RUSH: Now, folks, Obama is out, as I mentioned, he’s already announcing details of the upcoming State of the Union show, and one of the big deals — and right here, in fact. TheHill.com has it right there: “Obama Plays Robin Hood.” Now, that’s wrong, by the way.

The story of Robin Hood is routinely misrepresented. The story of Robin Hood as represented is that Robin Hood and his band of merry men and Lady Marian, who was there for the sex, decided to leave Sherwood Forest every now and then and go steal things from the rich and give ’em back to other people in the forest and Lady Marian.

But that’s not what Robin Hood did. Robin Hood didn’t steal from the rich. He stole from the government. That’s what they never tell you, but it’s plain as day, if you ever watched the Robin Hood show. I did when I was growing up. Black and white. Lady Marian. You knew what she was there for. But the sheriff of Nottingham, what was Nottingham? The government. That’s who was always trying to catch Robin Hood. He was stealing from them.

Basically what Robin Hood was trying to do was simply get back the money that had been confiscated in the form of confiscatory taxes. He was not stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. That’s one of the biggest myths that’s ever come down the pike. So when TheHill.com says “Obama Plays Robin Hood,” that’s not what Obama — well, Obama is doing that, but it’s not Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is a fairytale. It’s redistributionist. Robin Hood was a tax protester. Obama is not playing Robin Hood. Obama is going to play Jonathan Gruber. Obama is hoping the American people are too stupid to realize that these tax increases that he has proposed will actually impact the middle class the greatest.

Obama’s reason for this is the supposedly continuing widening gap between rich and poor. The wealthy, there’s a stat that’s out there today, and I’m telling you, folks, this is the kind of thing that you need to greet with skepticism like you’ve never had skepticism before. There is a statistic, and it comes from some supposed respectable outfit — must say I’ve never heard of it — and the statistic today is that 1% of the world’s population controls over half the world’s wealth.

Well, let me tell you right away why that’s bogus. The world’s wealth, much more than half of it, is in the hands of governments. It is not in the hands of private citizens, for crying out loud. That’s simple math. And yet here we go, here we go, we’re now being told that the rich, what do they do? They steal and they’ve been stealing and they’re continuing to steal, and who do they steal from? The middle class and the poor. Why, who knew those people had so damn much money? The rich continue to steal, and they’ve stolen so much now that the 1% of the rich now have half the money in the world.

Well, folks, it’s easy to believe because you’ve been built up for it. You’ve been hearing that 1% controls this percentage of wealth, that percentage, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, finally reach the brink of 1% over half. I would reject that off the top. I don’t know how anybody could ever prove that anyway. I don’t know how mathematically that could ever be established, despite the fact this group, whoever it is, claims to have done it. But the point is, Obama is riding that, and he’s using this continuing gap between rich and poor to say, “Look, if the rich are not gonna share their money. I mean, if all the rich are gonna do is just keep taking it and taking it and taking it, then, by golly, by gosh, I’m gonna go get it back from ’em for you.” And you’re supposed to go, “Yay, Obama!”

So Obama’s proposed a bunch of massive new tax increases on the, quote, unquote, wealthy. And those tax increases on the wealthy, where’s the money gonna go? To you? No. It’s gonna go to the government. And Obama’s buddies are gonna get it right back again. You’re never gonna see it. Obama wants you to think you’re gonna see it. He wants you to think he’s gonna raise taxes on the rich, the rich are gonna pay these new taxes, all this new money is gonna be coming into Washington/ Obama’s gonna take it he’s gonna be giving it all back to those of you that deserve it more.

And that is not how you get rich in America. It is not how you end up in the middle class. To end up in the middle class, you gotta work. To end up in the upper middle class, you gotta work or be born a Kennedy. If you want to end up being in the top 5%, you gotta work. Nobody in the top 5% is getting redistributed money. Nobody in the top 5%, nobody in the top 10% is sitting there idly waiting for government to redistribute. They are out working.

This is so bogus. This is another attack on trickle-down, how the rich are not spending, the rich are not giving, the rich are not donating, the rich are not this or that, and therefore you’re ending up with less. And so Obama wants you to think, those of you in the middle class, lower middle class, whatever, don’t even think about getting a job, that’s not the way out. The way we’re gonna get things even, the way we’re gonna take care of you is raise taxes on the 1% and redistribute the money.

Well, how in the hell are you gonna get it? Do you know anybody, let’s say in your town, the rich part of town, everybody knows where this, go drive through the rich part of town and you see a big house, you think, “Well, probably got junk cars, ’cause who could afford — and then you see the car, you know, maybe a couple hundred grand of car sitting outside in the driveway. You see the big house. And then you see the wife leave the house. You see the jewels and the diamonds and all that, you say, “Holy smokes!” Do you think they’re sitting around waiting for redistributed wealth to come their way? They’re not.

This whole idea of redistributing wealth with the false premise that this is gonna somehow improve people’s standard of living, this is absurd. It’s always been absurd. But this class envy business never fails, it seems to work. It’s a puzzling thing, and you know why it works, actually? Because the middle class, some of them, and the poor have been conditioned over a number of years to cheer what they think is the rich suffering. And it stops there. It doesn’t matter whether the rich suffering means an additional 10 grand a year to the poor, ’cause it doesn’t. Just the fact that the rich are gonna pay some more taxes, that’s enough alone to do it. Whether it’s gonna benefit you or not — and it won’t — doesn’t matter. The idea that Obama’s gonna take it to ’em, that’s all a lot of people need to support it.

Now, the conventional wisdom is that Obama’s tax increases don’t stand a prayer, but the Republicans now control both the House and the Senate, and there’s no way, Jose, that the Republicans are going to agree to Obama’s massive tax increases and redistribution scheme. And on the surface I would agree with that. But there was a day when the Republicans would never sign on to comprehensive immigration reform amnesty either. There was also a day when the Republicans would not give up on implementing Obamacare and agree with that, too.

So with this current crop and with the fear of opposing Obama as big as it’s ever been, you oppose Obama, you’re a racist. You criticize Obama, you’re a racist, it’s up for grabs here. So the key, to me, is going to be how the Republicans react to this in the language they use. And I think they’ve been using the wrong language. I have, too. This is a recent conclusion of mine. We’ve been using the wrong language for a long time. And the truth of it is found — remember that exit poll question that I just — I cringed when I saw it, 2012, first wave at five o’clock, “Cares about people like me,” Obama 81%, Romney 19%. That was the election, that and the other question that showed that over half still blame Bush for the morbid state of the economy.

But that exit poll question, “Cares about people like me,” Obama 81, Romney 19, you might as well read that Democrats 81, Republicans 19. How do you change that? Romney, I think blew it big time, although nobody knew it at the time. Well, I had an inkling of it. If you’ll recall, I observed, I said, “I wish Romney would stop talking about the private sector so damn much.” You remember me saying that? ‘Cause he kept going on and on about how he’d done this and he’d done that in the private sector. The private sector here, private sector there.

I’m thinking that that term is starting to turn people off ’cause it sounds exclusive. It sounds exclusionary. Private sector? What’s the first word? Private. What does that mean? Means stay out. You know, words mean things to people. Private sector? They don’t know that the private sector is just the economy. Public sector is the government. Public sector, good. That’s where the parks are. That’s where the zoo is. Public sector? Wow, that’s where I can go. Private sector? I’m not allowed. Yet we keep talking about it. Bad move.

I think another thing that Republicans need to stop talking about in response to proposals like Obama’s, and it’s related to this 81-19 business, it’s related to something else, too. The age-old cliche is that Big Business supports Republicans and the rich and everybody else supports Democrats, poor, what have you. The Republicans make the mistake — this is a new realization. Actually, it’s a shame this is a mistake. I’m admitting here cowing to the lack of perception of the low-information crowd. But when, for example, Obama proposed these tax increases, “This is gonna have a horrible effect on business. It’s gonna make it tougher to hire.” Nobody has any sympathy for business.

Even though you work for a business, very few people are not gonna listen to complaints or concerns about business. And it’s all there in the 81-19 question, “Cares about people like me.” Republicans are gonna have to find a way — and I’ll help — to oppose Obama-like or Democrat Party-like massive redistributionist tax increases with language that explains what they’re really all about. The Republican Party, conservatives, oppose these tax increases ’cause they’re gonna hurt the middle class. But it sounds like we oppose it ’cause it’s gonna hurt business.

Well, it is gonna hurt business, and business is where the middle class is employed, but that’s already too complicated. It requires an assumption that the middle class is gonna be sympathetic to business ’cause business is who employs them. Remember, 92.8 million Americans aren’t working and don’t care about business, and they don’t care about entrepreneurs because they aren’t either one.

Obama coming along and talking about raising taxes on the rich, promising to take that money and give it to the people rather than businesses and entrepreneurs and the private sector is gonna win every time.

Now, the intention is honorable in defending business, particularly small business. You’re defending the backbone of America. But it requires a big assumption, and that assumption is that a majority of the voting public also understands, and is sympathetic to, the effect on business of these massive tax increases and that the effect on business of massive tax increases hurts the middle class. We have to assume they figure that all out. And I don’t think we can assume they’re gonna figure that out anymore. I’m not talking about you in this audience. I’m talking about the low-information crowd and the paying-half-attention crowd and the unemployed community and what have you.

I’m just telling you, no matter what, no matter when, there isn’t gonna be any sympathy for something called a business. And there isn’t gonna be any sympathy for something called an entrepreneur. And there isn’t gonna be any sympathy for what happens to people in the private sector. There just isn’t. The Democrats somehow own the appeal to middle-class people on the basis that all those other things are wrapped up and aimed against ’em. Business is not their friend, entrepreneurs are not their friend, the rich are not their friend. The Democrats are their friend.

I arrive at this painfully, ’cause it’s true. I mean, Obama’s tax increases are gonna destroy business, but the problem is there’s a whole bunch of Americans that probably applaud that, stupidly, dumbly, but they do, because of what they’ve been conditioned to believe about business. The Democrat Party’s enemies list is a business, it’s an industry. Everywhere you go, Big Oil, Big Box Retail, whatever. And here come the Republicans seen as the guys that want to defend all of that, and who are they? They’re the rich. They’re the 1%.

So there’s gonna have to be some switcheroos here in just language, not belief, not policy or philosophy. But I’m telling you it’s all wrapped up here in this 81-19 question, “Cares about people like me.” “Someone who cares about people like me.”

I gotta take a brief time-out. And, by the way, I’m gonna be developing this further. This is my initial putting this in play out there, think piece for you and me as well.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, these sound bites I talked about, I’m gonna get to ’em in a minute. And more on this effort I think needs to be made here to change the language a little bit in opposing these tax increases and why. The focus has to be on how these tax increases do not help the middle class. But in doing it, you can’t talk about how business gets punished because that assumes people are gonna understand that when business gets punished, they lose, too. The Democrats have been too successfully at demonizing business so that a whole bunch of their voters love it when business takes it in the shorts. It’s a crime, but they have. And we’ll get to it in more detail as time goes on.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It’s very frustrating, because what Obama is proposing with his tax increase, the redistribution of wealth, is socialism. And you can’t find a single time in the world where it’s ever worked. It has failed for a thousand years. Yet, people keep endlessly supporting it, whether they know that’s what they’re doing or not. It’s frustrating as hell. So here we go again! Another Democrat proposes another tax increase on the rich, and that’s all that’s happened.

The tax increase on the rich already happened under Obamacare. They just haven’t been called that, but that’s what they are. How’s that helping everybody? But more than that, how in the world does anybody end up well off as the recipient of redistributed wealth? That’s not how anybody gets ahead or gets anywhere. Like I say, if you’re a low-information person out there and you look upon the rich in your town or the well-to-do in your town with envy, go there!

Drive through the neighborhood if you can get through the gate. Some of them don’t have gates. You can drive through, and as you’re driving by these big houses that you look lustily at, ask yourself if you think the people in them are waiting for a government check to pay for it! Ask yourself, “What do they do for a living that allows them to live in these houses?” But the idea that the rich are inherently evil? I mean, this has been played over and over again. Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Castro, the ChiComs. Over and over.

The Soviet Union, you name it!

Every time it’s tried, it ultimately fails and in many places it causes revolutions, as in France before John Kerry was able to get there with James Taylor and save the day. (That’s so embarrassing. I still can’t believe that.) For thousands of years we’ve been trying this income redistribution scheme, and it never works. It has never worked. Except psychologically. See, the key is psychologically. It makes people happy when they hear or are made to believe or think the rich are gonna suffer.

That alone makes it worth it to ’em, even though it doesn’t mean anything more for them. The Democrats have done a great job, I think, of creating this atmosphere of hate, resentment, envy, jealousy, what have you. It’s sick. But I’m just telling you that responding to it by appearing to defend “the private sector” or “business,” obviously doesn’t work. It doesn’t cut through the noise. It just doesn’t. So there has to be new ways of opposing this and announcing your opposition and how you do it.

I don’t even know if explaining how it’s never worked for thousands of years would matter, ’cause everybody thinks, “Well it might the next time, Rush. You never know. It might the next time! We might have the right people trying it now. You never know.” (sigh) You never know what you’re gonna run into out there in terms of idiots. Okay, audio sound bite. Bob Schieffer. He was stunned when he heard this, Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation. Literally stunned. He had White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer on yesterday, Face the Nation. He couldn’t believe that they were gonna do this.

SCHIEFFER: Do you — in any way, shape, or form — believe that a new Republican Congress —

PFEIFFER: (snickers)

SCHIFFER: — is gonna do what a Congress that had Democrats and Republicans in control would not do? I mean, is this for real? Do you really think there’s a chance that something like this could pass?

RUSH: He’s talking about these massive tax increases. Now, he would love it. Don’t be fooled by Bob Schieffer. Bob Schieffer would love it if it would pass. Don’t misunderstand. He just can’t believe it. “You mean, you’re gonna do it now? After six years, seven years, you’re gonna do it now when Republicans run everything?” Bob, if you’d stop and think for a moment you’d know exactly why this makes sense now!

If these guys just had the slightest understanding of who Obama is and what he’s trying to do and how he’s trying to achieve it, it makes perfect sense that he would propose it when the Republicans won things. Why? Because who’s gonna get blamed when people don’t get any new money? The Republicans. Bob will figure this out and he’ll sign on to it, maybe by tonight or tomorrow. He’ll figure it out eventually. Here’s Dan Pfeiffer from the White House trying to explain to Bob, “Why now?”

PFEIFFER: This plan the president’s gonna talk about on Tuesday night goes to what is the core theme of the State of the Union which is middle class economics: The simple proposition that we should ask the wealthy to pay a little more and invest more in the middle class, give the middle class a raise. We should have a debate in this country about — between middle class economics and trickle-down economics.

RUSH: See? You hear all the lies in there? “Well, see what’s gonna happen here, middle class economics: Simple proposition that we ask the wealthy to pay a little more, invest more in the middle class, give it middle class a raise.” Sorry, folks, that’s not how it happens. The government gets the raise. How the hell does the middle class get the raise? Okay, so you raise taxes on Big, Bad, Evil, Rich Guy. You make him pay a little bit more for the money he earns on his stocks.

You make him pay a little bit more on the dividends he gets on his stocks. Okay, so the rich guy pays the money on his tax return. Where’s the money go? Right there: “United States Treasury.” You all write the check. (Well, some of you don’t.) That’s where the money goes. How does it get from the United States Treasury to you, this “raise” that Pfeiffer’s talking about here? “Give the middle class a raise”? How the hell does that happen? Somebody trace the money for me.

Rich guy, probably one of the Koch brothers, gets hit with a massive tax increase. Washington collects the money — if the Koch brothers don’t try to evade it and move to the Caymans — and the money goes to the US Treasury, and from there how does it get to you? Does Obama write you a check? If so, for how much and how often? Do you get a raise up to 50 grand a year for the rest of your life? How does this work? Of course not. The fact is, you never see the money.

The next thing that will happen is Obama’s got all this new money, and he’s gonna spend it on projects to help the middle class. Well, what are those gonna be? I don’t know what it is, but none of it’s gonna end up in your back pocket. The dirty little secret is that for all these rich guys paying new taxes, some people are gonna lose their jobs because their businesses are gonna be impacted by these tax increases. See, this is the point the Republicans try to make.

“You raise taxes on the rich and you’re raising taxes on small business owners. You’re raising taxes on medium-sized business owners. What they’re gonna do is one of two things, maybe both. They’re gonna raise prices so the consumer pays their tax increase (which is you) or they’re gonna fire a bunch of you so that they don’t lose any money. But in any case, you, the little guy, are always gonna get the shaft. The little guy always gets the shaft when the Democrats raise taxes.

Let me ask you this: We just heard that the top 1% now control half of the wealth in the world. I don’t believe that, but that’s the stat that’s out there today, and everybody’s acting like it’s the gospel. So let’s pretend. Let’s engage in the hypothetical. Would somebody tell me what tax cuts have happened the last six years that allowed the rich to get even more money? ‘Cause that’s what they tell us, that the rich got rich because of Reagan cutting taxes for the rich — and then Bush came along, and he cut taxes for the rich, and the rich got richer. You notice the rich never work.

The rich never invest. The rich are a bunch of siphoning sponges. They’re sitting around and they’re stealing money from you. While you’re out at McDonald’s, they break into your house and steal whatever you got in your piggy bank, and they all do this and they end up getting rich. (This is how they want you to believe it happens.) The rich get rich with tax cuts for the rich. Would somebody tell me what tax cuts for the rich we’ve had the last six years, that enabled the rich to get even richer?

How did the 1% end up now controlling over half the world’s wealth, when they haven’t had their taxes cut? Obama hasn’t cut any taxes for the rich. Obama didn’t cut anybody’s taxes. Everybody’s taxes have gone up, including the rich. Somebody tell me how the rich keep getting richer. By the way, if the rich, the 1%, now control over half the wealth in the world — and they’ve done it by stealing it from you — how the hell much money do you have, that they can keep stealing from you and keep stealing from you and keep stealing from you, to the point they have over half the world’s money?

Did you know you had that much money? Did you know how much has been stolen from you? That’s what the Democrats want you to believe. But how often have you heard it? “Tax cuts for the rich! Tax cuts for the rich! The rich get richer! Reagan and Bush, tax cuts for the rich.” Well, the rich keep getting richer. Can somebody tell me what tax cuts there have been in the last six years. Can you name any?

Income taxes haven’t gone down for the rich.

Medicare taxes haven’t gone down for the rich.

Obamacare taxes haven’t gone down for the rich.

Social Security taxes haven’t gone down for the rich.

Capital gains taxes haven’t gone down.

What the hell? Maybe the only thing you could say was that there was a year when there was no inheritance tax, but for that to happen the rich had to kick the bucket. The rich had to die for that one to matter to ’em, and it wouldn’t matter to ’em ’cause they’re dead. So their family benefits from it, but aside from that… Do you realize how obscenely absurd all of this is? The fact that they apparently keep getting away with it is stunning. It’s a mystery.

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RUSH: Somebody sent me: “Hey, Rush, the government does give you money from rich people through programs, like free community college programs –” not yet but coming “– day care programs, free phone programs, food stamps, housing programs.” Yeah, okay, fine and dandy. I just want you to go to the rich part of town, drive through there, when you found a nice house, “Man, that’d be cool to live in.” Stop and look at it and ask yourself if you think the person living in it has a day care program, is using a free phone program, is living off food stamps.

Ask if the person living in that fine house has some kind of housing adjustment. Ask yourself if the person living in that house got that house because of day care programs, and the answer is gonna be, “No, no, no, no, no.” They don’t give you any money. They buy your vote with a bunch of promises of prosperity that never happen to you, if all you do is sit around and wait for it.