the compromise position there?
There's no compromise position.
Somebody wants to take you east and somebody wants to take you west.
You gots to pick one.
Pick one and go.
Go to Los Angeles.
If you don't like it, go, ooh, that was a mistake.
Then go to New York.
And what is the middle ground?
What is the common ground position between the two forces, one of which loves expansionist collectivist government and the other side which seeks to dismantle that and bring us closer to the kind of government that the founders envisioned?
What is the compromise position there?
There is none.
You've got to do one or the other.
And under Obama, we've done one.
We've had expansionist, collectivist, wild-eyed overreach of government.
And now it is Mitt Romney's job and the rest of us who want him to be the next president of the United States.
I know, as we talked about yesterday, there were alternatives, and there still technically are, but get with it, people.
It's not going to work out that way.
Romney is the nominee.
And for all of you who had the affectionate tweets yesterday, I'm not selling out.
I mean, if it were three months ago, maybe, but Romney's going to be the nominee.
There are two kinds of people, people who can grasp that and people who can't.
People who can live with that and people who can't.
He is going to be the nominee.
Let us get behind him and make him better.
And let us energize him by osmosis with the kind of conservatism we wish he had on some issues.
That's what I'm ready to do.
That's what I'm ready to do.
But this common ground stuff, I mean, come on.
But what James Robinson and Jay Richards do in Indivisible is they say that there is common ground possible, but it does kind of involve accepting at face value their logic of how to best solve some of the problems that we have.
And so what we end up doing is examining some of these issues and taking a look at them through the lens that they choose.
And it's just, it's a wonderful read.
And so I've got one piece of fiction, Amy Waldman's The Submission, and one piece of nonfiction, James Robinson and Jay Richards, Indivisible.
They're on your reading list.
There, I'll leave you alone.
Have a good weekend.
Go do that beach reading, whatever kind of reading you want to do.
Okay, at last, here we go.
Secret Service.
I've always been fascinated by the Secret Service.
It was 1988, and I was in Memphis, and Bush 41, before he even became Bush 41, was coming to town.
It was candidate, George H.W. Bush, was coming to town for a visit for a speech.
And I was doing a talk show there at WHBQ in Memphis at the time.
And I got there like two hours early because I was so totally dorked out by this.
It's like, wow, political appearance, campaign trail comes to Memphis.
Woo-hoo, this is going to be great.
So I'm there, and there are a couple of Secret Service guys scoping the area.
A couple of Secret Service guys doing, you know, some advance work there and see, make sure, you know, got the dog.
There were dogs down the way, making, you know, sniffing out stuff.
And I started to just don't do this.
I started to engage in small talk with the Secret Service guy.
Hey, how's this gig?
How do you like this?
How do you get to do this?
What's the most interesting thing you've ever done?
Just a bunch of nerdy questions from me.
And he so kindly and so graciously answered them.
And then we finally got to the point where he said, sir, I can't talk to you anymore.
I don't know if I just beaten him into submission or I was diverting his attention.
We had reached the point where then candidate, Vice President Bush's arrival was so close on the clock that he had to stop enduring questions from the goofy talk show guy and start actually doing his job.
I've had the opportunity to talk to and interview a lot of current and former Secret Service guys since, and I have nothing but the greatest admiration for that.
Nothing but the greatest admiration.
So it is disheartening, it's disillusioning, it's unfortunate when something like the Columbia scandal arises.
And the first thing that I want to say is that just as the occasional Abu Ghraib, the occasional couple of other things we could mention of late, always photographic evidence of some small gaggle of our troops doing stuff they shouldn't ought to do, I will never allow that to adversely, to anyone to adversely portray our entire war effort because of little slivers of behavior like that.
Nor do I want the Secret Service to endure a reputational blow just because of these Colombian shenanigans.
Karen McVeigh, writing for The Guardian out of the UK, has an interesting piece about the Secret Service scandal and how it puts the agency's culture under a microscope.
What began as a quarrel, she writes, over payment between an escort and her client in a Columbian hotel two weeks ago has already claimed the careers of three members of the Secret Service.
Let me pause here in Karen's story and say that one of them is making noise about suing.
And that's really what kind of sparks my interest today, because up to now it's just been, wow, if you guys did a bad thing, okay, you know, let's look into that, punish them appropriately, and, you know, and get on with our lives.
But what should the punishment be?
Are these guys guilty of something really heinous, just horrible behavior?
I mean, they technically broke no law, apparently, in that portion of Columbia.
But is that the only place where the bar is set?
They broke no local law.
I'm sure the Secret Service can be deployed in various far-flung parts of the globe where they can do all kinds of nasty stuff that doesn't break local laws.
Is that the only standard to which we hold them?
Aren't there things that should apply in terms of a code of conduct for being a Secret Service guy that you shouldn't be dragging around strip clubs and calling up hookers?
So that might be our talk show topic, 1-800-282-2882.
But Karen McVeigh writes again in The Guardian: Action against those involved has been swift, but the news that two of the three forced out were senior supervisors with 20 years experience has done little for questions over whether the debacle involving an organization that prides itself on the strictest standards of ethical and professional behavior was a one-off or represents deeper systemic problems.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, who's been briefed on the investigation by the Secret Service director, Mark Sullivan, she said she found it hard to believe it hadn't happened before just because of the numbers involved.
In comments echoed by others, she said she was concerned that the episode suggests a culture problem.
Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has raised similar concerns.
Really?
Because I think we would all, we all kind of, I don't know about you, I rather comfort myself with the notion that this is a sharp aberration, that this is such a departure from the norm.
But it's going to be mightily depressing if we learn that stuff like this has probably been going on all the time.
One of those phenomena by which you learn that something's going on all the time.
We just didn't know about it yet.
Ronald Kessler, a journalist and author who helped break the story, said he doesn't believe the type of behavior displayed at Cartagena was widespread, but he does believe it is symptomatic of a culture of poor management, laxness, corner cutting.
Kessler told The Guardian, quote, the Secret Service is overwhelmed with more and more duties and not enough agents.
They're all working overtime.
Hadn't that been the case?
Has something changed radically in the Secret Service just recently?
Kessler accuses Secret Service Director Sullivan, who's been there for six years, of cutting corners that he claims has led to reckless behavior and contempt for the rules.
He cites examples of neglecting basic security precautions like not passing crowds through magnetometers at presidential events, but also cutting back on the size of counter-assault teams, not keeping up with the latest firearms, and not allowing agents time for physical and firearms training.
Really?
He says he believes the Columbia incident represents a deadly, serious security breach.
And this is, and this next part is why I consider this to be a huge problem, even if no local laws were violated.
Please, let's not have standards that are that lax.
These hookers could blackmail an agent into giving them access to terrorists.
They could later be approached by Russian foreign intelligence services to plant bugging devices.
I know it starts to sound like a bad Tom Clancy novel, but this is why the uppermost of behavioral standards is necessary for guys like the Secret Service.
All right, so there.
Finally, dealt with it.
Let's talk with you about that or various other things on your mind.
We got some poll numbers, some things from the campaign trail.
1-800-282-2882 and a big bunch of calls on the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis filling in.
We're diving into those calls next on the EIB network.
It is the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show.
Mark Davis filling in.
Let's see what's going on on the phone lines at 1-800-282-2882.
And always, always, even when the fill-in people are here, always go to rushlimbaugh.com.
Speaking of fill-in people, it's been my joy to be here yesterday and today.
Mary Madeline will be in on Monday, and Rush returns on Tuesday.
Let us head to Cincinnati, and that is you, Michael.
Hi.
Hi, Mark.
Thanks for taking my call.
My pleasure.
The Secret Service down in Columbia.
Okay, we already have established that they've broken no laws.
Now, I'm not so quick to jump on the bandstand that they should be fired just yet.
Did they break any specific CIA policy?
Well, they're not members of the CIA.
The Secret Service.
No, exactly.
This is what we're going to learn.
We're going to learn something very interesting that we might not know and maybe should not know, hence the term Secret Service.
What exactly do the manuals say?
Is there a page in there that says, hey, if you're covering the president, even if hookers are legal where you are, don't patronize the hookers.
If there is no such page in the manual, then that might be a hard case against them.
And maybe that's where the one guy talking lawsuit may base his claim.
But if that page does not exist, they should be writing it right now.
Because just between you and me, don't you want our Secret Service guys to avoid trolling the strip clubs in various countries around the world?
There is absolutely no question in my mind that is correct.
I do not want them engaged in immoral type activity or actually dealing when they're in a foreign country and they're the team, advanced team to set up the security for the president of the United States, whether you like the president or not, they shouldn't, unless in the official capacity, they should have no contact with anybody from that foreign country.
Yeah, I don't want them in a local sports bar watching soccer for three hours doing tequila shots.
I mean, let's take the hookers out of it.
Exactly.
Take the hookers out.
It's got nothing to do with that.
It has to do with the security of our president.
That's it.
So I don't know.
We're going to learn a lot about Secret Service culture and what's in the procedural manual, and that's going to have a lot to say about what ought to happen to these guys.
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate it very, very much.
We are in Albion, Michigan.
Chris, hey, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you?
Hey, how are you?
Good.
Good.
My comment is you guys talk about fair tax, flat tax, and so on.
And the right blames the left that they don't pay enough federal taxes.
But what's not ever said or talked about is the way that taxes are set up in this country is that they don't earn enough.
So if we earned more, we would pay more in taxes.
Well, yeah.
But the sector doesn't allow us to earn more.
Well, they keep us at a low rate.
I may be partially confused.
Let's see if I am.
You're absolutely right that most people's economic problems are because they don't make enough.
If you do make more, then good for you for making more.
But should our tax system punish you for making more?
I mean, should you pay, you know, 20% for making X amount, but then all of a sudden start paying 35% if you make six times that amount.
That is punishing you for your success.
Right, right.
But yet, then, the right says that with their loopholes and stuff, they practically pay not even what the average person pays.
Well, I think the loopholes...
They voted not to take those loopholes away.
They voted not to take the subsidies away from these oil companies, these big sugar companies.
Well, those are, yeah, let's tap the brakes on subsidies for oil companies, which are the exact same tax breaks that other big businesses get.
And listen, if you want to talk about doing away with some of those breaks for all kinds of businesses, I think that's a conversation I'd be glad to have with you.
The notion of loopholes, I think, can be wildly overstated.
If there are so many loopholes, why does the top 1% of wage earners pay 35% of the total tax bite?
Why does the top 10% pay 70% if all those loopholes are there just waiting, waiting to be plumbed?
But the loopholes, they use them.
That's why they won't get rid of them.
They offset that by the taxes they pay.
Correct.
They rely on those loopholes.
You are right.
There are forces that like to keep those loopholes there.
I would love to get rid of virtually all of them.
I'm an enormous fan.
Make $10,000, 17%.
Make $10 billion, 17%.
Could you go with me on that?
Could you ride with me on that?
Yeah, I'm more with the flat taxes with the way things are going now, but it's got to be a gradual flat tax.
If you put everybody in the same category at once, I think it's not going to be good for the future.
You're probably right.
You've got to walk, but you've got to crawl before you can walk.
And a lot of people, that freaks people out.
Eventually, though, if we're going to do a flat tax, it eventually does absolutely, absolutely have to be genuinely flat.
That's the definition of fair, an oft-misused word.
And yes, I did mean it when I said I want 17% from people making 10 grand.
We can't have half of America not paying taxes.
Everyone must have a dog in the hunt.
Everyone must have skins in the game in tax policy.
We have to have it that way.
To not do it, you just got givers, you got takers, you got producers, and consumers.
Back in a ball.
Smack dab in the middle of the Friday show.
Let's get back to your call.
Some Secret Service talk, some political talk.
A couple of poll numbers.
There is the NBC poll out today.
Obama at 49, Romney at 43.
Okay.
Polls are all over the place.
They always are all over the place in April of an election year.
I love the sort of the subhead of the NBC poll.
President has strong leads with Hispanics and women.
Yeah.
So did Al Gore.
So did John Kerry.
Democrats will always have strong leads with Hispanics and women.
We're working on that.
We're working on releasing that stranglehold.
But for now, it is no great mystery and no great guarantee of an Obama victory that he holds a big lead among Hispanics and women.
Now, will it be Governor Romney's job to get out there?
And it's funny because people will talk greatly about sort of outreach to women.
What are you going to do to appeal to women?
What are you going to do to appeal to Hispanics?
And I always want the Republican nominee to have the same answer.
Nothing unique.
I'm going to do for Hispanics and women what I want to do for everybody.
Increase their liberty, decrease their taxes, increase opportunity, protect their country.
As soon as you start to talk about specific things you're going to do for Hispanics or specific things you're going to do for blacks or specific things for women or specific things for members of a certain religion, you've walked down a very Democrat road because they are the ones who divide and conquer.
They are the ones who engage in identity politics.
You know, we talk about uniting and we talk about common ground, often mockingly, and properly so.
But if there's one thing I do want the Republican and conservative message to be, it is a unified message of no matter what color you are, no matter what sex you are, we want to do the same thing for you.
Give you back a bunch of your money.
Return your liberty to you.
Protect your country.
Conservatism is truly the mindset that does not care what color you are, what gender you are, what faith you are.
All right.
1-800-282-2882.
We are in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
Dwayne, hey, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you?
Hi, Mark.
How are you doing?
Good.
I just wanted to bring up the double standard with our elected officials when they're doing the same thing that the Secret Service is doing.
But, you know, I just feel that this story is a little blown out of proportion because it's the Secret Service.
But if it was the Congressman or something like that, they would be doing everything they could to sweep it under the road.
Well, you have a point, but sadly, there have been a number of stories of members of Congress involved in sleazy stories.
There have been, you know, we've gone through an era of a president involved in a sleazy story.
Secret Service guys, not so much.
And there's sort of, I invented quite by accident sort of the Mark Davis newsworthiness scale.
What is it that makes something newsworthy?
And the three concepts are familiarity, impact, and oddity.
Familiarity because we know who the people are involved in the story, impact because it affects our lives, and oddity because it's weird.
You know, twins, not a story.
Octuplets, big story.
All right.
Your neighbor gets married, not a story.
You know, Tony Romo gets married down in Dallas, that's a big story.
So familiarity, oddity, and impact.
Another member of Congress getting caught in some scandal isn't that odd.
Secret Service guys getting caught in a scandal is odd, so that's why it's front page stuff.
Well, until we hold our congressmen, you know, to the same standards that Everybody else's or even higher standard, which is my understanding of the story, is that the Secret Service should be held to a higher standard.
Exactly.
I believe our elected officials should be, too.
Exactly right.
And that's a superb point, Duane.
Thank you.
We have grown numb.
We have grown unflappable.
Eventually, after enough of these stories arise, it's like, well, that's just the way it's going to go, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Yes, there is something we can do about it.
We can maintain our not outrage.
We can maintain our high bar, maintain our high bar for the behavioral standards that we want from our elected officials, that we should want from each other, first of all, but that we want from our elected officials, that we want from appointed officials, that we want from our cops, that we want from our firefighters, that we want from our troops, that we want from our Secret Service guys.
It is because, for example, with regard to our troops, it is because we hold them in such high regard, and they deserve to be held in high regard, that it is particularly difficult to swallow and kind of heartbreaking.
It's like, oh, you just want to bang your head against the wall when you get that occasional photograph of, oh, here we are with the charred remains of some insurgents, or here we are peeing on some dead folks, or here we are stacking up people like a frat prank at Abu Ghraib.
Those are, yeah, that's why those are so bad.
Do they deserve to be used as devices to slam an otherwise noble war effort?
Of course not.
But as individual practices, as individual examples and just slivers of misbehavior, they hit us extra hard because it is the actions of people whom we hold to such a high standard.
Let us never relax those standards.
Let us never relax those standards.
It should be very, very special to be a Secret Service agent.
And it is very, very special to be a Secret Service agent.
Let's not go soft on this and get lax about this and go, well, every once in a while, a Secret Service guy is going to go trolling a strip club and looking for hookers if it's legal.
No, no, no.
Let's not give in on this, okay?
All righty.
1-800-282-2882.
Tim in Bloomington, Illinois.
Hi, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you?
Hi, Mark.
I'll identify myself first of all as part of the 1%.
Thank you.
And thank you for the productivity that put you there.
Put a little context to what I'm about to ask you and say: Warren Buffett, I think, is to be commended, along with Bill Gates, for their noble cause of donating to charity and leaving their considerable amount, vast amount of their fortune to charity in good causes.
Absolutely.
I think it's great.
What I find odd as someone who gives to charity as well is that the more money that I have goes to taxes, then the less money that I have that can go to charity.
That's it.
And I just scratch my head sometimes wondering about Mr. Buffett why he puts the federal government, in essence, his donation that he wants to make to the federal government.
He's making that such a big issue, even though we all know it's really not going to affect him, but he's elevating this conversation.
And in a sense, what he's doing to either himself or others that have the means and the ability to give to charity is he's really saying the federal government is more worthy and can do a better job with money than the Red Cross, than the United Way, than my local church or synagogue, whatever.
American Cancer Society, maybe.
Exactly.
And this is, and the answer to the question, the very good question you've posed, the answer to why he would say that is because on that issue, Mr. Buffett is a liberal.
And it is the belief of liberals that the rich do not pay enough in taxes.
And there are plenty of people who actually are rich who do not believe that the rich pay enough taxes.
Okay, they're entitled to that.
That was wrong, but they're entitled to it.
So look at Mr. Buffett's giving of all the places that he's giving to and then ask him, okay, where do you put the federal government above which of these causes do you believe in the federal government more than which one of these causes that you're contributing to?
I have a feeling if you have as much money as Warren Buffett, that even if his taxes did go up appreciably, it would not necessarily be a zero-sum game.
That would not necessarily mean that he has less to give to other factions.
He'd probably find a way to squeeze that out.
But your point is still well taken.
And may I ask you something, if indeed you've been successful and diligent enough to be one of the 1%, how much of your charitable giving is driven by its tax deductibility?
If we had the simplest of flat taxes, which took away the tax deductibility of your charitable giving, how would it affect your charitable giving?
It would not affect it at all.
I believe that is the majority answer.
I mean, is it nice to get a tax break for charitable giving?
Sure.
I'd give it up in a heartbeat.
I'd give it up in a heartbeat.
All right, sir.
Thank you very, very much.
And the moment of irony for me a moment ago was thoroughly intended as I talked about possible donation from Mr. Buffett to the American Cancer Society, what with that fresh prostate cancer diagnosis for him.
And there's only one thing to say about that, and that is to have every prayer that it is as early detection and as easy to treat and as uneventful as he and his folks say that it is.
Because, you know, we can talk all day about how crazy Mr. Buffett's ideas are about tax rates, but some things supersede politics.
And anybody who pops up with a prostate cancer diagnosis, every prayer, every prayer in their direction.
All righty, it is 1-800-282-2882.
Phone number on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Mark Davis, filling in, and more of your calls are next on the EIB Network.
282-2882.
Sorry.
1-800-282-2882.
Don't mess up the phone numbers on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Or the website, rushlimbaugh.com.
Or where the next call is coming from.
And that is Joe.
It's caller named Joe Day in Mojave Valley, Arizona.
How are you, sir?
Mark Davis in for Rush.
Welcome.
Hey, Mr. Davis.
Good afternoon.
Thank you for taking my call.
My pleasure.
One of the aspects of this Secret Service detail is the fact that this took place in their work area, meaning the hotel that they was staying in, which I assume was the same one the president was going to stay in, which would compromise by giving a lot of data to an outsider as to what's going on by just physically watching and observing.
So I can see why, if that was the basis of the reason why there was recalled, then that makes sense to me.
Yeah, it is there.
If there's something that I try to keep close to me at all times, and whether it's Trayvon and Zimmerman or this or whatever, it's that the passage of time will always reveal things that we did not know and circumstances that we did not know.
All we have right now are the broad platitudes of this story just kind of makes us get the creeps, and we wish our Secret Service guys would not be doing things like this.
And it makes us ask the parlor game question: is this brand new?
Is this a new kind of wrinkle in Secret Service behavior?
Or has stuff like this been going on all the time and we're only just now starting to hear about it?
Maybe so, but discretion is a better part of valor, right?
It is, but I'd like for there not to be a need for discretion because our secret service guys are whoring around.
There's some types of discretion I don't want to put in the bank that I don't want to have to draw on.
I don't want there to have to be a deep well of discretion so we can protect our secret service guys from the times when they've just got to hit a strip club.
Well, they're kind of at the tail end of the dog because of all these things going on where the president's bowling and stuff like that to different dignitaries abroad and apologizing for us.
And then on top of that, the Secret Service, in a way, shaming us.
I mean, this whole government thing just, it's awful.
Well, and that's why no matter who's president, there are always things that you want to admire.
You always want to admire the troops, and I always will.
And I always want to admire the Secret Service guys, too.
And so anything that gets in the way of my admiring the Secret Service guys is a problem that needs to be dealt with very, very quickly.
And I hope that it will be.
Thank you, sir.
We are in the Pacific Northwest.
We're in Seattle.
Juan, Mark Davison, for Rush.
How are you, sir?
I'm doing well, sir.
Thank you very much.
My pleasure.
I wanted to propose my perspective on how I think tax reform should look.
And what I believe is that as somebody who wants to get jobs and earn money, I think that rich people should be able to keep all of their money.
And I think we should have no income tax, and we should only tax energy.
Whoa.
And so that we can, because what will happen is people will work as hard as they can to make as much money as they can.
And in the meantime, they'll become more energy efficient.
It'll be better for the environment.
All right.
Why?
Oh, boy.
Wow.
Okay.
All right.
I fearfully plod forward and see if we can examine this.
What is it?
I love the idea of letting the wealthy keep more, or in your case, actually, all of their money.
But by what logic do we assume that if they do so, that that will automatically lead us toward green energy?
Well, it's not that it has to be green energy.
You can use the same fossil fuels that are currently in use.
It's just that I think that people should become more efficient with the energy that they have.
And that as long as they use less of it and conserve more and become more efficient in the market.
Okay, I get it.
I see it.
So if we're letting people have virtually all of their income, but gas is seven bucks a gallon, then that'll guide us toward energy efficiency.
Well, the argument that I'm making actually is made by Greg Mankiw, who was the head of the Council of Economic Advisors under Bush.
And it comes from the idea that you only tax things that you want less of.
Well, exactly right.
I don't necessarily want less energy consumption.
I want exactly as much energy consumption as people want to consume.
I don't want to have government stepping in there and telling me that we're going to make your life hell if you have a vehicle that gets less than 40 miles per gallon.
So how about, if I can make an alternate suggestion, how about we tax people at a fair and consistent rate, no matter what they make?
The flat tax does this.
Sales tax is second best idea.
And then we have a stable oil market with fossil fuels for as long as people want to use them.
And if we want to run our cars on solar or corn pone or peanut butter at some point, we can do that too.
But then tax those at a sensible rate as well and just have sensible taxes all around rather than guiding human behavior with confiscatory, punitive taxes on certain things.
How about that?
I mean, that's the counter argument.
And so I don't know if you want to count tax investment and income at different rates, but I believe that no capital gains should ever be taxed because we want the people to reinvest that money.
You know, I totally agree.
Exactly.
When people talk about Mitt Romney's tax rate or Warren Buffett's tax rate versus his secretary, those are two totally different types of income.
Listen, I've got about a minute, but let me spend it with you because it's a little game I've always played on every show I've always done.
But where would you say you are politically?
Are you conservative, liberal, moderate?
What do you think you are?
Well, I took the Pew Research poll, and they said that I was a conservative Democrat.
No such thing.
I agree with the Republicans about 40% of the time.
All right, give me three liberal views that you are proud to hold.
I believe that if gay is your way, that's okay.
People should be free to live their way any way that they like.
All right, that's a human decency thing.
Should there be, is having gay marriage recognized as the equal of heterosexual marriage, is that an absolute right?
No, and I think the definition of the word marriage implies that it's directly between a man and a woman.
There you go.
Okay, so that does not, because the liberal view is that gay marriage, the equanimity of gay marriage, is a right.
Try again.
Give me a liberal view that you're proud to hold.
I believe that people should respect the environment.
I do too.
It doesn't work.
No, no, no.
Everybody should respect the environment.
Do you believe that corporations are evil?
Coal industry is evil?
Do you believe absolutely that man is causing the planet's temperature to rise?
No, I don't know that.
I'm not a climatologist.
I have news for you.
I have news for you.
You may take it however you like.
It is good news, bad news, whatever, but you are not, sir.
You are not, sir.
You are not, in fact, a liberal.
Go in peace.
Rush Limbaugh Show.
Mark Davis filling in.
Be right back.
Mark Davis in for Rush.
Final day.
Final hour coming up in just a moment.
Mary Mateline in on Monday and Rush back on Tuesday.
You do not, in fact, have to be a talk show host to engage in this vigorous exercise with people.
It's called Give Me Three Liberal Views You're Proud to Hold.
I've used this on the air for years.
It's always fun.
Because the thing is, a lot of people think they're Democrats.
They cannot bring themselves to say I'm a Republican or I'm a conservative.
So put them to the test.
Say, all right, give me three liberal views you are proud to hold.
And if they say I'm pro-choice, I believe in man-made climate change, and I prefer government solutions, then you found yourself a liberal.
That's fine.
More often than not, they will learn otherwise.
Just sit back and enjoy the fun.
Well, sit back and enjoy our final hour.
It's coming up next.
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