We're No Longer Alone: Obama's Tax Lies Refuted Throughout MediaSeptember 20, 2011
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RUSH: I no longer feel alone! For 20, 21 years I was it. We would get a speech by a Democrat like we got from Obama yesterday, I'd be the only guy refuting it. But now everybody's up to speed. Even the Associated Press is fact-checking Obama and finding that he's dead wrong about all of his assertions yesterday about taxes and who pays them.
Greetings, by the way, great to have you, 800-282-2882 is the number if you want to be on the program.
I did something last night that I seldom do anymore. I watched cable news. I got bored with the football game after a while, it was not a good game to watch, and I knew that going in, and I watched a lot of the pregame, which kind of told me all I needed to know about the game anyway, so I'm channel surfing around and I could not have been happier. I don't know how to describe this. Let me try it this way.
One of my pet peeves for the 23 years I've been hosting this program is the liberal class envy lies on who pays taxes and who doesn't and this whole class envy rhetoric that the rich aren't paying their fair share and that we need to extract even more from them, with fair share never being really defined, just the whole class envy rhetoric. And for all of these years I was pretty -- don't misunderstand this, I'm ecstatic -- for all these years I pretty much felt like a lone voice. In fact, even at the end of the program yesterday we got an e-mail from somebody who said the rich should fight back and I talked about how that has never happened. That's even starting to happen now.
The, quote, unquote, rich are starting to fight back and defend themselves. I have to be honest with you. Last night Ted Baxter was superb on this. Ted Baxter had one of the best shows that he's ever had. And then Hannity came on, and then Greta, and everybody I watched, other than, of course, MSNBC, even CNN was getting this right. It's like when I say, show prep for the rest of the media. Folks, this doesn't have a prayer anymore. It used to be that a liberal Democrat would come out with this kind of nonsense, and we would have to sit and honestly worry about what are the chances, A, enough people are gonna buy this to see to it that it passes. We don't have that concern.
Everybody now knows this doesn't stand a prayer, everybody now knows that this wasn't even really a policy speech nor was this debacle of a thing, the joint session last Thursday night. Everybody sees Obama for what he is now, an abject failure who is simply launching a reelection campaign and polluting and degrading great institutions in the process, the Oval Office, joint session of Congress speech, you name it, whatever he is touching, whatever he's doing, wherever he goes, he is perverting a great institution, series of great institutions. The joint session of Congress speech is an institution that he perverted by turning it into a campaign appearance using the Rose Garden and the Oval Office for just shameless, pure political purposes. I know all presidents do it, but not in this brazen a way.
After he delivered this debacle of a speech yesterday, he then went to a fundraiser in New York where the price for admission was $38,500. Five thousand of that to Obama, the rest to the Democrat National Committee. And some people who were invited to this, rich liberals, were caught outside going, "What do you think of all this?" They started laughing, everybody knows that's not gonna pass, that's just a bumper sticker yesterday. Even the people walking into the fundraiser to ostensibly support the guy are laughing at him and not taking what he's saying seriously. And folks, I think it's an important thing that Bill O'Reilly got it right, because as everybody knows, he has more power than anybody other than the president, and he was great on this last night. And frankly it's heartwarming to see.
I don't feel like a lone wolf anymore. I don't feel like a lone voice because the whole point of all this is to defeat it, the whole point is to see to it that people are educated and informed and understand exactly what a total joke Obama has become, how meaningless his remarks yesterday were, how destructive, if implemented, they are. And more and more people are seeing it, and more and more people are willing to say so. I mean even O'Reilly last night was admitting that he was rich. When I said it's a shame the rich aren't fighting back, the rich were fighting back. O'Reilly was admitting being rich and he was putting in context of what all he pays and how much it's gonna cost him and what's fair and everything, and I was sitting (clapping) all right.
I've been doing this for 23 years. For 20 of those years -- and don't misunderstand this. When I say I felt like a lone wolf, all I mean is that this is something a lot of people either didn't understand, didn't take the time to understand, or felt fear in refuting it for whatever reason, because who wants to defend two-tenths of the population? Nobody has ever thought there was any of future in defending two-tenths of the population, which is what happens when you speak up for the rich. Well, now, the rich have not just become the rich, everybody now refers to the rich as the job creators. Everybody refers to them as the achievers. Everybody refers to them now, or most people on the right side of this issue refer to them as people that we aspire to be. They no longer run around with this, at least universal, negative stereotype, and that is a fundamental, substantive change, and I must tell you that I was gratified and I was happy and I was ecstatic 'cause it's no fun being lone voice.
It really isn't fun being a lone voice, and now the level of education that's taken place, the level of understanding, and the ease with which people can now ease into this discussion to refute everything Obama said. Folks, it's all over the place. AP has done a fact check of Obama and basically destroyed everything fundamental to his speech yesterday. "Fact Check: Are Rich Taxed Less Than Secretaries? -- On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data." Now, we've had all this at RushLimbaugh.com. I'd have to ask Koko, but I told him when we put this up ten years ago, "It stays up every day. I don't care what happens, this is there every day," and it has been there every day. And now the response to a speech like Obama's that was always heard on this program is becoming standard everywhere else, including, unbelievably, the Associated Press.
I think there's a reason that the AP and the New York Times are lining up against Obama. I think it's nothing to do with taxes and who pays and who doesn't. I think there's a whole other reason why that's happening, which we discussed last week. And that is, they see their ideology on the line here. This guy is going to sink liberalism if he is not propelled to victory or if somebody doesn't take his place. They have figured out on the left that Obama's not worth saving if it means bye-bye liberalism. Their ideology is everything to them. They are liberals first before they're anything else. Whatever their religion is, liberalism comes first. Whatever their sexual identity is, liberalism comes first. Whatever their profession, liberalism comes first. And they were ecstatic, finally got somebody in office that they thought was gonna be the standard-bearer to take 'em to utopia and, instead, we have a country on the prospect of ruin. And they cannot allow for people to associate the ruination of this country with liberalism, and that's what Obama is, or worse, socialism.
So there are two stories by AP today rebelling against Obama. You had the New York Times last week giving voice to all of the Democrat-by-name critics of Obama's speech on Thursday night and again of his speech yesterday. Back to the AP fact check. "The wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government."
Somebody tell me when was the last time we saw this in the state-controlled or Drive-By Media? We have never seen it. This is the first time that we have seen liberal class envy assaulted with fact from the liberal media.
I'm telling you, this is fabulous. There's something going on and I know what it is. We'll discuss it in detail as the program unfolds. "The rich pay at a higher rate and as a group they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government." Now, you all know this, you've been here 23 years, 21 years, 20, 15. You know this; you've heard this every time the subject comes up, but it's now I guess commonplace or soon will be. "There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle income workers. In 2009 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above a million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the IRS; but that was less than 1% of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above a million dollars."
Now, normally the AP would be harping on that 1% demanding that they get soaked, maybe hung, and then new policies written to make sure it never happened again. Today, AP is defending them! And so are they being defended everywhere in the media. At the expense of who? The One! The Messiah! My gosh, folks, even David Brooks, in the New York Times, has a piece today admitting that he was a sap to buy into the false premise and promise that was Obama. Yep. He admits that he was a sap. I'll get to that as the program unfolds, but back to this AP fact-check because it gets better. "This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1% of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes and payroll taxes. Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay 15% of their income in federal taxes."
Well, hey, they have just shot Barry Obama out of the water here. They have just taken every point that he made and they've blown it to smithereens -- and in the process, they've done the same thing to Warren "Buh-fay." "Lower income households will pay less. For example, households making between 40 and 50,000 will pay an average of 12 and a half percent of their income in federal taxes. Households making between 20,000 and 30,000 will only pay 5.7%. Obama's claim things on the fact that for high income families and individuals, investment income is often taxed at a lower rate than wages. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46% of households mostly low and median income households will take no federal income taxes this year."
When's the last time you heard them admit that? There is even, folks... There is even... You can find it and I heard it explained on television last night exactly as happened here yesterday and as has happened every day that this subject has come up for the last 23 years. There was an explanation of the difference between capital gains income and earned income and the tax rates on both, and the fact that capital gains income has already been taxed once before as income. You have to earn the money before you invest it -- and then after you invest it, you have to keep it invested for a year if you want to claim a profit. I'm watching and reading all of this stuff and going, "Hallelujah! (clapping) Hallelujah." This how it's supposed to happen. The broad mass education of people throughout the spectrum including the Drive-By Media.
Now, I don't want you to misunderstand me on something. I'm not saying the media's become one of us and I'm not saying this AP story means that they have forever soured on liberalism. No, no, no. This is separate and apart from that. This has to do with the fact that Obama is taking these people down and they don't want to go where he's leading them. Underneath the surface here, there is an effervescence of a movement (it has yet to reach the surface) to do something about this guy. The New York Times is leading it; the others have caught onto it. Even a Chicago Tribune had a column yesterday -- the Chicago Tribune! (I had it in the stack, just didn't get to it) -- on the best thing Obama could do is not run. The best thing he could do for the party and the country, just not run. The only way the party is gonna stand a chance of winning under current circumstances is if Obama's not on the ticket. Chicago Tribune.
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RUSH: Do you remember (it wasn't that long ago) when Barack Obama told the "rich fat cats" on Wall Street...? This is back during the days of the AIG and other Wall Street bonus scandal, and you had all of Obama's ACORN-type people showing up on the front yards of AIG homes to protest their bonuses. Remember Obama telling the AIG people and all the other, quote, unquote, "rich fat cats" on Wall Street that he was the only thing standing between them and the pitchforks? Well, guess what? Now it is only Obama's skin color that is standing between him and the pitchforks of the Congressional Black Caucus. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are openly admitting: If this were a white president who had done this economically to their constituents, they would be marching on the White House.
The only reason they're not is because of the color of his skin. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have said this. Now, the columnist in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune, is a guy named Steve Chapman, Steven Chapman, and the last column that he wrote about Obama was back in August. Back in August he said that Obama had accomplished undeniably historic, even great things. He killed Osama, he's getting us out of Iraq, he passed Obamacare. The only problem was the economy made him look bad. He said the economy even made Ronald Reagan look bad. Suddenly Chapman's changed his tune. He thinks Obama has to go, in just a month's time. Steven Chapman has changed his tune. Obama has to go for the good of the party, for the good of liberalism. That is what is at stake.
This is what all these people in the media now understand. That he alone is not worth saving; Liberalism is. So has a now cast-asidable, and Chapman joins a ever-growing chorus of people who do not think the economy is gonna turn around before November of 2012, and why would it? And if Obama were to get this package of proposals passed, you can forget about the economy ever turning around. I think yesterday proved that Barack Obama cannot handle the office of the presidency. He's perverted it; he's made it a laughingstock. I really think he's just not smart enough, folks. He doesn't have the temperament, and he doesn't understand how the country and its people function.
He thinks memorizing a bunch of catchphrase and bumper stick slogans and repeating them endlessly makes for a great vision. He's out there this morning (we've got the audio coming up) taking credit for this great victory over Khadafy and Libya. Taking think the for it! (impression) He talks about how, "In times in the past where we didn't save lives and we shouldn't have but this time we did." So he's comparing himself favorably to what didn't happen to the Third Reich during World War II but he stopped a modern day Hitler with the UN; except he didn't use the UN, he used NATO, but that's a minor point. He thinks that by trashing one industry after another and targeting certain successful groups of people, the American people will confuse his tactics with leadership. This stuff isn't working anymore. Twenty years ago, 25 years ago it was a slam-dunk; it was going to work.
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RUSH: I just got a e-mail. What did I do with it? "Dear Rush: I'm confused. You say that finally people recognize that the sixties version of America is over, that we finally as a country see it for what it is. Well, I contend that we've always agreed with you, for 23 years, which is one of the many reasons that you are still there despite efforts to unseat you. We are the majority. Liberals and moderates are leaning this way because they have no core values..." Uh, the fact that I might have been misunderstood over what I said in the first hour of the program troubles me. I didn't mean to imply that you people didn't get it. I was talking about media, talking about conservative media people spreading it. "Lone wolf" did not mean lone wolf citizen. I meant lone wolf media guy.
Anyway, I want to grab a phone call here. People have been waiting for an hour and a half. This is Stacy in Granger, Indiana. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here, Stacy.
CALLER: Thank you, Mr. Limbaugh. It's an honor and pleasure to speak with you.
RUSH: I appreciate that.
CALLER: And I quiz that you are spot on with taxes. As a middle class citizen who pays taxes, I'm afforded the same privileges and freedoms of the so-called rich but I do not expect the so-called rich to pay any more for those same freedoms and privileges any more than I would expect a millionaire or millionaire standing in line next to me at a McDonald's to pay more for an Extra Value Meal.
RUSH: That's an excellent point.
CALLER: It irritates me to see the rich vilified. I admire success and wealth, and I want to earn. You know, I want to earn success and be wealthy someday. And regarding Mr. Buffett's story, some of the questions I would like to ask Mr. Obama, you know, I mean how is...? How would making Mr. Buffett pay more in taxes or make the so-called rich pay more in taxes help his secretary? I mean, seriously. How? How would it actually help her? How would it help me?
RUSH: It wouldn't. Exactly right.
CALLER: Yeah, exactly. Also I would ask him to specifically define what a "fair share" is, what a fair share is for the rich versus a fair share for the non-rich. I mean, where's the fairness in someone who pays no federal income tax for the same privileges and freedoms as the rich? To me it's not fair at all. I mean, those are the people that are actually getting the tax breaks.
RUSH: So then you understand this for what it is. All of this is a pack of lies to achieve what? What do you think the purpose Obama has is?
CALLER: Keeping his voting base. I mean, you have to keep these people down. You have to --
RUSH: No, understand. If he --
CALLER: -- have to make the rich an enemy --
RUSH: Stacy, if he could, he would implement this stuff. This is not just a speech. This is dreams. I mean this is stuff that if he could do this -- if he could do it by executive order -- he would do it.
CALLER: Yeah, and that's sad and unfortunate, and just like you said, it just irritates me to see the rich vilified and to see so many people who are duped by this guy and who believe it, who believe this, who have these beliefs.
RUSH: Well, there are speak who do, obviously. They're the people who have been continued to be happy when they've been told or are told that other people are suffering. It doesn't change their life at all, as you pointed out. If anything, it might harm it. There might be fewer jobs for them. There might be less money for people to get raises if Obama gets what he wants. Anyway, you are right on the money. It's great to have you in the audience and I'm glad you called.
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