Obama: No, I am not.
O’Reilly: For me, you are.
Obama: No, I am not. What I have said is you go—you go up to 39, all right? That’s what it was under Clinton—
O’Reilly: I am 39, and I am payroll-taxed.
Obama: But that—
O’Reilly:—until you decide I am not.
Obama: But, but, but potentially, we have got to explore a raise in the capital gains—
O’Reilly: No—
Obama: But I have made a commitment—
O’Reilly: I think it’s “income redistribution.”
Obama: Here, here is—here is, here is the—uh, here is the general point that I have got to make. Look, I don’t like paying taxes. What, you think I like writing a check? Why would I like to write a check any more than you do?
O’Reilly: Because you love your country.
Obama: Uh…. What I believe is, is that there are certain things we have got to do. And we have got to help people who are…who have a tough time affording college, so they can benefit like we have. People are having a tough time. They don’t have health care. People who are trying to figure out, uh, how they are going to pay the bills. And there are certain things we have got to do. Our infrastructure—you—look at what happened in Beijing. You go to the Olympics, and these folks are building. And we have got, uh, sewer lines that are crumbling—
O’Reilly: And—
Obama: And, and, and at, and at a certain point, we have got to pay for it. Now, I, I am not—I, I, I—
O’Reilly: But it is only the very few that are gonna pay for it, okay?
Obama: Right.
O’Reilly: You are, you are not across-the-boarding it. You are going—
Obama: But, but Bill—
O’Reilly: “I am taking from the rich.”
Obama: [Laughs.]
O’Reilly: “And I am Robin Hood Obama—”
Obama: Bill, if, if, if—
O’Reilly: “—and I am giving it—”
Obama: All, all, all I am saying is—
O’Reilly: And then you want to raise corporate taxes—
Obama: All I, all I want—no, I don’t. That’s not true.
O’Reilly: You want—
Obama: All, all, all I want—
O’Reilly: You don’t want to raise them? You don’t want to raise corporate taxes?
Obama: All, all I want—all I am saying is—all I am saying is, is that, if we have got something that we have got to pay for—Now, George Bush—under George Bush, the, the debt has gone up $4 trillion, all right? So that’s the credit card we have taken out—on our kids—from the Bank of China—that they are gonna have to pay for—
O’Reilly: The war on terror, though. Come on.
Obama: Well, no, no, no. That, that—that’s not true. Uh, the, uh…that has to do—in part—with the Bush tax cuts, and no cuts in spending.
O’Reilly: No, it can’t be, because the Bush tax cuts—
Obama: So—
O’Reilly:—generated more income.
Obama: No. No, no, no.
O’Reilly: The spending is out of control.
Obama: No. Well, uh, look, uh…. The Bush tax—or the, the Bush record—the numbers are—were there. Four trillion dollars. Now, we have got a choice. We can keep on just borrowing and dump it on our kids, that’s option number one.
O’Reilly: Or we can take it from the wealthy, and give it to everybody else—
Obama: Bill, we could have an across-the-board tax cut—uh, or tax, uh, hikes, what you just talked about.
O’Reilly: Which is not “income redistribution”?
Obama: Bill, but the problem is, if I am sitting pretty, and you have got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips—and I can afford it and she can’t—what’s the big deal for me to say, “I am gonna pay a little bit more”? That is part of community—
O’Reilly: Let me answer your question.
Obama: That is part of what the—America has always been about is, is that we rise and fall together. And that, I think—
O’Reilly: And Americans give a tremendous amount—more than any in the world—to charity.
Obama: But—
O’Reilly: Let me give you one more—Obama: All right.
O’Reilly:—and then we’ll go on to, uh—
Obama: Right.
O’Reilly:—the next thing. Listen, if you raise the cap gains tax, that’s going to inhibit investment. I won’t buy as many stocks, and many many more people won’t, okay?
Obama: If, if what—
O’Reilly: If you do that—
Obama: If we, if we went up, if we went up—
O’Reilly:—it’s gonna, it’s gonna come back to bite you, Senator.
Obama: If, if we went up to a prohibitive rate—you are right. But look, I—
O’Reilly: Thirty percent on it. That’s Vegas, man. I am not going with those odds.
Obama: I, I—
O’Reilly: Fifteen, I’ll pay. Not 30.
Obama: I, I, I didn’t go there. Uh, I didn’t say we would go that high. Well, let’s say we go up to 20. I have talked to—
O’Reilly: Twenty is okay.
Obama: That, that—
O’Reilly: Not 25.
Obama: Okay. Well, there—well, you and I agree.
O’Reilly: All right. Good.
* * *
The most difficult part of researching this book has been trying to ascertain what will happen to America’s economy under President Obama. Things are so shaky, so murky, so unpredictable that, like Afghanistan, just about anything could happen—with the exception of a tax cut for me.
Here’s what we know for sure:
Unemployment hovers around 10 percent despite massive government spending to stimulate the economy.
Because of that spending, the new ObamaCare health system, and corporate bailouts, the United States now owes more than 13 trillion dollars.
The New York Times and other Pinhead Far Left organizations demand even more government spending. Apparently, owing 13 trillion is not enough. Let’s go for it! Let’s get that up to 15 trillion.
If President Obama is worried about this staggering debt, he is hiding it very well.
Beginning on New Year’s Day 2011, many, many taxes will rise in America. My federal income tax rate, for example, will go up to 39.6 percent. My payroll taxes will also go up. In fact, just about everything the feds can tax, they will tax. And all that additional revenue will not come even close to denting the deficit if the Obama administration continues its spending spree.
Capital gains tax (the money you make when you sell profitable investments) will rise 5 percent to 20 percent, as Mr. Obama and I discussed.
But interest on savings (yeah, sure, for many of us) will be taxed to the tune of almost 40 percent, a punishing situation.
If you die in 2011 or beyond and leave more than a million in assets, the feds will take 55 percent of what you have over that amount. Thank you very much for expiring.
I could go on and on, but you get the picture. President Obama wants our money even though higher taxation might put the economy back into recession. Higher taxes often mean that folks spend less in our consumer-driven economy. President Reagan got us out of a nasty recession by cutting taxes. President Obama is doing just the opposite.
The real danger down the road is a Value Added Tax (VAT). Even though the President is playing the Alfred E. Neuman (“What, me worry?”) card on government spending, his guys know there’s a bad economic moon rising. The federal government is already almost broke; when ObamaCare finally kicks in, it could send us over the bankruptcy cliff.
So say hello to my little friend, the national sales tax. They do this in Europe to raise entitlement money so that workers can have eight weeks of paid vacation and call in sick every ten days. It does get chilly in Sweden, you know.
The VAT would be a promise-breaker for Mr. Obama, but he may have no choice. Remember, he said he would not rais
e taxes on Americans making $250,000 or less a year. But a national sales tax stings everybody. Read my lips: a VAT is a broken promise.
Of course, all this could change if the Democrats continue to lose public support. If Republicans regain control on Capitol Hill, as many observers believe likely, all of President Obama’s programs and economic visions will be carefully scrutinized.
Finally, I understand it is my duty as a citizen to pay taxes, so I do pay them and try to keep the whining to a minimum. But many Americans are not as fortunate as I am. They are struggling to keep their homes, but high and rising property taxes are killing them. They want to send their kids to college, but every time they turn around, the government is keeping take-home pay away from them. There has to be a balance.
Obviously, President Obama wants to redistribute income to the poor. But by creating an entitlement society, he hurts the working class. So how is that fair? One group of Americans gets free stuff from the feds, while the other group has to struggle to pay its bills. Senior citizens should not be worrying about being evicted from their homes because they can no longer pay school and general property taxes. Young families should not have their paychecks gutted by an endless series of government tax levies. Enough is enough with the entitlement society stuff. America gives people opportunities and most of us do well. Those who don’t or can’t do deserve to be treated fairly but should not expect the rest of us to support them. The struggle between traditional self-reliance and the potential nanny state is the most divisive issue in America today.
* * *
O’Reilly: All right. I’m talking as an American now, not as a journalist.
Obama: Go ahead, go ahead.
O’Reilly: Okay? All right. So I don’t know you. I never met you. This is the first time we’ve ever had a chat.
Obama: Right.
O’Reilly: Uh, actually, the second, when I pushed your guy out of the camera range.
Obama: [Laughs.]
O’Reilly: Remember that? Wasn’t that fun? Obama: Oh.
O’Reilly: He actually came over and, and, and said, he was very nice, we had, before the—
Obama: He said you were very nice as well.
O’Reilly: Um, I’m sitting there and I’m an American. I’m sitting there in, uh, Bismarck, North Dakota. I’m sitting there in Coral Springs, Florida.
Obama [overlap]: Right.
O’Reilly: And I’m seeing Reverend Wright, I’m seeing Father Pfleger, who thinks Louis Farrakhan’s a great guy. I’m seeing Bernadette Dohrn and Bill Ayers, Weather Underground radicals, who don’t think they bond enough. I’m seeing MoveOn.org, who says “Betray-Us.” And I’m seeing you go to a Daily Kos convention, and this week Daily Kos came out and said that, um, Sarah Palin’s Down syndrome baby was birthed by her fifteen-year-old, with no proof, that they put that on there. And I’m going, Gee, that Barack Obama, he’s got some pretty bad friends.
Obama: All right, well, let—
O’Reilly: Am I wrong?
Obama: You are wrong. Let, let, let’s start from scratch. Number one, I know thousands of people, right? And so, understandably, people will pick out folks who they think they can criticize.
O’Reilly: I don’t know anybody like that. And I know thousands of people.
Obama: No, no. No, no—
O’Reilly: I don’t know anybody like that.
Obama: But, no, I, hold on a second, let, let me, let me make my point now. The, uh, the Wright thing we’ve talked about. But the, uh, I joined a church, to worship God, and not a pastor. This whole notion that he was my spiritual mentor and all this stuff, this is something that I’ve con—uh, consistently discussed. I had not heard him make the offensive comments that ended up being looped on this show constantly. And I was offended by them, and ultimately was—
O’Reilly: You’d never heard those comments.
Obama: I hadn’t heard those comments.
O’Reilly: He was selling them in the lobby at the church.
Obama: What can I tell you?
O’Reilly: How many times, uh, did you go to church a month?
Obama: You know, I’d probably go twice a month.
O’Reilly: And he never said inflammatory stuff—
Obama: He didn’t say, he didn’t say stuff like that. All right? So, so—
O’Reilly: He said white people were bad.
Obama: No. What he said was racism was bad. And that—
O’Reilly: And not “White people are bad.”
Obama: There, there was no, no doubt that what he said was, “Racism is bad.” But here’s, here’s my point. I mean, we’ve gone over this.
O’Reilly: Okay.
Obama: The fact is, the relationship was ruptured, I’m not a member of the church.
O’Reilly: Right.
Obama: In both his case and Father Pfleger’s case, they’ve done great work in the community, and I worked in some very poor communities. And the fact of the matter is, is that they’ve built senior housing, they provided day care, and those were the, that’s how I got to know these folks, because I was working in these neighborhoods, where, you know, there’s some good and there’s some bad. All right? So that, that’s on that point. Now, on this Ayers thing, which you, you’ve been hyping, Bill, pretty good.
O’Reilly: Not, not that much.
Obama: But, you know—but here, here, here’s the bottom line.
O’Reilly: Yes.
Obama: This guy did something despicable forty years ago.
O’Reilly: He did something despicable last week—said he didn’t do enough bombing. That’s last week.
Obama [overlap]: What, what—I haven’t seen the guy in a year and half, but he—
O’Reilly: But you know he’s on the Woods Foundation board.
Obama: Let, let, let, let me make—
O’Reilly: You know who he is there.
Obama: Let me, let me finish my point, all right? Here’s a guy that does something despicable when I’m eight years old.
O’Reilly: Okay.
Obama: All right? I come to Chicago. He’s working with Mayor Richard Daly, not known to be a radical, right, on education issues, and he’s a professor at the Department of Education, right?
Obama: Yeah.
O’Reilly: So he and I know each other, as a consequence of work he’s doing on education. That is not an endorsement of his views. That’s not—
O’Reilly: No, but you guys partnered up on a youth crime bill, remember that?
Obama: And it was a good bill.
O’Reilly: No, it wasn’t. That bill said that if a youth commits a second violent felony, he does time in an adult prison. That’s two shots. You, you said no. You knew the South Side of Chicago.
Obama: No. No, no, no.
O’Reilly: You know how many people are harmed.
Obama: No, but, but, but what happened with—listen, you’re absolutely right. My community gets hit by crime more than any—
O’Reilly: And I’m right on that bill. You were wrong on that bill.
Obama: I disagree with you on that bill. But that’s, that’s a policy—
O’Reilly: You don’t want to send—
Obama: No, no. Hold on. Hold on.
O’Reilly:—kids who are hurting other people away?
Obama: We’re, we’re, we’re, we’re getting, we’re getting too far off field here.
O’Reilly: Oh, that’s important, though. You, you and Ayers were allied on that bill.
Obama: No, no. Look, he didn’t write that bill.
O’Reilly: Nah, he was supporting it. And so were you!
Obama: No. [Laughs.]
O’Reilly: But you guys were together on it.
Obama: No, no. Hold on a second. Now, now, now we’re getting—
O’Reilly: All right, if that’s unfair, I’m sorry.
Obama: That, that’s pretty flimsy. Here, here’s the point. All right? This guy is not part of my campaign, he’s not someone—
O’Reilly: Well, he’s, he’s—
Obama: He’s not some ad—he’s not some adviser of mine. He is somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago, that I know.
O’Reilly: And you were on a board at the Woods Foundation.
Obama: Right. And, and, and, and who did something despicable forty years ago. But, but let me make the, let me make the broader point here, Bill. The problem that your viewers, your guys, your folks, the folks you champion, the problem you’re going through, that, the problems they’re going through, with trying to pay their bills, trying to keep their jobs, trying to move up in this world, their problem isn’t Bill Ayers. It was Bill Ayers forty years ago, when he was blowing stuff up.
O’Reilly: They want a President, they want a President whom they can identify with.
Obama: They want a President that, that—
O’Reilly: They want a President that they can identify with.
Obama: And they, and they should be able to identify with me because my story is your story.
O’Reilly: But your associations are not my associations.
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