RUSH: It’s kind of mesmerizing to watch, kind of exciting to watch, and the excitement tempered with some anticipation. But essentially what we’re watching is the Democrat Party commit suicide. Now, I know it may not look like that to you because you might think the Democrat Party’s winning and dominating things, but I’m telling you, folks, they are committing suicide. And I’ll tell you who has made this happen, aside from me, and that would be D.J.T., Donald J. Trump.
JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny south Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!
RUSH: Yes, siree, Bob. Here we are, Open Line Friday, 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.
And, as I said yesterday, if all of this stuff has you worn out, if you are at your maximum absorption level, I fully understand. You want to talk about the Super Bowl, you want to talk about any aspect of the Super Bowl, if you want to weigh in on the cold weather, you have at it, ’cause I’m convinced I can make anything anybody calls about interesting and compelling. Not everybody can do that, but I am one who can.
Telephone number again, 800-282-2882.
Let’s start with the great economic news. And this is in and of itself part of the news here that is driving Democrats crazy. Donald Trump is driving Democrats crazy. Now, that is not new or revolutionary. But we’ve talked in recent days about how the Democrats are no longer masking and hiding who they are. They’re just out front with it. I think one of the reasons for this is Trump. Trump, in the political spectrum of things here, Trump owns the right, obviously, but I think he also has made great inroads in carving out a dominate position in the center.
Now, Howard Schultz thought he was gonna make a beeline for the center, but Howard Schultz cannot believe what is happening to him. Howard Schultz is a classic example of an ignorant — and I don’t mean to be insulting with this. I’m not using that term to insult him. He has no idea what’s become of the Democrat Party. He has no idea how radically insane liberal it is. And now he’s finding out. And he’s gobsmacked by it.
He doesn’t understand. He spent years plotting his presidential announcement. He spent years researching positions and policies to articulate and explain, that would place him where he thought be right in the middle of all of the radicals on the left and the radicals on the right. And he fully expected a massive embrace from many in the Democrat Party and from a lot of people in the media. And he does not understand. He has been totally shell-shocked by these increasing vitriolic demands from people in his own party that he get out, that he announce he’s not running, that he quit.
In the meantime, CNN can barely contain itself that Cory Booker has announced his intention to enter this fray. Cory Booker, who is nothing but a resume of failure, why would somebody who did what he did to Newark, New Jersey, think that this would propel him to the White House? And the same thing with the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and some of these other decrepit leftist cities where these mayors now want to enter the fray.
And it’s the old class warfare bit that really has never succeeded wildly for the Democrats. But they don’t know that, and it’s just like when you tell them socialism has never worked they say, “Well, that’s because the right people haven’t tried it yet.” If you tell them that liberalism has never worked. “Well, that’s because we haven’t really allocated sufficient resources for it.”
And you couple this with what the Democrat Party is making known about their position on abortion and because Trump has co-opted a large swath of the American political center, he’s driving every Democrat who wants to unseat him so far to the left, I don’t care how far to the left you might think our general population is, they are nowhere near where the mainstream of the Democrat Party is. And you will see.
I mentioned something yesterday and I want to mention it again right now. I think Donald Trump in the State of the Union next week ought to take advantage of the opportunity of this massive, large audience and give a speech that is basically comprised of a number of his tweets in the past couple of days. Just sit there — well, stand there in the House of Representatives at that podium and simply explain the Democrat Party agenda. Not widely shout it, not offer it in an attack type vein. Just mention it. Just, in the context of informing the American people the questions that face us as we determine the kind of future we want. And he presents the Democrat agenda, because the media isn’t.
The media is in no way being honest about what the Democrat agenda is. Do you know that the media’s not even covering this Ralph Northam business? And a bunch of people went out and asked other ranking Democrats what they think of Ralph Northam’s position on after-birth abortion in Virginia, and they’re all claiming they didn’t know. “What?” they’re saying. “I didn’t know about this.” Half of them are lying. The other half are telling the truth ’cause the media isn’t reporting this.
This is a golden opportunity for Donald Trump to simply explain the options we have going forward as a country. “Here’s what the left-wing Democrat Party is offering,” and then go down the list and quote from all of them: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, 90% tax rate, free this, free that, free everything, and make the Democrats stand up and applaud it.
Some of you, “Rush, we gotta be very, very careful, you know, everybody likes Santa Claus, everybody wants free stuff.” Folks, there is so much in the Democrat Party agenda that is so out of the mainstream that a lot of Americans do not know, have not been told, it hasn’t been reported. The Democrat Party is still to this day reported as the only reasonable bunch of people in the country. The media is not at all informing people of the true radical nature. I’ll go example by example here to give you an idea what I’m thinking about.
But all the president would have to do is explain his sadness, not anger, sadness and dismay over what he is hearing from Democrat governors and legislators in New York about aborting children during birth or after. And he could just say, “Is this who we are? Is this what you want in your future? Is this what you think the United States of America is?” And then go down some of the other wild-ass proposals these people are making on other things and present the contrast.
Trump is, I think, uniquely not just qualified, uniquely capable of doing this, because it’s gonna be one of the rare times anybody on our side has such an opportunity to reach such a large audience where the media can’t ignore it and pretend that it didn’t happen. Oh, yeah, they’ll edit the hell out of it afterwards and they’ll rip Trump a new one into smithereens afterwards and so forth. But I think it’s pedal-to-the-metal time here. This is the kind of thing that has to be done. And it’s a circumstance I think Trump is uniquely qualified for as an outsider and somebody who does not do things the way they’ve always been done in the swamp.
You know, one of the things about the State of the Union that has always irritated me is this phony show of unity that happens at every one of them. They hated George W. Bush. The guy shows up and there’s the traditional — and that’s the only reason they happen, three or four standing ovations before Bush even gets to the podium. “Mr. Speaker! The president of the United States!” And they all stand up and massive cheers, and it’s made to look like total unity until he begins to speak.
And then the Democrats sit down half the time and stand up the other half. Republicans, ditto. I actually think the Democrats at the State of the Union are not going to go through this traditional display of fake unity. I think they’re not gonna be able to help themselves. I think it’s one of the reasons Pelosi didn’t want to do this State of the Union is because she’s afraid of what her own party members, particularly the young ones, are gonna do. So we will explore this and delve into it as the program unfolds.
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RUSH: Let’s get to the Stack here on the Democrat presidential candidates and others. Because there are other Democrats prominent other than those running. Howard Schultz we addressed in the first half hour. I’m gonna get back to that too. But here’s a story that ran at Grabien News on January 30th at 5:30. Let me ask you. I got a note from somebody. See if this is how you feel sometimes.
“Rush, am I just an old fogy? Am I too old to understand now what the heck these Millennials are talking about? So much of what they say and do doesn’t make any sense to me. It makes no sense to me what these people think about rights and privilege. I’ve never thought about things the way they do. Are we just being overshadowed, are we antiques, or are these people genuinely crazy, like they seem to me? One thing, Mr. Limbaugh, I don’t see any joy, and I don’t see any happiness in any news about people on the left.”
Well, that’s true. They’re incapable of it. Joy and happiness, the absence of joy and happiness is the essence of being liberal. But here is the story that the email was about. The Grabien story. The headline: “Ocasio-Cortez: I Acknowledge My Privilege Being Born ‘Cisgendered.'”
A, do you know what cisgendered is? Do you know? I’ve explained it two or three times, but it was not a term when I grew up. It wasn’t a term five years ago, not in the mainstream, but it is now. Cisgender means you’re a natural man or woman. You’re binary. Youu come from a man or woman, you’re a human being, you’re a boy or girl, man or woman. Cisgender. And cisgenders are said to have an unfair advantage because they are normal, or they have been defined as normal.
Cisgenders are said to have privilege that other types of genders do not have, and so Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says we all must acknowledge whatever privilege we have as we go through life, we must be cognizant of it, we must be aware of it, we must be aware of how things are unfair to others to our benefit. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said people must acknowledge their privileges in order to fix past wrongs. As an example of her own privilege, she identified being a cisgendered woman.
Quote, “If you haven’t had a transition in your life where, you know, you were maybe born poor or born without certain privileges and then especially as you transition into having certain privileges in your life, you actually see and feel and sense and taste and smell all of the differences. If you’ve never experienced different treatment in your life, you wouldn’t know what different treatment feels like or looks like. And it’s really, really hard.”
Does anybody understand that? Did that make any sense? I can translate this for you if you need. Did that make any sense to any of you? Essentially what she’s saying, if you’re born normal and have all kinds of privileges, and if you don’t stop to think of the people that don’t have the privileges you’ve had, then you’re never gonna be able to relate to the disadvantaged, the downtrodden, the homeless, the hungry, the thirsty. So you must recognize your privilege, and you are required to go through life feeling guilty about it, and you are then charged with going through life addressing your privilege, essentially acknowledging it and not using it. Not using your privilege defines fairness and equality.
So if you are white privileged, you have to go through life not using your whiteness because it’s given you an unfair advantage. And if you use it, then you are engaging in white privilege, and that is a great sin in modern-day liberalism. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued that nearly every person in the U.S. should be able to identify a privilege.”
Meaning, every one of you has an advantage somewhere in your life, and you had better be able to identify it. And then you had better be prepared to acknowledge it and feel guilty about it. And then you had better agree not to use that privilege. Because if you use the privilege that you are born with or have, you are acknowledging the inequalities among us, and taking advantage of others. There are people that really, really believe this. This is nothing more than the quest for sameness, the quest for equality of outcomes.
Now, I would say to somebody that questions, “No, you’re not an old fogy. We’re dealing with some people here who have been educated by an unfortunate group of people who have been carrying around chips on their shoulders for real and imagined reasons, and their entire reason for existence is getting even with those who they think have made life so miserable for ’em. And the way you get even with somebody for that is make life miserable for them. And so the objective is to make everybody miserable and angry all the time since that’s how you are.” And that’s what this is.
“Howard Schultz ‘Freaked Out’ by Democratic Backlash to Independent Presidential Run, As He Weighs Bid – Howard Schultz is getting burned, like a bad cup of Starbucks coffee and it may force him to rethink his presidential aspirations.
“The billionaire and former Starbucks CEO has told advisors that he was shocked by the stridency of the attacks made by Democrats Opens a New Window. following the announcement he was seriously considering running for president as an independent in the 2020 election and is now said to be looking more closely at whether he wants to go through with the effort.
“The intense nature of the criticism stunned Schultz, people close to him tell FOX Business. While he expected some carping, he did not foresee the ferocity of some of the vitriol, particularly from the party’s top officials and operatives. In addition to the barrage of criticism from leading Democrats, Schultz was also blindsided by the grass roots blowback, including being heckled during an event in New York City to promote his new book. One person with knowledge of Schultz’s reaction to the attacks said he is ‘freaking out’ about the criticism.”
Can you imagine, this guy couldn’t put up with what Trump gets. This guy couldn’t last a day! But I find this fascinating because Howard Schultz has spent apparently years plotting his announcement. He’s spent years plotting how he’s going to win. He has spent years plotting his position in the American political spectrum. He’s been studying, and he obviously believes all of the drivel and bilge he sees in the media. So he obviously believes everybody hates Donald Trump.
He then decides that the Democrat Party’s a little left. I mean, he’s a big time leftist, he has been donating big time leftist candidates and causes like the Clintons, but he may be one of these people doesn’t recognize the Millennials, either. So he thinks, because this is what the Washington establishment tells everybody, the great independents, oh, yes, the moderates. Remember the theory that 80% of the country is canceled out in every presidential election? Yeah, 40% that are hard-core Democrats, 40% hard-core Republicans, and then you’ve got the great 20% undecideds, the moderates, the independents. And they have been the people with all the virtue.
Our politics, our media has told us independents and moderates are the only open-minded people. They’re the only ones that haven’t made up their minds. So I’m sure this guy factored all this in and thought he would plot his position right there in the center. And I am sure that he thought he would get a hero’s welcome. I have no doubt that he thought the reaction to his presidential announcement was going to be the exact opposite of what it has been.
And the fact that he has been shocked by it and stunned and freaked out proves that whatever he has used to analyze American politics has lied to him or his perception abilities stink. And it starts with the belief that everybody hates Trump. I’m sure he signed on to that. What he doesn’t realize is that Trump very, very artfully and very, very stealthily has crept close and close and close to the center, filling the void left by the Democrats as they have made tracks to the radical left. Howard Schultz thought that was where he was going to be.
He was gobsmacked. He’s shocked that he’s hated because he’s a billionaire. Now, I have to ask, “Howard, what have you been looking at the last 25 years? Where’d you get the idea billionaires are loved?” Well, I can tell you. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett. Take your pick of any rich person that calls for tax increases on the rich and gives away all kinds of charity money to left-wing causes, they are loved and adored. But Howard Schultz created a capitalist enterprise. And he didn’t do the required mea culpas. He’s not apologized. He’s not made excuses. He’s not acted like he didn’t want to become a billionaire. It just happened.
But he’s out there touting the American dream. (imitating Schultz) “I don’t understand! All I did, I started from nothing in Brooklyn and I became a billionaire! It’s the American dream.” Howard, that is the equivalent of the enemy to today’s Democrats. And you are one. And the fact that he didn’t spot this, what does that tell you? And the fact now he can’t take any of this disapproval, can’t handle any of this criticism, is literally thinking about getting out now? Obviously he thought that he was gonna get a hero’s welcome. He thought he had staked out a position that nobody in American politics has anymore: The great independent middle.
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RUSH: Even at Starbucks, employees at Starbucks are being told not to act like they support Howard Schultz and to remind everybody his book is not being sold there. They’re not to promote Howard Schultz. They’re barely even going to acknowledge it — and this has him gobsmacked. His own company is basically distancing itself, his employees, from him.
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RUSH: Okay. I have a about a minute here. Let me share with you an object lesson in how media does things. You’re all aware of the news this week, New York state, go ahead and abort the child at birth or afterwards and even nonmedical personnel can do it. Then you go to Virginia, they tried to pass the same law and the governor of Virginia said, “Hey, if it’s up to the mother and the dad — no, I’m sorry, it’s up to the mother and the medical people.”
So the left makes it clear they are for infanticide. Washington Post headline — ready for this? — “Republicans Seize On Liberal Positions To Paint Democrats As Radical.” It’s the Republicans’ fault! Oh! The Republicans seize? It used to be Republicans pounce. But now Republicans seize on liberal positions to paint –. See, the Democrats are not radical. Killing babies after they’re born isn’t radical! Republicans have seized on this to paint them as radical.
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RUSH: A little bit of an update on the Howard Schultz situation. To me this is a big deal, not because of Howard Schultz per se, not because his candidacy for president might amount to anything. It’s just I am fascinated when so-called experts who take months and months analyzing the political spectrum get totally gobsmacked, have been totally wrong, and that means their experts and their consultants and everybody advising them has been wrong.
The story today is that Howard Schultz is shell-shocked. He cannot for the life of him understand why he is being ridiculed by people in his own party. Well, he did come out as an independent. But he can’t understand why people on the left are mocking him and laughing at him and telling him not to run and hating on him. He doesn’t understand it.
And he’s out there saying, “I don’t understand where people are mad at me. I am the American dream! I was born in Brooklyn from nothing. I scrimped and I saved and I worked.” Mr. Schultz, don’t you understand, that’s no longer acceptable as a route to success to the American left.
You are the enemy. Self-made is the enemy. Self-reliant, ruggedly individual. You are the enemy because it means you have exploited other people. Mr. Schultz, you’ve exploited people if you think you’ve done it on your own. You didn’t do anything on your own, Mr. Schultz. You didn’t build that.
Have you missed all your Democrat buddies attacking people for that? What did you expect was gonna happen? They’re gonna forget all that and lay down and greet you because you think you’re one of them? You didn’t build Starbucks, Mr. Schultz. You exploited people and took advantage of circumstances that not nearly anybody else has and you don’t even really own that. You didn’t even really build it.
He’s clueless, folks. He hasn’t the slightest idea why the left wants him to shut up and go away. He doesn’t understand that as an independent he helps Trump. Well, they think he doesn’t understand it. So the update on the story is: “Schultz Smears Warren, Harris, Ocasio-Cortez and All Progressives.”
This is an opinion piece in TheHill.com and it’s all about the fact that Howard Schultz is asking, why is everybody mad at him? Well, he went out and attacked everybody, this piece says. He didn’t like the policy ideas of the extreme, far left, and he went out there and said so. And that means he attacked them. Just like Republicans “seize” on liberal positions to paint Democrats as radical, Howard Schultz seized on liberal policy ideas to attack them.
So he has been found guilty of attacking Kamala Harris, Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and this is the price he pays for it. So now the Drive-By Media is joining the refrain against Howard Schultz. And the stories are that Schultz is so bugged by this that he’s rethinking doing the whole thing.
Now, again, I’ve got no brief for Howard Schultz. Don’t misunderstand. I just am fascinated this guy is supposedly a brilliant expert, marketing and all of that. He has spent maybe years planning his presidential announcement, planning the announcement of his agenda, and it blew up in one day, all because not even he understands his own movement. He doesn’t even understand how radical out of bounds they have become. And he now is being bitten by it.
Here’s another example. Michael Moore, fresh off the latest bomb of a movie that he made, Michael Moore says the wealthy are not self-made if they use city water and attended public universities. “(Howard Schultz) has the people in New York and all these other cities delivering the water underground to him.” Howard Schultz somehow cheated? He’s got all these people delivering water for coffee underground? He paid for that. Howard Schultz paid taxes so that these services can be provided to him and everybody else.
“Rather than embrace his great American success story, filmmaker and avowed socialist Michael Moore tore into Starbucks founder Howard Schultz Thursday night during an interview on NBC’s ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers.’ Moore, himself a multi-millionaire,” who looks good in a baseball cap, “took issue with Schultz’s use of the term ‘self-made.'”
See, I told you, there is no self-made to the American left. You are the enemy if you’re self-made because nobody is. Schultz said, “I’m a self-made billionaire,” and that’s when the long knives came out.
“A lifelong Democrat, Schultz is running for president as an Independent because he says the Democratic Party has become too radical and left-wing. Although he takes progressive social positions, his main message is for Democratic constituents to embrace upward mobility without destroying the economy through harmful socialist policies.”
And he doesn’t know why they are savaging him. Michael Moore is not having any of this talk about Schultz being self-made. Michael Moore told Seth Meyers, “Schultz couldn’t be self-made because public housing ‘is a form of socialism. He even went to a public university,'” taxpayer supported. “‘He went to Northern Michigan University, actually,’ … Moore drove home his Marxist philosophy by taking aim at the American bootstrap ethos of hard work and upward mobility. ‘This myth that we were raised on, the Horatio Alger story that anyone can make it in America. That anyone can be a millionaire, that anyone can be president of the United States, well we know that’s not true,'” said Michael Moore, to a standing ovation.
“The Howard Schultzes and the Michael Bloombergs, they better get a clue because they are tone deaf to the fact that people have had it,” Moore continued.
By the way, Doomberg is next. I saw Doomberg. I saw a video of Doomberg. Doomberg is out there attacking, very subtly, Cortez and some of these other Millennials. And what he’s doing, he’s basically saying, “They have nothing new, these people.”
He’s acting jealous, actually. Doomberg is acting jealous of these young people getting all of this acclaim and credit for what they think ’cause Doomberg’s out there saying (paraphrasing), “I’ve been thinking this stuff for years, this isn’t anything new. This is the stuff that made me.” He’s gonna be their next target because he is subtly attacking them.
“The Howard Schultzes and the Michael Bloombergs, they better get a clue because they are tone deaf to the fact that people have had it. That’s why people support taxing the rich. They see other countries have free healthcare. We’ve got some good candidates running and some of them are running on this.” Free health care, free this, free that.
Next up, Elizabeth Warren. I mentioned at the top of the program that I actually think these people are committing suicide. I will admit this is a hope. I really hope they are. I hope there are enough of us left that this is party suicide. And I think it’s happening again, not to be redundant, they’ve got on nowhere to go. They can’t go to the center. The Democrats can’t go to center to attract these precious independents and moderates because Trump is there.
“Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants billionaires like Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg to subscribe to the United States’ ‘social contract’ and pay ‘their fair share’ in taxes, she told CNBC on Thursday in an interview with Jim Cramer. ‘I want these billionaires to stop being freeloaders,’ the Democratic senator said on ‘Mad Money.’ ‘I want them to pick up their fair share. That’s how we make a system that works not just for the rich and the powerful, but works for all of us.'”
Folks, these people are recycling things that are 50 years old! “The rich aren’t paying their fair share.” They’re obviously trying to capitalize on the Millennials and the Gen Z or whatever the next ones are who probably haven’t heard this and who are, in polling, saying that they’re attracted to the concept of socialism. But the top 1% of earners right now, which is much more than just Doomberg and Howard Schultz, by the way, the top 1% are paying more than 30%, 37% of all income taxes.
Now, what about that is them not paying their fair share? “On Thursday, the Massachusetts senator broke down her problem with billionaires, even those who contribute to charities and do good social works. … “The thing about taxes is everybody who is an ultra-millionaire has to pay a portion, not just those who sign up, not just those who wave their hands and say, ‘I’ll do it as long as it goes to the particular charity I like.’ That is your obligation. That’s part of the social contract. That’s part of being a citizen of the United States of America.”
What? It’s nonsensical. Anyway, she wants to raise taxes on ’em ’cause not paying their fair share and “that additional money could go to child care, lowering student loan debt, or a Green New Deal.” She didn’t stop there. She told an interviewer for Doomberg that capitalism without rules is theft. This is from a woman who got rich by flipping houses that were foreclosed on by Fannie and Freddie Mae and by pretending to be an Injun.
Okay. So eliminating student loan debt, why would there even need to be student loans if education is going to be free. By the way. I’m gonna have to expand on this. There are a number of — well, a handful, four or five Republican elected officials who are — they heard me the other day say that as a political strategy, asking Democrats how they’re gonna pay for all this, I said I don’t think that’s gonna work anymore. Not as a means of persuasion. I don’t think it’s gonna make people not support what the Democrats are saying, the idea of having to pay for it.
And the reason is ’cause I’m not sure how well it’s ever worked, to tell you the truth. But especially now with as much debt, national debt, the annual budget deficit, I mean, it is clear that we don’t have any money, and yet we’re spending money like there’s no end to it. There’s no fiscal discipline anywhere in our national life. There isn’t any. Certain people are not being given everything they want, but when it comes to overall expenditure, the government’s not cutting back on anything. We’re not acknowledging we have a deficit. We’re not acknowledging we have a national debt.
Look at Obama. The first thing he does after being elected and inaugurated is come up with this magic almost $1 trillion stimulus. And nobody opposed it because we didn’t have the money. Well, the Tea Party did, and they came to life, but Obama didn’t lose anybody that voted for him because of that. My point is, as a means of persuasion, demanding to know how the Democrats are gonna pay for it, it’s a logical question to ask, and economically it makes all the sense in the world. I’m simply talking about as a means of persuading people to oppose or question the Democrat agenda, how to pay for it, I don’t know that it works.
I’d love to be wrong about this. I think there are other ways of demonstrating we don’t have the money, what that means, because clearly not having the money is not stopping these proposals. If we don’t have the money, what is free health care for everybody? If we don’t have the money, what is free education for everybody? If we don’t have the money, what is free health care for all illegal immigrants? If we don’t have the money, why is anybody proposing it? If we didn’t have the money, the Democrats wouldn’t be proposing it.
They’re proposing this because it doesn’t matter whether we have the money, they’re gonna spend it anyway. Or they’re gonna make people think they’re gonna spend it. Gonna make people think they’re Santa Claus. The fact that we don’t have the money is not going to stop Democrat voters from voting Democrat. But the results of not having any money, the manifestations of not having any money, we cannot provide health care for all, same quality, on demand. We simply can’t. Look at the lines that would result. Look at the people that wouldn’t be treated.
There would be subpar treatment. There would be unequal treatment. Some people wouldn’t be treated at all. It isn’t possible to do what they’re suggesting. Same thing with free education. The people that teach are gonna have get paid. Nothing is free. And yet they tout it as free, and they get votes because people believe that it’s not gonna cost them anything. So who it costs and how that affects people not paying for it is what our focus should be.
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RUSH: I checked the email: “Mr. Limbaugh, they’re gonna pay for all this free stuff by raising taxes to 90% on the rich.” All right, A, it’s not gonna happen. They’ll talk about it. If they’re elected president — 90% would be the top rate. We would have to explain marginal tax rates. Not every — well, the super wealthy, they would make everybody pay 90%. But here’s the thing about this. This is all so old. This is something that the top marginal tax rate used to be 75, 80% back in as recently as 1980. Did you know that? The top marginal rate was 70% when Ronaldus Magnus took office.
Here’s the thing. And you can run the numbers on this yourself. You could confiscate, take it all, all the billionaires in America. You wouldn’t have the money to pay for health care for more than a couple of months. You wouldn’t have nearly enough money to run the federal government for six months. On a $4 trillion budget. People, these numbers are beyond comprehension.
A billion is a thousand million. And a trillion is a thousand billion! You’ve lost. You can’t visualize it. But I’m just telling you, you confiscate every billionaire’s total worth, net worth, gross worth, income, take it all, and you only do that one time. It doesn’t replicate. Billionaire income doesn’t start from zero every year and create. Once you take it, it’s gone, and you can’t even run the government a couple of months with it.
Not that that kind of thing would matter to people because it’s an emotional thing. “Tax the rich. The rich aren’t paying their fair share.” It’s amazing how this stuff that never works just gets recycled and you have to deal with it and educate a whole new crop of people that it just doesn’t work.
Here’s Wade in Houston. You’re next, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Great to be here, Rush. Appreciate it.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I wanted to talk about this proposed wealth tax. And you gave me an even better idea. A minute ago, a few minutes ago when I was listening to you, you were talking about how it would be nice if Trump got on there in the State of the Union message and proposed something that made the Democrats just have to applaud it. What he needs to do is say, “They talk about a wealth tax. They misuse the word ‘wealth’ all the time. They talk about the rich, taxing the rich. They’re not really taxing the rich.
They’re taxing the upwardly mobile. They’re taxing productivity. They’re not taxing wealth. And so Warren Buffett can sit around and talk or moan about how his secretary pays a higher rate than he does, well, heck, he could give her a lot more money to pay her taxes. And besides, he could pay all his wealth instead of his income. People who’ve got money tied up in something like Facebook and they’re not selling their stock, they’re not cashing —
RUSH: No. I’m saying confiscate all of that. I’m not sure what you want Trump to do or what you want him to say, but I’m telling you, you could take Facebook from Zuckerberg and not make a dent in the national debt.
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RUSH: I’m gonna have more on this next week. We got the State of the Union. I want to give you an example. I think Trump ought to find a way to articulate the Democrat agenda, as a warning, as a way to present to the American people two visions of the future. And ask this: “Is this really what you want?” And one of the things Trump could do is inform people about this Green New Deal. Now, it sounds good to people that don’t know what it is.
“Wow, it’s gonna save the environment? It’s gonna stop global warming? Why do I sign up?” Yeah, well, that’s not how you tell people what it is. You tell people what it is by using the words of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It’s very simple. The Green New Deal will essentially ban the combustion engine 10 years after the bill is passed. The internal combustion engine will be banned. Automobiles, airplanes — anything that uses fossil fuels for propulsion — will be banned!
This will, in effect, destroy the current United States oil and natural gas renaissance that has empowered the middle class with inexpensive fuel. It has provided millions of jobs. It has ended our strategic reliance on oil from Saudi Arabia. This is what they’re proposing! Tell people this! The media’s not reporting what the Green New Deal is. The president should! And then make the Democrats react to it, either stand up and applaud it or start booing him for supposedly misrepresenting what it is. It’s a golden opportunity that the president has. Look at it as a 90-minute, however long his speech is, tweet!
And the purpose of his tweets is to get his version of things out there! It’s sitting duck opportunity. And we’ll develop it more as we get closer to it next week.