So yeah, he called me back... I went off the reservation again, so he cut my mike and took over the show. Nothing scarier to these guys that a democrat that's good at framing issues and can think on their feet.
Anyone wanna hire me? Send me an email - I graduate RPI in May - probably gonna start law school, but if the right opportunity in progressive politics is offered... well - enough of this entirely shameless plug. Sorry y'all had to endure that...
Anyway, I called to talk about social security - a program formed by the Greatest Generation and a program that has worked well for over 50 years... The Greatest Generation took a look around and saw all of their parents destitute...
Instead try this: repeal the Reagan tax increase, give the vast majority of Americans a tax cut and implement a flat tax so that Michael Moore, basketball players, the hollywood left and trial lawyers all pay the same taxes I do. There is no reason that they should pay taxes at 1/10 of 1% when I have to pay 12%. Give most Americans a tax break and honor our parents by guaranteeing social security. [thanks to another kos poster for the last bit]
I just remembered - there was another bit where I went to try and make the case that the rich got rich in this country, not only from luck and hard work, but also because they were born into this country. People work hard in China and north Korea - then Rush cut in saying it that was irrelevant - and at this point I'm not sure if the rest of y'all were able to hear or if he cut my mike again - but I went on to say that it is relevant - that the people that were lucky enough to make it in this country - well, they made it because of this country's greatness. Now, if their country needs a little help from them - a small tax in order to keep old folk from eating cat food - well, that's not too much to ask of them.
And also - forgot to mention that Rush mentioned that when the program was formed, FDR wanted private accounts to be part of the program. That needs to be researched, but off the top of my head, I'd say that the proper response to that would be, "See - not everyone is perfect. Even FDR made mistakes. The evidence is a program that has kept our seniors out of homeless shelters for 70 years."
And again, I think that it is really important to hammer home the idea that there was once a time in which we didn't have social security. The people alive at that time were the ones that witnessed the abject poverty our seniors endured. That's the reason it was the "third rail" for so long. Now that these people are beginning to die, Bush is taking advantage of the historical moment to push through another half-baked idea. Just because we haven't witnessed the poverty - well, that's not a sufficient reason to turn back the clock.
If i was a Dem strategist, I'd be looking for depression era footage of seniors freezing their cans off - make a commercial out of it to show what once was.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_020405/content/rush_on_a_roll.guest.html
RUSH: You'll remember the last caller of the program yesterday we didn't
have enough time with, and I asked for permission for his phone number to
get his number so we could call him back, and he granted us permission and
we have him. He's Mike in Albany. Mike, why don't you start from the top,
just assuming nobody heard your call yesterday, so we can get started right
from the very beginning point of your point?
CALLER: Yes, sir. I want to start by saying that, you know, after
yesterday's call, I went to this website called the Daily Kos and a lot of
people didn't think you'd call me back. I'm really glad you did. Anyway, I
wanted to talk about Social Security, and it's an insurance plan that was
designed and implemented by the greatest generation. You know, 50 years
ago. And it's worked well since then. They took a look around and saw what
happened with their parents. They were destitute after the great depression
and --
RUSH: Okay. Hang, hang, hang on just a second.
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: I want to go back to that. Do you know that part of FDR's original
proposal was private investment accounts that were not approved?
CALLER: No, that's interesting.
RUSH: It is.
CALLER: I didn't know that. I have nothing against private investment
accounts. I think 401(k)s and IRAs are great and the last thing I want to
do is take that away.
RUSH: No, no, no. Same context here. As part of Social Security, he wanted
private accounts as part of the Social Security system which the Congress
did not approve in the final write of the bill.
CALLER: I would have liked to have -- well, they probably heard the same
arguments that I'm about to make with you. I mean, it's not like it hasn't
changed over the years. Ronald Reagan doubled the Social Security tax in
1983, for example.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I'm not saying it doesn't need to change.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I'm just thinking that we've got enough grandmothers playing slots
in Vegas. We don't need them day trading too. Instead, try this, repeal
that Reagan tax increase and make sure that trial lawyers and the Hollywood
left and basketball players and all these people are taxed at the same rate
I get taxed at. There's no reason these rich people, you know, the Michael
Moores of the world, are paying 0.01% in Social Security tax when I have to
pay six or 12% or whatever it is. Make everyone pay an equal 3%, give the
vast majority of Americans a tax break, and honor our parents by
guaranteeing Social Security and making sure that no one's going to have to
be old and poor.
RUSH: Well, my point is that everybody is old and poor if all they have is
Social Security.
CALLER: I agree with that, but they're not eating cat food.
RUSH: Well, I'm not the one that's ever made the assertion but I'm
listening to all their advocates say that the choice is dog food or
medicine because their Social Security checks are so insufficient these
days. Now, look, I too did some research out there, and in fact, one of the
best pieces of research is the New York Times today, a story by Edmund
Andrews and there are two basic points in it. Number one, means testing,
which is a -- You haven't suggested means testing.
CALLER: I did yesterday, though.
RUSH: Well, okay. You did yesterday, and your proposal that you just
mentioned is somewhat close to it. In other words, the people who can pay
the more should pay the more.
CALLER: Well, no, just a flat tax. Everyone pays equally.
RUSH: Yeah. But the dollars are not the same, see. You're looking for this
same percentage, but the point is that you're turning Social Security into
a welfare program, which it never was. It was never intended to be a
welfare program. When you start taxing it as Medicare is, then you've
turned it into a welfare program and what you were essentially doing is
changing the whole structure. You were saying that Social Security is not
paid for by the recipient, Social Security is paid for by one citizen or a
group of citizens giving a gift to another. That's the program that you
were suggesting.
CALLER: I will concede that, but let me make the case for that, because you
know what? These basketball players and Michael Moore and all these people
that were born in this country, made a lot of money because of their
talents, but they made a lot of money for a lot of other reasons too. You
don't see a lot of basketball players in China or North Korea making $5
million a year.
RUSH: I don't care. I don't care.
CALLER: They do it --
RUSH: I don't care what people in China or Europe or Germany make. It's
irrelevant, and I don't care what people in --
CALLER: Well, it's not irrelevant to how great this country is. The reason
they can do that is because this country is great and because this country
has people like me that watch and play basketball and stuff like that or go
to the Michael Moore movies or whatever.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: So they could pay a little bit more to provide --
RUSH: Well, where does this stop?
CALLER: -- to the grandmothers that starve otherwise.
RUSH: Since I've been an adult, the solution to every problem has been I
pay more. The solution to every problem has been some Americans pay more.
That's the liberal solution to everything, and you're going to cause an
economic slowdown like the world has never seen if this program taps out
the way you want it to. One of the statistics in this number, or in this
story in the New York Times, is that means testing on the wealthy will not
save it. There aren't enough of the wealthy to make a difference. Means
testing would be allowing those who don't need it, quote-unquote, to opt
out of it, even though they've paid into it, which they aren't enough to
save the program in that regard, and even if you raise the floor from the
current $90,000 to $200,000 of income on which Social Security taxes are
paid, you would basically wipe out the deficit in one year. But you
wouldn't wipe it out forever. You'd just wipe out the deficit in one year.
There simply isn't the money. There are too many recipients in this
program. I have a different question here, and I don't think Social
Security should become a welfare program. That's not what it was ever
intended to be.
It was intended that you have money taken away from you and at your
retirement, you get it back. It was a Ponzi scheme and the first
represents, of course there's nothing they could "get back" because they
hadn't paid anything in, so at first it took 16 workers to provide the
taxes for one recipient, back when this program started. We're down to
three now, and people wonder why the benefits don't go up enough. It's
because we don't have the tax base to support it. Now, I am tempted to give
you a number, because I would fit into this categoryof people that you're
talking about that ought to be paying more. You think that my Social
Security and Medicare taxes are not high enough because I somehow opt out
at this $90,000 salary. I don't get a salary, but you think that people
like me don't pay Social Security beyond $90,000. For the sake of this
discussion, I'm tempted to tell you what my accountant just told me my
Social Security and Medicare payment this year is going to be and I'm not
going to do it. I'm not going to do it because you just don't discuss these
things -- (interruption) But what do you mean, "ban an obscenity"? No, it
won't violate a ban on obscenity. It's not the way to make the case because
it would be too personal.
I'll just tell you this: It's almost seven figures. What I'm going to pay
in Social Security and Medicare taxes this year, Mike, are close to seven
figures. That's what I'm going to pay in Social Security and Medicare taxes
combined. It's that way almost every year, give or take a little
fluctuation here. It's almost seven figures. So you can understand my
reticence here when I hear all this talk about how X numbers of people
aren't paying enough and we can always pay more, and the argument that,
"Well, look what you're left with even afterwards," doesn't hold any water
with me, because even at this amount, I'm told I'm not paying enough and I
don't get any thanks for it in the first place. Now you want to turn this
program into what Medicare is: a gift. One group of Americans can demand
whatever they want from another group, and that group is supposed to pay
up. That doesn't jibe. That's not how this program works. It's not how it
was designed. We're reforming welfare in this country because it didn't
work, because it created a bunch of lazy malcontents who had no initiative.
It was destroying their lives.
Welfare destroyed people's lives. If people grow up thinking that they
don't have to do anything toward their own retirement, that all they have
to do is get to 60 or 65 and hold their hands out because Michael Moore is
going to be paying for it, what the hell will they be making of the first
part of their lives where they have no incentive to work for their own
retirement? You know, the welfare problem is it takes incentive out of
everybody that's on the receiving end of it. It destroys them. It destroys
their opportunity to be the best they can be. It destroys their potential.
It tells them they don't have to do anything; all they have to do is
survive to a certain age and voila, whatever they want is going to be there
because the testament will have been established. The precedent will be
established. All you got to do is ask for more on the basis that it's not
fair that other people have more than I do, and I'm going to get those
people who have more than I do to contribute to me because it's unfair.
We're reforming that way of doing things in this country and we started to
with the signature of Bill Clinton after three vetoes in 1996, and it is
working, and the last thing we want to do is turn back the hands of the
clock and go back to that same disincentived welfare program and make that
what Social Security is. That's not the purpose. This is an ownership
society.
The percentage of adults in this country that own stocks and bonds is over
50% now, and I can understand people on the left wanting to turn that away
and turn that backwards. I can understand people wanting, the left in this
country to want a lot of people who are currently in more control of their
finances and lives than ever to lose some of that control for the
government to get it back. Because liberals have nothing if they don't have
a big government and a growing government and a government in which they're
in charge and control of, because the only way, Mike, you're going to be
able to go get more money from the Michael Moores and the Magic Johnsons
and whoever else you want to get it from is if you run the government and
can pass the legislation and laws that will steal it from them just on some
basis that somebody doesn't have as much. Well, we're getting rid of that
kind of thinking in this country. We just booted it out of the football
field. It's not even a ball that we're playing with anymore. That kind of
thinking is for history textbooks only. Now, I know that there's... By the
way, Mike is not the only one with this idea.
There are members of Congress who want to raise the floor on Social
Security to 200 grand, meaning that everybody that makes 200 grand and pays
Social Security taxes, as opposed to 90 grand now, but they do this in
opposition to the president's program. They're trying to create a welfare
plan out of Social Security, and that's not where the thinking is in this
country. Another thing, folks, that I want to pose to you right now in the
context of current events. Imagine that there is no Social Security program
right now. Just imagine there isn't one. Don't imagine anything else yet.
Just assume there's not a Social Security program. Just imagine right now
that people's retirement is whatever they've saved, and in George Bush's
State of the Union address on Wednesday night, he proposed a Social
Security program. Either the one he proposed or the FDR version. Would a
single liberal today support it? The anti-reform crowd -- and that's who
the American left is today -- is going to fill your head with fear, with
numbers, with photo ops, with columns, with talking heads that try to
prevent progress no matter where it is suggested, and they're going to go
surround that FDR statue with their buddies from the media and try to send
the picture out to convince you that somehow, holding onto a 70-year-old
program that's never been modernized is worth it.