{"id":29991,"date":"2008-07-31T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T03:30:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2018-05-23T08:16:39","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T12:16:39","slug":"20th_anniversary_flashback_rush_demands_we_tax_the_poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2008\/07\/31\/20th_anniversary_flashback_rush_demands_we_tax_the_poor\/","title":{"rendered":"20th Anniversary Flashback: Rush Demands We Tax the Poor"},"content":{"rendered":"
RUSH: Back to the archives, ladies and gentlemen. One of the most controversial bits — well, actually at the time it was controversial and it was well appreciated and understood, tax the poor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(BEGIN ARCHIVE CLIP)<\/p>\n

RUSH ARCHIVE: It is time to get serious, and it is time to get tough about tax policy in this country. The middle class, coupled with the rich, make this country work. Those two groups working together in unison are what make this country work. Now, what\u2019s slowing this country down? Tell you who it is. The poor. The poor and the lower classes of this country have gotten a free ride ever since the Great Depression, when it became noble to be poor. Look at how we treat the homeless, why we celebrate them, why we make romantic figures out of them, why we make movies about them. We teach them to dine in Dumpsters now because America is so impolite, America doesn\u2019t care, America is so rude. My friends, we have the wealthiest poor in the world. They\u2019re the ones who get all the benefits in this country. They\u2019re the ones that are always pandered to. We have been encouraging poverty because they need government. And Democrats love giving money away to the poor, because it creates a need. And, boy, have we created a dependency class, and do they give anything back, do they pay any taxes? No. They don\u2019t have to file any income taxes. They don\u2019t pay a thing. They contribute nothing to this country. They do nothing but take from it. It is serious. It is time to get serious about raising taxes on the poor.<\/p>\n

Now, I know what you\u2019re saying. You\u2019re saying, ‘But, Rush, what do we do if we can\u2019t collect the money they owe? What if they just can\u2019t pay?\u2019 The poor in this country have an average of three television sets in their house. Let\u2019s go get two of them. I am sick and tired of playing the one phony game I have had to play, and that is this so-called compassion for the poor. I don\u2019t have compassion for the poor, because I think they can do something about it. What if we all decided to be poor? What if we all said, ‘I don\u2019t want to pay taxes. I\u2019ll just be poor, and I\u2019ll rely on the Democrats, and I\u2019ll derive my happiness by watching the news on my television set that the rich are going to be punished.\u2019 Yeah. My friends, may I have your attention, please, for just a moment. As you know, today is April Fool\u2019s Day, and I have in the past steadfastly avoided playing these April Fool\u2019s games because everybody else does. I was unable this year to resist the temptation to do it, beginning today with my now infamous Morning Update, which suggested raising taxes on the poor as a means of finally being tough with the economic problems we face, and of course on today\u2019s show, I have expanded my philosophies and have spoken at great length about what I consider to be the true problems in solving our economic malaise.<\/p>\n

I am continually surprised and amazed at the power of this microphone. The whole proposal of raising taxes on the poor to balance the budget, in fact the entire diatribe today, blaming the poor and bashing the poor, has all been an April Fool\u2019s play. Now, many of you out there are so desperate that you will latch on to things that you don\u2019t even understand, and then when somebody tries to explain them to you, you don\u2019t want to hear it, if it is going to in any way, shape, manner, or form change the substance of your belief. And I find that to be truly alarming. I didn\u2019t say dangerous, and I\u2019m not going to worry about any of this, but I find it fascinating, I find it fascinating how easy it is to pull something like this off. There are some things in it that are absolutely true. There are some points I made that are absolutely right, some things that we\u2019ve gotta do that are absolutely a must, but do I think the poor should pay more taxes? No. They don\u2019t have anything to pay taxes with. Do I think that they are the wealthiest poor in the world? Yeah, but that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re well off. And you people who bought it hook, line, and sinker ought to ask yourselves, ‘What else are you buying that may not be true? What else are you willing to believe?\u2019<\/p>\n

How about ozone depletion? How about global warming? What do you really know about it? You just think \u2019cause somebody who sounds authoritative says it, ooh, man, it must be true. You want to believe the worst. You want to believe the worst is happening; you want to believe the worst in people. Ask yourselves about all of these things that you just accept. You should have heard some of the comments that they were getting at the time switchboard, from people who have listened to me for three and one half years. Now, I know what\u2019s going to happen. ‘We\u2019re safe, we\u2019re okay, Rush, we\u2019re just kidding.\u2019 And then the press. You know this is going to happen. The press is going to say, ‘Yeah, you may have been just kidding, yeah, April Fool\u2019s joke, yeah. But look how easy it was for him to say it. It really is in his heart.\u2019 As always, my friends, it was a brilliantly conceived, flawlessly executed Rush Limbaugh bit.<\/p>\n

(END ARCHIVE CLIP)<\/p>\n

RUSH: And I was right. The press went with it without explaining that it was an April Fool\u2019s joke. Patsy Schroeder referenced it on the floor of the House of Representatives, a bunch of other Democrat and liberals. By the way, the condition of the poor has vastly improved since the tax the poor update. That was April 1st, 1991, by the way. They now have flat screens and two cars, on average, in the average American poor household. And, by the way, one thing before we go to the break with the sound quality, some of these old bits were only originally recorded on cassette, and that\u2019s why you think the voice might sound different. We didn\u2019t start going reel-to-reel right off the bat. We just used cassettes. We\u2019ve tried to EQ and master some of the cassettes, and we\u2019ve done the best we could with it, but that\u2019s why the S\u2019s sound squishy and the quality is a little off. Just so you understand.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Back to the archives, ladies and gentlemen. One of the most controversial bits — well, actually at the time it was controversial and it was well appreciated and understood, tax the poor. (BEGIN ARCHIVE CLIP) RUSH ARCHIVE: It is time to get serious, and it is time to get tough about tax policy in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n20th Anniversary Flashback: Rush Demands We Tax the Poor - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2008\/07\/31\/20th_anniversary_flashback_rush_demands_we_tax_the_poor\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"20th Anniversary Flashback: Rush Demands We Tax the Poor - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Back to the archives, ladies and gentlemen. 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