{"id":12300,"date":"2013-05-28T18:04:05","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T18:04:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-05-28T18:04:05","modified_gmt":"2013-05-28T18:04:05","slug":"debunking_tax_cut_myths_again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/05\/28\/debunking_tax_cut_myths_again\/","title":{"rendered":"Debunking Tax Cut Myths — Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Jim in Chicago, you\u2019re next. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Ah, Mr. Limbaugh, it is a pleasure to speak to you, sir. I\u2019ve been listening to you since 1990. I was turned on to you by a guy in a shipping dock, and I\u2019ve been a faithful listener ever since.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, no. Thank you for the education, sir. Hey, it drives me nuts when these liberals call your show and they say that we\u2019re not paying our fair share. I\u2019m a truck driver. I do okay, okay? But my taxes have gone up. They take about $500 a week out of my check in taxes, okay? Now I pay for my insurance, too, and that\u2019s about $636 a month. Now, when these people call and they say that we have a deficit because we\u2019re not paying our taxes…? Our fair share?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You know, I swear to God, Rush, I want to choke these people, because I talk to my friends, and there are a lot of liberals here in Chicago. They\u2019re firemen and stuff, and I always tell \u2019em when they talk bad about rich people, “Have you ever gotten a check from a poor person?” You know, and it just drives me nuts. It\u2019s just… You know, I mean, we\u2019re struggling. My wife\u2019s laid off. I\u2019m working my tail off as much as I can until the government regulates driving a truck.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m curious. What do they say when you ask them if they\u2019ve ever gotten a check — or a job, is what you mean — from a poor person? What do they say?<\/p>\n

CALLER: They just laugh. “That\u2019s nothing.” I tell \u2019em, “You gotta be out your mind, man. Rich people are the savior.” I love rich people, man. They\u2019re the best. I swear to God, I love \u2019em. I walk in every day and shake my owner\u2019s hand, the owner of the trucking company I drive for. I shake his hand, \u2019cause if it wasn\u2019t for him, I couldn\u2019t put food on the table for my family. These people that tell me that the rich are destroying this place? It just drives me nuts.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Wait a minute.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I want to choke the life out of them.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You\u2019re not sitting out there thinking that the rich guy has the money you used to have?<\/p>\n

CALLER: No, not at all, because, hey, I coulda been rich if I went to college. But, you know, I got married at a young age, had kids, and we send our kids to private schools. We would not send them to these liberal, government-run education camps.<\/p>\n

RUSH: (laughing)<\/p>\n

CALLER: You know, we didn\u2019t have big cars. We didn\u2019t live beyond our means like the Joneses. You know, we just did what we had to do, we save a couple pennies here and there. We\u2019re saving right now \u2019cause our computer took a crap about three months ago, and we\u2019re saving our pennies and our dimes and our quarters to buy a new computer. I think about another two\/three months of saving, I\u2019ll be able to go out and buy my family a new computer. You know, it just drives me nuts, man. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on in this country. The Republican Party, some of these guys, the way they talk, they make me sick.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, the reason you\u2019re frustrated is there\u2019s no push-back. I mean, you have to sit there and listen to the Democrats get away with impugning the rich, blaming the rich for all the problems. Your firemen buddies agree. They never hear any alternative. Republicans are afraid to oppose anything like that. The rich are never gonna be defended. They\u2019re never gonna be spoken for. I mean, half the rich even criticize themselves. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, you name it.<\/line><\/p>\n

But they\u2019re all in there hoping they\u2019re number one on the Forbes list every year. They all have that private little competition. Anyway, Jim, don\u2019t change. Your values are solid, and your kids are gonna be great. You\u2019ve made decisions with what you have that you thought were the best for your family and for your kids, based on a set of rules that you\u2019ve always believed in, and I wouldn\u2019t change. I think you\u2019re solid. I\u2019m glad you\u2019re out there, and I appreciate your call.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: You know, this whole subject of taxes, this is one of those days where I\u2019m worn out on it. I have, for 25 years, told everybody the truth about taxes, lower taxes, high revenue, over and over and over again. And I, frankly at times, I just get exhausted with it. Sometimes it feels like it\u2019s pointless. I\u2019m gonna try one more time on this low tax business. There\u2019s a reason that it\u2019s in the news. There\u2019s a reason why we\u2019re getting calls from these wackos that the deficit and the national debt are so high because of taxes. <\/p>\n

You know what it can be traced to? What got it all started, the recent incarnation of this was an AP story back in 2011 — or was it Washington Post? Washington Post story, AP, whatever, they both ran the story, February 2011. AP reported that the federal tax rate was the lowest since the 1950s. By one measure, it said, federal taxes lowest since the 1950s. This was a purposeful, in conjunction with the regime story to support Obama\u2019s tax increases, and the intention was to tell the low-information crowd that Americans are paying the least in taxes than they ever have since the 1950s. <\/p>\n

The trick was, they were not talking about rates; they were talking about revenue generated. And the reason why they could say that was half the country isn\u2019t paying income taxes anymore, and this was in the middle of a recession when more people were being laid off and not paying taxes, and when people were being downsized to part time and not paying as much.<\/p>\n

So the federal take from income taxes was down. But it was because of a rotten economy and tax law which exempts 47, 48% of Americans from paying any income tax. But the AP and the Washington Post join forces to try to make it look like taxes were low because the tax rate, i.e., percentage, was the lowest it\u2019s been since the fifties, which was a crock. At the time, the top marginal tax rate was either 35 or 36%. It\u2019s now 39.6, but at the time they wrote the story the top marginal rate was 35%. Now, under Ronaldus Magnus, the top marginal rate plummeted to 28%. So tax rates have been lower than they are today, since the fifties. Their whole story was a lie. <\/p>\n

But all it takes, one story in the AP, amplified by the Washington Post, shows up in all the blogs and all the social media, and it balloons, becomes a little snowball. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and the low-information crowd thinks the rich aren\u2019t paying their fair share, bammo, and that\u2019s why we got a national debt. That\u2019s the record high, and that\u2019s why we got a deficit. And that\u2019s how the latest incarnation of this bogus theory can be traced back, I think, to that. <\/p>\n

(interruption)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How can they ignore the Obama spending? ‘Cause he\u2019s not doing it. (laughing) Even Snerdley, who is as immersed in news and politics day to day as anybody I\u2019ve ever known, just asked me how can people not factor Obama\u2019s spending? He\u2019s not doing it. He\u2019s opposed to it, Mr. Snerdley. Obama is upset at the spending. He\u2019s upset at the debt. That\u2019s why Obamacare is gonna lower the deficit. That\u2019s why everything he\u2019s been doing has been to lower the deficit and to shrink the national debt. He\u2019s opposed to it. He\u2019s not causing it to happen. Bush did that with his “three” wars. We have this national debt that this is the mess that Obama inherited. He didn\u2019t do any of it. <\/p>\n

So you couple that with that story on the Washington Post, which is an AP story, February 2011, that the American people are paying their lowest taxes since the fifties. None of it\u2019s true, no matter how you slice it, but they were looking at revenue collected, not the tax rate. They were trying to make everybody believe that the tax rate that the rich were paying was the lowest it\u2019s been since the fifties and we\u2019ve got this big debt, and that\u2019s why. And the low-information crowd just ate it up. That\u2019s why we get nitwits like this guy in Rochester called today essentially just repeating all of this. Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, top marginal tax rate was 70%, folks. Eight years later, Ronald Reagan leaves office. Top marginal tax rate, 28%. So in eight years, it went from 70% to 28%. <\/p>\n

Do you know what happened to revenue? Almost doubled. When Reagan took office, revenue generated by the tax code at 70% was $500 billion. The amount of revenue collected after the rate plunge from 70 to 28% was about $968 billion, almost doubled, with the tax rate plunging, because it created more jobs and more taxpayers. And more taxpayers paying taxes equals higher tax revenue but lower tax rates is what caused it. Now, this February 2011 story tries to turn that on its head, and it worked with the low-information crowd, as most every trick will work, by definition, with the low-information crowd, including the fact that Obama hasn\u2019t done anything in five years. None of what\u2019s happened… well, he\u2019s against it all, he\u2019s opposed it all.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, the AP never mentioned tax rates. That\u2019s the key to it. They just said by one measure, federal taxes lowest since 1950. They knew the low-information crowd would assume rates and percentages, \u2019cause that\u2019s what Obama was talking about. The rich weren\u2019t paying their fair share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Jim in Chicago, you\u2019re next. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Ah, Mr. Limbaugh, it is a pleasure to speak to you, sir. I\u2019ve been listening to you since 1990. I was turned on to you by a guy in a shipping dock, and I\u2019ve been a faithful listener ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nDebunking Tax Cut Myths - Again - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/05\/28\/debunking_tax_cut_myths_again\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Debunking Tax Cut Myths - Again - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Jim in Chicago, you\u2019re next. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello. 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