RUSH: I mentioned the other day that we’re losing the language, and this tax cut issue provides me an excellent illustration, a teachable moment as to how we’re losing the language. In the news, and in this AP story I just put to the bottom of the stack here — and look what’s in the headline. ‘Nearly Half Oppose Tax Hikes for Rich.’
Tax increases. You go through and it’s, ‘Tax increases, tax increases, tax increases, tax increases’ and ‘tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts.’ So in the news, we’re debating tax cuts. In the real world, in real English, the issue is not tax cuts, but tax increases. The tax code is what it is. The income tax rates are what they are, and they are current, and they are in the tax code. If those tax rates expire and we go to the what the rates were prior to their imposition, then what we have is a tax increase. And yet the media is joining Obama in his incessant call for tax cuts for the middle class. Obama is going to cut nobody’s taxes. If he goes along with this notion of not having the Bush tax cuts expire, we’re just leaving the tax code as it is. Nobody’s taxes are gonna get cut.
But Obama wants credit for cutting taxes, and the media is trying to help him do that. The left is saying they want to cut taxes for the middle class. But they’re not offering tax cuts in real English. What they are saying is they don’t want to raise taxes on the middle class right now. Right now. ‘Til after the election. So in their own words, will rates go down next year? No, the rates are gonna stay the same. If nothing is done the rates will stay the same. There are no tax cuts on the table here, folks. If you hear the media talking about Obama’s tax cuts, ‘Democrats are working hard to secure tax cuts for the middle class,’ there’s no such thing being contemplated. There is no such thing. There is no tax cut on anybody’s table right now.
All that’s on the table is the current rates not expire. And if the current rates do expire on anybody, and the old rates which are higher go into effect, you have a tax increase. We are effectively talking about whether or not to increase taxes. Nobody is talking about cutting them. Except us. I, you, me, all of us know that we’ve got to cut taxes further, and we’ve gotta target the private sector, get out of its way. Get the obstacles and restrictions out of its way. Get rid of the capital gains tax for a period of time. Reduce the corporate tax down to 20% or whatever, and lower people’s taxes. We keep hearing about, ‘The American people have to sacrifice in tough times like these.’ Well, the American people… What the hell is 10% unemployment, for crying out loud?
The American people are sacrificing! You know who doesn’t sacrifice? You know the greatest repository of greed in the world is? It’s in Washington, DC, and everybody who lives off the pile of money that piles in there every day. The greed is on every elected official. The greed is in every bureaucracy. The greed is in the Oval Office. The one bunch that never, ever sacrifices is in Washington. Never. And it’s time they sacrificed. It’s time the American people were allowed to keep more of what they earn so there’s an incentive to go out and work and earn. But nobody is talking tax cuts. But they want you to believe that Obama is going to cut taxes for the middle class. He’s not going to do that, anything of the sort. Tax cuts to Obama is like the cross to Dracula. So this is an illustration of how we are losing the language. Is the capital gains tax rate going to go down? No. Will the dividend tax rate go down? No. All these are going up! All of these rates are increasing. Nothing’s going down, and yet you can’t escape ‘Obama! Tax cuts! Middle class.’ This is how we’ve lost the language.