RUSH: Colleen in Youngstown, Ohio, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’m so excited to talk to you. My dad loves you, so I hope he’s listening, he’s going to be jealous. Anyways, I was just calling and, you know, not to beat a dead horse, ’cause all the callers seem to have the same problem, but my issue was in 2005 I purchased a home in Dayton, Ohio, and my husband got a job offer — it was bigger and better, so, you know, I don’t know why you would do that in America, want more for ourselves, so we moved, and we bought a condo in Tucson, Arizona, and we still have the other house. Well, we have to take $25,000 to the loan closing for that house. And then we have this other one which my husband in the meantime had been laid off, and so he moved here to Youngstown, Ohio, because he got another job, and now we have that house just sitting out there. I’m making payments, I’m renting it out, and then this weekend when we had our taxes done, we could not claim any of the rental loss because they said we make too much money.
RUSH: Yep. You are a person of means, just like Jeanine from Florida. You’re a person of means. How does it feel, Colleen, how does it feel to be rich?
CALLER: (laughing) I wish I knew. I can’t keep any of the money that I make.
RUSH: No, because you’re being treated as though you are rich. People above — I forget what it is. It’s either half million or a million, maybe it’s as low as $250. They also cannot deduct any of their losses. They get 50% of their charity. Whatever you give to charity, you can only deduct 50% of it. There is no mortgage interest deduction for you.
CALLER: No, not anymore.
RUSH: Except the first million. Well, you might say, they don’t deserve it. See, that’s where we get to this problem. If you’re going to sit there and say — I’m not talking to you, Colleen — but Snerdley gave me this little frown, see how easy it is to get trapped? I just said that some people do have a $10 million mortgage. Some people have a $5 million mortgage, but only the first million can you deduct. Okay? Now, now, now, when people say, well, why should they get a deduction, they’ve got all that money. That’s how this all starts. When people want achievers punished, that’s how demagogues like Obama rise to power, ready to ride that horse, the punishment of the achievers right down Main Street. So you’ve got all this property that you had losses on that you can’t deduct because —
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: — you make too much money. How much do you make?
CALLER: Well, not that much. This year we earned a little bit more because, you know, my husband was in a job where we happened to earn a little extra income, but once you get to, it’s like $150,000, you cannot claim any sort of loss like that, and it’s like, are these idiots in Washington, do they ever think if they help people like us by letting us maybe deduct that, that we would in turn help the economy, which then might produce more jobs they’re talking about?
RUSH: No, the view today is just the opposite. I know it sounds hard to believe, but you’re being punished. You are an achiever and you’re being punished. There is means testing being employed on you, Colleen, and the people in Washington assume that you have enough. You have more than you need, you don’t need any breaks. There are other people who need the money that you would get more than you need it, and those people actually are more likely to vote Democrat. This is redistribution. It is hideous. I get e-mails from people, I’m getting flooded with e-mail, and I’m telling you, I have never seen anything like it, and I wonder just how soon the peasants are going to pick up the pitchforks. I’m not kidding here. I have never seen this level of anger and outrage. Now, you sound reasonable, but I know this whole thing has you puzzled. This is not the America you knew.
CALLER: Right. No, actually, I feel like I need economic therapy. I watch the news every day, and it’s just spiraling downward, and I feel like in four years I’m sort of happy because he won’t be reelected for president because there is too many people like me who I certainly didn’t vote for but never would, but I know a lot of people that did vote for him because the change is coming. Well, it’s here. (laughing) And people are not going to be happy that they voted the way that they did.
RUSH: I can only say I hope you’re right. I don’t get that sense yet. I’m not going to sit here and rely on anecdotal data, and it’s still only 30 days in. Not even 30 days in. That’s the scary part in one way, we’re only 30 days in here and look at what’s happened, and of course there’s no analysis from the Drive-By Media. There’s no investigation of this, there’s no curiosity about it. Their template is, Obama wins, Obama wins, Obama wins. It doesn’t matter what he wins with and what it is that he’s winning. Just Obama wins, Obama wins, Obama wins. I’ve seen a couple of obscure blog posts from liberals who are worried that all of this elitism from Congress, the tax cheats being put in the government, whereas you and I go to jail, they get to run the government, all of these things that we’ve chronicled since the transition and the inauguration, some liberals are terribly concerned that the silent majority, that there’s just an effervescence out there that is going to roll over the Democrats in 2010 if they don’t get it together and understand the rage. The liberal columnists I’ve read, you have not heard of them, they’re just terribly upset, and they’re not from kook blogs. I don’t want to give the blog credit. It doesn’t matter. Just trust me on this. It’s why I’m your host, you trust me.
They are very much concerned that the rage and anger is not understood, is not felt by the people in Washington who are doing all this. They don’t think that it looks good for the CEOs to be called up there and ripped across the room one way and the other. They don’t understand that not every American hates CEOs, that not every American hates business, that not every American wants these people in jail and frog-marched out of the building, that this is not what the role of government is. They don’t understand that the liberal elites in Washington and Obama do not understand that most Americans do not run around with hatred in their hearts about the institutions of America, and yet they are acting out of hatred and deep resentment and loading up legislation with their own personal pet projects, a bunch of bridges to nowhere and so forth, and calling it stimulus. They’re underestimating the intelligence of the average American.
It’s just a trickle right now. It’s just a couple of people that are starting to worry. They’re not big names. But they do seem to have a sense of the effervescing anger and unsettledness that exists in, quote, unquote, average America, the people who make the country work. They’re right about that. There is a tremendous amount of anger and rage over what’s happening, and a lot of people just understand it instinctively. This is not what they voted for. This is not what they heard on the campaign trail, this is not how they envisioned hope and change. They didn’t hate George W. Bush. Obama’s voters did. But the people in the center didn’t hate Bush. He was unpopular for a lot of reasons, but they didn’t hate him. So we’ll see. They’re at least sensing it.