Kathy Weppner on Going Galt

On February 26, 2009 – just about a month after President Obama’s inauguration – Kathy from Williamsville called into the Rush Limbaugh program to complain about how hard it is to earn over $250,000 in Obama’s America. 

RUSH: To the phones we go, Kathy, Williamsville, New York. Glad you waited. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. How you doing?

RUSH: Fine. Thanks much.

CALLER: My husband was having a bowl of cereal this morning, and he commented to me that, you know, we had to start socking away more for our retirement. And I said, “No, we’re not going to do that,” and he stopped eating, and he looked up and he said, “What do you mean?” I said, “If we do that, by the time we are ready to retire, they will take it because we will be people that have ‘enough,’ and they will confiscate that retirement.” I said, “We’re going to enjoy it today, because I am not hopeful.” And he said, “Well, then maybe it’s time I cut back a little bit and earn less,” because, Rush, he has worked so many hours a day providing for his family that he’s missed 95% of all the kids’ basketball games, and soccer games, everything. I’m there alone; he’s working. I said, “You know, maybe it is time. Maybe it’s time that you stop working so hard and spend more time with your family.” So that’s what we’ve decided to do because we’re in New York State. Governor Paterson is coming after his income and now the feds are coming after his income. He is not going to work so hard, because it’s a lot of sacrifice. Within an hour of that conversation, the Republican National Committee called me looking for a donation.

You see? New York has its hand out and so does the federal government. They actually expect people to pay taxes to, e.g., fund the most spendthrift military on the planet. 

CALLER: I said, “When we had power, you all acted like Democrats. The only time we act like Republicans is when we have no power! So don’t ever call me again.” So we are going to earn less. I am not contributing any more because they say one thing and they do another, and I really feel it’s too late for our country.

RUSH: May I ask a personal question?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: No?

CALLER: Yes. Go ahead.

RUSH: Oh. Does your husband, your family income, exceed right now $250,000?

CALLER: Yes, it does. It’s not going to. We’re going to fix that. We are going to fix it.

They are going to earn less, by gum. It must be an absolutely wonderful place to be – well-off enough that you can consciously choose to work less in order to earn less. I know people who work several jobs just to make ends meet.  This is elitism run amok. 

RUSH: Well, I hate to tell you. (sigh) Your day is already bad enough. You’re in a state of shock. I mean, you live in the United States of America — and you had this conversation with your husband this morning?

CALLER: Yes, this morning.

RUSH: Over cereal.

CALLER: Over cereal.

RUSH: Look, I know how you feel. You live in the United States of America, and you have decided that in order to be secure you gotta work less and earn less, so that you can hide from the revenuers, right?

CALLER: Well, there’s so… I mean, he works 12- and 14- and 15-hour days and it’s because he wants to provide nice things for his family.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And if working all of those hours and missing all of that stuff —

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: — is not going to allow him —

RUSH: I hear you.

CALLER: — to do that, there’s no reason to do that.

RUSH: I understand it. I know exactly how you feel. I know what you’re saying. You are engaging in Atlas Shrugged kind of activity. But let me just tell you that it is a misnomer if you think your taxes are not going to go up if he earns less than 250.

CALLER: I know. I know. I know. And we’re the people that pay for everything. We get no breaks. We don’t get tuition assistance.

RUSH: You ought to be thanked.

CALLER: We don’t get anything.

RUSH: The people who are paying, they ought to be thanked. They ought to be wined and dined. Instead people like you are impugned. You are attacked; you are targeted. It makes me livid. I understand exactly how you feel. Let me just tell you a little story.

CALLER: Yeah.

Limbaugh here is likening Weppner’s husband’s decision to work fewer hours to “going Galt”. But, you know, even if you earn less than $250k Obama and his cadres are going to come after you because communism. 

RUSH: I told this on the air the other day. I met with my financial advisor and he’s running through all the numbers.

“You got this over here; you got this over here.”

I said, “No, no, no. You’re looking at it the wrong way.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“I don’t have any of it. I want you to understand that my attitude now is that if I ever do retire, that money isn’t going to be there. I’m counting on the fact that this administration is going to find a way to come get it, just like you think.”

It is 2014 and I can confirm that this is Rush Limbaugh’s estate

They didn’t come get it. Obama didn’t nationalize Limbaugh’s estate. Weppner continues, 

Well, they will. They absolutely will, because the country will be in such a bad shape that it will be totally reasonable in everybody’s mind, “Well, we need that money, and it’s just sitting there and we’ve gotta get out of the crisis.” That’s the way New York State is talking right now. “We need to have the baseline be the tax rate right now, but it has to be ‘progressive.’ Those who can give more should give more, just ’til we’re out of the crisis.” I don’t think we’re going to… The last week has made me so upset because they keep pulling hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars figures out of the air and they’re just spending, spending, spending. How are we going to get out of that? I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.

New York didn’t balance its budget on the backs of millionaire talk-show hosts or well-to-do physicians. It balanced its budget, in part, on the backs of middle-class families and the public schools with the Gap Elimination Adjustment. 

Fuck Kathy Weppner and her bullshit “I make $250k and Obama’s going to come and get me” resentment. 

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