Sometimes It’s Easy: US Uncut Exposes Rush Limbaugh with One Simple Question

(There is something wrong with Rush, man. If he thinks it's cool for a corporation to not pay US taxes because they pay taxes to other countries, he must be back on the Oxy again.--jef)
 

By Mike Stark | Sourced from DailyKos  
Posted at September 3, 2011

 Carl Gibson, one of the founders of US Uncut, just steamrolled the drugged one. It was a thing of beauty. Rush would take a punch, hit the canvass, struggle to his feet, only to be flattened again. Eventually, as is always the case when right wing talkers find their asses handed to them, Rush cheated. He spoke over Gibson, cut him off, spewed a slew of irrelevant right wing talking points, hung up on him, and then spent the next 10 minutes flailing desperately in an effort to make his audience forget what Carl’s question was.

So… What was the question? Well, a bit of background is in order first. Did you know that 47% of American households pay no income taxes? Let me tell you, every listener to right wing talk radio has heard that tired old talking point hundreds of times. It’s the ear bug of right wing talk that establishes the foundation of their resentment politics. After all, somebody has to be paying for all those welfare checks, right?

I probably don’t have to mention it to this crowd, but it is true, of course, that Limbaugh and his lieutenants (and the cultists that tune in faithfully every day) ignore the fact that everyone that works pays payroll taxes to the feds (about 12% of every dollar they earn)… 

They don’t mention the federal tax on gasoline… Or state, local and sales taxes. The truth is that nobody escapes the tax man, and that many of the folks that pay no federal income taxes nevertheless lose a higher percentage of their earnings to taxes than the super-rich do.

So yeah, virtually every day, Limbaugh tells his listeners that they are paying income taxes so that leech scum underclass of America can be coddled by the nanny state. So Carl called and politely as can be, asked:

Carl:  “…several multi-billion dollar corporations paid their CEOs more than they pay the government in taxes. Now I know how you feel about folks, I mean individuals who don’t pay their taxes, but I want to know how you feel about corporations that don’t pay taxes. Do you have the same antagonism for them?”

Rush: “How do I feel about how he felt about corporations that don’t pay income taxes?”

Carl:  “No, corporations.”

Rush:  “No, you said you know how I feel about individuals that don’t pay taxes… How do I feel about that?”

Carl:  “Well, I’ve heard you refer to the 47% of Americans that don’t pay taxes.”

Rush:  “Well, that’s… uh… they’re not illegally avoiding taxes, they don’t have to pay taxes because they’ve been exempted. Their votes are being purchased.”

Carl:  “Well, they have to pay a third of their income in sales and property and payroll and excise taxes too… but..” 

Rush:  “Look, the only major corporation I know not paying US taxes is General Electric.” 

Carl:  “GE, EBAY, Verizon, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Bank of America, Citibank, I mean I can go on…”

Rush:  “Are you trying to tell me that every one of those corporations pay zero US taxes?”

Carl:  “Zero US taxes Rush. Sometimes they get money back from the federal government.”

And on, and on, and on and on… 

Eventually, Rush came back from his break to inform his listeners that ExxonMobil paid billions in taxes!  It was just the caller's clever use of a technicality that allowed for him to make his claim.  It turns out that United States corporations can deduct the taxes they pay to other governments from their US tax bill.  

Are you kidding me?

Rush thinks it's OK for us to cut Social Security and Medicare while ExxonMobil pays nothing in taxes because they are sending money to other countries instead?  From there, Limbaugh just became a caricature of himself.  The plain fact is this:  Limbaugh had no good answer for Carl's question.  Limbaugh refused to say why he takes umbrage at the poor not paying federal income taxes while multi-billion dollar corporations that are enjoying record profits either pay no taxes, or even get refunds from the federal government.  

Listen for yourself (and you should - there's a lot of good stuff I left out):