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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: You know, there’s a big argument raging in Washington now over what is or what isn’t a tax. George Stephanopoulos actually brings out a dictionary with Obama and reads from it to define a tax. And Obama says, no, you can’t use a dictionary to define tax, George, come on. You gotta listen to what I say. So yesterday on CNBC Street Signs, the cohost Erin Burnett interviewing the chief economist on the White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board, Austan Goolsbee. Erin Burnett said, ‘When we see numbers like $900 billion to fix health care, $300 billion of that coming from taxes on medical device makers like tampons, insurance companies, I called those CEOs off the record, and they all tell me that they’re going to pass that increase in taxes straight along to consumers. It seems that the truth is that that tax increase is gonna hit regular Americans. Doesn’t it?’

GOOLSBEE: I’m sure they say many things. Look, if you pass a rule that says a guy can’t park his car in front of the airport and block everyone else or else your car gets towed, it’s not correct to call that a tax increase. Nor is it correct to call things that are not tax increases tax increases. I mean if we just go by what Rush Limbaugh defines as a tax increase, I mean declaring yourself to be a Democrat is a tax increase in his world.

RUSH: Damn straight. Damn straight. Now, stop and think of this. Here I am, I’m sitting at a particle board table, I am in a subterranean location hidden in Los Angeles. I’m just a guy on the radio who cannot raise anybody’s taxes. He’s on CNBC, the chief economic advisor, asked by a journalist, ‘How can you say that there aren’t any tax increases coming, $900 billion here, $300 billion there, CEOs say any new expenses on us we’re going to pass along, it’s a tax increase,’ and Goolsbee brings my name up. I mean if we just go by what Rush Limbaugh defines as a tax increase, declaring yourself to be a Democrat is a tax increase. He’s exactly right. Democrats equal tax increases. I mean it’s there, nobody has to make it up. But to say that there aren’t going to be any tax increases when there already are. And, by the way, I think I’m also on Obama’s mind, just as Austan Goolsbee.

Last night while we’re on the verge of defeat in Afghanistan, while preparing to go before the world and once again lie and frighten everybody that the planet is dying and only we can save it by making ourselves poorer, Obama stopped by the Late Show with David Letterman, and Letterman was in full anal poisoning mode, meaning if he keeps this up he’s going to die of it. He said, ‘I think you’re being eloquent and generous, but I think when people show up to voice their opinions, there is a certain expectation of behavior on them as well.’ In other words, Letterman is saying, these people criticizing you, they should be as eloquent and generous as you are.

OBAMA: Suggesting that somehow that’s fascist, that you want to help people, make sure that they’re not going bankrupt when they get sick I think probably misreads the situation.

RUSH: Ha.

OBAMA: What people should really be angry about is the fact that because of the lack of regulation, for example, we ended up having to pony up hundreds of billions of dollars to banks. We got in a situation ironically that we had too little government, too little regulation, so people are justifiably, I think, frustrated and angry right now. They’ve gotten a raw deal but they need to understand the source of it.

RUSH: It’s you, buddy. I mean it was fine until you took office, and you just compounded the problems, rather than let the market work itself out. Suggesting somehow that’s fascist that you want to help people make sure they’re not going bankrupt — that’s not what we’re suggesting is fascist. What’s fascist is you running automobile companies. What fascist is you taking over the student loan program. What’s fascist is taking over one-sixth of the US economy. It is fascist. It’s not socialist. Socialism is where the government owns the means of production. They’re just going to just tell everybody else who does own what they own how to run it. They’re going to regulate ’em. To say that we got into trouble because we didn’t have enough regulation? We got into trouble because of liberalism, pure, radical, left-wing liberalism from the likes of Barney Frank, Bill Clinton, Chris Dodd, on the subprime mortgage business. The desire to lend money to people who had no way to pay it back and call it affordable housing.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: What a day. First CNN tells Obama to man up in Afghanistan and risk defeat, and now here’s AP, State-Controlled AP with a Fact Check, and here’s the first line of their story: ‘Memo to President Barack Obama: It is a tax.’ So Goolsbee is out there, ‘Oh, it’s not a tax, just because Limbaugh says it.’ Well, now, the AP agrees with Limbaugh and says it’s a tax, Goolsbee, as everyone already knew.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: ‘Memo to President Barack Obama: It’s a tax.’ This is from State-Controlled AP. ‘Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance — and fining them if they don’t — isn’t the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation’s health care system doesn’t quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax. And the reason the fines are in the legislation is to enforce the coverage requirement. ‘If you put something in the Internal Revenue Code, and you tell the IRS to collect it, I think that’s a tax,’ said Clint Stretch, head of the tax policy group for Deloitte, a major accounting firm. ‘If you don’t pay, the person who’s going to come and get it is going to be from the IRS.” And that is authorized, by the way, in the House health care bill. Now, it’s a tax. Of course Obama is out there saying, ‘No, George, it’s not a tax.’

The man is incapable of telling the truth. But it’s still interesting to me, if this were Clinton, instead of doing a Fact Check with the story being, ‘Mr. President, I’m sorry, but it is a tax,’ this story would marvel at how clever Clinton is in lying about it. He lies to our face, and yet we believe him because we love him, because he’s such a roguish, fun-loving character. With Obama, they don’t get that. I’ll tell you why. Even though they’re totally in the tank for Obama, Obama’s not a fun-loving, warm, cuddly guy. This is a cold, calculating, and potentially very mean guy, and so there’s not this instinct to cover for him on things like this. I know it’s a fine line because they’re in the tank for his agenda anyway and this is just a momentary blip, and somebody at AP is probably going to get suspended or fired for running the story. But still it’s important that there is no marveling at how good he is at lying like there was with Clinton.

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