RUSH: Well, I had a chance to listen to just a little bit of the Obama press conference. Jake Tapper, ABC, asked Obama about the compromise that he might make on extending the Bush tax cuts. Right now, of course, the tax cuts will eliminate, stop for everybody, $250,000 or more, and maybe everybody’s taxes will be raised. But believe me, there’s no tax cuts on the table. And Jake Tapper 
said, (paraphrasing) ‘Would you compromise and say people who make a million dollars a year will not see their tax decrease, tax cut sunsetted?’ And I started thinking, where’s all this talk of rich equaling $250,000 a year, a million a year, where does all this start? What right does Obama have to sit there and proclaim that people who earn X are gonna be punished with Y, people who earn less than X won’t be punished with Y? Do you notice how easy it is to fall into the premise trap that the left sets?
Looked at within the prism of liberty and freedom, as our founding documents spell out, the Declaration, the Constitution, in nowhere in any of our founding documents was it ever said that people earning X would be punished for it. It was never said in our founding documents that people earning X would share a greater burden of funding the government than people who didn’t. Where does all this talk start? Because all this is nothing more than a direct attack on liberty, a direct attack on freedom and it creates class envy and resentment and anger between the classes, between people of different income groups. So all of a sudden we’re faced with a possibility here of the Bush tax cuts ending for people who earn $250,000 a year or more. Well, why are we even discussing it in the first place? What did those people do? What is the magic? Who sets arbitrarily this figure of $250,000 a year? Why are they targeted? And look how easily people fall into the trap of debating the premise, when the real question is when is the federal government going to assume responsibility for the deficit spending, for the irresponsible position they put this country in? When are they going to be forced to reduce the behavior, to limit the behavior they are engaging in that is causing a usurpation of our liberty and freedom?
The question is not should people who make $250,000 or $500,000 or one million for some reason pay a higher burden of supporting the folly and the irresponsibility of people like Barack Obama and most people in government? Why are we even debating the premise if we really believe in liberty, if we really believe in freedom? Why do we acknowledge a premise that states the successful are gonna get punished, the successful are gonna pay the price? Where is it written that the people who create the problem get to demand that people who had nothing to do with creating the problem solve it, but first get blamed for it, because that’s really what’s happening here. People who are making $250,000 or $500,000 or a million, according to people like Barack Obama, and in fact most people in Washington, are somehow to blame for our deficit, somehow to blame for this out-of-control spending, somehow to blame for this generational theft. What did they do? What did the people earning $250,000 do to create this problem? What did the people who earn a million dollars do to create the problem? What did the people who earn $500,000 a year do?
What have they done that resulted in this irresponsibility in Washington? Nothing! The people who earn $250 or 500,000 or a million are in fact the people who are investing in this country and the private sector hiring other people, producing products and services that allow for the country’s economy to grow and for people to have jobs and to earn higher wages. The federal government, the state government cannot and does not create wealth. All it can do is destroy it. All it can do is confiscate it. And what we’re doing is discussing the proper level of servitude. What is your price? What are you going to have to pay for the irresponsibility and for the misnamed, the maligned, the stupid, and the incorrect policies of liberals like Barack Obama? What level of servitude will you have to bear the responsibility for something you had nothing to do with? At what level are we going to proclaim you are more guilty than another citizen based on how much you earn? Where in our founding documents, where in natural law, where in the Constitution are these principles written?
So when Jake Tapper stands up, ‘Are you willing to compromise, Mr. President? Are you willing to compromise, maybe go $500,000 a year they get to keep the Bush tax cut, maybe a million?’ And Obama, as the all-knowing, the all-whatever, ‘Yeah, I’ll think about it,’ as though he has any right to. Who is Barack Obama to be able to say that any citizen in this country has to pay more to support his mistakes because of what they earn, and why do so many of us fall into the trap of thinking, yeah, that’s fair? Why are so many people willing, accidentally, purposefully, to squander and give up their liberty and freedom so that they do not have to feel the guilt? What is the price of your freedom? You know, it used to be that Americans would give up their lives before they would give up their freedom. Americans would give up their lives before other people would have to give up their freedom. Americans would give their lives so that others might be free.
Now, who made Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or any Democrat, I don’t care, any Democrat, who made them the decider on what anybody should make and then what level of taxation they should pay? Who made them the deciders on what we should eat? Who made them the decider of what kind of lightbulbs we have in our homes? Who made them the deciders on the kind of car we should drive? Who made them the deciders on what kinda house we live in? Who made them the deciders of when and where we can and can’t turn our lights on? Who made them the deciders of who loses how much of their freedom? Who gave them that power? It doesn’t come from the Constitution. The Constitution does not say the Democrat Party gets to decide which car people drive, which lightbulb they have, what foods they can and can’t eat, and what lights they can’t turn off or on at what time of year. The Constitution does not say that the Democrat Party gets to decide any of this.
The Constitution does not envision this kind of usurpation of freedom. The Constitution does not envision nor allow for this kind of invasion of private property rights or overall liberty or freedom. It has to have been a political party looking at the Constitution and being unhappy with what it says, ignoring it in order to implement their policy. So now we have a guy who is the least qualified in any room he walks into being asked a question by an equally incompetent reporter, ‘Mr. President, are you willing to compromise, people that earn $500,000 a year will be able to keep more of what they earn, will you even go as high as one million?’ And I’m watching this, who the hell are either of you people to decide this? How did I end up as an American with a guy who doesn’t even like my country telling me how I have to live? How did that happen? How did I end up with a guy who does not even respect the founding documents of this country, how did I end up — how did we all end up — with that kind of guy telling us how immoral and unjust we are?
How did this happen? It happens because people for whatever reason are willing to sacrifice, and maybe not even know it’s happening, little bits of their freedom and liberty now and then, under the auspices of it’s a good cause, or it’s in the name of compassion, fairness. Well, I want somebody to tell me what is fair about one incompetent having the right to systematically destroy my country. I want to know where the fairness is in that. I want to know why in hell anybody is even thinking about much less talking about compromising with this man. I want to know why anybody who believes in the Constitution wants to discuss compromising individual freedom or liberty with this man. Because that’s what the compromise is. When people say that we must compromise with Obama, we are saying we must compromise on our freedom.
A lot of you have read books by Ayn Rand, some of you pronounce it Ayn Rand, I don’t care. She asked a question once on compromise, ‘Where do you compromise between food and poison?’ That’s a little better than saying where do you compromise between good and evil because evil sometimes differs from person to person, but poison is poison. So where do you compromise with food and poison? ‘Oh, yeah, okay, you think I should eat arsenic but I don’t want that much, just give me a little arsenic, because some global warming scientist said I could tolerate a little bit of it. But any more than that, and my death might cause the planet to warm.’ So where is this? You got a boot on your neck, where do you compromise with it? ‘Move the boot to my shoulder, please.’ (interruption) Did he just say this? I’m being told here that Obama just said, ‘I reject the idea my policies have taken the country in reverse.’
Let me tell you something, President Obama. You can reject it all you want. But you’ve done it. And we know you’re happy you’ve done it. You might want people to think you’re not happy about the direction the country is going, but if you really were unhappy about it you’d do something to stop it. Instead, you’re doubling down on it. You reject the idea your policies have taken the country in reverse? Where the hell have your policies taken us? You happily preside over a nation in decline. You have told the world no longer will the US population lead the world economy. Ain’t gonna happen anymore.
I must take a brief time-out. I’ve been wanting to play Marco Rubio for you for a while. We’ll get to that. I’m gotta get some phone calls, too. But I just had that thought hit me, I don’t know why, but I’m listening to these two guys discuss $250, 500,000, million dollars, whether or not they’re exempted from a tax increase. What the hell we are talking about here?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Do you realize this is Obama’s first press conference in months? Now, what does that tell you? This is his first press conference in months. What does that say about Obama’s arrogance, his lack of any interest in hearing from others? He doesn’t care about his ideas being tested or even questioned. You know, he doesn’t even want to hear from these reporters. He’s irritated when Jake Tapper. He’s irritated when his minions standing up there! He doesn’t want to talk to them. He doesn’t even want to listen to his State-Controlled Media.