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RUSH: Here’s Pietro in Deer Park, New York. Great to have you on the program. Glad you waited. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, it’s an honor to speak to you. How you doing today?

RUSH: Very well. Thanks very much.

CALLER: Thank you. Well, I’m calling because I had this debate with one of my professors in college. I’m a college student at Nassau Community College, and he went on about how the Republican Party is a party that favors the wealthy and the rich, while the Democrat Party favors the poor.

RUSH: Naturally.

CALLER: And that the tax rate, the taxes that the Republicans want to reduce, are those that help out the wealthy and —

RUSH: Right. What is the course?


CALLER: History 103. It’s American history.

RUSH: History 103. American history, and you’re talking about how the Republicans have policies that only favor the rich?

CALLER: Yes. It’s a very liberal professor that every time he has a chance to bash a Republican president from Reagan to Bush to —

RUSH: Do you realize what a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance your professor is?

CALLER: Yes. That’s why when he said that, I confronted him about it. I tried to explain to him the conservative principle that if you tax a business — each business has a fiscal goal during the year. Now, if you take a chunk of that away from a business then they’ll make it up somehow, either raising prices on the consumer or firing employees or packing their bags and going somewhere else. And he said I was wrong, I was wrong, and nothing that I could say could change his mind that I was wrong.

RUSH: Of course.

CALLER: I even had a debate with the other students, that were all clearly Obama supporters, who said taxing the wealthy is the best thing that you can do right now.

RUSH: Of course, this is a standard belief of lifelong Democrats. And again, they believe it reflexively. They haven’t arrived at this point of view on the base of thought or reason. This is just what they’ve been taught. They think it makes sense. The ways to deal with this are numerous and almost countless. You could, for example, the next time this subject comes up — it sounds like it comes up every day in your class. You could ask your professor, “Well, you say the Democrats care for the poor.” He’ll say, “Oh, yeah, the Democrats, they’re the ones that really, really care about the poor. That’s right.” Ask him, “Why are the poor doing so bad?” Ask him why cities run by nothing but liberals and Democrats for years are bulldozing houses and getting smaller. Ask your professor why the Great Society, the War on Poverty and all of these programs designed to end poverty, have expanded it and deepened it and driven families apart? I know what he’ll tell you. I’m not asking you to ask him this to persuade him, ’cause you never will.

CALLER: No, no. From that day on I just gave up on this professor.

RUSH: He’ll just come back and say, “Well, because the Republicans won’t let it all happen. The Republicans have stopped it.” So you say, “The Republicans want people to be poor?” And he’ll be forced to say yes. And you’ll say, “What’s in it for the Republicans to keep people poor?”

CALLER: Exactly. Exactly.

RUSH: Where did you learn, Pietro, that your professor is wrong?

CALLER: Well, I listen to you, Rush. I used to be a Democrat when I was young, and I didn’t have a job and I didn’t have to pay taxes. I was a Democrat and I believed those that were wealthy were supposed to take care of those that were not. And once I stepped into the real world and I had to pay all these taxes and I had all these government programs that fail, I see that it doesn’t work. I lived in a socialist country, and I tried to explain to these students that socialism doesn’t work. I know socialism ’cause the Democrat platform is a socialist platform, ’cause I lived it, and I know it.


RUSH: What country?

CALLER: Uruguay.

RUSH: Uruguay. Okay.

CALLER: In South America.

RUSH: Now, you have inspired a question here. You mentioned taxes a lot. The next time this comes up with the students or your professor. You said that your professor argues against trickle-down. That tax cuts to wealthy people do not find their way, the money doesn’t find its way to the middle class. Correct?

CALLER: Absolutely. He believes that the wealthy don’t create jobs at all.

RUSH: So the question to ask your professor would be, “Okay, then how does taking the money from the rich and bringing it to the government help the poor?” And what he will tell you is, “Because the Democrats have compassionate programs. They take that money and give it to the poor, whereas the rich would never give it to the poor, so the government has to force that.” Then you ask, “Well, then why are there still poor people?” Pietro, this is what you say. Because since 1964, there has been over $4 trillion transferred from the producers in this society to the poor. By all rights, we should not have any poverty if socialism works. We shouldn’t have any poor people. We’ve taken $4 trillion away, and we have redistributed that to the so-called needy, and so why are the percentages still the same? Why are the people living in poverty still the same percentage-wise as it was when LBJ started his War on Poverty? Then you ask him, “Could you tell me what happened in the eighties, Professor?”

CALLER: Well, to him the eighties was —

RUSH: Well, what happened in the eighties was Ronald Reagan was president for two terms —

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: — and the top marginal tax rate when Reagan took office in 1981, Pietro, was 70%. This is perhaps the most important thing you could tell this brain-dead professor of yours. The top marginal tax rate in 1981 when Reagan took office was 70%. When Reagan left office eight years later, in 1989, the top marginal tax rate was 28%. Seventy percent to 28% equals tax cuts for the rich, and everybody. And then ask this brain-dead professor, “What happened?” Have him check out economic growth. Have him check out what happened to employment. Have him check every economic statistic for the entire eight years, and it’s not arguable what happened. An economic boom was created by cutting the top rate on the rich from 70 to 28%.

In addition to that, Pietro, ’cause you’re a college student now, so you weren’t alive then. This is important. The amount of money that was generated to the Treasury by taxes in 1981 was about $500 billion. In 1989, when Reagan left office, cutting taxes from 70 to 28%, the amount of money collected by taxes almost doubled. It was close to a trillion dollars. Tax cuts, 70 to 28%, doubled revenue. The reason why is because it created economic growth and the very people you’re talking about, the rich, grew businesses and started hiring people, and more taxpayers were created. There were more people working and paying taxes, and revenue to the government grew.

Because it worked so well, people like your brain-dead professor and others have been rewriting history and lying to people like you about what happened in the eighties and what happened with supply-side economics because it’s the best proof yet in this country that socialism is a lie; that socialism doesn’t work; that socialism is a false promise and a false premise. And therefore, because it worked, it shows that they are wrong, and they can’t afford to be wrong because this is their life. So they have to rewrite history and lie about what happened during the eight years of Reagan, the eighties, and even the 15 years that ensued after that led to a terrific economic boom.


And you could then cite Bush. Bush tax cuts led to 52 straight months of employment growth. I mean, your professor has no evidence to support his claims. All he’s got are emotional tugs on your heart and every other student’s heart about the poor. The rich are evil and mean and they won’t give their money away, and they won’t pay people livable wages with their money so a compassionate government run by Democrats has to raise their taxes and take it from ’em and then give it to them. And, therefore, the Democrats have big hearts and are compassionate.

At which point you say, “But, Professor, none of what you said is true, and you are committing veritable educational malpractice by lying to us, your students. Because you are not telling us the truth about what happened in American history. And, as such, we’re leaving this place filled with lies. We’re leaving this class and your course believing things which are not true. You are not teaching us.” Now, you can be guaranteed to get an F if you’re allowed to stay in the class. Obviously, you’re not gonna do any of this. I’m just telling you this for your own knowledge and your own education. You understand it instinctively anyway because you came from a place like this.

CALLER: Yes. I saw it firsthand, and I know it doesn’t work, and I know about the eighties because my father started his business in the eighties, and from what he told me —

RUSH: Well, good. Excellent.

CALLER: I know it works.

RUSH: How old are you?

CALLER: I’m 25 years old.

RUSH: Twenty-five.

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: Well, spread the word. We need every one of you we can get.

CALLER: I’m trying, Rush, and, you know, it’s hard. It’s hard when you have these people that are supposed to educate the people and —

RUSH: I know. It’s frustrating. Welcome to the club. It’s gonna be frustrating your whole life. That is why at the ballot box, Pietro, people like that have to be defeated. You’re not gonna change your professor’s mind, and you’re not gonna get him to change the way he teaches the class, sadly. It just isn’t going to happen. But you can help other students resist the lies that are being, quote, unquote, taught to them. You could tell this guy, “Hey, Prof, hey, Prof, you know, the Great Society was enacted 47 years ago, the War on Poverty, 47, 50 years ago. Prof, why do we still have poverty? A great Democrat plan, LBJ, great guy, War on Poverty, Great Society. Why is it, Prof?”

Ask him to prove it. Make him prove this crap is true.

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