RUSH: This is David in Reno. You’re up first today, sir. Great to have you. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. How are you?

RUSH: Good, sir.

CALLER: I want to give you a few dittos. Let me preface here real quick, um, just to get (unintelligible). I was told to hurry up. But anyways, I’m a 61-year-old white male that did not vote for Trump, but I am a conservative. To be honest, I did not vote for anybody. You’re the only one that’s ever gotten me to vote about 20 years ago. The first time I voted was for President Bush. When he lied about the taxes, I took my name off the list and never voted since then.

As a born-again Christian, I hear you all the time advertising about the rich. And, to be honest, Rush, I’m sick and tired of hearing about the rich. The way I understand it, I can look at all the top 3% or 4% of the people. The rich ones did not pay any taxes, unless you can correct me on that. From Bezos, all those guys did not pay any taxes. They’re trillion-dollar companies — and, I’ll tell you what.

As far as a Christian’s concerned… I’m a contractor. I could turn my company into a multimillion-dollar business if I hustled and worked real hard. But, to be honest, I don’t because I don’t need a lot of money. I need enough money to get by. I know what the Bible says about scripture, about the rich man that came over to God and asked how to get in the kingdom of God.

RUSH: Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What is the real beef here? What? I want to be able to respond to you. What is the real complaint you’ve got here with me?

CALLER: (garbled)

RUSH: It says you’re tired of me defending the rich?

CALLER: The rich don’t pay. The top ones don’t pay. If you want to do a flat tax across the board to make equal across everybody to pay… Look, if you’re worth $50 billion and you pay $1 billion in taxes, big deal. My main point is, Rush, is how many houses, how many cars do you guys need? You can’t take the rich —

RUSH: As many as somebody wants if they’ve earned the money to buy them! It’s none of your business or mine how many homes they want or need, just like it’s none of their business what we think of it. They’re not gonna give a rat’s rear end what we think of them, either. The idea that the rich don’t pay any taxes? Try living in a capitalist society without them and see how far anybody gets.

I have no problem defending the rich whatsoever, but not as a character reference. I’m not defending rich people on the basis of their character. I actually think most of them — well, I can’t say “most.” I can point to two or three (and I have) how in many ways literally ignorant and stupid they are. Bloomberg is at the top of the list, and he’s proved it. The one thing about the rich is they fall into this business behind the money that they don’t have to be interesting.

They don’t have to be charismatic. They don’t have to be… They’re just rich. But in terms of their value to the economy, it’s so much more than whatever they pay in taxes. I’m gonna tell you, the rich and everybody is gonna do much more brilliant and wise things with their own money than the government is gonna do after they take it from somebody. Ah, damn it, now… I’m gonna roll here and I have to stop because I’m out of time. But you have lit a fire here, sir.

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RUSH: Here we go to Walla Walla, Washington. Craig, glad you waited, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Well, thank you for taking my call, Rush. Every day I hear you on here it makes me feel good that you’re still on the air. One thing I want to bring up, is you were talking about the wages that people get, you know, take a million dollars. What people don’t realize, if you got a million dollars, if everybody got a million dollars, who’s gonna go to work at McDonald’s for 15 dollars an hour? They’re gonna have to start paying them a lot more and that million dollars is not gonna be worth nothing.

RUSH: Yeah. Those are very valid points you’re making — and, by the way, I appreciate your opening comment. I feel better when I’m here too. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Everything’s just normal when I’m here. And so I’m very appreciative of you saying that. But your point is that there are incentives that are built into our system that help people learn and grow and expand and achieve and succeed and this kind of thing.

And if you gave you everybody a million dollars, who would do any work? Who would get anything done? And if you gave everybody a million dollars, how many of the people that you give a million dollars to would be broke in six weeks? Take a look your average lottery winner and see what happens to ’em. You could write a book or a movie about the disaster that happens to a lot of those people.

Having a lot of money, it requires, in order to spend it, invest it, to have it, to use it wisely requires some experience, some understanding, some knowledge. It’s not all just about self-indulgence. I mean, the first thing any responsible person, I mean, if you give somebody a million bucks, the way that you would, I think, first judge whether or not you’ve given it to somebody responsible is, “Okay, what are you gonna do with it?” And if they start telling you the things they’re gonna buy, you’ve made a mistake.

But if they start telling you how they’re going to learn how to preserve it and grow it, why, then you’ve maybe made a good decision. But, you know, we had this guy call an hour ago, said he was tired of me defending the rich. How many houses does somebody need? How many cars does somebody need? These people are not paying their fair share of taxes and all that. But he was tired of me defending the rich.

Now, I will admit that over the course of the many years of this program I have defended the rich. I defend anybody who I think is unfairly assaulted and attacked and targeted. And the rich do not defend themselves because it’s so unseemly. The rich sit out there and they just take it. In fact, the rich, many of them actually say things they don’t believe in order to keep the hordes with the pitchforks away from ’em.

Oh, yeah. You have these rich guys claiming, “Yeah, I’m not paying enough taxes. I need to be paying more. I’m for tax increases on the rich.” They don’t mean it ’cause they’re not paying more. I mean, they could write a check any time they wanted to. That’s just designed to keep the hordes away from ’em. It’s the way the Kennedys did it.

It’s the way Bill Gates and Buffett do it. Constantly talk about how unfair it is that they’re not paying enough taxes. Their secretaries are paying a higher tax rate than they are. It’s all bogus, it’s all a crock. But they do that because it’s good PR. Keeps people from trying to swim across the moats that they have at their castles.

But the rich, you know, whether they pay their fair share of taxes or not, why is that a determining — if you look at the good that the rich do for the country, for a culture, for the society, I think you could make a case that the way they spend their money themselves is far more productive for the country than whatever they pay in taxes.

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RUSH: There are a couple of philosophies that I have developed and evolved over the course of my life. One of them is that (it’s not really a philosophy; it’s a realization) success is nothing like I thought it would be. I have a framed saying that Kathryn put at a place in the house where I can’t miss it. I see it every day, and it says, “Remember, you used to dream about being exactly where you are today,” and that is a…

That’s very grounding. That’s something to constantly keep in mind, because everybody complains. I mean, some do it loudly. Some do it constantly. I don’t complain much because I don’t think anybody would listen. And, frankly, I don’t know how to respond when other people complain. So I don’t complain about anything. If I’ve got a headache, I don’t tell anybody.

If I’ve got a stomachache, if I have nausea, I don’t tell anybody. Whatever it is, I just deal with it. Whatever’s gonna happen, whatever is happening, I’ll get over it. It gets better. Sickness, whatever, you get over it — and I know people that complain all the time about everything, and I don’t know how to deal with ’em. I literally don’t know what they’re asking me to do.

I don’t know if they’re just venting or if they’re looking to me to fix it or if they’re looking for something comforting or what. I don’t know how to deal with it, and because I don’t know how to deal with it, I don’t want to put people in that position, so I don’t want to complain. But like everybody, I could. But then could I? Do I really have anything to complain about? Relatively, no.

But, yeah, ’cause everybody’s got things that are going wrong or could go better no matter what else they have going on in their lives. But that little phrase, “Remember, you used to dream about being exactly where you are today.” That’s very grounding. The other thing that goes right along with it is that success is nothing like I thought it would be, and the reason I mentioned that ’cause is because we talked about, “Okay, let’s start giving away a million dollars.

“What would you do with it if you got it?” It’s fun to start thinking about it, but you’d be amazed at the number of people who you give them a million dollars and pfft! Say they win the lottery, whatever. If it’s something they’re given or receive, it’s gonna be gone in a really short period of time. If there’s no work involved in producing it, if there’s no pride of ownership involved in the earning of it, then it’s just…

It’s not gonna have the same value. But my thing on the rich and wealth is, folks, the worst thing in the world that you can do is resent and envy people who have more than you do or have things you wish you had and don’t, ’cause it’s not gonna help you get it. Envy and resentment are not, unless you can find a way to turn those two things into motivation. But they’re not real good motivation.

You know, it’s like we all have been mistreated in life. We’ve all been thought of as failures at various jobs. We’ve all been told, “You’re not gonna make it. You don’t have what it takes. You’re not…” We’ve all been told this, and there are some people who it really bugged, it really bothered ’em, and becomes a motivation. They want to succeed just to show those people. Well, that’s not good, either.

Because when you do succeed, those people are not even gonna be around you. You’re gonna have left them in the dust; they’re gonna be somewhere in an entirely different part of the country, most likely, and you’re not gonna be able to see them react to your success. If you did, they would not give you the satisfaction. They would say, “So sorry I was wrong. I never thought you could make it, and I still think you’re a creep.”

You’re never gonna get the satisfaction of people owning up and admitting that they were wrong about you. You just have to have confidence and take it as an article of faith. You know, “Success is the best revenge.” That’s another popular philosophical phrase, and it is. But the numbers of people that are ever gonna actually tell you they were wrong, actually gonna ask for your forgiveness or apologize? It’s not gonna happen.

You’re just gonna have to take it as an article of faith that you have skunked ’em. But if that’s your only motivation, you’re not gonna be happy until those people somehow signal to you that they were wrong, and they’re never gonna do that. So you’re never gonna be happy if that’s your primary motivation. It can be a part of your motivation. Everybody needs different things to motivate them and to spur them forward.

But if that’s the sole reason why you’re trying to do something — to show other people or to show other people up — you’re never gonna be satisfied because they’re never gonna give you that satisfaction. You may never even meet them again. I mean, half the people… Ninety percent of the people that told me I would never succeed in this business, I’ve never seen since they told me that.

I have no idea what they think. I don’t care what they think. It doesn’t matter what they think, and it’s the same thing when you start envying anybody who has more than you, be it they have a dollar more than you do, if they have 50,000 more or millions more. If you start envying that, you’re setting yourself up for all kinds of disappointment.

Because even if you do have the secret resentment of, you know, guy down the street’s got a lot more than you do and you think he’s a schlub, absolute dreg of a human being, you’re gonna show him. Someday you end up with a bigger house and nicer car, and that guy? He may not ever know it or care, and you’re left with, “Gee, is this all there is?”

So the motivation for wanting to succeed has gotta be far more substantive, has gotta be rooted in actual accomplishment. That’s where the real self-satisfaction comes in, or the opportunity for it. But you know what you’ll find in that case? The more you see… You’ve heard people say, “How much money do you need? How many more houses does somebody need?”

(chuckles) You’ll find that no matter how much you’ve got, it may never be enough because all kinds of new fears come up, like who’s gonna come try to take it away from you? Or what politician’s gonna come up with a wealth tax to try to take it away from you? So as your circumstances change, things that you never even thought of change along with them. Like when you’re sitting there making…

I’m gonna make up some numbers here. You’re $100,000 and imagining having $10 million. I guarantee you that you cannot possibly conceive of the things you would think about when you have $10 million when you’re only sitting there with $100,000. You just can’t. You can dream all you want about what you would do with $10 million, but there’s a period of time it’s gonna take you to get there.

You’re not gonna go from $100,000 to $10 million overnight unless you win the lottery, and then you’ve got a whole different set of problems. But if it’s the result of work, hard work — and you’ve earned it and it’s legitimate — you’re never gonna feel guilty about it. You’re never gonna feel like you have to make excuses for it, and you’re never gonna feel like it’s not enough.

You’re never gonna feel like you have too much. You’re never gonna feel like you have more than your share if it’s genuinely the result of hard work in something that’s uber-competitive. It’s just the way it is. Now let’s talk about the rich and taxes versus the… Let’s use Bezos just as an example here, ’cause he’s recent. Bezos just bought a house in Beverly Hills or Los Angeles for $165 million.

The house was owned by David Geffen. It was originally built by a guy named Jack Warner of Warner Brothers movies, and it was designed way back in the thirties. It’s got a lot of legacy and history to it. But every owner since then has upgraded it, has expanded it. It’s like… There’s now a main house; then there’s a couple guesthouses. There was a nine-hole golf course. I know if that’s still there.

But there’s gardens and there’s tennis courts. Do you realize you can sit there and resent Bezos all day for having $165 million to spend on a house? “That’s just ridiculous. Nobody needs a house that expensive.” It’s not a question of need. If he’s got the money and if the property exists and he wants it, what’s the problem? What’s the problem? It’s not as though Bezos is printing pictures of it and sending it to every Amazon customer every day.

“Look what I’ve got and you don’t have!” He’s not doing that. What’s he doing? How many people does he have to hire to maintain the value of that place? How many people does he have to hire to flush the toilets every day to make sure the plumbing works? How many people does he have to hire to cut the grass, to maintain the landscape, whatever it is?

Do you realize how many people he’s employing? And he’s not paying ’em dirt money, either. These people have, in a place like that, good landscapers and other people like that can in many ways name their price because their work is important, maintaining gardens, maintaining golf courses, tennis courts, this kind of thing. So the fact that Bezos is spending $165 million on a house, he’s employing I don’t know how many – I’m not even talking about Amazon. Just the people necessary to keep that property open and running every day.

And he’s not gonna be there most days. He’s got a lot of houses. He’s not gonna be there most days. But the place has to be kept up. He can’t ever close the doors and act like — it can never be dormant for any period of time or it would dilapidate overnight. And all of the people that work on that property, thank God for Jeff Bezos or whoever owns it because there are a lot of jobs.

Now, I think Bezos spending $165 million on that house is far more beneficial to Los Angeles and the employment base and the work culture out there than $165 million he might pay in taxes to the state government or the federal government. What are they gonna do with it? Where does that money go? It’s a bottomless pit. We don’t know where it goes. But in some cases, we know it’s going to illegal immigrants for health care, welfare. We know it’s going to fund people who are not working, who are not productive — and I don’t want to get into the compassion or lack of compassion business here.

But we know that the more you give people to do nothing, the more they’re gonna do nothing. The more you give people to sit around and do nothing, the more they’re gonna do that, the more you give them. It’s just human nature. And governments are built on giving as many people something for nothing as they can because they’re buying votes doing it. The real value of productive people, the politicians, is campaign donations, not taxes. Taxes are to fund the purchasing of votes. Sorry. Doesn’t work for me. I don’t think it’s helping a lot.

Now, some tax money, the revenue, is put to good use. Not arguing that. But resenting people that have any more than you do, boy, and the Democrat Party has learned how to parlay that. They have learned how to create class envy and hatred, and they have learned how to convince people that they’re victims of the rich. And that they’re never gonna have their own life, the rich are soaking up all the money, and the rich are not giving it away, and the rich are not sharing it, and you don’t have a chance. The only chance you’ve got is to join our grievance culture here that the Democrat Party’s established, become a victim of this, become a victim of that, vote for us and we’ll make sure the people making you miserable pay a price for it.

How you gonna do that? “We’re gonna raise their taxes. We’re gonna raise Bezos’ taxes, that’s what we’re gonna do.” Really? That’s gonna improve your life how? You’re sitting out there making a hundred thousand. Bezos has just bought $165 million-dollar house, his taxes are gonna go up. You think Bezos is gonna say, “Oh, my gosh. I wish I hadn’t bought that house ’cause the guy across the street is only making a hundred thousand. He’s mad at me.” You think he cares? It doesn’t work that way.

But the Democrat Party wants you to think that they’re getting even with these people by raising their taxes and so forth when your life isn’t improving at all. You’re still in the grievance culture. You’re still a victim of somebody. You’re still expected to vote for the Democrats. Look at every constituency group, the Democrats have been complaining about the same problems for 50 years. They never fix ’em. They never solve ’em. They promise to.

But what they have are the bogeymen. They’ve got the evil, rascally Republicans. Those are the guys responsible for your misery. Do you know most of the wealth in this country is now in the hands of Democrats? Go to Wall Street, go to Silicon Valley, go to Hollywood, most of the publicly observable wealth, the conspicuous consumption, is not a bunch of Michael Douglas rich Republican Gordon Gekkos anymore. It’s all a bunch of Democrats.

And they don’t tell you that. And they don’t tell you that Democrats do not come up with policies to actually punish rich Democrats. That’s what Bernie was gonna do, and that’s why when the push comes to shove, there is no way that Bloomberg is ever gonna support Bernie Sanders. You know why? ‘Cause Bernie is serious about taxing billionaires and taking their money away from ’em.

But Biden isn’t. No other Democrat is. They’re gonna raise taxes on the rich, meaning not the billionaires. The billionaires, nobody gets paid a billion dollars. So there’s no income tax on a billion dollars. But Bernie, he was gonna have a wealth tax, he was dead serious. He was gonna go out, he was gonna take a percentage of all these billionaires’ wealth.

And I’ll guarantee you, if it came down to Bernie Sanders versus Trump, Michael Bloomberg and Bezos and all these other clowns would be voting Trump. You’d never know about it, but there’s no way they’re gonna vote for some guy that’s gonna come in and take a percentage of their wealth.

They’ll make you think that they’ve got too much and they’ll make you think they’re not paying enough taxes. But if somebody comes along that’s actually gonna take it away from ’em, you watch how fast they vote against that guy.