{"id":37001,"date":"2010-12-03T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T00:15:31","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T00:15:31","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T00:15:31","slug":"a_classic_liberal_know_it_all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2010\/12\/03\/a_classic_liberal_know_it_all\/","title":{"rendered":"A Classic Liberal Know-It-All"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Sean in Parkville, Maryland, Open Line Friday. You\u2019re next. Nice to have you with us. Hello, sir.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hey, Rush. How are you?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Very well. Thank you.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hey, I just want to tell a story. I am a little bit of a liberal person. I — I do find a lot of humor in what you do, though. I\u2019m willing to, you know, see the humor in what you do sometimes. Uh, I really like your Bill Clinton impersonation a lot. I wish you would do it more.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate that.<\/p>\n

CALLER: But what I\u2019m calling about today is about taxes, and I was telling Snerdley that the way that I look at it, really — in my opinion — there\u2019s really nothing stopping a business from hiring an individual right now. I know we have a disagreement on the fact that if the government raises taxes, it does not give a business an incentive, and that may be. It may not be an incentive but there really is nothing barring or stopping them from hiring individuals to do work right now. I mean, they could choose to do that if they wanted to.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, no, no, no. Wait. I know what you\u2019re trying to say, but in taking you literally, which is where I live, I have to disagree with you. There are things stopping them. But what your point is is that if they wanted to they could. They could throw all this concern out the window and start hiring people if they wanted to. You\u2019re trying to say that they\u2019re not hiring people for a reason that is what? Are they selfish? Are they greedy? What?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I think we have to put that question to them and let them answer that question. I think for you and I to answer that question since we\u2019re not the businesses, that\u2019s kind of silly.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, but I am.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Let them answer that question.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I am a business.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, okay. Well, why don\u2019t you tell me. I mean — I mean you have people, but I\u2019m sure you\u2019re not doing major hiring, Rush. I mean, you\u2019re a radio program. But there are businesses that produce goods and services.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Uhhhhh….<\/p>\n

CALLER: They have to constantly hire or fire or whatever but I don\u2019t think you fall under that category, though.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Now, I do want to make one other (point).<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, wait, wait. Wait, just a second now. Wait just a second. You have just done something very interesting, and I\u2019m sure you do it throughout your daily discourse in politics, your whole life. You have just told me, without knowing a shred, all about my business. You have just told me what I don\u2019t do, what I don\u2019t have, what kind of business I am \u2019cause I\u2019m just a radio show. You have told me everything in the world about my business, and formed an opinion based on it when you don\u2019t know anything about my business. How many employees do I have?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, okay.<\/p>\n

CALLER: How many do you have?<\/p>\n

RUSH: But it\u2019s just a radio show. I\u2019m not trying to trip you up here, don\u2019t misunderstand. There\u2019s no wrong answer here. Just take a guess. You said it\u2019s just a radio show. So how many employees do I have?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Uh, let\u2019s say 200.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Two hundred. Well, if I had 200 employees, that doesn\u2019t go with what you originally said: ‘You\u2019re just a radio show.\u2019 That\u2019s a lot of employees for a small business to have.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, I agree but I would think —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Or do you think it\u2019s not a lot?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I think you would expect me to say a low number so that\u2019s why I actually (garbled) high.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I wasn\u2019t expecting anything. No, that\u2019s why I…<\/p>\n

CALLER: (garbled)<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, no, no. No, no. There was no wrong answer. I\u2019m not trying to trick you. I\u2019m not trying to set you up for anything. This is a fascinating conversation, because literally you started out by saying everything you thought you knew about my business but you don\u2019t know anything about it. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that. You couldn\u2019t, you\u2019re not part of it.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Right.<\/p>\n

RUSH: But you think you do, which tells me that you think you know a lot about a whole lot of other things that you don\u2019t really know about and then you\u2019re drawing political conclusions and opinions based on what you think you know.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Don\u2019t we all do that?<\/p>\n

RUSH: I try not to.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, you try not to but don\u2019t we all it? I mean, inadvertently.<\/p>\n

RUSH: There you go again. You\u2019re telling me how I behave.<\/p>\n

CALLER: No, I\u2019m not. I\u2019m saying, ‘We all do.\u2019 I didn\u2019t say ‘you.\u2019 I said, ‘Don\u2019t we all?\u2019<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is classic of a liberal. You think you know everything everybody else is doing and thinking and saying and then you assign a motive to it.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I don\u2019t think that. You\u2019re saying that I think that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, I\u2019m reacting to you. (laughing) I\u2019m reacting to you doing it. I\u2019m not doing it. (laughing)<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, anyway, Rush, another point. Could I make one other point? I\u2019ll make it quick?<\/p>\n

RUSH: This will be your first one.<\/p>\n

CALLER: (laughing) Okay. The other point that I wanted to make is that if taxes are raised and businesses are not gonna hire, why don\u2019t we extend that to workers? If taxes go up then why don\u2019t all workers stop? Is that right? Why don\u2019t we challenge all workers with a right-leaning ideology to just tell their employer they don\u2019t want to work anymore because the taxes are too high for them? Why don\u2019t they just stop working when the taxes do go up because evidently that\u2019s what they\u2019re opposed to? So why don\u2019t they stop working?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Tell me what point you are trying to make with this.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, the point I\u2019m trying to make with this is that —<\/p>\n

RUSH: What part of conservatism are you trying to refute here?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m not trying to refute any part of conservatism.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Sure you are.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I guess I\u2019m trying to —<\/p>\n

RUSH: You\u2019re trying to tell me that all conservative workers should, what, quit?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, no. I mean, I — I would think that they would want to do that. Because, I mean, businesses don\u2019t want to hire there\u2019s no incentive so what\u2019s the incentive for people that work whose taxes are going up? There really is none, right? I mean, it\u2019s the same thing. If you raise the taxes all in the regular working person just like me, I mean, what\u2019s the incentive for me to work? Why should I continue to work if businesses won\u2019t hire?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, a lot of people have opted out of work because of that. A lot of the rest of the people work even harder to overcome that obstacle that\u2019s placed in front of them.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, just like a lot of people have opted out of working a lot of people continue to work. I mean, I do.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Why?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Why? Because I need to live.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. Then why doesn\u2019t that apply to anybody else?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I never said it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, you did because you said other people could just quit if taxes go up. Quit. Why not quit instead of paying higher taxes?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m saying put your money where your mouth is if you\u2019re really upset about taxes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I am putting my money where my mouth is —<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m not talking about you, Rush. It\u2019s a figure of speech.<\/p>\n

RUSH: — by standing up to people who get to keep more of what they earn. Wait a second.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m talking about the people of the United States on your side of the ideological spectrum.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Why do you want people automatically to keep less of what they earn? <\/p>\n

CALLER: I want people to keep what they earn.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I want people to keep more what they earn. You want \u2019em to quit.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m not making the decision as to whether people keep more or less of what they earn.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You\u2019re throwing down a challenge. You\u2019re throwing down a gauntlet or something. What do you have against people keeping more of what they earn? <\/p>\n

CALLER: Absolutely nothing.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, then why are you a liberal?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, I — I wouldn\u2019t say that I\u2019m a liberal. I have liberal views.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You started out by saying you\u2019re a liberal. You started by telling me everything about my business, you don\u2019t know how many employees I\u2019ve got, you don\u2019t whether I\u2019m hiring or not.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Nor do I care.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You do, because that\u2019s why you called.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Nnnno, I was — I was trying to draw a comparison to what\u2019s going on in the country. You\u2019re the one that brought up the whole thing about your business. I wasn\u2019t talking about your business at all.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I did not bring up my business. You did. (laughing)<\/p>\n

CALLER: You did! <\/p>\n

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

CALLER: You asked me! I was talking about business in general.<\/p>\n

RUSH: No! You told me everything about my business and then I stopped and asked, ‘Wait, how do you know this?\u2019 Look, I have a flawless memory here. You\u2019re not gonna be able to slither out of this.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m not trying to.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yes, you are. <\/p>\n

CALLER: So say you.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m still waiting for you. You are consumed here with some kind of a… I don\u2019t know, I wouldn\u2019t call it bitterness, but what is it your anger? What are you hearing people say that\u2019s making you angry when this employment tax talk is happening?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m not angry. What I am is I\u2019m upset. I wouldn\u2019t say angry.<\/p>\n

RUSH: All right, what are you upset about?<\/p>\n

CALLER: People are saying that if taxes go up, businesses are gonna stop hiring. Well, businesses stopped hiring a long time. They actually laid people off. We lost 13,000 at my company.<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, that\u2019s not what people are saying. People are not saying if taxes go up, business will stop hiring. Businesses aren\u2019t hiring now.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Please, Rush! Please! You\u2019ve been saying that. Are you kidding me? Do you need to go back into your (garbled) archives?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Folks, by the time this ends, I\u2019m gonna have called him.<\/p>\n

CALLER: (silence)<\/p>\n

RUSH: By the time we finish with this, he\u2019s gonna tell me I called him and why am I bothering him.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m not gonna tell you that. <\/p>\n

RUSH: (laughing) That\u2019s where we\u2019re headed.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Anyway, Rush, let\u2019s leave it on a good note. I like your Bill Clinton impersonation. Continue to do that \u2019cause I think it\u2019s kinda funny.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I know. I understand what you mean by that.<\/p>\n

CALLER: We\u2019ll just have to agree to disagree on the facts but I was just trying to raise a point and I think I did a good job of doing that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: It\u2019s a shame we disagree, though, because you\u2019re wrong and you have a basic misunderstanding of things that\u2019s forming the foundation of your incorrectness. It\u2019s a shame. I would love to answer you. You started out asking some interesting questions. The problem is you proceeded to answer them, and you don\u2019t know the answers, which tells me that you\u2019re forming a whole lot of conclusions based on things that you don\u2019t know subject to your political bias, which makes you a lost cause. But you needn\u2019t be. I mean, you say we disagree on facts. You haven\u2019t mentioned a fact yet. You\u2019ve mentioned a bunch of opinions and you\u2019ve thrown out a bunch of challenges and questions, but you haven\u2019t mentioned a fact yet. <\/p>\n

And we\u2019re out of time, so facts go by the wayside. Thanks for the call.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: You know that\u2019s what liberals do best. I mean this guy was — and I like the guy, now, don\u2019t misunderstand. I wish I coulda gotten through to the guy but unfortunately I put the guy on the defensive. I wasn\u2019t trying to do that, but he was full of business should do this; conservatives should do this; employees should do that, and that\u2019s what liberals do best, is they ‘should\u2019 people to death. I mean you liberals are the champs at ‘shoulding\u2019 people. Businesses should do this; conservatives should do that; Newt should do that or whatever. But, boy, you don\u2019t like it when people start shoulding you. It was classic, wasn\u2019t it? Telling me everything about my business that he doesn\u2019t know, and he\u2019s already formed an opinion about it. (interruption) Yeah, if they\u2019re raising taxes why don\u2019t you quit work? No, we\u2019re trying to stop them from raising taxes for the sake of everybody. None of this is based in selfishness. Those of us who hold the position I hold love the country. We\u2019re thinking of everybody here. We want greatness for everybody, how many times have we gone through this? We\u2019re not at war with the country. We are at war with the people who want to harm it one way or the other, internal or external, doesn\u2019t matter. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Ron in Forest Hills, New York, you\u2019re next on Open Line Friday. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hey, Rush, it\u2019s Ron from Forest Hills, Queens, New York, and the home of Geraldine Ferraro who I\u2019m sure is listening to you right now.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right, and John McEnroe and a number of others.<\/p>\n

CALLER: A few. I just want to go off on that one fellow who was talking to you about how he knew your business better than you did basically. He made the point that, why don\u2019t we just stop working? Well, I have a friend who\u2019s a dentist in Germany, and every year about the beginning of November the government tells him you\u2019ve made enough money, that\u2019s it, you\u2019re done, so he stops working, him and his buddies stop working. All he does is see people for emergencies, if they have a crown or something, that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Some people have, even in this country some people —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I\u2019m sure that when the tax rates were 90% back in the fifties when Kennedy came into office people stopped working when they bumped up against the marginal tax rate —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Not even taxes. Here in this country, doctors, Medicare doctors, they\u2019re quitting, they\u2019re quitting Medicare work.<\/p>\n

CALLER: So that fellow was absolutely wrong. People do stop working when tax rates do go too high.<\/p>\n

RUSH: And they stop being productive.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah. I think I have a little bone to pick about the strategery that goes on. All I ever hear about or 90% of what I hear about is how the tax rate is going to go up from 36 to 39.6%, a 10% increase.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, why don\u2019t people talk about the low-end people? I mean it\u2019s gonna go up from 10% to 15%, which is a 50% increase.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: So my question to you is, what do the Democrats have against poor people and African-Americans? ‘Cause that\u2019s basically the people that are gonna be affected the most.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That is an excellent question, and I have been asking it for years. If I were African-American in this country I would be asking for the last 20 years, ‘When are you guys gonna deliver? You have been promising me every four years that you\u2019re gonna get me out of this bondage that the Republicans keep me in, you\u2019re gonna end discrimination, and every four years I still have the same complaints.\u2019<\/p>\n

CALLER: The second greatest lie I think of the twentieth century, the second greatest lie of the twentieth century was that the Democrat Party is the party of African-Americans.<\/p>\n

RUSH: And the poor.<\/p>\n

CALLER: It\u2019s just a lie. It\u2019s just an absolute lie. If you go back to the beginning of this country —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Absolutely right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: — how the Democrat Party, the party of segregation, the party of Jim Crow, the party of Jefferson Davis, the party of Planned Parenthood, you can just go on and on —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Hell, the Ku Klux Klan was a bunch of Democrats and even one of them got into the United States Senate, for crying out loud.<\/p>\n

CALLER: The Democrats have finally figured out, they\u2019ve taken a new tack and said we\u2019re not gonna do it that way, we\u2019re gonna do it a different way. We\u2019re gonna say, ‘Yes, you\u2019re equal, but you need extra points on your test to get hired. Yes, you\u2019re equal, but you\u2019re not as smart as a white person or an Asian.\u2019<\/p>\n

RUSH: The way to put this is the Democrat Party is the party of keeping you poor and keeping you downtrodden. Without that, they are nothing.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Florida Keys, Allison, thank you for waiting. Nice to have you here.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Thank you, sir. I\u2019m so upset I\u2019m still shaking. I\u2019m calling to respond to the idiot with whom you were speaking earlier, the one who said that he doesn\u2019t understand why businesses don\u2019t just hire, why they need incentives.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, right. I can see you, I can just see you fuming out there, Allison. All this time you\u2019ve been waiting to get on air to talk about that idiot — he-he —<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019ve calmed down some since I first spoke with Mr. Snerdley, but like I said —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, what upset you about the guy?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, it\u2019s clear, he has no clue what he\u2019s talking about. He has no business experience. It\u2019s not incentive. It\u2019s called cash flow. If you don\u2019t have cash flow you can\u2019t make payroll. You can\u2019t just pull payroll out of the air.<\/p>\n

RUSH: It\u2019s called customers, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

CALLER: And that\u2019s another thing. In order to have customers you have to be competitive, you have to be able to give them a price where they can then hire you. But everything is going up, don\u2019t tell me there\u2019s no inflation. Between the taxes and the insurance and the permits and all the other regulations that we have to follow and pay for, our materials costs are going up, the gas is going up so that the trucks — it\u2019s ridiculous what we pay for gas every month, still it\u2019s going up, and if we raise our prices in order cover our costs, then the customers can\u2019t hire us, they can\u2019t afford it, and some of them, if they do, then they can\u2019t turn around and pay us so we\u2019ve got several accounts right now that haven\u2019t been paid. And I\u2019m sitting here at my desk right now trying to figure out who not to pay myself so that I can make payroll, I can pay my guys. The owner of this company hasn\u2019t been paid in over a year.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, how do you do that? How do you decide who you\u2019re not going to pay?<\/p>\n

CALLER: It\u2019s tough. A lot of them I\u2019ve ended up putting on credit cards so that I have the rollover. And I pay a little bit on the credit cards, but my big vendors, I\u2019m able to keep them paid with the credit card so that we can still get materials from them every month —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: — you know, they still work with us, but now the credit cards are mounting and it\u2019s strictly business, you know, it\u2019s not I\u2019m not going out and buying TVs and stuff on this thing. No, we\u2019re trying to keep this business running. And then you\u2019ve got people like whatever the hell his name was, I mean how can he be so stupid?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Because he\u2019s a —<\/p>\n

CALLER: I can\u2019t even say he\u2019s ignorant, because common sense, you would see it eventually, but he\u2019s stupid.<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, he told you at the outset, he\u2019s a liberal. Therefore he knows everything.<\/p>\n

CALLER: And then he turns around and makes the statement —<\/p>\n

RUSH: The reason you\u2019re not hiring anybody is because you\u2019re selfish. You could hire if you want to, you just want to keep the money for yourself. That\u2019s what he thinks.<\/p>\n

CALLER: And pay \u2019em with what? Bad checks?<\/p>\n

RUSH: You\u2019ve got a stash of money that you\u2019re not using. You are a business.<\/p>\n

CALLER: No, no, no, that\u2019s Obama, Obama has the stash, remember?<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m just telling you the way this guy thinks. You\u2019re a business; you\u2019ve got a stash of money; you\u2019re rich; you drive a Bentley; you\u2019ve got a big house; you have a boat to go along with your car. You\u2019re selfish. You could get rid of the boat and hire workers, if you wanted to, but you\u2019re selfish and greedy. That\u2019s what all of that meant.<\/p>\n

CALLER: You\u2019re being generous in saying what he thinks.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, yeah, popular use of the term, but that\u2019s what they believe and they\u2019re coulda woulda shoulda people. You coulda done, you shoulda done. He doesn\u2019t know the first thing he\u2019s talking about, but he thinks he knows everything about you.<\/p>\n

CALLER: How can he draw a breath for so many years that he\u2019s able to dial a phone and yet he doesn\u2019t pick up on any of this stuff? Doesn\u2019t he go to the grocery store ever? <\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, now, what do you mean? Whoa, whoa, whoa, now, I want you to explain to people what you mean by that, doesn\u2019t he go to the grocery store?<\/p>\n

CALLER: If you go to the grocery store, you have to pay for what you get, and —<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, you don\u2019t —<\/p>\n

CALLER: — if you pay attention the prices on the things that you buy have been going steadily up.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You don\u2019t have pay for it if you don\u2019t want to. Food stamps.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah. And he made the point about incentives himself, you know, why should I do this, I have no incentive to work, or quit your job, don\u2019t pay taxes, you know —<\/p>\n

RUSH: I think what you\u2019re illustrating here, Allison, is that particular caller really does not understand free market economics. He understands command-and-control economies.<\/p>\n

CALLER: How can there be so many people that don\u2019t understand it, that just want to sit with their hands out and have somebody give it to them and they don\u2019t have to do anything for it. Where does it come from? Who makes this money? The government doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019ve been doing this 23 years. I could go insane because I could think after 23 years there ought not be any liberals left, right?<\/p>\n

CALLER: This is true.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Then I could think of myself as an ultimate failure. So I\u2019ve have to figure out how is it that what is so easily understandable, what is just nothing more than common sense escapes these people. People have written books about this. There have been psychological dissertations about it. And the best I can come up with is you\u2019re not dealing with people who think. You just said that, too.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes. In order to have common sense you have to think. They don\u2019t think and I\u2019ve come to the conclusion some of them aren\u2019t even capable of thinking. And you can\u2019t fix that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, you can\u2019t. <\/p>\n

CALLER: Ignorance you can take care of, you can try to educate people, but when they\u2019re stupid, that\u2019s it, it\u2019s over. You figure, okay, they\u2019re ignorant —<\/p>\n

RUSH: I know, stupidity is a frustrating thing. What do you do about it, because by definition stupid is stupid. Dumb is dumb. I mean you can\u2019t turn a pencil eraser into a washing machine. People are what they are.<\/p>\n

CALLER: So how do you get through to people eventually so that —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, it does happen now and then.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m trying to make payroll here.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I probably have a better record than most of getting through to people and converting people. That\u2019s why I\u2019m considered such a threat and so dangerous. But you\u2019re not even talking his language, when you said out there, ‘What does he not understand about making payroll?\u2019 it\u2019s Mars-Venus, people like him don\u2019t have the slightest clue what you\u2019re talking about. What do you mean, make payroll? To him you\u2019re just making an excuse. You\u2019re just complaining about how hard it is. You\u2019re the business owner and you\u2019ve got all the money and you\u2019re the one that\u2019s selfish. If you really wanted to hire somebody you could, and then you throw payroll in, ‘What do you mean, payroll?\u2019<\/p>\n

CALLER: On the 15th of every single month you have to pay 941 taxes, the federal withholding —<\/p>\n

RUSH: And you should be damn happy you have the chance to pay those taxes, that\u2019s what he —<\/p>\n

CALLER: And Medicare. I have had to not pay myself several times or delay my paycheck by two or three weeks so I can pay —<\/p>\n

RUSH: You know how he reacts to that?<\/p>\n

CALLER: — because the government will not wait. We get paid on the 15th regardless. You can go hungry, you can go into foreclosure on your house, but we get paid.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Do you want to know how he reacts when you say, ‘and I don\u2019t even pay myself,\u2019 you want to know what his reaction is?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I must not need it.<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, well, you don\u2019t have to pay yourself. You have a big stash of money. You\u2019re actually paying yourself before anybody else gets paid. You\u2019re just greedy that you don\u2019t want to have to take away from what you already have.<\/p>\n

CALLER: No.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m telling you that\u2019s how they look at it. Businesses exist to create jobs for people and give them health care and when you don\u2019t see it that way, you\u2019re cold-hearted, cruel and mean spirited. You\u2019re unfeeling. It\u2019s just that simple. I can tell you you\u2019re going nuts out there trying to understand this, and a lot of people are like you, going nuts trying to figure it out. But keep in mind, that guy that you\u2019re talking about, in the eyes of the media he is the smartest man in the world. He\u2019s got the compassion; he has the perspective and so forth. That\u2019s what frustrates you, too. I\u2019m glad you called.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Folks, you know, very seldom do I point out something I think is brilliant. I know you think it\u2019s a lot, but… That liberal caller everybody\u2019s reacting to? He has the same level of economic understanding as our president has. That guy may as well have been Barack Obama. I kid you not. That\u2019s it. If you want to understand Obama, that guy was Obama. That guy has the same degree of economic literacy as Obama has got. Pure and simple. The golden goose is always gonna be golden. Business is always gonna have money. Businessmen, businesswomen are selfish and greedy. They could do all of this if they wanted to. <\/p>\n

But since they won\u2019t do it, we gotta do it for them, and so we have to spend the money. We have to give people unemployment checks. We have to do it because they won\u2019t do it. That\u2019s exactly who that guy was. It may as well have been Obama calling us from Afghanistan instead of calling Hamid Karzai. And here! Here\u2019s Barney Frank. This is last night on PMSNBC, The Last Word, Lawrence O\u2019Donnell. Question: ‘You got a lot of people in the top tax bracket in your district in Brookline and Dover or Wellesley. How do you explain to them that their tax rates ought to go up in your district when everybody else should get a cut?\u2019<\/p>\n

FRANK: (mushily) It\u2019s not the case that everybody who is doing well begrudges making a contribution. Many of these are fairly sophis-ch\u2019icated people, and they understand if someone is making $500,000, so $250,000 of that will be subjected to a, uh — a tax increase from 36% to 39%. That\u2019s 3% of $250,000, an increase of $7,500 in the taxes paid by someone making half a million has zero economic effect. It\u2019s just a miscon-ch\u2019eption that the Republicans will try to peddle, that everybody is selfish.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Is it me or is it getting harder to understand him? I think it\u2019s getting worse. Whatever ‘it\u2019 is, it\u2019s getting worse. Well, I think he needs a drain in his mouth for one thing. That would help. But anyway, higher taxes are your ‘contribution\u2019 to government. Higher taxes are your ‘contribution\u2019 to government! All right, here\u2019s Gil in Philadelphia. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.<\/p>\n

CALLER: (unintelligible) 16 times dittos, captain, O my captain.<\/p>\n

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

CALLER: Listen, I own a small engineering firm here in Philadelphia, what\u2019s left of it. Two years ago I had ten employees. Now I\u2019m down to a handful. The truth of the matter is that I would hire more people if there was a marketplace for their labor. I mean, if I can sell my people\u2019s labor, I make money. I have every incentive in the world to hire people, but there\u2019s no marketplace.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right. So what you\u2019re saying is you only hire people if you need them?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, if the marketplace needs them.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, that would be you \u2019cause you\u2019re doing the hiring. So, in other words, you don\u2019t hire them \u2019cause you\u2019re a nice guy and you don\u2019t hire \u2019em because you\u2019re trying to give them health care.<\/p>\n

CALLER: That\u2019s absolutely correct. That\u2019s not my motive at all. My motive is the profit motive, and if it isn\u2019t there I can\u2019t afford to hire them. In my opinion, one of the problems with liberals is they don\u2019t understand the difference between money and wealth. Wealth is generated when people go to work and provide a good or service to each other. <\/p>\n

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

CALLER: Money is just what exchanges hands. It\u2019s a claim on labor. And when the marketplace won\u2019t support the goods or the services, if nobody\u2019s there to buy them, then the economy doesn\u2019t grow. It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, of course you\u2019re exactly right, but I think you\u2019re being charitable in explaining liberals and wealth. To liberals, wealth is what you inherit.<\/p>\n

CALLER: (chuckles)<\/p>\n

RUSH: Or what you can score from somebody, from some government or something. Nobody ‘earns\u2019 wealth. That\u2019s just inconceivable to them. I mean, somebody who has multimillions can\u2019t possibly have earned it. Somebody had to give it to \u2019em or they had to steal it or there had to be something screwy about them, because they can\u2019t conceive of anybody paying somebody that amount of money — other than an athlete or a movie star. You\u2019re right, at the end of the day, about sophistication levels of understanding of economics. You know, economics is one of those things that is so complicated, it seems, but it\u2019s nothing other than logic. Economics is just logic. But the logic has to be explained to you the right way, and when it is — when you have a good economics teacher, professor — you have lights going off in your head like crazy. So many things make perfect sense when explained properly, \u2019cause they\u2019re just logic. <\/p>\n

Mathematics is just logic, and look how tough that is for people.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, to liberals wealth is also what you redistribute to buy votes. (laughing) To Pelosi, Pelosi\u2019s idea of earning money, folks, is tweaking the tax code to help her husband avoid paying taxes. They\u2019ve all got their own definitions of it, but it doesn\u2019t include helping you, only them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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