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Sept. 29, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:04
September 29, 2015, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
It's Rush Limbaugh, your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, apocalyptic fears, the crumbling of great institutions, and yes, even the good times.
We're here through all of it.
Happy to be here.
Telephone number 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program at the email address, lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
Let's just continue.
Again, I've got a lot of stuff I want to squeeze in here in the final hour.
Maybe even get some of the stuff from yesterday that was had to be put on the back burner.
We continue here with media reaction and commentary reaction to the Trump tax plan.
This next soundbite, Bill Crystal, David Rodham Gergen on, let's see, this is, I guess it was Aaron Burnett's show on CNN, Aaron Burnett Out Front.
And let's just listen to this and maybe offer some characterizations to follow.
But Aaron Burnett says, Bill Crystal, you have been very, very critical of Donald Trump.
You had a Twitter war with Donald Trump, but you are a conservative.
This is a plan that some conservatives would love.
Cut taxes, growth will improve.
It's a pretty standard Republican-type tax plan.
But smart of Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, I have my issues with him, and I don't think he should be president.
He is a smart politician.
As soon as he gets through the standard Republican talking point about lower tax rates, more revenues, what does he say?
We're going to bring jobs back from overseas.
We're going to compete better with overseas.
This is going to make America great again.
He goes back to what his core message, which is a very effective message, which is an American nationalist message.
An American nationalist message.
That's not.
That's nationalism.
These guys don't like nationalism, do they?
Nationalism is kind of beneath us in this era of global everything, right?
I mean, I may be misunderstanding this, but nativism, nationalism, so quaint now.
We're all citizens of a much, much larger collective here.
I mean, nationalism, it's like pandering to the bitter clingers.
I don't know if Crystal means it that way or not, but and I don't know if you listen to Chris calling Trump a, what did he call him, a smart politician?
This may be the first guy ever called Trump a politician, much less a smart one.
He goes through the standard Republican talking points, lower tax rates, more revenues, and then we're going to bring jobs back from overseas.
We're going to compete better over the seas, make America great again, back to his core message, very effective message, which is an American nationalism.
Maybe he likes it.
Could this be a turning point for some of these people who have been anti-Trump?
Could this Trump tax plan turn some of these people into maybe not Trump supporters, but maybe watered down and dilute some of their opposition to him?
I guess it could.
Stranger things have happened.
But the Trump tax plan is Reagan-esque in many, many aspects.
Now, here is David Rodham Gergen on the same show.
After Crystal finished, and Aaron Burnett then said, David, you worked with Ronald Reagan.
That's nobody.
He worked with everybody.
I think David Gergen worked with Lincoln.
Anyway, David, you work with Ronald Reagan.
Is this like Reagan's tax plan?
I think you do need to give credit to Trump for one thing, and we've been pushing him.
Where's the substance?
Where are your plans?
He's finally come forward with a plan.
Give him credit for that.
It's also true that I think it has a populist element.
31 million households, according to the plan, would no longer pay taxes.
That's obviously attractive.
All right.
I'm sorry.
I'm not known as the rain man here, but I don't know what the number is, but I did look this up during the break.
It's 46 point-something percent of people are not paying income tax already.
We already have effectively a 0% tax rate.
And then you throw in the, well, we don't have a zero rate.
We just have such things, earned income tax credit and other vehicles, if you will, that mean people end up paying no tax.
Maybe a 0% rate is new.
I'm not.
I know I'm never going to have one, so I haven't really paid a lot of attention.
Would I want a 0% tax rate?
Yeah, in my dreams, just for a year or two.
Yeah, I'd be set.
But my point is, a big deal, 31 million Americans would no longer pay taxes.
That's obviously attractive.
Is it?
I don't know.
I've got a problem with this.
And again, it's rooted in populism, in a sense.
We've already got too many convoluted structures here that prevent people, actually disincentivize people from expanding their income.
Because if they earn too much, they will no longer qualify for whatever welfare benefit they're on.
That's not good.
I don't know.
I just, if Snerdley just said that if he were running, he would immediately come out with one statement on his tax plan.
And his statement would be that the rich are going to pay 50%.
And he would dare the Democrats to oppose him.
He thinks it would shut the Democrats up if you 50% of all taxes, the rich are going to pay them.
What would your definition of rich be, by the way?
Okay, so your definition of rich is a half million or above.
That group of people would pay at least 50% of all taxes.
And you think that would shut the Democrats up?
They can't possibly oppose that.
Well, they sure as hell can.
They can oppose anything they want.
They can say 55.
They can say 60.
They can come up with lies and say it's a trick that you don't mean it.
That you've struck a deal with the rich to get them to go along with it.
But at the end of the day, they're not going to be paying that.
How would low information voters?
They probably would love it, and that's why I hate it.
This whole business of taxes, what's missing in all of this explanation of taxes, including, in my opinion, although it's not totally missing when you talk about fair tax or flat tax, is an explanation of how the whole thing works.
I just, let me put this in a nutshell because I don't want to divert myself from moving on here.
But I just, I'm not comfortable with the same language about taxes that I hear out of Democrats that contains two requirements.
Seems like anybody running for office or who is already in office is trying to change the tax code.
There are two things.
Whatever else your plan is going to be, there are two requirements.
You must say the rich are going to take it in the shorts.
And you must say it as though you're happy about it and you can't wait to soak them.
And I wouldn't go anywhere near that.
The second thing you have to do is make a B-line for the low-information crowd and tell them that a bunch of them and others aren't going to pay anything.
And yet your tax plan is rooted in fairness and then you lose me.
And if I were coming up, if I were running for office or was going to introduce a tax plan, it wouldn't contain either of those two things.
I mean, my pitch would not.
Nobody's going to be the enemy.
In other words, in my tax plan.
There are no, the rich is not the enemy, and the people not paying anything are not the enemy.
The government is the enemy in my tax plan.
And I'm sick and tired of all tax plans being oriented about how much government needs with the sudden reality that government can never do with less.
It's always us that are forced or asked to do it less.
The government never is.
Well, that's going to change in my tax plan.
I'm going to have a budget, and the government's going to get X amount of money.
It's going to come from various sources.
Tax revenue is going to be part of it.
The American people are through funding this behemoth that is out of control and $20 trillion in debt.
The American people are not responsible for it beyond the fact they've elected the reprobates that have done it.
The rich are not to blame for the national debt.
The people not paying taxes are not to blame for the national debt or the deficit or any of these other problems resulting from it.
And the usual enemies in the tax code would not be mine.
The American people are not going to be rich aren't going to be an enemy.
The poor aren't going to be an enemy.
Maybe no enemies.
But the government is going to be called to account in my tax plan.
And that's why I don't like all this.
No matter who presents a tax plan, it's got the required enemies and the required victims.
And it just seems like pandering to me.
But again, I must stress, I'm not in politics.
I'm not a professional.
I'm not a consultant.
I've never had to get votes for anybody or anything.
So I may be all wet.
I may not know what I'm talking about.
It may not be practical at all.
They're the ones that have the polling data and the research that tell us what people want to hear.
They do the focus groups and all that.
So I can be all wet.
And I have to add that caveat.
But that's what my plan is.
I'm just sick and tired.
Every tax policy or every tax plan we come up seems like the enemy are the people that pay them.
And that just offends the hell out of me.
The people working and earning a living in this country are not the enemy.
And I'm tired of pitting groups of Americans against each other, particularly when it comes to money and finances, because that leads to this mess we're in, because it ends up with everybody being told to hate or envy anybody who has more than they do.
Then you add to it, the reason they've got more than you do is because they're luckier than you, or they've stolen from you, or they have cheated from you, or whatever else Democrats say.
Never does anybody have any more money than you because they're more creative or they've worked harder.
Or maybe they're Kennedys and they inherited it.
It's always ill-gotten when we talk about it.
And I've just, it doesn't do our culture any good to breed this envy and resentment for achievement.
It just doesn't.
We need to be rewarding it, promoting it.
These people achieve great things, need some add-aboys.
They don't need to become suspects.
All right, back to the audio soundbites.
This is what it finished with David Rodden Gergen.
Back to Bill Crystal and still on Aaron Burnett out front.
This was Crystal after what you heard David Gergen just say.
The general view has been, and I've had to some degree, that he's this kind of phenomenon.
You got people who interested in him, but obviously he's going to fade.
And I still think he will fade eventually.
But, you know, he's learning on the stump and in the interviews.
He obviously watches himself and he talks about himself a lot, but I think he's a shrewd guy and he also probably modifies some.
I wish the other candidates would strike.
They should be learning a little bit from watching Trump.
And I like Rubio a lot, but I'm a little worried that the other, and I prefer some of the other candidates to Trump.
I'm a little worried they don't seem to be learning as quickly from this campaign as Trump is.
Oh, really now?
Now, that's fascinating.
Did you hear that, Mr. Snirdley?
Did you hear Crystal worry the other candidates are not learning quickly enough from Trump?
If I may be so bold again, this is one of my fervent hopes, by the way.
And I kept this to myself.
I didn't divulge this because I did not want this to end up in the public domain and have it.
It's like not announcing the marketing plan, just executing it.
You know, I got all these people accusing me of being a Trump supporter when I wasn't.
What I was, was not a Trump hater.
So assuming I'm a Trump supporter, how can you do this, Rush?
He's not a conservative.
I don't understand.
And I held my cards close to my vest.
And I eventually said, my dream here is that people learn you can combat political correctness and thrive.
That you can be real and thrive.
That you can criticize Democrats and thrive.
You don't have to be afraid.
You can tell the truth about all these issues that are doing great damage to the country and not just survive, you can thrive.
And I was hoping that a lot of people would emulate Trump in this regard.
But there is, there are many, but there's one reason why some of them didn't.
This one's easy to explain, but it's tough because I got to mention names.
I don't like mentioning names here.
Let's say that you are candidate Marco Christie, and you are seeking, you are Marco Fiorina Christie, and you are seeking the presidency.
Over here is Trump, and he's just lapping the field.
And what's he doing?
He's calling illegal immigrants racists, murderers, rapists, purse snatchers, muggers, whatever else.
And he's out there challenging McKee, doing all this unconventional, politically incorrect stuff.
And you look at it, if you are Marco Fiorina Christie, man, man, maybe there's a new way it can do that.
Then they turn on the TV and you hear the inside the Beltway commentariat just rip Trump to shreds for what he's doing.
And you say to yourself, if you are Marco Christie Fiorina, you don't want to get ripped that way.
So you don't do what Trump does.
You don't want to turn on Fox or CNN or anywhere else and be talked about the way they're talking about Trump.
And the best way to avoid that is don't do what Trump's doing.
Therefore, Trump isn't copied or emulated.
Therefore, the lessons aren't learned.
It's been kind of frustrating as I've sat here holding my cards to the vest on this.
But Crystal has let it out of the bag here.
He says he's a little worried, don't seem to be learning as quickly.
Bill, it's not that they're not learning, it's that they just don't want to be commented on the way Trump has been.
We're crying out, wow, that explains Boehner and McConnell right off the bat.
Probably affect a whole lot of other.
God, I don't want to get what incoming Trump's getting.
I don't want to get people talking about me the way they're talking about him.
Oh, my God.
I don't want to Krauthammer say those things about me.
George Will.
So they don't go anywhere where Trump's going.
It's not a casting of blame.
It's just an assessment of the circumstances as they exist at the moment.
El Rushbo, EIB Network, and the Limbaugh Institute.
Here's Mary Ann in Nashville, Georgia.
Hey, Mary Ann, great to have you on the show.
Hi.
Hey, Russ.
You are the top of the top for a good reason, and it is a thrill to talk to you.
Well, thank you very much.
I sincerely appreciate that.
I've been with you since the beginning.
My father and I had many good talks while he was alive, and many of them revolved around your show content over the years.
Well, thank you very much.
I wanted to say that I am very disappointed at the continued social engineering that seems to be part of Trump's tax plan in that he is going to leave untouched the home mortgage interest deduction and not subject that to any sliding scale nor charitable giving.
And to my way of thinking as a taxpayer, when someone takes a deduction and those dollars are therefore exempt, it means that somebody else has to make up the difference if we have bills to be paid in the country.
And so when someone contributes to the Ohio Quilt Museum or the Clinton Foundation or any of the Buffett Children billion-dollar foundations funded by Warren's charitable giving and therefore deductible dollars from his tax liability, I don't like it at all.
And Trump leaves in place all of that.
Well, you mentioned some fascinating things, and you started by talking about the, I forget the term you used.
I call it social architecture.
The tax code has always been used for that.
The tax code has always been used to construct a society or culture that the tax writers want.
It has also been used as a means of furthering certain kinds of economic activity.
A home mortgage interest deduction goes way back.
I'm not sure of the actual date of implementation, but it goes back to the 50s housing boom following World War II.
It was part of the furtherance of the American dream, which was homeownership, owning a home.
But the truth is that the real estate lobby had succeeded in getting to the Ways and Means Committee members of the time.
And it was a way of pushing home sales.
And things like this are in the tax code.
There are more of them than anybody knows.
Way more.
And that is one of the disappointments that I see that is going to continue in the Trump plan.
I was hoping.
Well, they're very tough.
See, that's why the fair tax and flat tax eliminate them, but the trade-off is a 15% max rate or maybe 20%.
And what would be wrong with that?
Well, I'm in favor of either one for the most part.
But the real-life political consequences of eliminating the home mortgage, this actually might be a time to consider doing it.
Well, Rush, you know, when you have something like, you know, so many different charities that have sprung up.
Well, now, hang on.
That's the next thing I was going to get into, but I've got just a few seconds left.
So if you can hang on out there, Mary Ann, we'll get into the charitable aspect of this because both of these are, as you said, social engineering.
And at one point, there were good reasons for them.
So just hang on here.
And we're back here with Mary Ann in Nashville, Georgia.
Marianne, I need to double-check this, but my memory is that it wasn't until the 1950s that people needed mortgages to buy a house anyway, in a mass sense.
That's when the prices began to get to the point where you needed a 30-year loan to be able to buy a house.
Now, because of time constraints, let me move on to the charity side here.
I understand what you're saying about charity and your point about everybody that gets a tax deduction, that money has to be made up by somebody else.
True, but I'll tell you this, too.
One of the first things that Obama wanted to do with changes in the tax code was eliminate all charitable deductions.
And his reason was, I thought, well, he didn't give the real reason.
I knew what the real reason was.
He wanted to either lower or eliminate the deduction.
And that would eliminate a lot of charitable giving, which is fine with Obama.
He wants the government to move in and replace all of the individual charitable donations that are taking place.
It wouldn't eliminate all, but it would eliminate a lot of charitable giving.
And that was fine with Obama because he would love for the government to be even more involved in helping people who don't have the ability to help themselves or who can't stay in business without people donating to them.
He would love creating that increased dependency.
So I was opposed to Obama's move to eliminate the charitable deduction because I thought it had an ill intent about it.
He didn't say any of this, but I knew that's what it was.
His reasoning, I forget what it was, but it was not bogus.
It was a hidden maneuver on his part to have all these charities replaced with federal support.
Well, unless we're going to be federally subsidizing quilt museums and symphonies and the many, many, many.
We have a proliferation of both charities or nonprofits.
I guess there maybe should be a distinction.
Now, the nonprofit, now that, now you're getting a little closer to home with me on the nonprofits.
Of which there are kajillions.
Whoa, there are gazillions and gazillions of them out there.
And foundations whose work we really, I don't know what the Clinton Foundation is doing in these many far-flung places of the world, and I don't know how exactly it's operating.
And I don't know that in third world nations, it's very easy to track where the money's going.
They're not doing anything, but going over to each of these countries and throwing a party once a year to celebrate all the good vibes and good intentions that they did.
And they get to deduct the money, and I object.
Well, look, I totally understand your reasoning on both of these.
I was going to say about the mortgage interest deduction.
Given the state of the economy, and given the fact that millennials seem to be big on sharing rather than owning, you know, all these millennials are out there talking, it's not cool to own a car anymore.
I'll just Uber everywhere.
Or I'll buy me a Segway and I'll be really cool.
Or maybe I'll be like they do in Europe and I will drive my bicycle everywhere.
But they don't want to own cars and they don't want to own houses.
And for those of you that don't like the home mortgage deduction, well, keep in mind why we have it.
You may not like why we're hearing why we have it.
We have it not because back in the day, some brilliant person figured out that it would be a great economic tool.
We have the home mortgage deduction because some people successfully lobbied Congress to make it cheaper to buy houses.
Now, who's interested in that?
That'd be, well, maybe your good old real estate markets.
People that sell real estate would love for it to be as cheap as it can.
So if the government's going to subsidize the purchase, they'll all for it.
The home mortgage deduction was to subsidize the sale of homes.
Well, we did that.
Well, is that one of the reasons we have such a big middle class?
The home mortgage deduction?
Well, that's a chicken or egg question.
You're saying that the fact that we have so many people owning homes is equal to having a great middle class?
My point is, this whole thing was not structured out of altruism.
It was not, the home mortgage deduction was not created.
It's like anything else in politics.
Was meant to benefit the people who are in business to sell houses and build them is the result of lobbying.
But it is very popular.
It's just like, you remember one of the things in Reagan's tax plan in 1986 was the elimination of the credit card interest deduction.
Do you remember this?
That caused an excrement storm over this country like nothing I have ever seen.
I started this program in 1988.
Credit card interest.
It was phased out.
And about the time this program was starting was when people were beginning to lose that deduction.
It was chump change.
They were so ticked off, people called here left and right to complain about it.
And the reason is because they went out, they spent money.
This is classic.
They were spending more money to be able to deduct a small portion of it on their taxes, thinking that they were getting a deal.
Yeah, Sturdley wants them to bring it back.
The credit card interest deduction, it's gone now, but it was a big deal.
And we're talking about $100 or $200 a year, and people were fit to be tied over this for the longest time.
And I sat here, I tried to give them the facts of life.
I said, you realize how much money you want to spend, how much money you will be out of pocket in order to get that chump change.
I don't care.
I want it.
I've built my life around having it.
It's a fact of life in how I use my credit cards, and they've taken it away.
Okay.
Okay, I get it.
And the same thing would happen if they take the whole mortgage deduction away.
There would be riots.
There would be.
I mean, you talk about pitchforks and the barbarians at the gate.
Yeah, no question about that.
Back to the phones that go to Albany.
This is Mike.
It's great to have you, sir.
Hello.
Rush, good afternoon, my friend, and God bless you.
Thank you, sir.
Quick point on the 0% tax rate for Trump's plan here.
As you noted, 40, whatever, upper 40, almost 50% already pay no taxes.
And in some cases, probably a lot more than we know.
They're getting more back than they put in.
So essentially, Trump, with a 0% tax plan, is already saving this money.
And it's brilliant because in a general election, the liberals can't say, oh, he's raising taxes on the working.
This will do like a flat tax or a fair tax.
He's going to raise taxes on the working poor, even if it's $20 a week or whatever it may be.
He won.
He saved us money with a 0% plan.
And he's saved himself the ridicule of the liberals when a general election comes.
Okay, so you believe that it is brilliant politically because it is immune from attack.
Well, and he is literally, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but, you know, I'm a middle-of-the-road kind of person.
I'm a blue-collar worker.
I make decent money, but I pay taxes.
I don't get a 0% return.
And there's nothing that infuriates me more when folks get more back than they put in.
So who could argue, wait, they're not giving them more back than they already put in?
He's essentially saving us money.
As your call screener said, he's kind of cutting off the ATM.
We don't have to send out those ATM cards to folks that are getting rebates back for money that they didn't even pay in.
He's automatically saving us money without saying it.
you doing?
I don't know what the call screener said about the ATM, but.
Well, I guess what I mean is a refund.
He's cutting off.
We're not going to be sending out checks to people who didn't already pay.
We already have a welfare program.
That shouldn't be for this highly progressive income tax that we have.
You're basically talking about a plan, though.
You like the zero percent because somehow you think people, well, you think it's the Democrats can't attack it.
So it's a great way to get elected because the Democrats cannot attack Trump over it.
That is part of it.
That is part of it.
But the other part is he's saving us money.
There are people that are getting income tax returns at the end of the year that are getting more back than they paid in.
And if his plan is to send them a, I win a card in the mail.
Hey, I win.
I pay no income.
Oh, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
I understand now.
Snerdley, in his pre-interview, asked the guy if he was opposed to the alternative minimum tax, and they talked about it.
And the caller thinks I know what Snirdley said to him.
So, and I didn't.
So, this is about the AMT.
You think Trump's plan removes the AMT, which will eliminate a lot of people getting back more than they are paying.
That's true, but the AMT also does something else hideous.
And that is it vaults people into higher brackets and forces them to pay much more than they should be paying.
Either way, the AMT needs to be gotten rid of.
And this is another thing.
Everybody that proposes a tax plan and everybody in Washington politics talks about taxes, eventually says they support getting rid of the AMT.
It never happens.
The AMT ends up always seemingly being applied to even more people every year, despite all the talk about getting rid of it.
Now, I'm not castigating Trump.
Do not misunderstand me, Trumpsters.
Not even talking about Trump here.
Trump told us why.
Well, they want the money.
The point is that they talk about getting rid of the AMT under the concept of fairness.
They agree it's so unfair.
It was never intended to create this much.
They all talk about that, but they never get rid of it because they all want the money.
I'm talking about everybody in Washington.
Well, not, I mean, 10 or 20 that don't, but I mean, for the most part, Washington wants money.
That's its job, to spend money and raise it.
And the AMT has been a bonus like nobody ever saw.
The AMT was created because there were two families that earned gobs of money and weren't paying anything.
So as usual, Congress comes along.
That's not fair.
And they create the alternative minimum tax designed to get everybody at least paying something.
And now it is capturing people that it was never intended to capture.
And they all talk about getting rid of it or reforming it.
It never happens.
Trump, I hope he meant it with his plan of getting rid of it.
Okay, Mike, I'm glad you stuck with me there while I endeavored to understand what was going on.
Okay, look, the caller was talking about the earned income tax credit.
It was just a communication snafu.
ATM was not the subject.
And don't forget the latest Rush Revere book, Rush Revere to Star-Spangled Anner, a banner.
Pre-orders available starting today.
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