RUSH: Audrey, 12 years old, Triple Falls, Wisconsin. How are you?
CALLER: Good. What? Am I on?
RUSH: You’re on.
CALLER: Oh, I’m sorry. (giggles) Hi, Mr. Limbaugh. I just had a question that I asked my dad and he told me I should call you and ask you.
RUSH: Mmm-hmm.
CALLER: I was wondering why Obama doesn’t lower taxes at a time like this instead of raising them?
RUSH: Well, I’m going to… Do you have your own answer, your own theory to this? Why you think he doesn’t?
CALLER: Well, kind of but I’m not real sure. I don’t know much about it yet. I’m only 12.
RUSH: Well, that’s a good point. At age 12 what is it that has created your interest in the subject of taxes and whether Obama will cut them or not?
CALLER: Well, my family, they are big fans of yours. I mean, I’ve got over 200 people in my family, my close family and they’re all big fans of yours and we always talk about it constantly. And I was just really, really curious to get the answer so I could talk with them about it.
RUSH: A-ha. Well, I’m going to tell you the answer. I’ll do it as briefly and simply as I can.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: The Declaration of Independence has a phrase in it: ‘We are all endowed by our Creator,’ God, ‘with certain inalienable rights…liberty, pursuit of happiness.’ Now, those rights granted by God and assumed to exist in all human beings by our Founders present a problem and a threat to liberal Democrats like President Obama. The biggest problem President Obama has is the liberty and freedom of the people of this country. The freedom and liberty that the people in this country have is a large obstacle to him accomplishing what he wants, because what he wants is to expand our federal government and to have more control over people’s freedom in this most recent debate health care.
He wants the government be the ultimate decider in who gets coverage and how much and who doesn’t get coverage. So, tax cuts allow people who are working to keep more of what they produce. The more income, the more money your dad has — the more money your family has after they pay taxes — the freer you are to spend it on necessities and pleasurable things: Your pursuit of happiness and your liberty, and I’m sure your family wants to invest in your future with college education and so forth. The less money your dad has because taxes are taken out of it, the less freedom your dad and mom will have to raise you and provide for the family and so forth. And therefore, the less money that people have, the more dependent on other people providing services for them they become.
In this case, the government. President Obama wants more people like your father depending on him for whatever he has, not your father and mother depending on themselves. And of course he wants the same thing for you down the road when you grow up and start earning money. So it really… The best way to understand it is a freedom and liberty issue. It is an effort to deny your family and everybody else, liberty and freedom. It really is not about raising revenue for the government to run the government responsibly, Audrey, because if it were, he would be cutting taxes. Right now people are losing their jobs and not paying taxes at all. He’s not bothered by that. He actually finds it helpful to his agenda. Now, I have to take a commercial break. Can you hang on for three minutes?
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: Good, because I’m not quite finished.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It’s Open Line Friday, Rush Limbaugh, back to 12-year-old Audrey in Triple Falls, Wisconsin, who has a family of 200, all huge fans of me and this program. So Audrey, that’s the short, simple answer that I think is the real reason Obama doesn’t lower taxes. Do you have any questions about what I said?
CALLER: Nope. We covered all the Declaration stuff in fifth grade so I was really interested in what you said.
RUSH: You have been taught the Declaration since the fifth grade?
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: Okay. Good. I’m happy to hear that’s happening at least in one state. Did you understand the relationship between high taxes and the loss of liberty and freedom?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Okay. Well, I’m glad you called. I’m happy to have an opportunity to explain this to you because a lot of people don’t look at taxes the way I do. They don’t look at tax cuts the way I do because a lot of people have been led to believe that the more you make, the more you should pay. It’s only fair, and the less you make, the less you should pay. And right now, 43% of people who work in this country pay no income tax. The top 1% of the wage earners pay 47% of all income taxes, and they’re going to have their taxes raised even more to pay for Obama’s health care plan and cap-and-tax plan and so forth and so on. What he’s really trying to do here with his tax policy, Audrey, is what is called redistribute income. He wants to punish people who have worked hard and have achieved things. He wants to, with his tax increases, take more of what they have, destroy their wealth, and redistribute it to people for a host of reasons, chief among them is to keep getting their votes.
CALLER: I never thought about it that way. I don’t think that’s right. I’m sorry.
RUSH: It’s not right. It is tragic. It is destructive. It will destroy people’s desire to do well. It will destroy people’s pursuit of the American dream. If the more you make, the more the government’s going to take, why earn it? You know, why expend the effort and why work? Especially if you know that your money that you’ve earned is going to be given to people who, in large part, are not working. Audrey, this president is unlike any we’ve ever had in our country with his ideas, and there are many Americans who think that his plans have to be stopped if America is to be the same country you grow into that your parents grew up in. If you and people your age are to have the same opportunity that, say, I had or your parents had, then Obama’s policies must be stopped.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Much of what the opposition of President Obama is about is for people’s children, like you. People don’t want you to grow up saddled with debt that you can’t repay before you’ve earned your first dollar and they don’t want you to grow up with diminished opportunity to be whatever you want to be, to be the best you can be. There’s a lot at stake here, and it’s for you, and people your age and people that haven’t even been born yet. And the tax policy, raising taxes, is just one of the steps in limiting the opportunity people have for prosperity and success and, of course, exercising their freedom. So it’s a good question. I’m glad you called and asked me.
CALLER: Well, thank you for picking up.
RUSH: You bet. And tell your 200 family members I love ’em.
CALLER: Okay.