{"id":18791,"date":"2011-04-18T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T00:21:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-07-20T00:21:05","modified_gmt":"2011-07-20T00:21:05","slug":"schieffer_interview_with_ryan_shows_us_the_problem_we_face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2011\/04\/18\/schieffer_interview_with_ryan_shows_us_the_problem_we_face\/","title":{"rendered":"Schieffer Interview with Ryan Shows Us the Problem We Face"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

All right, Tax Day. This is the day that everybody has to file their returns today or file for an extension, and quarterly filers owe their first installment for the tax year. So there are a lot of stories about taxes out there, and of course I don\u2019t believe in coincidences, as you well know. For example, there\u2019s an AP story out there that\u2019s been running everywhere: “For Richest, Federal Taxes Have Gone Down; For Some in US, They\u2019re Nonexistent.” By virtue of the headline, they want you to think this is a story on how the rich continue to pay less and less and less. It\u2019s just the opposite. The rich are paying more. <\/p>\n

Their effective rate may be down but the rich are paying more in terms of the total burden. The real story here is that 45% of American households don\u2019t pay squat when it comes to income taxes. (Payroll tax is another matter.) Forty-five percent. Ten percent of all taxpayers are paying after the freight. The top 1% are paying 38% of all of it — the top 1% are paying 38%! Isn\u2019t it interesting, too, 45% of households don\u2019t pay any income taxes, and what was the number we had last week of the percentage of Americans working?<\/p>\n

The number working is 45.6% working, so that would be 54% not working while 45% are not paying any income taxes, and yet the focus is on the eeeevil rich. And it happened on Sunday right according to schedule. (interruption) Snerdley, I\u2019m gonna get to it. The S&P rating is out. It\u2019s Drudge\u2019s lede here: “S&P Moves US Outlook to Negative.” There\u2019s no coincidence on that, either. We\u2019re, what a week or two or a month before raising the debt limit, now, and we got a story about how we might crash and default and it\u2019s the end of the world? It\u2019s another crisis, same old thing. <\/p>\n

We are not going to default. We have printing press! <\/p>\n

This is absurd. We are not going to default; we have printing press. Even though: “Standard & Poor\u2019s lowered its outlook for the nation\u2019s long-term debt Monday, even as it reaffirmed the agency\u2019s top-tier rating for the U.S. economy.” So look, two things are true here: At some point we are gonna have a little bit of reckoning to deal with our debt here. There are some questions about it. At the same time, we\u2019re not gonna default. It just isn\u2019t going to happen but they want people to think it might because we\u2019re just weeks away from raising the debt limit, you see? This is a story specifically designed (there are no coincidences) to help push the notion of the left that we have to raise the debt ceiling by a lot and go into further debt. <\/p>\n

Bob Schieffer. We have an example here of people talking at each other, not having a conversation. Bob Schieffer with his template — Bob Schieffer with his narrative, Bob Schieffer not listening to answers — had Paul Ryan on yesterday on Slay the Nation; and he grilled him about “tax cuts for the rich.” That\u2019s the template. No matter what Ryan said, Schieffer was gonna continue to ask and commentate on the fact that the rich continue to get tax cuts in his budget. Here\u2019s how Schieffer started it all…<\/p>\n

SCHIEFFER: I guess the question I would have, uh, congressman: Why do these rich people need another tax cut? I mean, they\u2019re already rich. They seem to be doing pretty well as it is now. Why cut their taxes s\u2019more?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Bob Schieffer is one of “the rich.” You know, this is one of the disconnects. He\u2019s talking about “the rich” as though they are a different group of people from him. He is the rich! He\u2019s pretty close to the 1%, to the top 1%. “I guess the question I would have, Congressman: Why do these rich people need another tax cut? I mean, they\u2019re already rich. They seem to be doing pretty well as it is now. Why cut their taxes some more?” As though it\u2019s his business what\u2019s “enough,” but that\u2019s not even the point. The point is there aren\u2019t any tax cuts, in aggregate terms, in Ryan\u2019s budget. Here\u2019s Ryan\u2019s first answer…<\/p>\n

PAUL RYAN: We\u2019re not talking about cutting taxes. We\u2019re just not agreeing with the president\u2019s tax increases. I guess that\u2019s the new definition of tax cuts. We\u2019re saying keep tax rates where they are right now and get rid of all those loopholes and deductions — which, by the way, are mostly enjoyed by wealthy people — so you can lower tax rates. A simpler, flatter, fair tax code more internationally competitive so we can create jobs: That\u2019s what we\u2019re proposing. This isn\u2019t tax cuts.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Bob Schieffer doesn\u2019t listen, didn\u2019t listen, didn\u2019t hear the answer.<\/p>\n

SCHIEFFER: Am I misinformed? I thought you were talking about lowering that, uh, rate for the top — <\/p>\n

PAUL RYAN: In exchange for deductions.<\/p>\n

SCHIEFFER: — income taxpayers back to about 25%.<\/p>\n

PAUL RYAN: That\u2019s right. <\/p>\n

SCHIEFFER: So isn\u2019t that a tax cut?<\/p>\n

RYAN: In exchange for losing your deductions, in exchange for losing the loopholes and deductions that mostly higher income earners use. So what we\u2019re saying is: Keep tax revenues where they are, don\u2019t lower tax revenues, but clean up the tax code so that it works. If you have really high tax rates, what you end up doing is you penalize small businesses.<\/p>\n

RUSH: So here\u2019s an example, as I say, of two people talking at each other. Ryan\u2019s trying to answer his question. Ryan\u2019s trying to explain. But Schieffer\u2019s got the template, got the narrative: “There are ‘tax cuts for the rich;\u2019 and I don\u2019t care what I hear, I\u2019m gonna keep talking about ‘tax cuts for the rich\u2019!” Ryan is talking about simplifying the tax code: Lower the rate, make it simpler; no loopholes, no deductions. Keep it more internationally competitive. You heard what he said, and he specifically says here: “Don\u2019t lower tax revenues.” See, most people, when they hear the phrase “tax cuts” think the government\u2019s gonna get less money — which is fine with me, by the way.<\/p>\n

The government getting less money is fine with all of us, but that causes conniption fits on the left and among the ill-informed, uninformed, malinformed — and this is what Schieffer is continuing to probe here. “Well, but — but — but!” Ryan says, “No, no, we\u2019re not lowering tax revenue,” in other words, we\u2019re gonna have a rate to make it simpler. The same amount of money is gonna keep rolling in. Schieffer is not even listening to the answer. He\u2019s got a template in his head; he\u2019s sticking to it. You just heard Ryan say, “We want to clean up the tax code so that it works. If you have really high rates, what you end up doing is penalizing small business.” Schieffer doesn\u2019t hear it — and even if he had, I doubt that he would understand it.<\/p>\n

SCHIEFFER: If the country needs to borrow 40 cents of every dollar that it spends, how do you help that by reducing the amount of taxes that the richest people in the country pay? It would seem to me that\u2019s where you get revenue. How do you justify it?<\/p>\n

PAUL RYAN: Two things. We don\u2019t have a tax problem. Our revenue is going back to where they have been historically. We have a big spending problem. Spending is growing at a very unsustainable rate. Massive tax increase… The President\u2019s proposing $1.5 trillion in tax increases. Raising tax rates on anybody, especially successful small businesses, slows down the economy; loses jobs; and if you have lower economic growth, you have less revenues, and it puts you further behind.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, Schieffer doesn\u2019t hear any of that. That\u2019s the end of the sound bites, but he didn\u2019t hear any of that. He didn\u2019t hear Ryan say, in the previous answer, that we\u2019re talking about revenue neutral here. He goes on to talk about what we really need to do is cut spending. But, Schieffer, he\u2019s stuck on “tax cuts for the rich.” I mean, if you\u2019re gonna “borrow 40 cents of every dollar that it spends, how do you help that by reducing the amount of taxes that the richest people in the country pay? It would seem to me that\u2019s where you get revenue.” No. I remember telling you last week that at one point back in the seventies, they said you could confiscate (which means you could do it only one time) not just the wealth, but everything the rich have.<\/p>\n

And you could run the government for a week. Today, if you confiscate — “confiscate,” that means you can do it one time; you can\u2019t tax \u2019em next year because they don\u2019t have anything — you raise something like $960 billion. If you confiscate all the wealth of the rich, you net $960 billion, on a deficit of $1.6 trillion and a national debt of $14 trillion. The point being raising tax on the rich is not where to go. But where does all the other revenue come from the government raises? On the people nobody talks about, $2.2 trillion is the aggregate total (I\u2019ll find it in the story here) from the middle class and other groups that don\u2019t classify or qualify as being in the “rich.”<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, folks, as you know I have a lot of respect for Paul Ryan, and I don\u2019t want to quibble with Paul Ryan, but I\u2019m going to just a little bit. It may be a minor technical point, but I don\u2019t think so. I think it\u2019s actually imperative that everybody understand this. Yeah, we have a spending problem. There\u2019s no question that we have a spending problem. But the problem we really face is how the money is spent. What we really have is a redistribution of wealth problem. That\u2019s, to my mind, the bigger problem that we have. The federal government (and when we say “the federal government,” we mean the Democrats, Obama) now see their primary role as the redistributors of wealth — and tax increases don\u2019t help that. <\/p>\n

You know, they pitch tax increases as, “Well, we got this huge deficit out there. We\u2019re gonna make the whole,” and they pitch tax increases, some sort of a moral crusade. Wrong! It would exacerbate the problem, given that the government\u2019s role is one of redistribution. Give \u2019em more revenue and they\u2019re gonna spend it, right? But how? They are going to spend it by redistributing it, in an effort to “equalize outcomes” and all the other rigmarole. Tax increases will only make that problem worse. If it were possible, what really needs to happen is take away the government\u2019s power to redistribute our income against our will. <\/p>\n

Have you ever wondered (just as a little intellectual exercise, just to get people thinking about something) what is the one entity in our country that never pays a cent in taxes? The government! The government. It earns what? It takes and takes and takes, but it never pays taxes on its income. Now, I know what you\u2019re saying. “But, Rush, but, Rush, the government…” That\u2019s exactly what I want you to say, and I want you to challenge yourself. The government doesn\u2019t pay any taxes on what it earns. It has the power to levy taxes. It has the power to collect, has the power to redistribute. It\u2019s the one entity can go out and print, do whatever it wants, and never pays the taxes itself. <\/p>\n

END TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

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All right, Tax Day. This is the day that everybody has to file their returns today or file for an extension, and quarterly filers owe their first installment for the tax year. So there are a lot of stories about taxes out there, and of course I don\u2019t believe in coincidences, as you well know. 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