Reframe the Bush Tax Cut Debate

RUSH: Get this: ‘Duck-Out Dems Give Away $14B — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opens a lame-duck session today with plans to send a $250 gift check to every single Social Security recipient — a $14 billion last hurrah for Democrats before they surrender control to Republicans.’ There’s another story out there that the lame-duck session is petering out, basically only three things on tap, one of them is tax cuts, a compromise on that — well, extending the Bush tax cuts because there aren’t any tax cuts being discussed, but really a pared down lame-duck agenda. ‘The payout is supposed to make up for two years without a Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, which is tied to inflation — and inflation has been flat.’ Now, Pelosi and the government are lying and there is inflation, or it’s flat and the COLA is necessary. They cannot have it both ways. The reason why they’re giving the COLA — and that’s cost of living adjustment — is because there isn’t one because there’s no inflation. And yet Pelosi’s gonna write ’em a check for 250 bucks, $14 billion in total. They can’t have it both ways here. They’re just simply trying to buy the senior vote again with our money.

‘Pelosi (D-Calif.) has called it ‘a one-time payment that will help millions make ends meet during these difficult economic times.” It’s always a one-time payment. The last one-time payment was back in 2008 I think and there was another one-time payment in 2009. We had a lot of stimulus there, right? But $14 billion stimulus, 250 bucks in the hands of seasoned citizens, $250 per year, one-time check. It’s really gonna have a great economic stimulus. We’ve had an $800 billion dollar stimulus, we had the $700 billion dollar TARP, another 600 billion — well, close to one trillion with the Fed printing money. There isn’t any stimulus. ‘Proponents also argue the expenditure will provide economic stimulus because the old folks would quickly spend the money.’ Wait ’til you hear the next story, though. The old folks will quickly spend the money on what? Dog food or medicine? Isn’t that the option the Democrats have given them? ‘The legislation, dubbed the Seniors Protection Act, was written by nine-term North Dakota Rep. Earl Pomeroy, one of many veteran Democrats who lost re-election and won’t be returning to Congress next year. It’s just one item on Democrats’ long wish list for the session. They also want to extend unemployment benefits, end the military’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy for gays in the service, and ratify a nuclear-weapons reduction treaty with Russia.’ In other words, the Democrats are trying to inflict as much damage on our economy as they can before they get out of Dodge.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, if you just landed from Mars, now we’re talking about sending people to Mars, but if you just landed from Mars, and you turned on any American Drive-By Media, you would hear the biggest issue facing a lame-duck Congress is: Will Democrats cut taxes for most Americans, or will Republicans cut taxes for the rich? That is how they are framing the issue of extending the Bush tax cuts. And, you know, I got frustrated people in this audience, and they’re gonna continue to be frustrated. ‘Are we ever gonna control the message, Rush? Are we ever gonna control it? Are we ever gonna seize the day where we define the message for the media?’ The answer is, ‘No.’ Get over it. The media is not us. They are not on our side. We’re never going to control the message in the media, no matter what; we would have the smartest guys in the world. Reagan did not control the message in the media; Reagan controlled the message with the American people. He won the argument. We’re not gonna control the message in the media! Stop bothering me about this!

It’s very, very simple. Here we have three mistakes in one single news brief, but the American people are not being fooled by any of this. Will Democrats cut taxes for most Americans, or will the Republicans cut taxes for the rich? First off, there are no tax cuts being proposed by anybody for anybody. The debate is: Are taxes going to go up, or not? That’s all that’s on the table here. But expecting the media to frame it that way is a waste of time, and it’s only gonna frustrate you. For years we have heard that the Bush tax cuts were for the rich, but now we hear the Democrats are fighting to keep those tax cuts for the middle class, as we pointed out Friday and repeatedly, over and over and over. Yet the Democrats in the media say the tax cuts were only for the rich.

Now, the next obvious retort is this: How can you cut taxes for 95 to 98% of Americans, which the Democrats say Obama wants to do, when less than 50% of the population actually pay any income taxes? So if you had any doubt that the media is a bunch of propagandists and people indoctrinating their customers, rather than reporters — it’s that simple. There are no tax cuts being proposed. All that’s being proposed are: Will the current tax rates be extended, or will they not? And if they’re not, whose taxes will go up?

Now, what the Democrats want is for the wealthy to have their taxes go up. One of the things Obama is asking (and this gets to Pelosi and her $250 checks to the seasoned citizens), Obama repeatedly says that extending the current tax rates — forget even the talk of tax cuts — extending the current tax rate for people over 250 grand a year will cost the government $700 billion. And he says, ‘Where are we gonna get that money?’ Well, where are we going to get the money for Pelosi to give every seasoned citizen $250? Where did we get the money for her to do that in 2008? Where are you getting the money, Nancy? We don’t have the money, and we’re not losing — the government has got to figure out a way to balance its budget based on the status quo. The status quo is 36% tax rate for the upper bracket. On the table is dropping that and raising it to 39.6 as a means of saving $700 billion. It’s all convoluted. There’s not one tax cut being proposed. The only thing being proposed is: Should we raise taxes on the people who own small businesses and hire many of the people who work in this country? That’s the question.