RUSH: Let’s grab a phone call very quickly as we navigate toward the conclusion of this hour. This is Rob in Chicago. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Oh, thank you so mur — much, Rush. Uh, please excuse me. I’m a little nervous here.
RUSH: I understand that. Most people are, talking to me.
CALLER: (chuckles) Okay. Sir, the reason I’m calling is the Democrats constantly redefine what the definition of “rich” is. Okay? Currently their idea of rich would be a teacher and a fireman, or a construction worker and a nurse. How in the blue blazes are…?
RUSH: Actually I ran some numbers on this, and they really are very consistent at this. I went back to 1984, and 1984 at the Democrat National Convention in San Francisco, Walter Mondull promised to raise taxes on “the rich,” and back then it was defined as anybody earning $60,000 a year.
CALLER: Yeah, well, $60,000 won’t buy you much anymore.
RUSH: But $60,000 today is roughly $124,000. I mean if you add that with two people and a house you get 250 grand so it really hasn’t changed. If the household income is $250,000, that’s the new definition of rich, it’s pretty much consistent. I mean there’s some variables here that don’t make it exact, but it’s pretty consistent. Their idea of what’s rich. But your overall point is exactly right. The time you start adding household income of various professions, we’re not talking about rich at all. What we’re talking about —
CALLER: Middle class!
RUSH: We’re talking middle class, exactly — and we’re talking about the federal government, the Obamas, the Democrat Party doing everything they can to eliminate upward mobility within the middle class. The income tax is the greatest preventer of the accumulation of wealth in our society.
CALLER: Rush, if you’d allow me, I’d like to make two points. One is that the greatest enemy of the Communist Party, per se, is the middle class — and, two, is that the biggest lie in the Democrat lexicon is “middle-class tax cut.”
RUSH: True.
CALLER: (silence)
RUSH: But your point is…?
CALLER: That is my point. Those are my points.
RUSH: But what are you saying? The Democrats are trying to wipe out the middle class?
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Well, they —
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: They are doing everything they can to limit upward mobility of people in the middle class, while speaking as their champions. While claiming to be the champion of the middle class, the middle class, the workingman, the Democrat Party’s doing everything they can to stagnate the middle class. Because, you’re right: Middle-class upward mobility, great, great threat to the Democrat Party. That means people will move out of a state of dependence.
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RUSH: It’s middle class jobs that are the jobs that are being destroyed. Middle class education being dumbed down to the point that people in the middle class are not being educated to be upwardly mobile. This is not a coincidence, and it can’t be denied.
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RUSH: You know that first caller, I don’t want any of you to get distracted by his reference to the communists. A lot of people, even to this day, even with noted communists as czars in Obama’s administration — (interruption) what would you call Van Jones? I mean you’re sitting there laughing, he’s no longer a czar but he was. He’s a communist. There are a bunch of communist-leaning sympathizer types. They’re Obama czars. Well, here’s a good way to picture this. Have you seen any video interviews with people, say, at Occupy Oakland or Occupy Wall Street or these young foolish, ignorant, idealistic people? That’s who his czars are. People like that are who the czars are. Precisely. I mean these people would no more get confirmed for a post in government than the Roadrunner would. So he makes ’em czars, they’re not accountable.
Anyway, I don’t want you to get distracted by the guy. Still, even now, when you mention the word “communist” and you associate it with an American politician, you lose people. They just tune it out. They don’t want to ponder it, they don’t want to consider it, and normally the person leveling the charge, “There’s a communist over there,” is considered the kook and whatever they say is, therefore, relegated to being irrelevant. Now, the point that he wanted to make, was that far from being the great advocate and supporter for the middle class, Obama and the Democrat Party are just the opposite, and that is true.
We in America had the largest middle class in the world, and the middle class is the key to greatness in this country. That’s where it all came from. Contrary to what some people think, the rich are not born that way. Well, a few them are, the Kennedys and others, but the vast majority of the rich are made. Hard work, you name it. We had the largest middle class in the world, and it’s under assault from practically every direction. Look at the destruction of home values. The family home was the largest asset most people in the middle class have, and it’s being destroyed, after being talked up for generation after generation after generation. The American dream equals owning your own house. The mortgage came along, a 30-year loan to be able to afford a house, you got to deduct the interest on your mortgage to make it even more affordable, but clearly home ownership is synonymous with the American dream, middle class, upward mobility. What’s under assault now? Home values.
We have got yet another magical program from Obama to fix it, after repeated Obama programs to fix the foreclosure program, the housing problem in general. All it’s done is worsen middle income jobs, middle class jobs are the jobs that are being destroyed. Education. Education within the reach of the middle class has been dumbed down or practically destroyed. Upward mobility of the middle class is what accounted for the growth of this country. Upward mobility of the middle class is what gave birth to the whole concept of American exceptionalism. Didn’t give birth to it, but it epitomized it. Middle-class upward mobility is what set this country apart from every other country in the world. And now where is middle-class upward mobility? It has been targeted.
There is so much debt via spending per man, woman, and child in this country that getting out from under it will forever retard upward mobility in the middle class, and that suits the left and the Democrat Party just fine because then, rather than the middle class becoming self-reliant they remain dependent. Food stamps, assistance here, assistance there, day care, free diapers, Rosa DeLauro. It’s a devastating thing, it’s a crying shame. Now, I wouldn’t expect any liberals or Democrats to get behind any of the Republicans’ new tax ideas. I’d be nervous if they did. The last thing that the Democrat Party wants is upward mobility within the middle class. What the Democrat Party wants is continued dependence. Look at the cost of living overall for people in the middle class. You’ve got rising energy costs, higher taxes are a direct assault on the middle class.
The rich don’t have worry about the price of gasoline. The rich don’t have to worry about the cost of their taxes. The rich don’t have worry about going out and buying a stupid electric car. The rich can make these vanity choices and say, “Look at me, I care, I’m driving an electric car, I’m driving a Prius, or I got a ribbon on my shirt here.” But the middle class has always been the best kept secret of this country in terms of its meaning. The middle class is where the people who made this country work live. It’s where they are. And it’s the middle class that’s under assault by all that Obama has done.
“Mr. Limbaugh, this is just absurd. The middle class is made up of first responders and firefighters and teachers and policemen. Of course the president is doing everything he can to support them.” Yeah, that’s not the kind of middle class I’m talking about. We’re talking about public sector employees paid for by the middle class. That’s another expense the middle class is having to incur. They’re having to pay higher taxes to employ all these public sector people. And Mr. New Castrati, one more time. If you think Obama loves teachers ’cause he loves teachers, you’re a fool. If you think Obama loves cops ’cause he loves cops, you’re an idiot. If you think Obama loves firemen because he doesn’t like fires, you’re an idiot. He likes those people because they’re members of unions, ’cause they pay dues, which means the money is gonna come back to the Democrat Party. That’s why he likes private sector jobs. What he really thinks of those people is they’re bitter clingers. When things aren’t going well they cling to their guns and their religion. They’re a bunch of hayseed hicks.
The truth of the matter is the Democrat Party has an ongoing, arrogant contempt for the middle class, because they’re beneath them. You don’t see the middle class invited to the White House or any state dinners. It’s just a crying shame what is happening to the great American middle class. I look at these Republican proposals, and I know exactly what they’re intended to do. Take money back out of Washington and redeposit it into the private sector. The only way there’s gonna be upward mobility for people is if there is money circulating, capital that’s being invested, spent, what have you, equaling growth where the middle class lives and works. It cannot be an accident that everything Obama does takes a piece out of the middle class.
You look at Cloward-Piven, you look at Alinsky, Jeremiah Wright, all the mentors of Barack Obama, what was their objective? Their objective was to starve the middle class, to so frustrate them, create so much chaos that they have no choice other than to engage in civil disobedience and violence against a sitting government. In this case they’re imagining it being against the Republican Party, not themselves. And basically just have everything collapse on itself, and then you start all over, and you rewrite the Constitution, you set yourselves up as the dictators. And you do this with the full-fledged support of the middle class because while you’ve tricked ’em into thinking you are doing everything you can for ’em, you’re destroying them. You’re giving them no other option other than tearing down what exists and starting all over, under the guise of it all being fixed.
It’s no different, folks, than what happened in Hurricane Katrina. The government sends money down there, the people are supposed to use it to make sure the levees will hold during a flood, and instead of using the money for that purpose they use it for their own purposes. I don’t know, going to the movies, buying booze, buying a bigger house. Doesn’t get to where it’s supposed to go. Then all of a sudden the levees fail and the very people responsible for it do what? Blame the fact there wasn’t enough money spent, blame the fact that government was too small, blame the fact government didn’t have enough power. The very people that caused it act as spectators, like they had nothing to do with it. Same thing happening here. The very people whose policies by design are taking out the middle class are now acting like spectators and bystanders and pointing fingers of blame at people when in fact it is they who are responsible for it.
So Occupy Wall Street Now? Good. More of it! More chaos, more upheaval, more anger, more frustration. Because what’s the Occupy Wall Street crowd doing? They’re asking for more government, aren’t they? They’re not asking for more money returned to the private sector. They’re not asking for more prosperity. They’re asking for more government as the answer to their wants and needs. They’re not looking to themselves. They’re not looking at the country as people did in the past: A golden land of opportunity. Just the opposite. So the more middle class unrest, the more middle class poverty, the more middle class joblessness (the theory goes), the more those people will clamor for government to do something.
Then Obama can say, “Well, you know what? You’re right. I hear you, and the Congress isn’t doing anything, so I’m just gonna do it on my own. The Congress won’t pass my jobs bill, so I’m just gonna do it myself, and I’m go in do a bus tour, and I’m go to go to Las Vegas where I told everybody else not to go, and I’m just gonna do it,” except Obama can’t. No president can make your life whole. Only you can do that. Now, a president can redistribute wealth and take it from other people. It’s not gonna help you. You think…? Steve Jobs just died. He left a fortune of about, what did I read, two billion, two to five billion — and now these people are running around, “Well, we gotta have a death tax.” Okay, fine, let’s have a death tax. Let’s have a death tax 55%.
So the government comes gets 55% of Jobs’ estate. You people gonna get any of that? How’s that work? Will you end up with some of Jobs’ $2 billion? ‘Cause you know you’re not gonna end up with any of Jobs’ money. So what’s the point of it? Well, the point is punishment. You’ve been conditioned — not you, you in this audience. The people I’m talking about have been conditioned to feel happy when they think somebody else is hurting, but after it all is over you’re still miserable, and you’re still in need of free diapers from Rosa DeLauro. Nothing’s changed, except your opportunities continue to shrink, and you continue to clamor for government to do more. I give you black America. For 50 years they have been clamoring government to do more, and every four years the government promises they’re gonna take care of it.
After 50 years of it, they’re still complaining and clamoring for fixes. The fixes never happen. It’s now the entirety of the middle class that faces that same circumstance. Oh, it’s even better. Jobs’ fortune now is $8.3 billion. Okay, so 55% of $8.3 billion. His wife gets all of it, but she’d have to pay it. Let’s just say for the sake of argument here that the Jobs estate, four billion of it is taken by the government. And there are people, Warren Buffett and other people, “Yeah, that’s fair, that’s fair! Take money away from that family. That family, they don’t need it any more. Jobs is dead. It doesn’t matter, he earned it, doesn’t matter. We need to we distribute that money to the people.” Yeah, how’s that gonna work? That $4 billion, who’s gonna get it when you start redistributing that money? Who’s actually gonna get it? I want names. Give me the names and addresses of people in Cupertino, California, who are gonna get some of that four billion. I want to know how this works, cause we all know it doesn’t work that way. The people in Cupertino are not gonna see a penny.