RUSH: We’re searching for the audio of this. I could have sworn that we had the audio of this, but we checked the archives, and we don’t. Shortly after George W. Bush proposed his first stimulus rebate check program it was about March last year, or February, with the checks beginning to arrive in June. Remember this?
And what was the amount of those checks? Was it $600? Six hundred dollars for a single and $1,200 for a couple, something like that, right? None of us really remember because we didn’t get it, but I want to remind you of a quote from the first lady, Michelle (My Belle) Obama. In context, remember, Obama’s stimulus tax plan gets you 13 bucks a week starting in June, and that reduces to eight bucks a week starting in January. Michelle (My Belle) was in Michigan. This is just after she and her girls had an Access Hollywood interview, making fun of their dad’s ten-year-old slacks. Michelle (My Belle) speaking to a group of people in Michigan: ‘You are a getting $600,’ meaning the rebate. ‘You’re getting $600. What can you do with that? I mean, not to be ungrateful or anything, but maybe it pays down a bill. But it doesn’t pay down every bill every month. Barack’s approach is that the short-term quick fix kind of stuff sounds good and it may even feel good for that first month when you get that check and then you go out, you buy a pair of earrings.’ Remember that quote? So the first lady in June of 2008 making fun of a $600 rebate check, and is now praising her husband, whose rebate plan gets you $13 a week.
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RUSH: This is Andrea in the wealthy, wealthy, wealthy enclave of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for the sanity.
RUSH: Yes. (laughs)
CALLER: I have two questions for you. The whopping $13, is that before or after taxes?
RUSH: What does it matter to you, Andrea, you live in Bucks County and you’re not going to see it.
CALLER: Well, that may be true because there is no one in Bucks County that is poor. You know that, right?
RUSH: Yes. That’s why I introduced you as from ‘Wealthy, wealthy, wealthy Bucks County.’
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: A lot of Bloomberg employees live in Bucks County and commute to New York.
CALLER: Well, I shop at Target. (laughs) And my second question is, what exactly is the interest we’re going to be paying on this $13?
RUSH: Now, I have to tell you —
CALLER: That I will be paying.
RUSH: No, your question here, ‘Is the $13 before or after taxes?’ is a great question. It’s going to be before tax, that’s going to be in your gross. But it’s not a tax cut. It’s a tax credit. In this bill there are supposedly lots of business tax credits, but here’s how this works. You have to pay your full tax, whatever your full rate is. There’s no rate reduction for anybody. So you pay your full tax, and then you apply for the tax credit. Your accountant will do it and some businesses, you’ll have 15 years to pay it back.
CALLER: So you’ll have spent that much on that.
RUSH: Well, for individuals it’s 13 bucks. It is going to be withheld, and so — no, I think it’s net. Now that I think about it, because the people are talking about the things I’ve read about it here today say that after they reworked the withholding tables, it will take them that long (’til June) to get this done so you’ll see an additional $13 net.
CALLER: It makes me crazy. I worked two jobs when I was in college. I came from a blue-collar background, my husband, blue-collar background. He’s the son of immigrants. His father didn’t go past the fifth grade.
RUSH: Oh, get me the violins. You know what?
CALLER: He worked two jobs while we were in school and now we’re going to be punished because we’re successful.
RUSH: Exactly! Welcome to the America of Barack Obama. It’s so wonderful when I talk to people who finally get it.