Welcome back to the EIB Network and Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
And I'm America's real anchor man.
I'm a real media guy.
And we're here at 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address, lrushbo at eibnet.com.
You know what?
In addition, is it 20 and 21?
I'm just looking at maybe nine, maybe 10, and 11 and 12 as well.
Now, folks, Obama is out, as I mentioned.
He's already announcing details of the upcoming State of the Union show.
And one of the big deals, and right here, in fact, theHill.com has it right here.
Obama plays Robin Hood.
Now, that's wrong, by the way.
The story of Robin Hood is routinely misrepresented.
The story of Robin Hood is represented is that Robin Hood and his band of merry men and Lady Marion, who was there for the sex, decided to leave Sherwood Forest every now and then and go steal things from the rich and give them back to other people in the forest and Lady Marion.
But that's not what Robin Hood did.
Robin Hood didn't steal from the rich.
He stole from the government.
That's what they never tell you.
But it's plain as day.
If you ever watched the Robin Hood show, I did when I was growing up, black and white, Lady Marion, you knew what she was there for.
But the sheriff of Nottingham was not the government.
That too was always trying to catch Robin Hood.
He was stealing from them.
And basically what Robin Hood was trying to do was simply get back the money that had been confiscated in the form of confiscatory taxes.
He was not stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
That's one of the biggest myths it's ever come down to pank.
So when theHill.com says Obama plays Robin Hood, that's not what Obama, well, Obama is doing that, but he's not, it's not Robin Hood.
Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is a fairy tale.
It's redistributionist.
Robin Hood was a tax protester.
Obama is not playing Robin Hood.
Obama is going to play Jonathan Gruber.
Obama is hoping the American people is too stupid to realize that these tax increases that he has posed, has proposed, will actually impact the middle class the greatest.
Obama's reason for this is the continuing, supposedly continuing widening gap between rich and poor, the wealthy.
There's a stat that's out there today.
And I'm telling, folks, this is the kind of thing that you need to greet with skepticism like you've never had skepticism before.
There is a statistic, and it comes from some supposed respectable outfit.
Must say I've never heard of them.
And the statistic today is that 1% of the world's population controls over half the world's wealth.
Let me tell you right away why that's bogus.
The world's wealth, much more than half of it, is in the hands of governments.
It is not in the hands of private citizens for crying out loud.
That's simple math.
And yet, here we go.
Here we go.
We're now being told that they're rich.
What do they do?
They steal.
And they've been stealing and they're continuing to steal.
And who do they steal from?
The middle class and the poor.
Why, who knew those people had so damn much money?
The rich continue to steal, and they've stolen so much now that the 1% of the rich now have half the money in the world.
Well, folks, it's easy to believe because you've been built up for it.
You've been hearing that 1% controls this percentage of wealth, this percentage, finally reached the break of 1% over half.
I would reject that off the top.
I'd reject that.
I don't know how anybody could ever prove that anyway.
I don't know how mathematically that could ever be established, despite the fact this group, whoever it is, claims to have done it.
But the point is, Obama is writing that.
And he's using this continuing gap between rich and poor to say, look, if the rich, if rich, if the rich are not going to share their money, I mean, if all the rich are going to do is just keep taking it and taking it, taking it, and by golly, by gosh, I'm going to go get it back from them for you.
And you're supposed to go, yay, Obama.
So Obama's proposed a bunch of massive new tax increases on the quote-unquote wealthy.
And those tax increases on the wealthy, where's the government going to go?
Where's the money going to go?
To you?
No.
It's going to go to the government.
And Obama's buddies are going to get it right back again.
You're never going to see it.
Obama wants you to think you're going to see it.
He wants you to think that he's going to raise taxes on rich.
And the rich are going to pay these new taxes.
And all this new money is going to be coming into Washington.
Obama's going to take it and he's going to start giving a little of it back to those of you who deserve it more.
And that is not how you get rich in America.
It is not how you end up in the middle class.
To end up in the middle class, you got to work.
To end up in the upper middle class, you got to work or be born a Kennedy.
If you want to end up being in the top 5%, you got to work.
Nobody in the top 5% is getting redistributed money.
Nobody in the top 5%, nobody in the top 10% is sitting there idly waiting for government to redistribute.
They are outworking.
This is so bogus.
This is another attack on trickle-down, how the rich are not spending, the rich are not giving, the rich are not donating, the rich are not this or that.
And therefore, you're ending up with less.
And so Obama wants you to think, those of you in the middle class, lower middle class, whatever, that, no, don't even think about getting a job.
That's not the way out.
The way we're going to get things even, the way we're going to take care of you is going to raise taxes under 1% and redistribute the money.
Well, how in the hell are you going to get it?
Do you know anybody?
Let's say in your town, the rich part of town, everybody knows where it is.
You'll see, you go drive through the rich part of town and you see a big house.
You think, well, probably got junk cars because who could afford it?
And then you see the car that's, you know, maybe a couple hundred grand a car sitting outside in the driveway.
You see the big house.
And then you see the wife leave the house.
See the jewels and the diamonds and all that.
Holy smokes.
Do you think they're sitting around waiting for redistributed wealth to come their way?
They're not.
This whole idea of redistributing wealth with the false premise that this is going to somehow improve people's standard of living, this is absurd.
It's always been absurd.
But this class envy business never fails.
It seems to work.
It's a puzzling thing.
And you know why it works, actually?
Because the middle class, some of them, and the poor, have been conditioned over a number of years to cheer what they think is the rich suffering.
And it stops there.
It doesn't matter whether the rich suffering means an additional 10 grand a year to the poor, because then it doesn't.
Just the fact that the rich are going to pay some more taxes, that's enough alone to do it.
Whether it's going to benefit you or not, and it won't, doesn't matter.
Just the idea that the rich are getting Obama's going to take it to him.
That's all a lot of people need to support it.
Now, the conventional wisdom is that Obama's tax increases don't stand a prayer because the Republicans now control both the House and the Senate, and there is no way, Jose, that the Republicans are going to agree to Obama's massive tax increases and redistribution scheme.
And on the surface, I would agree with that.
But there was a day when the Republicans would never sign on to Comprehensive Immigration Reform Amnesty either.
And there was also a day when the Republicans would not give up on implementing Obamacare and agree with that too.
So with this current crop and with the fear of opposing Obama as big as it's ever been, you oppose Obama, you're a racist, you know, let Obama have you, you criticize Obama, you're a racist, it's up for grabs here.
So the key to me is going to be how the Republicans react to this in the language they use.
And I think they've been using the wrong language, and I have too.
This is a recent conclusion of mine.
We've been using the wrong language for a long time.
And the truth of it is found.
Remember that exit poll question that I just cringed when I saw it.
2012, first wave at 5 o'clock, cares about people like me.
Obama, 81%, Romney, 19%.
That was the election.
That and the other question that showed that over half still blame Bush for the morbid state of the economy.
But that exit poll question cares about people like me.
Obama, 81, Romney, 19.
You might as well read that Democrats 81, Republicans, 19.
How do you change that?
Romney, I think, blew it big time, although nobody knew it at the time.
Well, I had an inkling of it.
If you'll recall, I observed that I said, I wish Romney'd start talking about private sector so damn much.
You remember me saying?
Because he kept going on and on how he'd done this and he'd done that in the private sector, the private sector here, private sector.
I'm thinking that that term is starting to turn people off because it sounds exclusive.
It sounds exclusion.
Private sector, what's the first word?
Private.
What does that mean?
It means stay out.
You know, words mean things to people.
Private sector, they don't know that private sector is just the economy.
Public sector is the government.
Public sector, good.
That's where the parks are.
That's where the zoo is.
Public sector?
Wow, that's where I can go.
Private sector?
Ah, I'm not allowed.
And we keep talking about it.
Bad move.
I think another thing that Republicans need to stop talking about in response to proposals like Obama's that it's related to this 8119 business, it's related to something else too.
The age-old cliché is that big business supports Republicans and the rich and everybody else supports Democrats, poor, what have you.
The Republicans make the mistake, this is a new realization.
Actually, it's a shame this is a mistake.
I'm admitting here cowing to the lack of perception of the low-information crowd.
But when, for example, Obama proposed these tax increases, this is going to have a horrible effect on business.
It's going to make it tougher to hire.
Nobody has any sympathy for business.
Even though you work for a business, and even though very few people are not going to listen to complaints or concerns about business, and it's all there in the 8119 question, cares about people like me.
Republicans are going to have to find a way, and I'll help to oppose Obama-like or Democrat Party-like massive redistributionist tax increases with language that explains what they're really all about.
The Republican Party, conservatives oppose these tax increases because they're going to hurt the middle class.
But it sounds like we oppose it because it's going to hurt business.
Well, it is going to hurt business, and business is where the middle class is employed.
But that's already too complicated.
It requires an assumption that the middle class is going to be sympathetic to business because business is who employs them.
Remember, 92.8 million Americans aren't working and don't care about business, and they don't care about entrepreneurs because they aren't either one.
Obama coming along and talking about raising taxes on the rich, promising to take that money and give it to the people rather than businesses and entrepreneurs and the private sector is going to win every time.
Now, the intention is honorable in defending business, particularly small business.
You're defending the backbone of America.
But it requires a big assumption.
And that assumption is that a majority of the voting public also understands and is sympathetic to the effect on business of these massive tax increases and that the effect on business of massive tax increases hurts the middle class.
We have to assume they figure that all out.
And I don't think we can assume they're going to figure that out anymore.
And I'm not talking about you in this audience.
I'm talking about the low information crowd and the paying half attention crowd and the unemployed community and what have you.
I'm just telling you, no matter what, no matter when, no matter, there isn't going to be any sympathy for something called a business.
And there isn't going to be any sympathy for something called an entrepreneur.
And there isn't going to be any sympathy for what happens to people in the private sector.
It just isn't.
The Democrats somehow own the appeal to middle class people on the basis that all those other things are wrapped up and aimed against them.
Business is not their friend.
Entrepreneurs are not their friend.
Rich are not their friend.
The Democrats are their friend.
So, and I arrive at this painfully because it's true.
I mean, Obama's tax increases are going to destroy business.
But the problem is, there's a whole bunch of Americans that probably applaud that stupidly, dumbly, but they do because of what they've been conditioned to believe about.
Look at the Democrat Party's enemies list is a business.
It's an industry everywhere you go.
Big oil, big box retail, whatever.
And here come the Republicans seen as the guys that want to defend all of that.
And who are they?
They're the rich.
They're the 1%.
So there's going to have to be some switcheroos here in just language, not belief, not policy or philosophy.
But I'm telling you, it's all wrapped up here in this 8119 question.
Cares about people like me?
Someone who cares about people like me.
I got to take a brief time out.
And by the way, I'm going to be developing this further.
I just want to, this is my initial putting this in play out there.
Think piece for you and me as well.
There's more here, but I have to take a break.
Back after this.
Do not go away.
These soundbites I talked about.
I'm going to get to them in a minute.
And more on this effort I think needs to be made here to change the language a little bit in opposing these tax increases and why.
And the focus has to be on how these tax increases do not help the middle class.
But in doing it, you can't talk about how business gets punished because that assumes people are going to understand that when business gets punished, they lose too.
And the Democrats have been too successful at demonizing business so that, you know, a whole bunch of their voters love it when business takes it in the shorts.
It's a crime, but they have.
And we'll get to it in more detail as time goes on.
But here's Scott in Visalia, California.
I'm glad you called.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Hello.
Hey, Rush Gittles from a 1990 listener.
Thank you, sir.
I want to comment on American Sniper.
I took my son to see the movie last night because his grandfather, my dad, was the top Marine Corps sniper during the Korean War.
And he ended up, started off a private.
He ended up a captain, which is Mustang.
He ended up on the Marine Corps shooting team.
But as to the part about being a coward, my father's first mission was to hunt down an enemy sniper in the field that was waiting on him.
And that takes a special type of individual to do that.
He hunted him down.
He made the man make a mistake and then eliminated him in the field.
And that was.
Snipers, this is absurd.
I feel very bad for you, sir, that you, and I understand that.
Don't rush.
No, you feel the need to call here and defend snipers, and that's outrageous.
It may be, but it's the character of Michael Moore.
It's the character of those other people.
And that's, you know, my father and Chris Kyle had an amazingly similar path after seeing the movie.
He was not bothered by the triple-digit, triple-digit missions he was sent on, meaning he was over 200 missions.
It was the men that died at his side.
Snipers exactly.
Snipers are defensive positions.
Snipers take out the freaking enemy for crying out loud to enable successive operations.
They take out other snipers on the other side.
It's war.
And to call this murder and to accuse Eastwood and everybody in this movie of celebrating a cold-blooded murderer is simply outrageous.
I'm sorry, you have to defend it, sir.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, I know.
It's very frustrating because what Obama is proposing with his tax increase, the redistribution of wealth, is socialism.
And you can't find a single time in the world where it's ever worked.
It has failed for a thousand years.
And yet, people keep endlessly supporting it, whether they know that's what they're doing or not.
It's frustrating as hell.
Okay, here we go again.
We have another Democrat proposing their tax increase on the rich.
And that's all that's happened.
The tax increase on the rich already under Obamacare.
They just haven't been called that, but that's what they are.
And how's that helping everybody?
But more than that, how in the world does anybody end up well off the recipient of redistributed wealth?
That's not how anybody gets ahead or gets anywhere.
Like I say, if you're a low-information person out there and you look upon the rich in your town or the well-to-do in your town with envy, go there.
Drive through the neighborhood if you can get through the gate.
Some of them don't have gates.
You can drive through.
And as you're driving by these big houses that you look lustily at, ask yourself if you think the people in them are waiting for a government check to pay for it.
Or ask yourself, what do they do for a living that allows them to live in these houses?
But the idea that the rich are inherently evil, I mean, this has been played over and over again.
Mao Zeitong, Fidel Castro, the CHICOMs over and over, the Soviet Union, you name it.
And everywhere it's tried, it ultimately fails.
And in many places, it causes revolutions, as in France, before John Kerry was able to get there with James Taylor and save the day then.
That's so embarrassing.
I still can't believe that.
But for thousands of years, we've been trying this income redistribution scheme, and it never works.
It has never worked except psychologically.
See, the key is psychologically.
It makes people happy when they hear or are made to believe or think the rich are going to suffer.
And that alone makes it worth it to them.
Even though it doesn't mean anything more for them.
And the Democrats have done a great job, I think, of creating this atmosphere of hate, resentment, envy, jealousy, what have you.
It's sick.
But I'm just telling you that responding to it by appearing to defend the private sector or business obviously doesn't work.
It doesn't cut through the noise.
It just doesn't.
So there has to be new ways of opposing this and announcing your opposition, how you do it.
And I don't even know if explaining how it's never worked for thousands of years would matter because everybody says, well, it might the next time Russia never knows.
It might the next time.
Might have the right people trying it now.
Russia never know.
You never know what you're going to run into out there in terms of idiots.
Okay, audio soundbite.
Bob Schaefer, he was stunned when he heard this.
Bob Schaefer of Slay the Nation.
Literally stunned.
He had White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer on yesterday, Faith the Nation.
He couldn't believe that they were going to do this.
Do you in any way, shape, or form believe that a new Republican Congress is going to do what a Congress that had Democrats and Republicans in control would not do?
I mean, is this for real?
Do you really think there's a chance that something like this could pass?
He's talking about these massive tax increases.
Now, he would love it.
Don't be fooled here by Bob.
Bob Scheffer would love it if it would pass.
Don't misunderstand.
He just can't believe.
You mean you're going to do it now?
After six years, seven, you're going to be, you're going to do it now when the Republicans run everything?
Bob, if you'd stop and think for a moment, you'd know exactly why this makes sense now.
If these guys just had the slightest understanding who Obama is and what he's trying to do and how he's trying to achieve it, it makes perfect sense he would propose it when the Republicans won things.
Why?
Because who's going to get blamed when people don't get any new money?
The Republicans.
Bob will figure this out and he'll sign on to it maybe by tonight or tomorrow.
He'll figure it out eventually.
Here's Dan Pfeiffer from the White House trying to explain to Bob why now.
This plan the president's going to talk about on Tuesday night goes to what is the core theme of the state of the union, which is middle-class economics.
The simple proposition that we should ask the wealthy to pay a little more and invest more in the middle class, give the middle class a raise.
We should have a debate in this country about between middle-class economics and trickle-down economics.
See, you hear all the lies in there?
Well, let's see what's going to happen here.
Middle-class economics, simple proposition that we ask the wealthy to pay a little more, invest more in the middle class, give the middle class a raise.
Sorry, folks, that's not how it happens.
The government gets the raise.
How the hell does the middle class get the raise?
Okay, so you raise taxes on big, bad, evil rich guy.
You make him pay a little bit more for the money he earns on his stocks.
You make him pay a little bit more on the dividends he gets in his stocks.
Okay, so the rich guy pays the money on this tax return.
Where's the money go?
Right there.
You all write the check.
Well, some of you don't.
United States Treasury.
That's where the money goes.
And how does it get from the United States Treasury to you, this raise that Pfeiffer's talking about here, give the middle class a raise?
How the hell does that happen?
Somebody trace the money for me.
Rich guy, probably one of the Koch brothers, massive tax increase.
Washington collects the money if the Koch brothers don't try to evade it and move to the Caymans.
And the money goes to the U.S. Treasury.
And from there, how does it get to you?
Does Obama write you a check?
And if so, for how much?
And for how often?
Like, do you get a raise up to 50 grand a year for the rest of your life?
How does this work?
Well, of course not.
Fact is, you never see the money.
The next thing that will happen is Obama's has got all his new money.
He's going to spend it on projects to help the middle class.
What are those going to be?
I don't know what it is, but none of it's going to end up in your back pocket.
The dirty little secret is that for all these rich guys paying new taxes, some people are going to lose their jobs because their businesses are going to be impacted by these tax increases.
See, this is the point that Republicans try to make.
You raise taxes on the rich, you're raising taxes on small business owners.
You're raising taxes on medium-sized business owners.
And what they're going to do is one of two things, maybe both.
They're going to raise prices so the consumer pays their tax increase, which you, or they're going to fire a bunch of people so that they don't lose any money.
But in any case, you, the little guy, are always going to get the shaft.
The little guy always gets the shaft when the Democrats raise taxes.
Let me ask you this.
We just heard that the top 1% now control all the wealth, half of the wealth in the world.
I don't believe that, but that's the stat that's out there today, and everybody's acting like it's the gospel.
So let's pretend, let's engage in the hypothetical.
Would somebody tell me what tax cuts have happened the last six years that allowed the rich to get even more money?
Because that's what they tell us.
That the rich got rich because of Reagan cutting taxes for the rich.
And then Bush came along and he cut taxes for the rich.
And the rich got richer.
You notice the rich never work.
The rich never invest.
The rich are a bunch of siphoned sponges.
They're sitting around and they're stealing money from you.
While you're out in McDonald's, they break into your house and steal whatever you got in your piggy bank.
And they all do this and they end up getting rich.
This is how they want you to believe it happens.
The rich get rich with tax cuts for the rich.
Would somebody tell me what tax cuts for the rich we've had the last six years that enable the rich to get even richer?
How did the 1% end up now controlling over half the world's wealth when they haven't had their taxes cut?
Obama hasn't cut any taxes for the rich.
Obama didn't cut anybody's taxes.
Everybody's taxes have gone up, including the rich.
Somebody tell me how the rich keep getting richer.
And by the way, if the rich, the 1%, now control over half the wealth in the world and they've done it by stealing it from you, how much money do you have?
That they can keep stealing from you and keep stealing from you and keep stealing from you to the point they have over half the world's money.
Did you know you had that much money?
Did you know how much that's been stolen from you?
That's what the Democrats want you to believe.
But how often have you heard it?
Tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich, the rich get richer.
Reagan and Bush, tax cuts for the rich.
Well, rich keep getting richer, but somebody tell me what tax cuts there have been the last six years.
Can you name any?
Income taxes haven't gone down for the rich.
Medicare taxes haven't gone down for the rich.
Obamacare taxes haven't gone down for the rich.
Social security taxes haven't gone down for the rich.
Capital gains taxes haven't gone down.
What the hell?
Maybe the only thing you could say is that there was a year where there was no inheritance tax.
But for that to have the rich had to kick the bucket.
The rich had to die for that one to matter to them.
And it wouldn't matter to them because they're dead.
So their family benefits from it.
But aside from that, you realize how obscenely absurd all of this is.
And the fact that they apparently keep getting away with it is stunning.
It's a mystery.
So what is this, Mitt Romney?
Mitt Romney unveils new anti-poverty theme.
Says he's seriously considering run.
Hmm.
Keep that standing.
Number 10 and 11, Standing.
We've got to take a break right now, but we'll be back.
Just a second, folks.
Do not go away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stand by Soundbite 11.
So somebody sent me out.
Hey, Rush, the government does give you money from rich people through programs like free community college programs, not yet, but coming.
I just want you to do my go to the rich part of town, drive through there.
When you find a nice house, man, that'd be cool to live in.
Stop and look at it and ask yourself if you think the person living in it got a daycare program.
Ask if the person living in it is using a free phone program.
Ask if you think the person living in it is off food stamps.
Ask if the person living in that fine house got some kind of housing adjustment.
Ask yourself if the person living in that house got that house because of daycare programs.
And the answer is going to be no, no, no, no, no.
They don't give you any money.
They buy your vote with a bunch of promises of prosperity that never happened to you if all you do is sit around and wait for it.
Here's Romney unveiling a new anti-poverty theme that he says he's considering as he seriously considers a run for Prexi.
50 years ago, Lyndon Baines Johnson declared the war on poverty.
His heart was in the right place, but his policies didn't work.
We haven't won that war.
As a matter of fact, under President Obama, the rich have gotten richer, income inequality has gotten worse, and there are more people in poverty in America than ever before.
His policies have not worked.
The only policies that will reach into the hearts of American people and pull people out of poverty and break the cycle of poverty are Republican principles, conservative principles.
They include family formation and education and good jobs, and we're going to bring them to the American people and finally end the scourge of poverty in this great land.
Yeah, man.
Yeah, man.
And by the way, the press is already destroying Romney over that.
They're already having a field day with Romney's talking about the anti-poverty program.
Say he doesn't really mean it.
He's just talking.
How could he?
He doesn't even know what poverty is.
He's a rich guy.
The fact that he earned his money means he has nothing in common with people he's talking about.
He has no idea what they're going because he's earned his.
And that's not what we're talking about.
There's no way to earn that kind of money anymore because America is over.
The only way people are going to have anything is through the redistribution of wealth.
And Romney doesn't understand that.
That's what they're saying.
You like that family formation line, Mr. Cern.
You mean it's a family formation?
You're against family formation?
You must be against capital formation, too.
You must be flying in formation.
You must be against slot right 60 prevent hook and go formation.
Typical negative everything in there.
Family formation.
Who could oppose that?
That's the point.
Who the hell knows what it is?
Family formation?
That's like, I heard the Packers coach honestly say this.
Mike McCarthy said, yeah, well, we knew points production was going to be the premium.
What?
Points production?
Points production?
Yeah, we knew we were going to have to score points.
Really?
You mean there are games where you're maybe not thinking about point?
It just boggles my mind.
Points production?
Okay, folks, I'm going to go out and get a lecture now.