RUSH: We have the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, joining us for a few minutes here to exult and to explain the future with now the tax cut having passed both the House and Senate. What happens next, Mr. Speaker? When does this actually go into effect, and how will people first notice it?<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: Hey, Rush, longtime listener, fourth time caller.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Congratulations, by the way.<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: Thank you.<\/p>\n
RUSH: This is a big, big deal for you all, a testament to stick-to-itiveness.<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: It is. Yeah. We\u2019ve been pushing this thing. I mean, I first met you when I was working for Bill Bennett and Jack Kemp and we were pushing this stuff back in those days.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Empower America.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/650-122017-Paul-Ryan-Trump.jpg\")
SPEAKER RYAN: Yeah. This has been a long time coming. We\u2019ve been pushing this rock up the hill for years. I\u2019m so excited we finally got here. It\u2019s a big, big deal. So many conservative wins in this bill. I mean, more than just tax reform. We got rid of the individual mandate. Remember you asked me about that the last time we talked.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I did.<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: That\u2019s in here. We got ANWR. We\u2019ve been working on trying to open up ANWR for drilling for decades. That\u2019s in here, which is really gonna help us with our energy independence agenda, not to mention the historical tax cut and tax reform that we\u2019ve got here. So it starts, to answer your question, January 1, 2018.<\/p>\n
RUSH: So in the first pay period following January 1 people will notice changes in their withholding?<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: Yeah. So what we anticipate, \u2019cause we\u2019ve been working with the Treasury department on that, the president and I spoke about this yesterday, is in February, \u2019cause they\u2019re working on doing that, we think in February we can get the IRS to change withholding so that they take less money out of people\u2019s paychecks in the first place and employers also can put more money in paychecks. So we believe we can get the Treasury department — this is the administration\u2019s job, they\u2019re working on this — to get withholding tables to reflect this tax cut starting in February.<\/p>\n
RUSH: So that\u2019s what the president meant —<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: — by February, is withholding tables.<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/650-110717-Paul-Ryan-Interview-X.jpg\")
RUSH: Explain to me, since I brought this up earlier and before I branch off to other things, what is the practical meaning now or the practical application of the individual mandate being removed? I know that\u2019s a large part of the guts of Obamacare, but what\u2019s that going to mean to John Q. and Mary Citizen going forward?<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: It means you do not have to buy what the government says you have to buy. The individual mandate is a law that says you have to buy Obamacare insurance if you\u2019re in the individual market, and if you don\u2019t, you\u2019re gonna pay a tax as a penalty if you don\u2019t buy that, so that is removed and repealed. So you don\u2019t pay this penalty; you don\u2019t pay this tax; you don\u2019t pay it at all, so we\u2019re not gonna force you to buy something you don\u2019t want to buy. You get to buy what you want to buy without a penalty.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Is this, in your mind, does this move forward any kind of a timetable on dealing with health care as an issue? I don\u2019t want to say repeal and replace Obamacare, but this is a large part of Obamacare gone now.<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: It is. Yeah, you\u2019re pulling at basically the biggest string of Obamacare. So by pulling this out, we\u2019re basically taking away the core architecture of Obamacare. And we believe that gives us the ability to go back and address these other issues. What we really want to do is give states the ability to set up their own insurance markets so that they can get premiums down.<\/p>\n
My own state of Wisconsin, if we can go back to setting up risk pools like many states had where you can help people with catastrophic illnesses get affordable coverage, you can actually dramatically lower everyone else\u2019s premiums. That\u2019s the kind of reforms that we\u2019re talking about, that we want to see done, and getting rid of this individual mandate, we believe, will help us get there.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay. That\u2019s why I asked you because I think there are so many potential benefits in this tax bill that are gonna grow the economy and —<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: Right.<\/p>\n
SPEAKER RYAN: So it\u2019s exactly how we see it. We see it the exact same way you just described it. In the House, as you know, we\u2019ve been rocking and rolling, we\u2019ve been passing everything. We passed funding for the wall back in spring in the House, but we\u2019ve got a Senate that we have to deal with that has different rules than we do, they move a little more slowly. But you gotta give it to \u2019em; they totally stepped it up here, got it done.<\/p>\n We\u2019re going down to the White House in a few hours to do an event with the president \u2019cause we just passed this thing like 20 minutes ago, the second time around in the House, so it\u2019s done, it\u2019s on its way to the president right now. I\u2019ve gotta sign this thing in a few minutes or a few hours to get this bill down to the president\u2019s desk. So we\u2019re excited about it. This is happening, and we are on a roll, like you say.<\/p>\n I tell people, go to FairAndSimple.gop<\/a>. Because you\u2019ll see all that this does. If you have children, this doubles your per-child tax credit from a thousand to $2,000. If you\u2019re a taxpayer, your tax rates go down no matter who you are. We double the standard deduction so that almost 90% of Americans will still, under our earlier version and this version, they\u2019ll be able to fill out their taxes on a form the size of a postcard. That is radical simplification of the tax code and it dramatically diminishes the power of the Internal Revenue Service.<\/p>\n So many conservative principles were advanced here, not to mention the individual mandate, not to mention oil and gas independence by getting the oil out of Alaska that\u2019s been locked up there for years. We\u2019re very excited about this. And I want to thank you, Rush, for helping us get there, helping get this message out. And I want to thank your listeners. Conservative grassroots activists have been staying with us and keeping us on point and supporting us while we go through this in spite of the liberal and the media onslaught that has confused people about what this bill actually does.<\/p>\n RUSH: Well, let me repeat something. I appreciate that, but I really am serious. I think this bill has more potential to radically alter, for the good, the United States economy and draw such a contrast of what this economy has been the last eight, and maybe even 16 years. This has the potential to unlock things that people don\u2019t yet know will be unlocked. Unlock more growth and revenue being produced, created, sent to Washington in the form of new taxpayers and new tax revenue.<\/p>\n I think we\u2019re on the precipice here. And you didn\u2019t talk about the corporate rate, and I want to ask you about that only because I\u2019m getting slammed here with seminar callers who are trying to convey a message that you guys, by cutting the corporate tax rate here, are busting the budget, you\u2019re breaking the deficit, you\u2019re adding to the national debt. And of course corporations aren\u2019t gonna give anybody any money like Savannah Guthrie tried to do to you today.<\/p>\n SPEAKER RYAN: (laughing)<\/p>\n RUSH: “You\u2019re living in a fantasy world, Mr. Speaker. You think corporations are actually gonna grow? You think they\u2019re actually gonna hire people?” This is a woman who lived in the fantasy world that Obamacare was gonna lower everybody\u2019s premiums, and now she is questioning you about it.<\/p>\n SPEAKER RYAN: Yeah. I was there, I actually got that. And I was wondering to myself, you wonder why people are confused about what this bill does.<\/p>\n RUSH: Exactly right.<\/p>\n SPEAKER RYAN: So, look. I mean, the corporate rate right now today, it\u2019s 35%. On New Year\u2019s Day it\u2019s gonna be 21%. You know what it is in the industrialized world on average? Twenty-two and a half percent. We\u2019ve been hitting our corporations harder with taxes than any other country in the industrialized world.<\/p>\n RUSH: We should be because the left says corporations kill their customers and don\u2019t want to help anybody and they don\u2019t give anybody raises or health insurance or any of that. Corporations ought to be made to suffer. That\u2019s what the left has got people believing.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what the tax code was doing to American businesses. It was discouraging growing things in America, it was discouraging investing in America. We completely reversed that with this bill. It now pays to stay in America. It now makes sense to make things in America. And if you\u2019re fortunate enough to be big enough to sell something overseas, now you can bring your money back home and reinvest it in this economy.<\/p>\n And we have $3 trillion of cash that is trapped overseas that could not come back in this economy because of these goofy tax laws. We fixed all of that. And so now it makes sense to be an American company, it makes sense to make things in America. And if you sell something overseas, bring the money back, you can do it without a penalty. That\u2019s gonna be good for growth. That\u2019s good for America.<\/p>\n RUSH: Well, what do you say to people who are afraid that the corporate tax rate is gonna end up adding to the deficit? How do you deal with that?<\/p>\n SPEAKER RYAN: We were gonna lose corporations if we didn\u2019t do this. My own home state of Wisconsin, the biggest publicly traded company we used to have headquartered in Milwaukee was Johnson Controls. The thermostat at the EIB is probably a Johnson Controls thermostat. They are now an Irish company. Why? Because the Ireland tax laws are better than the U.S. tax laws, for now. And so this was happening all across the country, U.S. companies were leaving because of taxes.<\/p>\n So literally we\u2019re gonna stop the bleeding of U.S. companies leaving. That\u2019s number one. Number two, we are encouraging companies to stay and invest and grow here. That will create more jobs, that creates higher wages, that creates higher tax revenue. So of all the tax cuts that are in this bill, the one that has the biggest bang for economic buck is going to be the corporate tax rate reduction. You ought to have Art Laffer come on your show and tell you about how this works because he has been proven right over and over again.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/RYANTRUMP.jpg\")
RUSH: — improve people\u2019s standard of living, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s all known yet. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s all been accurately spelled out. I think that\u2019s why your buddies Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are in such a panic<\/a> trying to mischaracterize this, because they know how effective this was back in the 1980s and what a boom that caused. They know that this can do the same thing. And you throw in gutting the Obamacare mandate, that\u2019s gonna cause action to be necessary to fix what\u2019s wrong with health care. And now you\u2019ve got the wall, you\u2019ve got immigration. You guys are on a roll, it appears.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/FBFB-110217-Speaker-Ryan.jpg\")
SPEAKER RYAN: That is what they\u2019ve got people believing. Guess what they\u2019re doing? They\u2019re pushing them out of this country. The companies have been inverting, becoming foreign companies, they\u2019ve been bought by foreign companies. They\u2019re moving jobs overseas. I talked to the guy who runs Intel, huge corporation, microprocessors, 50,000 employees in America. Under this current code that occurs before New Year\u2019s Day, they would have saved $2 billion in taxes over a 10-year period per factory if they just moved \u2019em overseas.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Paul-Ryan-hand.jpg\")
RUSH: Any time you put that much more money in the economy, I don\u2019t care where it is — if you put it in the bank, if you put it in stocks, if you put that much more money in the economy — it can\u2019t help but expand and grow it. It\u2019s all good in that sense. The only reason this comes up is the left has succeeded in creating this Darth Vader impression or images of corporations and the whole notion of industry —<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Rush-Photos-SMALL-022.jpg\")
SPEAKER RYAN: I have no idea.<\/p>\n