{"id":5267,"date":"2015-09-29T18:13:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T18:13:02","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2015-09-29T18:13:02","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T18:13:02","slug":"trump_s_tax_plan_reaganesque_but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2015\/09\/29\/trump_s_tax_plan_reaganesque_but\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u00c2\u2019s Tax Plan: Reaganesque, But…"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

RUSH: We\u2019ve got news of Trump\u2019s tax plan coming up and Drive-By Media reaction to it. You know, a lot of conservatives in the commentariat who have uttered words of contempt for Trump are now praising him with his tax plan. Well, yeah, you shall hear shortly coming up. We also have many in the Drive-By Media, such as David “Rodham” Gergen, the dean of conventional wisdom, thinking that Trump\u2019s tax plan is very Reaganesque. <\/p>\n

But the point is when somebody like David “Rodham” Gergen says it\u2019s Reaganesque, that\u2019s not complimentary to the left. There\u2019s no complimentary association possible with Reagan, when you\u2019re talking about taxes. They despise Reagan on taxes. His tax cuts created the deficits and the national debt that still strangle us to this day, is what they believe. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, back to the phones. This is Taylor, northeast Maryland. Great to have you. I\u2019m glad you waited, and welcome to the program. Hi.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hey, Rush, it\u2019s a great honor.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you, sir.<\/p>\n

CALLER: So a quick question in regards to Trump\u2019s tax plan. Up to this point Trump has been my guy through and through. However, when he released his tax plan, I feel in this country there\u2019s a huge lack of motivation or just call it laziness to be successful, and by his giving a zero percent tax rate to those who make, you know, $25,000 for single or $50,000 for a married couple, how is that going to motivate people to get out there and do better for themselves?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, I had same thought yesterday. I didn\u2019t voice it in the same words that you have here, but a zero tax rate, to me, is self-defeating. I think what a zero percent tax rate is, sad to say, is pandering. What is happening with tax policy, it seems no matter who comes up with a tax plan, no matter who talks about it, it seems that there are some requirements that you must say, and one of the things you must say is you\u2019re gonna soak the rich. No matter who you are, Republican, Democrat, Martian, you have to let people know the rich are not gonna get away in your plan. As though they ever do. <\/p>\n

The next thing you have to do is to acknowledge that there are some really, really decent, hardworking, wonderful Americans getting shafted every day, and they\u2019re gonna be rewarded by not having to pay anything. Well, the fact is that already happens. I forget the precise stat, but I believe that it\u2019s close to 50% of Americans, I don\u2019t know if it is 50% of working or just 50% of the whole population, don\u2019t pay any income tax. Now, they pay payroll tax, Social Security and all that, but no income tax. And I have always believed that there ought to be some skin in the game, for whatever reason. In your case, to inspire work and achievement to escape various income levels. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s got some advantages in his tax plan, no question his rates, 10, 20, 30, 40, whatever, I mean, 30 being the top, that\u2019s quite motivating to go ahead and go out there and earn dollars. If you get to keep 70 cents of every dollar you earn, as opposed to now in many states, you get to keep 49 or 45 cents of what you earn, the rest of it goes to various state and federal agencies and taxing authorities and so forth.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Let\u2019s go to audio sound bites here. We have a montage of the media commentariat comparing Trump\u2019s tax plan to Ronaldus Magnus. Now, I don\u2019t want to say anything, folks, but we did that here on this program yesterday in great detail. Yesterday when Trump\u2019s tax plan came out, people were savaging Trump\u2019s tax plan because it went overboard, they said, in taxing the rich. <\/p>\n

I went back and got some Reagan comments from 1985 after his first wave of tax cuts where he mentioned a number of wealthy corporations in America that weren\u2019t paying anything, and that just wasn\u2019t right. The whole idea, by the way, that the rich got away with paying nothing during Reagan and his tax cuts? That\u2019s one of the many lies that\u2019s being told in the history revisionism of the Reagan tax cuts. The rich are paying a bigger share of the tax burden than they ever have, and it all started with the Reagan tax cuts. <\/line><\/p>\n

Now, you might say, “Well, then why aren\u2019t they mad?” The reason they aren\u2019t mad is that they\u2019re keeping more of what they earn at the same time. See, that\u2019s the beauty of this. By lowering the rates… When Reagan took office, the top marginal rate was 70%. Now, very few people paid 70%. Only the idiots. It was the highest bracket, and it took awhile to get there, but there were plenty of options to shelter your income rather than pay that. <\/p>\n

But that money, when you sheltered it, went somewhere besides you, and it did not all go to economic growth or in areas that would contribute to economic growth. Reagan reduced, in eight years, the top rate 70% to 28%. The amount of revenue to the Treasury doubled. So the rich began paying even more in taxes, but only because they were sheltering less. When you get to keep 82\u00c2\u00a2 of every $1 that you earn, you\u2019ll report dollars left and right. You won\u2019t worry about trying to shelter some of it or hide it with deductions. <\/p>\n

You\u2019ll happily take the simple route, report the income, take the tax. The way it works is the low rate creates economic growth, which creates jobs, which creates more taxpayers, which spreads the taxation burden across more people. It all works. It works every time it\u2019s tried. But Obama doesn\u2019t believe in it. He\u2019s done his best to wipe it out like every Democrat has, and they get caught up in the fairness of rate percentage rather than revenue generated.<\/p>\n

Obama can look at the capital gains rate at 15% and think the people paying it are uber-rich and it just is not fair, even though the rate is creating revenue flowing to Washington like nobody ever predicted before. But that doesn\u2019t matter to Obama. What matters to him is that 15% just isn\u2019t high enough. “It\u2019s not fair. It needs to go up to 30%,” and the minute that starts happening then people stop reporting capital gains. And the amount of revenue going to Washington plummets. Well, it may not plummet, but it shrinks.<\/line><\/p>\n

So there\u2019s no mystery to this. The rich pay a higher share, and they end up keeping more of what they earn. Now, people may say, “That\u2019s not possible.” It\u2019s totally is possible. The math is what it is. Look at it this way. Use even numbers. You earn $10,000 a year. And there are five tax brackets, and the highest tax bracket is 80%. In other words, you would pay 80\u00c2\u00a2 cents of every $1 you earned. But to avoid that, you can invest over here in this charity or that charity or some kind of newfangled deduction that\u2019s in the tax code so that your income never got to the level requiring you to pay 80%.<\/p>\n

And you\u2019ve structured your life around tax deductions to avoid that 80%, the 70% below it, the 60% below it. You want to pay as little as you can. You certainly aren\u2019t gonna be an idiot and pay 80% of your taxes in income. It used to be 90% in this country. When JFK was president, 90% was the top marginal bracket. And that\u2019s when JFK embarked on Reaganesque tax cuts, by the way. Or somebody comes to you and says, “You know what? We\u2019re gonna lower your tax rate. There\u2019s just gonna be one that will affect you, and it\u2019s 25%.” <\/p>\n

“Wait, you telling me that I\u2019m only gonna pay $2,500 on this $10,000 I\u2019ve earned?” <\/p>\n

“That\u2019s exactly right.”<\/p>\n

The guy\u2019s gonna say, “I\u2019ll do that every day of the year.” <\/p>\n

“Now, you\u2019re gonna lose your deductions. There\u2019s a tradeoff for this.” <\/p>\n

“That\u2019s fine with me. It\u2019s less work for my accountant. It\u2019s less mess for me. It\u2019s less chance of an audit. It\u2019s straight cross the board.”<\/p>\n

<\/a>That\u2019s what happened. So more people started reporting income and it was taxed. Tax revenue went up. They were paying a smaller rate; they kept more. The rich were paying a larger share of the tax burden in actual dollars, and now the percentages have caught up, too. It worked! It worked so well, the left had to immediately begin to make up things and lie about it, call it trickle-down, say it doesn\u2019t work. So here comes Trump with his tax plan yesterday, and here is a commentariat media montage.<\/p>\n

DAVID ASMAN: Ronald Reagan, when he left office he brought the top rate down to 28%. Donald Trump, 25%. Just about the same.<\/p>\n

NEIL CAVUTO: Donald Trump\u2019s ambitious tax package that many call “Reagan big.”<\/p>\n

FRED BARNES: Supply-side economics worked so famously in the 1980s and \u201990s with the Reagan tax cuts. There\u2019s a very good reason to try it again.<\/p>\n

STUART VARNEY: Just like Reagan.<\/p>\n

ERIN BURNETT: …equating it to Reagan.<\/p>\n

JEFFREY LORD: This is certainly Reaganesque.<\/p>\n

STEVE DOOCY: Rush Limbaugh said yesterday on his air, the Trump plan is similar to Reagan\u2019s 1980s tax proposals.<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is precisely correct. This is exactly right. And later on on Fox, this is America\u2019s Newsroom, Bill Hemmer this morning talking with Neil Cavuto about Trump\u2019s tax plan…<\/p>\n

HEMMER: Rush Limbaugh was on that last point if you\u2019re not paying taxes, what\u2019s the incentive to work harder and make more money?<\/p>\n

CAVUTO: He raises a point here, \u2019cause we\u2019ve got such big entitlement issues and other spending issues that we all have a seat at this table. We all pay for a seat at this table, various rates. To establish: When you went through those four rates that one of them is 0%, sends a signal now that we\u2019re gonna put the burden on half the taxpayers of this country to carry the whole load, and that\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n

RUSH: So that was… I forgot to set it up properly but that was a discussion of the 0% rate that is in Trump\u2019s plan. Folks, I think that\u2019s in there… This the first sign of the presence of consultants in the Trump campaign to me, because this is structured in such a way as to approach taxation the way we always have. We simply can\u2019t get out of this box. It\u2019s got two ingredients: “The middle class is forever savaged, put upon, taken for granted, never respected. You pay nothing. We love you! We are your champions. And the rich over here? They\u2019re getting away scot-free. We\u2019re gonna soak \u2019em!” Those two elements seem to be present in almost any tax play, other than the FairTax and so on. But I\u2019m talking about whenever there\u2019s a tax reform plan, those two things are required politically, at least in Consultancy 101.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: We continue here with media reaction and commentariat reaction to the Trump tax plan. This next sound bite, Bill Kristol, David “Rodham” Gergen on — let\u2019s see, this is I guess on Erin Burnett\u2019s show on CNN, Erin Burnett OutFront. Just listen to this, maybe offer some characterizations to follow, but Erin Burnett says, “Bill Kristol, you have been very, very critical of Donald Trump. You had a Twitter war with Donald Trump. But you are a conservative. This is a plan that some conservatives would love. Cut taxes, growth will improve.”<\/p>\n

KRISTOL: It\u2019s a pretty standard Republican type tax plan. It\u2019s smart of Donald Trump. Donald Trump, I have my issues with him and I don\u2019t think he should be president; he is a smart politician. As soon as he gets through the standard Republican talking point about lower tax rates, more revenues, what does he say? We\u2019re gonna bring jobs back from overseas, we\u2019re gonna compete better with overseas, this is gonna make American great again. He goes back to his core message, which is a very effective message, which is an American nationalist message.<\/p>\n

RUSH: An American nationalist message. Nationalism, these guys don\u2019t like nationalism, do they? Nationalism\u2019s kind of beneath us in this era of global everything, right? I mean, I may be misunderstanding this, but nativism, nationalism, so quaint now, we\u2019re all citizens of a much, much larger collective here. I mean, nationalism, it\u2019s like pandering to the bitter clingers. I don\u2019t know if Kristol means it that way or not. And I don\u2019t know, if you listen to Kristol, they\u2019re calling Trump a — what did he call him, a smart politician? This may be the first guy that ever called Trump a politician, much less a smart one. “He goes through the standard Republican talking points, lower tax rates, more revenues, and then we\u2019re gonna jobs back from overseas, gonna compete better overseas, make America great again, back to his core message, very effective message, which is American nationalism.” Maybe he likes it. <\/p>\n

Could this be a turning point for some of these people that have been anti-Trump? Could this Trump tax plan turn some of these people into maybe, not Trump supporters, but maybe watered down and dilute some of their opposition to him? I guess it could. Stranger things have happened. But the Trump tax plan is Reaganesque in many, many aspects. Now, here is David “Rodham” Gergen on the same show. After Kristol finished Erin Burnett then said, “David, you worked with Ronald Reagan.” That\u2019s no biggie. He worked with everybody. I think David Gergen worked with Lincoln. Anyway, “David, you work with Ronald Reagan. Is this like Reagan\u2019s tax plan?”<\/line><\/p>\n

GERGEN: I think you do need to give credit to Trump for one thing. We\u2019ve been pushing him. Where\u2019s the substance? Where are your plans? He\u2019s finally come forward with a plan. Give him credit for that. It\u2019s also true that I think it has a populist element. Thirty-one million households, according to the plan, would no longer pay taxes. That\u2019s obviously attractive.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m not know as the Rain Man here, but I don\u2019t know what the number is, but I did look this up during the break. It\u2019s 46 point something percent of people are not paying income tax already. We already have effectively a zero percent tax rate. And then you throw in the — well, we don\u2019t have a zero rate. We just have such things as earned income tax credit and other vehicles, if you will. I mean, people end up paying no tax. Maybe a zero percent rate is new. I\u2019m never gonna have one so I haven\u2019t really paid a lot of attention to it. (laughing) Would I want a zero percent tax rate? Yeah, in my dreams, just for a year or two. Yeah. I\u2019d be set. <\/p>\n

My point is, 31 million Americans would no longer pay taxes. That\u2019s obviously attractive. Is it? I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve got a problem with this. And again, it\u2019s rooted in populism, in a sense. We\u2019ve already got too many convoluted structures here that prevent people, disincentivize people from expanding their income, because if they earn too much they will no longer qualify for whatever welfare benefit they\u2019re on. That\u2019s not good. I don\u2019t know. Snerdley just said that if he were running, he would immediately come out with one statement on his tax plan, and his statement would be that the rich are gonna pay 50%, and he would dare the Democrats to oppose him. <\/p>\n

He thinks it would shut the Democrats up, 50% of all taxes, the rich are gonna pay \u2019em. What would your definition of rich be, by the way? (interruption) Okay, so your definition of rich is a half million or above. That group of people would pay at least 50% of all taxes, and you think that would shut the Democrats up, they can\u2019t possibly oppose that. Well, they sure as hell can. They can oppose anything they want. They can say 55. They can say 60. They could come up with lies and say it\u2019s a trick, that you don\u2019t mean it, that it you\u2019ve struck a deal with the rich to get them to go along with it but at the end of the day they\u2019re not gonna be paying that. (interruption) How would low-information voters feel? They probably would love it, and that\u2019s why I hate it.<\/p>\n

This whole business of taxes, what\u2019s missing in all of this explanation of taxes, including in my opinion although it\u2019s not totally missing when you talk about FairTax or flat tax, is an explanation of how the whole thing works. Let me put this in a nutshell, because I don\u2019t want to divert myself from moving on here. I\u2019m not comfortable with the same language about taxes that I hear out of Democrats that contains two requirements. It seems like anybody running for office or who is already in office and is trying to change the tax code, there are two things. Whatever else your plan is going to be, there are two requirements. You must say the rich are gonna take it in the shorts. And you must say it as though you\u2019re happy about it and you can\u2019t wait to soak \u2019em. And I wouldn\u2019t go anywhere near that. <\/line><\/p>\n

The second thing you have to do is make a beeline for the low-information crowd and tell them that a bunch of them and others aren\u2019t gonna pay anything and that your tax plan is rooted in fairness, and then you lose me. And if I were coming up, if I were running for office and was gonna introduce a tax plan, it wouldn\u2019t contain either of those two things, meaning my pitch would not. Nobody\u2019s gonna be the enemy, in other words, in my tax plan. The rich are not the enemy and the people not paying anything are not the enemy. The government is the enemy, in my tax plan. I\u2019m sick and tired of all tax plans being oriented about how much government needs, with the sudden reality that government can never do with less. It\u2019s always us that are forced or asked to do with less. The government never is. <\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s gonna change in my tax plan. I\u2019m gonna have a budget. The government\u2019s gonna get X-amount of money. It\u2019s gonna come from various sources, tax revenue\u2019s gonna be part of it. The American people are through funding this behemoth that is out of control and $20 trillion in debt. The American people are not responsible for it beyond the fact they\u2019ve elected the reprobates that have done it. <\/p>\n

The rich are not to blame for the national debt. The people not paying taxes are not to blame for the national debt or the deficit or any of these other problems resulting from it. And the usual enemies in the tax code would not be mine. The American people are not gonna be an enemy. The rich are not gonna be an enemy. The poor aren\u2019t gonna be an enemy, maybe no enemies, but the government is gonna called to account in my tax plan. And that\u2019s why I don\u2019t like all this. No matter who presents a tax plan, it\u2019s got the required enemies and the required victims. And it just seems like pandering to me. <\/p>\n

But again, I must stress, I\u2019m not in politics, I\u2019m not a professional, I\u2019m not a consultant. I\u2019ve never had to get votes for anybody or anything. So I may be all wet. I mean know what I\u2019m talking about. It may not be practical at all. They\u2019re the ones that have the polling data, the research that tell us what people want to hear. They do the focus groups and all that. So I could be all wet. I have to add that caveat. I\u2019m just sick and tired, every tax policy or every tax plan we come up with it seems like the enemy are the people that pay them. And that just offends the hell out of me. <\/p>\n

The people working and earning a living in this country are not the enemy. And I\u2019m tired of pitting groups of Americans against each other, particularly when it comes to money and finances, \u2019cause that leads to this mess we\u2019re in because it ends up with everybody being told to hate or envy anybody that has more than they do. Then you add to it the reason they\u2019ve got more than you do is \u2019cause they\u2019re luckier than you or they\u2019ve stolen from you or they have cheated from you or whatever else Democrats say. Never does anybody have any more money than you because they\u2019re more creative or they\u2019ve worked harder, or maybe they\u2019re Kennedys and they inherited it. It\u2019s always ill-gotten when we talk about it, and it doesn\u2019t do our culture any good to breed this envy and resentment for achievement. It just doesn\u2019t. We need to be rewarding it, promoting it. People that achieve great things need some attaboys. They don\u2019t need to become suspects. <\/p>\n

Back to the audio sound bites. David “Rodham” Gergen. Back to Bill Kristol and still on Erin Burnett OutFront. This is Kristol after what you heard David Gergen just say.<\/p>\n

KRISTOL: The general view has been — and I\u2019ve had it to some degree — that he\u2019s this kind of phenomenon. He\u2019s got people are interested in him, but obviously he\u2019s gonna fade, and I still think he will fade eventually. But, you know, he is learning on the stump and in the interviews. He\u2019s obviously watches himself and he talks about himself a lot, but I think he\u2019s a shrewd guy, and he also probably modifies some. I wish — and the other candidates will strike — they should be learning a little bit from watching Trump. And I like Rubio a lot, but I\u2019m a little worried that the other… And I prefer some of the other candidates to Trump.<\/line><\/p>\n

BURNETT: Yeah.<\/p>\n

KRISTOL: I\u2019m a little worried; they don\u2019t seem to be learning as quickly from this campaign as Trump is.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, really now? Now, that\u2019s fascinating. Did you hear that, Mr. Snerdley? Did you hear Kristol worry the other candidates are not learning quickly enough from Trump? If I may be so bold again… This is one of my fervent hopes, by the way, and I kept this to myself. I didn\u2019t divulge this because I did not want this to end up in the public domain and have it… It\u2019s like not announcing the marketing plan, just executing it. <\/p>\n

You know, I got all these people accusing me of being a Trump supporter when I wasn\u2019t. What I was was not a Trump hater. So they\u2019re assuming I\u2019m a Trump supporter. “How can you do this, Rush? He\u2019s not a conservative! I don\u2019t understand.” I held my cards close to my vest, and I eventually said, “My dream here is that people learn you can combat political correctness and thrive, that you can be real and thrive, that you can criticize Democrats and thrive. You don\u2019t have to be afraid! <\/p>\n

“You can tell the truth about all these issues that are doing great damage to the country and not just survive; you can thrive.” And I was hoping that a lot of people would emulate Trump in this regard. But there is… There are many, but there\u2019s one reason why some of them didn\u2019t. This one\u2019s easy to explain, but it\u2019s tough because I gotta mention names. I don\u2019t like mentioning names here. Let\u2019s say that you are candidate Marco Christie. You are Marco Fiorina Christie, and you are seeking the presidency, and over here is Trump, and he\u2019s just lapping the field, and what\u2019s he doing? <\/p>\n

He\u2019s calling illegal immigrants murderers, rapists, purse snatchers, muggers, whatever else. He\u2019s out there challenging McCain, doing all this unconventional, politically incorrect stuff. And you look at it if you are Marco Fiorina Christie, and say, “Man, man, maybe there\u2019s a new way I could do this!” And you turn on the TV, and you hear the inside-the-Beltway commentariat just rip Trump to shreds for what he\u2019s doing, and you say to yourself, if you are Marco Christie Fiorina, you don\u2019t want to get ripped that way. So you don\u2019t do what Trump does. <\/p>\n

You don\u2019t want turn on Fox or CNN or anywhere else and be talked about the way they\u2019re talking about Trump, and the best way to avoid that is don\u2019t do what Trump\u2019s doing. Therefore, Trump isn\u2019t copied or emulated. Therefore, the lessons aren\u2019t learned. It\u2019s been kind of frustrating as I\u2019ve sat here holding my cards to the vest on this. But Kristol has let it out of the bag here. He says he\u2019s a little worried the other candidates don\u2019t seem to be learning as quickly. Bill, it\u2019s not that they\u2019re not learning. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s that they just don\u2019t want to be commented on the way Trump has been. For crying out loud, that explains Boehner and McConnell right off the bat. Probably, in fact, a whole lot of other people. “I don\u2019t want to get the incoming Trump\u2019s getting! I don\u2019t want people talking about me the way they\u2019re talking about him. Oh, my God! I don\u2019t want Krauthammer saying those things about me, or George Will! I don\u2019t want that!” So they don\u2019t go anywhere where Trump\u2019s going. It\u2019s not a casting of blame. It\u2019s just an assessment of the circumstances as they exist at the moment.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Here\u2019s Marianne in Nashville, Georgia. Hey, Marianne. It\u2019s great to have you on the show. Hi.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hey, hey, Rush. You are the top of the top for a good reason, and it is a thrill to talk to you.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, thank you very much. I sincerely appreciate that.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019ve been with you since the beginning. My father and I had many good talks while he was alive, and many of them revolved around your show content over the years.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, thank you very much.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, I wanted to say that I am very disappointed at the continued social engineering that seems to be part of Trump\u2019s tax plan in that he is going to leave untouched the home mortgage interest deduction and not subject that to any sliding scale, nor comparable giving. So my way of thinking as a taxpayer is when someone takes a deduction and those dollars are therefore exempt, it means that somebody else has to make up the difference if we have bills to be paid in the country. <\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CALLER: And so when someone contributes to the Ohio Quilt Museum or the Clinton Foundation — or any of the Buffett children\u2019s billion-dollar foundation funded by Warren\u2019s charitable giving — and therefore deduct dollars from his tax liability, I don\u2019t like it. At all. And Trump leaves in place all of that.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, you mention some fascinating things, and you started by talking about the… I forget the term you used. I call it “social architecture.” The tax code\u2019s always been used for that. The tax code has always been used to construct a society or culture that the tax writers want. At which time it has also been used as a means of furthering certain kinds of economic activity. Now, a home mortgage interest deduction goes way back.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure of the actual data of implementation, but it goes back to the fifties housing boom following World War II. It was part of the furtherance of the American dream, which was hope ownership, owning a home. But the truth is that the real estate lobbies had succeeded in getting to the Ways and Means Committee members of the time. And it was a way of pushing home sales. And things like this are in the tax code. There are more of them than anybody knows.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Way more. And that is one of the disappointments that I see that is going to continue in the Trump plan. I was hoping —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, they\u2019re very tough. See, that\u2019s why the FairTax and flat tax eliminate them, but the tradeoff is a 15% max rate or maybe 20%.<\/line><\/p>\n

CALLER: And what would be wrong with that?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, I\u2019m in favor of either one for the most part, but real life political consequences of eliminating the home mortgage deduction… This actually might be a time to consider doing it.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, Rush, when you have something like, you know, so many different charities that have sprung up —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, now, hang on. That\u2019s the next thing I was gonna get into, but I\u2019ve got just a few seconds left. So if you can hang on out there, Marianne, we\u2019ll get into the charitable aspect of this. Because both of those are social engineering, and at one point there were good reasons for them. So just hang on here.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: We\u2019re back here with Marianne in Nashville, Tennessee. Marianne, I need to double check this, but my memory is that it wasn\u2019t until the 1950s that people needed mortgages to buy a house anyway, in a mass sense. That\u2019s when the prices began to get to the point where you needed a 30-year loan to be able to buy a house. Now, because of time constraints let me move to the charity side here. I understand what you\u2019re saying about charity and your point about everybody that gets a tax deduction, that money has to be made up by somebody else. True. But I\u2019ll tell you this, too. <\/p>\n

One of the first things that Obama wanted to do with changes in the tax code was eliminate all charitable deductions, and his reason was — well, he didn\u2019t give the real reason. I knew what the real reason was. He wanted to either lower or eliminate the deduction. And that would eliminate a lot of charitable giving, which is fine with Obama. He wants the government to move in and replace all of the individual charitable donations that are taking place. It wouldn\u2019t eliminate all, but it would eliminate a lot of charitable giving, and that was fine with Obama because he would love for the government to be even more involved in helping people who don\u2019t have the ability to help themselves, or who can\u2019t stay in business without people donating to them. He would love creating that increased dependency. <\/p>\n

So I was opposed to Obama\u2019s move to eliminate the charitable deduction because I thought it had an ill intent about it. He didn\u2019t say any of this but I knew that\u2019s what it was. His reasoning, I forget what it was, but it was bogus. It was a hidden maneuver on his part to have all these charities replaced with federal support.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, unless we\u2019re going to be federally subsidizing quilt museums and symphonies and the many, many, many — we have a proliferation of both charities or nonprofits. I guess there maybe should be a distinction —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, the nonprofit, now you\u2019re getting a little closer to home with me on the nonprofits.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Of which there are gazillions.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, there are gazillions and gazillions of them out there.<\/p>\n

CALLER: And foundations whose work we really — I don\u2019t know what the Clinton Foundation is doing in these many far-flung places of the world, and I don\u2019t know, you know, how exactly it\u2019s operating, and I don\u2019t know that in Third World nations it\u2019s very easy to track where the money is going.<\/p>\n

RUSH: They\u2019re not doing anything but going over to each of these countries and throwing a party once a year to celebrate all the good vibes and good intentions —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Exactly.<\/p>\n

RUSH: — that they\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

CALLER: And they get to deduct the money, and I object.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, look, I totally understand your reasoning on both of these. I was gonna say about the mortgage interest deduction, given the state of the economy and given the fact that Millennials seem to be big on sharing rather than owning. You know, all these Millennials are out there talking about, “It\u2019s not cool to own a car. I\u2019ll just Uber everywhere and I\u2019ll buy a Segway and I\u2019ll be really cool or maybe like they do in Europe and I\u2019ll drive my bicycle everywhere.” But they don\u2019t want to own cars and they don\u2019t want to own houses. <\/p>\n

And for those of you that don\u2019t like the home mortgage deduction, well, keep in mind why we have it. You may not like hearing why we have it. We have it not because back in the day some brilliant person figured out that it would be a great economic tool. We have the home mortgage deduction because some people successfully lobbied Congress to make it cheaper to buy houses. Now, who\u2019s interested in that? Well, maybe your good old real estate markets. People that sell real estate would love for it to be as cheap as it can be. So if government\u2019s gonna subsidize the purchase they\u2019re all for it. <\/line><\/p>\n

The home mortgage deduction was to subsidize the sale of homes. (interruption) Well, is that one of the reasons we have such a big middle class, the home mortgage deduction? (interruption) Well, that\u2019s a chicken-or-egg question. You\u2019re saying the fact that we have so many people owning homes is equal to having a great middle class? My point is this whole thing was not structured out of altruism. The home mortgage deduction was not created — it\u2019s like anything else in politics. It was meant to benefit the people who are in business to sell houses and build them. It\u2019s the result of lobbying. But it is very popular. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s just like, one of the things in Reagan\u2019s tax plan in 1986 was the limitation of the credit card interest deduction. Do you remember this? That caused an excrement storm over this country like nothing I have ever seen. I started this program in 1988. Credit card interest, it was phased out. And about the time this program was starting was when people were beginning to lose that deduction. It was chump change. They were so ticked off, people called here left and right to complain about it. And the reason is because they went out, they spent money. This is classic. They were spending more money to be able to deduct a small portion of it on their taxes, thinking that they were getting a deal. <\/p>\n

Yeah, Snerdley wants \u2019em to bring it back, the credit card interest deduction. It\u2019s gone now, but it was a big deal, and we\u2019re talking about a hundred dollars or $200 a year, and people were fit to be tied over this for the longest time. And I sat here, I tried to give \u2019em the facts of life. I said, “Do you realize how much money you want to spend, how much money you will be out of pocket in order to get that chump change?” <\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t care. I want it. I\u2019ve built my life around having it. It\u2019s a fact of life in how I use my credit cards, and they\u2019ve taken it away.” Okay, okay, I get it. And the same thing would happen if they take the home mortgage deduction away. There would be riots. I mean, you talk about pitchforks and the barbarians at the gate? Yeah, no question about that. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: We\u2019ve got news of Trump\u2019s tax plan coming up and Drive-By Media reaction to it. You know, a lot of conservatives in the commentariat who have uttered words of contempt for Trump are now praising him with his tax plan. Well, yeah, you shall hear shortly coming up. We also have many in the […]<\/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":"\nTrump\u00c2\u2019s Tax Plan: Reaganesque, But... - 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\/2015\/09\/29\/trump_s_tax_plan_reaganesque_but\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Trump\u00c2\u2019s Tax Plan: Reaganesque, But... - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: We\u2019ve got news of Trump\u2019s tax plan coming up and Drive-By Media reaction to it. 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