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Dec. 20, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
29:55
December 20, 2012, Thursday, Hour #3
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It's the fastest three hours in media hosted by me, the kind gentle, unthreatening.
Not gonna ever make you nervous.
Rush Limboy here behind the golden EIB microphone, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
The telephone number, if you want to be on the program is 800-282-288 to the email address Lrushbaugh at EIB net.com.
Okay.
Here's the latest.
Here's the latest on the fiscal cliff and plan B. Boehner met with the media, what about uh oh 40 minutes ago or so, maybe a little bit longer than that.
And he said that Obama and the Senate Democrats haven't done much anything.
That their plan B is to slow walk us over the fiscal cliff.
Jay Leno had had it best.
Boehner has plan B. Obama's using plan F and plan U. And that's what we're dealing with here.
Now, a couple hours before Boehner spoke today, Mitch McConnell, who's the Republican leader in the Senate, said that Obama really wants the fiscal cliff.
He wants to go over the cliff.
He wants everybody's taxes to go up to pay for his big government.
He wants to soak everybody.
McConnell said it should be perfectly obvious now.
And it is, and I I hate say I told you so, but I've I think it's I think it's been the easiest thing in the world to conclude that Obama wants to go over the fiscal cliff.
Now those of you who listen to the program regularly have heard the reasons why I think that.
And it very briefly, I'll just repeat, Obama is seeking to be a transformational president, not just transform the country.
He wants to be seen as transformational president.
And one of the things and this is pure politics.
It has nothing to do with governing, it has nothing to do with your life or making it better or worse.
It has nothing to do with with the country.
It did not it it this is pure, pure politics.
What Obama is doing is attempting to secure from the Republicans a concession that tax cuts have caused all these problems that we face.
The Reagan tax cuts, the Bush tax cuts, by the way, which were only for the rich if you listen to Obama.
Which is not true, Reagan and Bush cut taxes for everybody that pays taxes.
But Obama, the Democrats continue to call them tax cuts for the rich.
But what Obama's after is for the Republicans by virtue of agreeing with him on policy.
They don't expect Boehner to stand up and say, I confess my policies have led to the problem.
They want Boehner's actions to signify that.
What Obama is after is for Boehner to agree to raise taxes.
Even on the rich, that'll do.
If Boehner agrees to raise taxes on the rich, then the Republicans are conceding that that's the problem.
And that deficit reduction and debt reduction can be addressed by raising taxes on the rich.
Obama and the Democrats are desperate to get that concession from the Republicans.
They're desperate for it.
In a pure political sense, and then many people on the right do not see that.
Many people on the right on their blogs are disagreeing with me vehemently, although not by name.
They're not using my name, but they're they're they're saying that saying things like that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard, that what Obama wants is to destroy the Republican brand being for low taxes.
I don't know what's so hard to see about it.
Obama is about destroying his political opposition.
Any good politician is about that.
The Republicans are not about that.
The Republicans are into this mode that we got to get along with them because that's what they think low information or independent voters want.
It's everybody get along.
The evidence that the independents don't care about that, nobody else cares about that.
Obama and the Democrats have a search and destroy mission on every Republican opponent, and they never pay a price for it.
They win.
So the Republicans are living in a dream world if they think a majority of Americans want us all to work together in a bipartisan way.
So while the Republicans are out trying to make that happen, they're being erased.
And Obama's got the eraser, and that's his objective.
And if he can get the Republicans to agree with his premise that the rich aren't paying their fair share, then the Republicans are giving up a lot of what they're known for.
And that's what he's after here.
But Rush, but Rush going over to Cliff would raise taxes for Yeah, and I guarantee you, I don't care what you make, your taxes are going up at this guy's president.
I don't care what he says now, I don't care what he said four years ago, everybody's taxes are going up.
They're going to have to go up to pay for what this guy intends.
There isn't going to be a single person who escapes tax increases in this country.
Don't care who you are, don't care where you live, don't care how much money you make.
But this deal, the politics of this deal, we go over the cliff, and January 1st, everybody's taxes go up, including the middle class.
Now, McConnell is right.
Obama wants everybody's taxes to go up, but here's what else Obama wants.
He wants, after those taxes go up, to be the guy who proposes tax cuts.
After blaming the Republicans for everybody's tax increases, because they wouldn't go along.
They wouldn't agree.
They wouldn't agree to raise taxes on the rich.
So everybody's taxes went up.
Republicans protecting the rich, everybody's tax.
That's what's going to be said.
Then Obama gets to be the hero.
He gets to come in and very soon propose tax cuts.
And then he owns the tax cut issue.
Or if he doesn't own it, he's certainly going to benefit from it.
He's going to get the credit for it from people.
And the low information voter ain't going to know the difference.
Now, how's Boehner trying to counter that?
Okay, Boehner's plan B is to agree to a tax increase on everybody making over a million dollars a year.
Now, this is a tax cut on a lot of rich people.
But Obama's numbers 400,000, now moved up from 250 to 400.
That means people that make between 400,000 and 999,000 would not see a tax increase under Boehner's plan B. There's a lot of money in there that Obama wants.
Yesterday in his press availability, he made it sound like somebody making $900,000 is Warren Buffett.
And they're not paying their fair share either.
And he doesn't think they ought to be getting away with it without paying their own their tax increase.
Now to many people, Boehner's plan B is a cave.
To some people on our side, it's a cave because it's exactly what Obama wants.
It's Boehner, the Republicans, agreeing to raise taxes on the rich under the premise that the problems exist because the rich got their tax cut in the first place and therefore have been paying their fair share.
Obama does, I guarantee these low information people, they do believe that we have a deficit and a national debt and an economy in a mess because the rich aren't paying their fair share.
Now, you may think nobody's that dumb.
I'm telling you they believe it.
That's what all this means.
That's what Obama's after.
An agreement that his claim is true, that tax cuts for the rich caused all this.
Not his spending.
Not the Democrats spending, not any spending.
Spending's not the problem here.
Too many rich people aren't paying their fair share.
So Boehner, okay, you want tax increase on the rich.
Here you go, but only on people making a million dollars a year or more.
Now there are some conservatives in the conservative media who are supporting this.
And let me tell you how they're doing it.
Here's the, and it's right out of the baseline budgeting manual of persuasion.
The law of the land right now is that everybody's taxes go up on January 1st.
Everybody who pays income taxes will see a significant significant increase In their income tax rate, their percentage on January 1.
It has been calculated that over 10 years, these rate increases will produce in a static economy 4.1 trillion dollars.
So it is being said that on the books, the law of the land, fiscal cliff, law of the land, January 1, taxes go up 4.1 trillion dollars.
Boehner comes along, proposes that everybody under a million dollars gets no tax increase.
The conservative media that I have seen selling this is saying, how can any conservative oppose a 4.1 trillion dollar tax cut?
Goes like this.
Law of the land, January 1, everybody's taxes go up to the tune of a total of $4 trillion over 10 years.
If Obama signs Plan B, agrees to Boehner, then taxes won't go up $4 trillion.
Everybody's tax rate will stay the same.
That is being called a tax cut.
Your tax rate staying the same is being called a tax cut in order to sell Plan B. And it's persuasive to some because the law, the land is, and on January 1, you're going to get a tax increase.
But if Plan B is signed, you won't.
Therefore, since your taxes aren't going up, then they're going to be cut.
But nobody's taxes are being cut.
Nobody paying what rate they're paying today is going to see their rate go down.
Nobody is going to see their rate get smaller.
But it is true that everybody's rates could go up or would go up on January 1 if there is no agreement.
So now what's happened is that in order to sell Plan B among the conservative intelligentsia, it's being touted as a $4 trillion plan B equals a $4 trillion tax cut.
The end result is that your taxes won't change as opposed to go up.
And it is a tax increase if your taxes go up on January 1.
And if they don't go up, then yeah, you might say your taxes.
Well, you can say they aren't going up.
It's playing with the language to say you're getting a tax cut.
Because in order for you to get a tax cut, the taxes would have to go up, and then somebody would have to come in and lower the rates again, which is what Obama wants to do.
Obama wants that.
He wants to offer a tax cut for certain number of people that live in the middle class after everybody's taxes go up.
He could be the guy riding in on the white horse to save the day from the evil Republicans who saw to it that everybody's taxes went up while they tried to protect the rich.
That's the line Obama can't wait to use.
He's already using it now.
So that's where this thing stands.
Thank you.
So the pressure is on conservatives in the House and Republicans in the House to support Boehner's plan B. On the premise that Boehner's plan B is a $4 trillion tax cut.
Now at some point next year, everybody's taxes are going up, no matter what happens here on Plan B or the fiscal cliff.
And then at some point this argument really isn't even about taxes anymore.
It's about liberty and freedom and the kind of country we're going to have and us serving government rather than government serving us.
All of this is serving to establish That everything we do is for government.
And that everything we own and produce is governments.
Our income, our property, and that whatever we end up with is because of their good graces and their benevolence, allowing us to keep X of what we produce.
Rather than us agreeing they only get to take X amount of what we produce.
And that's a major transformation.
It's a major thing.
It's underway.
It's happening regardless of what happens with the fiscal cliff and with uh with plan B. Now, I realize here that let me ask you, Mr. Snodley.
I've just spent a good fourteen minutes explaining it.
Do you think any low information voter who might have been listening has learned anything?
They left after the reference to baseline budgeting and tax rates and fiscal cliff and right.
Yeah.
Now, if I had related it to Snooky and her baby's income and maybe formula, then maybe I could have attracted their interest.
Or one of the real housewives of wherever.
But regardless, I just want to say that that's we we've gotten to the point now where even Republicans are touting tax rates staying the same as a tax cut.
And arguably everybody's taxes would go up on January 1 under the cliff.
And they won't if.
And by the way, one more thing.
Boehner's plan B is exactly what Pelosi and Schumer suggested in the last uh six months and two years, respectively, and both Schumer and Pelosi are walking.
Oh, no, no, no.
Those proposals were made under entirely different economic circumstances.
I I don't support what I proposed six months ago.
Pelosi said, I was just I was just making a political maneuver.
I didn't really mean it.
So all the Democrats who support Boehner's plan B are running away from it because they all want to go over the cliff.
They all want your taxes to go up.
They want your money.
They want it to spend as their own.
They don't want you keeping it.
Hey, I've got to take a break.
Much more straight ahead.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back.
you By the way, the people in Newtown, Connecticut, are really ticked off at the media.
They are claiming the media is making everything worse.
Have details on that.
But here, folks, here's something else.
Along the lines of the fiscal clip and the tax deal, story from CNN Money.com.
The headline, lack of AMT fix could delay 100 million dollars or 100 million tax returns.
We get a story like this every year, every time there is a budget dispute.
We get a story, says here, as many as 100 million taxpayers may be unable to file their returns until late March.
Means you won't get your refund.
Face a refund delay if Congress fails to reach a fiscal cliff deal by December 3rd.
So you see, here's more pressure being brought to bear on you.
You now are supposed AMT fix, I'm not going to get my refund to hell with it.
And you're supposed to call Boehner and a Republicans and tell them to cave.
So that you get your refund.
Every time there's a budget story, every damn time.
We get a story like this in the drive-by media.
It mentions here in passing, without a patch, $45,000 for joint filers, $33,000 for single taxpayers, is exempt from the ANT.
You go on and say all these numbers and so forth.
Your world is going to end, basically.
If the Republicans don't cave.
You won't be able to file.
You may get late penalties because of the Republicans.
That's what the story is.
Welcome back.
By the way, we have randomly selected the three winners in the last for the year, two if by T sweepstakes.
These are the six people who get to come here and watch the we bring them here for three days and two nights at a fashionable seaside resort, all expenses paid, and they get to come by watch the show.
Now we haven't called them yet.
We're going to be calling the winners today or tomorrow at some point.
And we always try to time the phone call when we think people will be home.
We want to talk to them.
But quite naturally, uh, we block our number so as not to give it away.
And most people, when they see blocked, don't answer.
They only go to voicemail.
So we leave voice.
Catherine and I call.
We leave voice message announcing that they've won, and then they kick themselves for not picking up the phone.
So I just want to let you know that we we've got the winners.
I'm not going to announce the names here.
Um, but we're going to be calling either today or tomorrow to announce it to these people, so keep a sharp eye.
Never know.
It uh it could be you.
Marco Rubio was on Hannity last night uh, and he explained why tax cuts on the rich don't help anybody.
And he's one of few Republicans talking like this, which is why he's become a target, by the way, of the Obama left.
Hannity said to him, What's wrong with making the case that the Republicans of the party against generational theft?
It's a winning issue for any party that makes that case.
Now said the problem with that is what low information voter even knows what generational theft is.
The way you would have to ask this question.
Now you got Rubio on, and you say, Well, Senator, let me explain to you uh explain to me why it is that raising taxes on the Kardashians isn't gonna help anybody.
I mean, for for ex or or or on Snooky.
All raising taxes on Snooky is gonna do is take money away from her new baby.
Because we don't know about Snooky's husband.
We haven't ever heard anything about him.
So, Senator, why why is raising taxes on the Kardashians or on Snooky not going to help anybody?
That way you avoid the whole term generational theft.
Who knows what that is?
You know, amongst low information voters.
Um it's it's uh not complicated.
This may be the way that we have to phrase these questions.
Here was Rubio's answer.
This is the great flaw in all these arguments the president's making that I wish more people were talking about.
If you raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans or what he calls the wealthiest Americans, people making $250,000 or more, if you raise that by a hundred percent, that doesn't solve anything.
Doesn't solve anything.
And then he explained why.
I explained this to someone the other day that I met.
It's someone who works at a law firm and actually said to me, Yeah, let the taxes go up on the richest people.
And I said, Well, that may sound great to you, but let me explain to you what that means.
That means your boss, an S corporation in a single lawyer, single law firm, uh and and I also met someone in a dental clinic in a similar position.
If their taxes go up next year by $50,000, they're gonna have to find that money from somewhere, and it might be from your benefits, it might be from your hours, it might be from your job.
Those are the people that are gonna get hurt by this.
And in return, you generate six, seven, eight days worth of government spending.
That's not a solution.
Now, he went on to say that that explanation woke this person up.
For the first time this person understood.
Now, who is this person?
This person is already working in a law firm.
Now you have to have certain smarts, you've got to have a certain amount of guile.
You have to to work in a law firm.
Somebody working in a law firm didn't understand how her boss being forced to pay 50,000 more might affect her.
She was looking at it as though it's gonna help the government.
And how does help f for a few days?
And how does that help her?
And that's what Rubio explained to her.
It doesn't, it's it's not gonna change anything.
It's not gonna make a difference to the government.
All it's gonna do is make it harder on your boss to pay you.
And that made the connection.
When the tax increase on the Boss was shown to affect the employee.
You see, one of the things that I have found over the course of my highly productive and star studded life is this.
Most people, when they think of businesses, think they're rolling in money.
They by definition, they think businesses have a bank account full of money that they're not using.
And that if somebody says they need $50,000, okay, fine, go get it.
Then it's there.
And Rubio is pointing out look, this this your your boss, what happened to be Guy Hung a shingle, single lawyer firm, files as a sub S. What's a sub-S.
Uh.
It's the way Ben Affleck pays his taxes.
It's the way Oprah pays hers.
Oprah's a sub-S.
And every time Oprah's taxes go up, somebody in her staff might get fewer hours.
There might be fewer prizes for the audience.
Oprah might not be able to give away as many cars.
Oh, that's Oprah doesn't have an audience.
Well, you get the point, though.
I mean, you you you get the drift.
But they do.
They think that they're th that businesses have a stash of money that they're not being used, and if somebody says I need 50 grand, they just go get it.
There is that misconception that exists out there.
Here's Carl in Troy, Michigan.
Hi, Carl, I'm glad you called.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks for calling.
I was a liberal a long time.
You brought me over, you taught me so much, and because of you, I don't have to listen to the I don't turn on any news.
I listen to you, and thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
That's that is good for you.
I know.
I know, and I know you've got to do the dirty work and your staff, they're fantastic.
I mean, uh really.
The reason I'm calling How would you know that?
Because I can hear when you play it back, and I can't stand I can't stand hearing those guys.
And you have to listen to them.
Oh, oh, I see.
I see.
Okay.
I can tell.
I mean, you uh you know, one or two lies, you know, how many can you take?
Yes, yes.
I what happened is I'm retired from the post office and when you work for the government, you know, everyone stabs you in the back.
I was in the army and everyone tries to back you, you know, uh help you.
And I didn't realize that.
And I got beat up all the time for my 30 years in the post office.
Wait a minute.
Everybody in the government stabs you in the back?
Well, that's how government works.
Like in 911, you know how they didn't share that information when the the defense department didn't didn't share with the Yeah, but that was because the Clinton administration had put up this wall and the FBI wasn't allowed to share with the CIA.
Yeah, but that's part of government.
I do all the work.
Why should I share it with you and give you the credit?
Everybody ever when you work for the government, you s everybody is stabbing everybody in the back.
I thought that's really surprising me.
I thought everybody at the government was best friends and got along and it was uh you know a wonderful like a club.
No, that's not not even close.
I don't know.
Really?
I'm shocked.
No way.
And so what happened is I got beat up all these years, and I noticed, and I I I want to be honest, and I played, I took the high road, and I knew that it was not my job to watch other people's misfortune.
And throughout the years that my retirement and the later years at the work, I noticed that just about everybody got punished so bad.
And I it's not my job to keep track of your punishment.
See, like Kennedy or Bork, it's not my job.
But the thing is is that I know who's j who whose place I'd rather be in, Bork's or Kennedy's.
I mean, that's obvious I mean, well, I mean, if we're conservative, but still, I mean, that's almost obvious.
The same thing is I saw people, and this guy lies so much, Obama, that you know, that I'm not even almost I'm I mean, he's gonna do a lot of damage to the country, but the thing is is that he will I seen it so many times.
People destroy themselves and uh and just with uh I don't want to mention, you know, like got or whatever.
I mean, it's I mean there's and I'm are you saying here that eventually everything evens out and people get theirs.
Yes, but it's not my job to know to keep the table straight, you know, because I'm not in charge of the world.
And so sometimes when I a singing Connecticut, I can't we can't explain things.
It's not my job to explain things or to understand everything.
Well, you know the thing in Connecticut.
Um everybody in a in in an incident like that.
Everybody thinks that there's something they can do to change it at the t and and uh you know what else?
There's another phenomenon about this.
I first noticed it's older than this.
I just first noticed it with the death of uh Princess Diana.
Remember all the people who lined the funeral procession route, and you remember all those people who brought flowers and so forth?
Yes.
You know what they were doing?
They wanted to be part of the story.
And so an event like this happens, and everybody wants to be part of it somehow.
Seen as sympathetic, caring, uh have a solution, uh maybe a a suggestion to make uh the families of the victims feel better.
Everybody wants to be part of whatever wherever the media goes and makes a big deal out of something, people want to be part of it because then they want to be they want to think of themselves as being part of it and part of the solution.
And you're right, that there's nothing anybody can do.
It Schultz or the guy in M MSN or whoever all those guys, you know, you can lie so many times and it's gonna catch up to you.
I I you know, I had to repent like twenty years to get rid of my lies that I did twenty years ago, you know.
I mean, they weren't they were little ones, you know, we all do things.
And uh I feel sorry for them.
I uh you know, I don't hate 'em.
I don't want to listen to 'em.
And for playing the the 'cause I don't listen to 'em.
I block my ears and I say, get off my radio.
Yeah, yeah, and uh Jay Z was telling Beyonce that just the other day.
He was.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Carl, you bet I appreciate that.
Thank you so much, your kind words.
I really appreciate it.
We're gonna take a brief time out.
We'll be right back.
Don't go away.
You see where uh NASA being flooded with calls from low information voters um asking if the world is gonna end tomorrow, like the Mayans are predicting.
NASA this is and we're f this very fortunate.
NASA is able to set 'em straight.
Uh NASA scientists are assuring the low information people calling them that it'll probably be another ten years before the world is destroyed by global warming.
Uh and that the Mayans were just off by a little bit.
And then they said, Well, we're not we're we're working on Muslim outreach anyway.
All we know is that global warming is gonna destroy the world in ten years, and we're worried about the Al Qaeda in a Congo right now with Ben Affleck.
So and they hang up on him.
You can't win.
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