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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: Now, I got a note, ladies and gentlemen, from a friend after the phone call we had from Patty. And he was very frustrated after the phone call we got from Patty. He said, “I hate the term ‘trickle down.’ I despise the term trickle down, and she used it twice.” And here’s why my friend is upset with the term trickle down, in terms of trickle-down economics, trickle-down economy. He says trickle implies that most of the wealth stays with the wealthy, and it doesn’t.

Now, I know this is gonna be radical. This is a radical point to make, but he’s exactly right. And the simple proof of the statement is, you could confiscate all of the wealth, confiscate all of it, not tax it, but just take it all, the top 1% that Obama has pointed out as the great enemy of the people. You could confiscate all they’ve got. You could run the United States government at current budget levels for less than a month. I mean, you might not even get two weeks out of it. It is a myth that the top 1% have all of the wealth in this country. It’s the exact opposite.


Now, the wealth is defined as the GDP. Most of the wealth is held by society. It derives from the income you earn at work and the affordable goods and services which result from mass production and efficiency. The idea that the top 1% have all the wealth is another lie, and it derives from this ongoing argument about the gap between the rich and the poor and how much of the newly created wealth ends up with the 1% versus the rest. But the idea that wealth trickles down, and a trickle is very slow, almost imperceptible, and that’s not at all how the US economy happens. Then the second part of trickle down, “down” implies that business owners get their money first. This, I think, is an excellent point.

When Obama’s out there saying, “You got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” You know it still frosts me when I see that, when I read it, when I hear him say it. I can’t tell you how angry it makes me that the president of the United States is out getting standing ovations attacking hard work, success, and achievement. But it’s happening. Look, I can understand if Barney Frank was doing it, or some senator or congressman, but the president of the United States running for reelection, getting standing ovations criticizing success, with contempt. Whoever called here and said that he sounds snarky and contemptuous when he says it is exactly right. Trickle down implies that business owners get their money first.

You know, business owners get their money last. Everybody else gets paid first. The employees get paid, then the bills that keep the business up and running, and then the materials necessary to build the product or to sell the product or the service or what have you. The business owner gets paid last, if the business is successful. If you haven’t owned a business, you don’t know this. Well, you might. In this audience I think everybody knows exactly what I’m talking about all the time. I often say, man, I’d love just a week, just a week with some of these people giving money, for example, to Elizabeth Warren, some of these Hollywood people giving money. I would love if they were forced to listen to this show for a week.

The wealth in this country is not concentrated among the 1%. Now, the 1% may be expert at building on their wealth, but the vast majority of the wealth in this country is spread around over 230 million people. Gosh, you know, it’s amazing the common-sense economics that is not understood, not taught, and how easy it is to demagogue. It’s always been that way. There’s nothing new about that. At the same time it’s frustrating.

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