RUSH: Marco Rubio was on Hannity last night, and he explained why tax cuts on the rich don’t help anybody. He’s one of few Republicans talking like this, which is why he’s become a target, by the way, of the Obama left. Hannity said to him, “What’s wrong with making the case that the Republicans are the party against generational theft? It’s a winning issue for any party that makes that case.”
Now, see, the problem with that is: What low-information voter even knows what “generational theft” is? The way you would have to ask this question is this. You got Rubio on, and you say, “Well, Senator, explain to me why it is that raising taxes on the Kardashians or on Snooki isn’t gonna help anybody.” Then you say, “All raising taxes on Snooki is gonna do is take money away from her new baby.”
Because we don’t know about Snooki’s husband. We haven’t ever heard anything about him. “So, Senator, why is raising taxes on the Kardashians or on Snooki not gonna help anybody?” That way you avoid the whole term “generational theft.” Who knows what this is, you know, amongst low-information voters? It’s not complicated. This may be the way that we have to phrase these questions. Here was Rubio’s answer…
RUBIO: This is the great flaw in all of these arguments the president’s making that I wish more people were talking about. If you raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans — or what he calls the wealthiest Americans, people making $250,000 or more. If you raise that by a hundred percent, that doesn’t solve anything.
RUSH: “[T]hat doesn’t solve anything,” and then he explained why…
RUBIO: I explained this to someone the other day that I met. It’s someone who works at a law firm and actually said at me, “Yeah, let the taxes go up on the richest people,” and I said, “Well, that may sound great to you but let me explain to you what that means. That means your boss — an S-corporation, a single-lawyer, a single law firm…” And I also met someone in a dental clinic in a similar position. “If their taxes go up next year by $50,000, they’re going to have find that money from somewhere and it might may be from your benefits. It might be from your hours. It might be from your job. Those are the people that are gonna get hurt by this, and in return you generate six, seven, eight days’ worth of government spending.” That’s not a solution.
RUSH: Now, he went on to say that that explanation woke this person up. For the first time, this person understood. Now, who is this person? This person is already working at a law firm! Now, you have to have certain smarts, you have to have a certain amount of guile to work in a law firm. Somebody working in a law firm didn’t understand how her boss being forced to pay $50,000 more might affect her.
She was looking at it as though it was gonna help the government for a few days. And how does that help her? And that’s what Rubio explained to her. It’s not gonna change anything. It’s not gonna make a difference to the government. All it’s gonna do is make it harder on your boss to pay you. And that made the connection, when the tax increase on the boss was shown to affect the employee.
You see, one of the things that I have found over the course of my highly productive and star-studded life is this. Most people, when they think of businesses, think they’re rolling in money. By definition, they think businesses have a bank account full of money that they’re not using, and that if somebody says they need $50,000, “Okay, fine. Go get it!” that it’s there. Rubio was pointing out: Look, your boss — who happened to be a guy that hung a shingle — is running a single-lawyer firm and files as a sub-S.
Wait a minute. I’m losing everybody with that. “What’s a sub-S?” It’s the way Ben Affleck pays his taxes. It’s the way Oprah pays hers! Oprah is a sub-S. And every time Oprah’s taxes go up, somebody in her staff might get fewer hours. There might be fewer prizes for the audience. Oprah might not be able to give away as many cars! Oh, that’s right. Oprah doesn’t have an audience. Well, you get the point, though. You get the drift. But they did. They think that businesses have a stash of money that’s not being used and if somebody says, “I need 50 grand,” they just go get it.
There is that misconception that exists out there.
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