RUSH: Sean in Columbus, Ohio. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Heyyyy, how’s it going?
RUSH: Very well, sir. Thanks very much.
CALLER: Oh, thank you. Yeah. The reason why I wanted to call was you were mentioning… Sorry, I’m trying to walk to where I can talk ’cause I’m at work. You mentioned that in order for it to fail, people would need to be not uneducated but you said basically they would have to be naive.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: They would have to be uneducated with regard to certain policies.
RUSH: Ignorant and uninformed, yeah.
CALLER: Exactly. My response back out to that was, ‘It happened.’ I mean, look how much information came out against the current president, ranging from his church, ranging from the associations to Ayers, ranging to his voting policies, ranging to his policies in Chicago about abortion, for late-term abortion. All this information came out, and what did the general public decide to do? The majority of the general public, they didn’t go out and research.
RUSH: Well, now, see, this is —
CALLER: They didn’t do what they needed to do before they voted.
RUSH: Now, wait. Wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute. Did it really come out? Where? Did you, other than here or Fox News, did you hear anything about Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayers or Obama’s support for late-term abortions? Did you hear any of that in any of what’s called the mainstream media?
CALLER: That’s what you’re saying. It’s the mainstream media. None of that information came out.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: So unless we’re able to get that out to the general public, the majority, it’s gonna happen again.
RUSH: I know. (chuckles) That was my point. The only way this can work is if there’s an ill-informed public, or uninformed public.
CALLER: And I fear that it will happen again.
RUSH: Well…
CALLER: Another thing I wanted to throw it out at you, I know you’re pressed for time, was the bonuses — remember the bonuses — where the government said they were gonna ixnay the bonuses?
RUSH: Uhhh, going to…?
CALLER: Like AIG in New York when there was like this big hoorah that they were gonna say all these companies could not do bonuses and so forth?
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: Even though some of them were on contract and some of them weren’t on contract?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: The information that I think most people don’t know is I work in the accounting aspect of, like, payroll, and if the government decided to do away with all bonuses — regardless of the size of the bonuses — that would be a huge, major tax revenue that they would be losing out on. Because the bonus is over a million dollars that’s taxed federal at 35%. Then at the same time the employer and employee contribution for Medicare comes out. So business pays 1.45% for Medicare, and if the employee has not tapped out their Social Security, again the employee pays Social Security and so does the business itself. So they pay it twice, and if anything is over a million, that’s 35%; if anything’s under a million, that’s 25%. That is, in itself, a tax loss for the government.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: The bonuses are also what I consider to be an economic stimulus to everybody. Because if you receive a bonus you’re gonna save it, you’re gonna invest it, you’re gonna spend it on stuff you need.
RUSH: Yeah, but see this goes to the age-old argument here. We’ve talked about it in a number of different ways. But the upshot here — and the way you’re pointing it out — makes it clear that the Obama regime is not interested in raising revenue. They’re not interested in creating revenue streams to run the government. They’re interested in debt. They’re not interested in raising revenue. They’re interested in class envy. They’re trying to divide the people of this country so all this rhetoric about no
In the process, LeBron James is compared to New York, is gonna pay pressure per annum $12 million less in taxes because Florida has no income tax. Now, that’s $12 million that LeBron James is gonna spend himself. On what? Who knows? He might go out and buy an auto dealership. He might buy five condo buildings. Who knows what he’s going to do, but he’s gonna spend that money in the private sector. Even if he invests it, it’s still in the private sector. Yet there are some people who think that he’s committing a quasi-crime, or at least a sin by not giving that money to the government going to do with it? Well, they’re gonna give it to other people who aren’t working but they’re certainly not gonna let LeBron James’ tax revenue or anybody else’s to grow the private sector. And yet there are still people in the country who think LeBron James and people like him are less than patriotic by escaping and running away from taxes, when it’s an option to. My point is: Whatever LeBron James does with that $12 million New York’s not gonna get is going to be far more beneficial to people in Florida than it would be to people in New York if he lived there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: LeBron James’ $12 million New York tax savings is not per year. It’s for the entire life of the contract, a five-year deal, $96.1 million. It comes out to about $2 million a year, a little bit more than that he would not be paying in New York taxes. But still the argument and the point is the same. LeBron James, theoretically, is earning the money and he can go to a state where he can pay $2 million less in taxes, keep the two million for himself. There are people that think that that’s not patriotic, that that’s somehow committing a sin. And yet I would argue that LeBron James or anybody else is gonna do far more for a growing economy, for employment and economic stimulus and the private sector by using that $2 million however he chooses to rather than dump it over to New York.
I mean, New York has proven that despite their highest tax rate in the country, they’re still running a debt and deficit. It’s hopeless. Feeding the beast with even more money is not gonna solve any problem here. It’s amazing how the whole concept of taxes become a moral argument. I remember when I announced I was leaving New York for the very purpose, for the very same reason. There’s no state income tax in Florida. LeBron is simply following me down there. Tiger Woods followed me down here. It’s the same thing. And I got calls from people, ‘You are… I can’t believe you would stiff the people, the poor people of this country.’ No, I’m not stiffing anybody. I’m probably doing more for them, and LeBron James is doing more for them than anybody at the government, state or federal, is doing with the tax revenue they collect.
Isn’t it obvious? I mean, it’s patently obvious. It’s also, is it smart or stupid? Is LeBron James? We don’t know, but let’s just for the sake of discussion, let’s say that he chose to go to the Miami Heat to save the $12 million over ten years or five years of his income. Is he stupid? There are people who would say he was stupid if he would do that. Others would say he’s smart. But when you go buy a car, it’s interesting, people love to tell people how they screwed the car dealer. They love to tell
By the same token somebody go out and buy a $150,000 house they’ll tell you it cost them 300 because they want you to know how much money they’ve got. So regardless. Whose business is it anyway what LeBron James does with his income? If there was a chance to save $2 million of it for his family or charities, whatever he wants to do with it, whose business is it? And why is there a sin committed, and why is there some immorality just because the wonderful, glowing, holier-than-thou State of New York is getting shafted, apparently, by $2 million? How can they say New York’s getting shafted when he’s not ever lived there and not paid taxes per se? He pays per diem taxes when the Cavaliers pay there when he will do when the Heat does, but he’s never been a New York resident so how are they getting shafted? And yet there are people who say that New York’s getting shafted because LeBron chose Florida where he wouldn’t have to pay $12 million in taxes over ten years. Joe Bite Me said, it’s not patriotic to not pay your taxes. He said it’s a very patriotic thing to pay your taxes. Joe Bite Me would say LeBron James is not being patriotic. I doubt he would say it to his face, but the vice president has indeed said this at that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Well, the Reverend Jackson, ladies and gentlemen, is weighing in, speaking of LeBron James. ‘Jesse Jackson criticized Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert on Sunday, saying Gilbert sees LeBron James as a ‘runaway slave’ and that the owner’s comments after the free-agent forward decided to join the Miami Heat put the player in danger.’ The Reverend Jackson said, ‘His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship — between business partners — and LeBron honored his contract.’ That is the Reverend Jackson. So Dan Gilbert is a slave owner, and LeBron James is a runaway slave. Now how can…? Forget the fact that the Reverend Jackson seems to be profiling LeBron James and Dan Gilbert would be would the Reverend Jackson have said this if the races were reversed, if Dan Gilbert were black and LeBron James were white and had fled the Cavaliers?
How much did LeBron James make? This first time I have heard that making $15 to $20 million a year in the National Basketball Association is slavery. I didn’t know that slaves got that kind of money, and if they had gotten that kind of money, I doubt they would have wanted anything to end. So you got, obviously, some racial profiling going on. But besides all that, I thought the election of Barack Obama was gonna end all of this kind of acrimony. It was gonna come to a screeching halt. We were going to have a post-racial, post-partisan president, post-racial, post-partisan country. What we’ve got is a post-achievement president and a country in which there is an ongoing war on prosperity being led and fought from the White House. So I guess with President Obama we are in the post-post-racial period now. This is really incredible for the Reverend Jackson to say this.
‘Runaway slave’ is how Dan Gilbert sees LeBron James. Runaway slave who is paid, what, 15, $18 million a year?