RUSH: We’ve got that. We got the Republican tax plan that was introduced. One thing about these tax plans. You know, it’s okay to have a reaction, and this clearly deserves one, but what they put forth in the early stages is never what they end up voting on. This is gonna go through a whole bunch of changes and other things. And it may never get to a vote like Obamacare. You have to realize what we’re talking about.
We’re talking about people who don’t want to really do anything on taxes. They’re forced to make it look like they’re working hard on making changes in the tax code, but just like with Obamacare, they didn’t really want to do it. So then they give themselves a starting point here that is guaranteed to produce massive objections, which it is and has, and including some from me.
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RUSH: he Republican tax plan. Now, I didn’t lead with this in terms of going full bore into it. I mentioned it at the top. Because it’s just the presentation day, and what gets voted on, if there is a vote, is going to be different than what this is. This is the opener. In it are a bunch of trial balloons to gauge people’s reactions. It’s like any military plan, you know, battle plan. The moment shots are fired, the battle plan changes. Same thing here.
But let’s go through what this plan is. Are you familiar with it, Mr. Snerdley? Have you had time in your busy work…? (interruption) Well, how about first a surcharge? This is a Republican tax plan with a surcharge (i.e., a tax increase) on the wealthiest Americans. A surcharge! My buddy that I keep telling you about that only voted for Trump for tax cuts (laughing), he is livid today.
He’s talking about a day that will live in infamy and all because of that one aspect of this. I don’t know who came up with it. I don’t know who’s put it in there. But here we go. Trump has two red lines that he refuses to cross on overhauling… This is an AP story, by the way, so we take it all under advisement. But they say that Trump “has two red lines that he refuses to cross in overhauling taxes. The corporate rate must be cut to 20%,” and tax cuts…
They call them “savings” here. You talk about bastardizing the language? Tax cuts are called “savings”? For who? Savings? That’s a long time. Savings must go to the middle class. The savings? It’s called tax cuts. What this means is the bulk of the relief, the bulk of the tax cuts must go to the middle class. Those are the two things that the Associated Press says that Trump will not compromise on.
“Gary Cohn, the president’s top economics aide, says any overhaul signed by the president needs to include these two elements,” corporate rate down to 20% and the bulk of the tax cut to the middle class. “Trump had initially pushed for cutting the 39.6% corporate tax rate to 15%.” Is the corporate rate 39.6%? I thought the corporate rate was 35%. Well, whatever. He wants it cut to 15%, and it looks like it’s gonna be 20%. At least right now. And that’s what he said: It will not be over 20% on the corporate side or I’m not signing it.
“The administration says that the benefits of any tax cut will not favor the wealthy, with Cohn saying that an additional tax bracket could be added to levy taxes on the top 1% of earners if needed” to pay for the savings for the middle class. So a surcharge and an additional tax bracket that nobody’s supposed to worry about ’cause they’re not in the 1%. I told you yesterday this is a populist tax plan, not conservative, and the Republicans are demonstrating they’re not conservative.
Trump is not. He isn’t an ideological conservative. (interruption) It does. It sounds exactly like what Democrats would hatch up. Even the lingo. The savings? This is like “I need to protect my players. I’m gonna keep them in the locker room.” Protect? “Yes, I need to protect the protesters.” Protect the protesters? Protect them from what? “Well, from protesting!” Oh.
“The Senate’s top Democrat is blasting the plan as a giveaway to the rich.” (laughing) Folks, this is all just Washington BS! Here come the Republicans — here comes Trump — proposing major tax reform that includes big tax relief for the middle class and a reduction in the corporate tax rate — and a huge increase on taxes on the wealthy — and what do the Democrats say? It’s a giveaway to the rich! That’s from Chuck You Schumer.
Chuck Schumer says that “Trump’s plan only gives ‘crumbs’ to the middle class, while top-bracket earners making more than a half-million dollars a year would reap a windfall,” with a surcharge and a new tax bracket for them. Chuck “also blasted the plan for actually increasing the bottom tax rate from 10 percent to 12 percent, calling it a ‘punch to the gut of working Americans.'”
By the way, that does happen. The 10% rate goes to 12% in this Republican plan. “The plan, to be officially released Wednesday afternoon, is the top item on Washington’s agenda after the GOP failure to repeal the Obama health care law.”
As of 9:20 this morning: “President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are proposing a tax plan that they say will be simple and fair. In a document obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, they outline a blueprint for almost doubling the standard deduction for married taxpayers filing jointly to $24,000, and $12,000 for individuals.” That’s okay, can take that.
“The plan calls for cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 –” I knew it was 35. These people at AP don’t even know what — 39.6 is the personal rate. The corporate rate’s 35. Plan calls for cutting that to 20%. “The GOP proposal also calls for reducing the number of tax brackets from seven to three with a surcharge on the wealthiest Americans.”
Now, wait just a second. Did you know there were seven tax brackets? Because in 1986 there were three. In 1986, after the tax reform plan of Ronaldus Magnus, there were three tax plans: 31, 28, 15, or 10, 15, 28, and some people ended up paying 31 for a couple dollars they earned. Back then everybody said, “This is great,” but a bunch of deductions vanished then too. I said, “You watch what’s gonna happen. The rates are gonna go back up and the deductions are gone.”
And this has happened. Now we got seven rates out there again. This takes them back to three. And a surcharge on the wealthiest Americans. “The plan also leaves intact the deduction for mortgage interest and charitable deductions.” So that’s what they’re gonna present this afternoon. As I say, what gets presented is not what gets voted on.
And I’m telling you, I’m not sure they want to do it, either, just like, you know, all the words and all the promises and all the intentions on Obamacare, there’s not a damn thing has been done to that. It’s embarrassing. It’s infuriating. It is just outrageous that they don’t want to do anything about Obamacare or that they can’t or whatever. And using intelligence guided by experience, so here comes a tax reform plan, ’cause everybody knows that’s what Trump wants, here comes a silly proposal that’s got all this wacko stuff in it, surcharge on the wealthy, new tax bracket for the wealthy, guaranteed to make middle class and poor Democrats cheer. That’s what they’ve been conditioned to do.
Anybody doing better than they do that gets punished, they think that’s great, they applaud it. Democrats have conditioned their voters to enjoy the pain, the presumed pain of others, especially if it doesn’t mean anything positive for them, such as your average middle class family, Democrat voter, sitting out there in, say, Waco. And their tax cut doesn’t happen, it’s maybe one or two percent, no big deal, not gonna make a big difference. But they hear the rich are on getting soaked, and they think it’s great.
It doesn’t change their life at all, but they have been conditioned to support harm and enjoy others apparently getting snookered. And that’s what the Democrat Party has done. That’s how they do not provide relief for their own people. They told them, “You should be happy, these rich people, they’re getting soaked. We’re soaking them.” And Democrat voters applaud that while it doesn’t mean anything positive for them. But we’ll see where this goes. It’s like Snerdley said, I mean, you read this, and it sounds like something written by a bunch of Democrats, including even the language.