'We explode the code' - Rick Santorum's tax plan eliminates the IRS as we know it

October 13, 2015

WRITER

A good friend to the program and 2016 presidential hopeful Senator Rick Santorum joined Glenn on the radio Tuesday to talk about his revolutionary tax plan he announced Monday.

Santorum said his tax plan will feature a flat tax on all income, without a value added tax, which is something he said differentiates his plan from Rand Paul's.

"It's a 20 percent income tax on all income. It's on individual income. 20 percent on corporate income. 20 percent, capital gains, dividends and interest. Everything is taxed at the same level," Santorum said.

He went on to describe how his plan would eliminate the IRS as we know it.

We explode the code. It's gone. There's no IRS as we know it. It's simple. I mean, there's -- there's the tax credit that I talked to you about. There's the deduction for home mortgages and for charitable donations.

The difference is, everybody can take that deduction, not just those who are high income. So everybody has this available to them. So it's really helpful for everybody to have this deduction. And that's it. No other exemptions. No other exclusions. Same thing with the corporate side. Nothing. No special energy provisions or any kind of things. All that -- all that stuff goes away. It's a very simple code. And it gets the IRS out of everybody's hair.

Listen to the full exchange or read the transcript below.

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Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

GLENN: A good friend of the program. A good friend and a very good man. 2016 presidential hopeful. The thing that made Pat fall in love with Rand Paul, I think, the love story may begin here with Rick Santorum. Because yesterday, he announced his tax plan, and it sounds similar.

PAT: Oh, nice.

GLENN: Welcome to the program, Rick Santorum.

RICK: Just a little better, I might add.

GLENN: A little better. I don't know. That's hard to beat.

RICK: Well, here's why I say it's better than his. Because -- well, his rate is 14.5 percent. It includes the value-added tax. Mine is at 20 percent, flat tax with no value-added tax. It has a tax on corporate --

GLENN: Hang on just a second.

PAT: Wait. I didn't know it included a value-added tax.

GLENN: Hold on just a second. He put a value-added tax on that?

RICK: Yeah.

PAT: I didn't know that.

GLENN: I had no idea.

RICK: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: Can you look that up, Stu? That's really bad.

PAT: At what percent? What percentage?

GLENN: Doesn't matter.

RICK: Fourteen and a half. That's how he's able to accomplish fourteen and a half because he does a value-added tax.

GLENN: He was doing 14 and a half and a 14 and a half VAT tax?

RICK: Yeah. Fourteen and a half income and fourteen and a half VAT.

PAT: That's like 29 percent.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. That is really bad -- that's dishonest. That's dishonest. The way he presented that, I think that's dishonest.

RICK: Well, I think -- if you look it up, that's exactly what his, quote, business tax is, is value-added tax.

GLENN: Okay. Wait. Wait. That's business or that's income?

RICK: He has an income tax. He has what he calls a business-something tax. But it's a value-added tax. That's what it is.

PAT: Jeez.

GLENN: Okay. All right. So we'll look that up. We'll look that up.

PAT: Okay.

RICK: That's why mine is better. It's a 20 percent income tax on all income. It's on individual income. 20 percent on corporate income. 20 percent, capital gains, dividends, and interest. Everything is taxed at the same level. There's no playing around from one to the other. It is a powerful, you know, corporate tax reduction from 35 percent now down to 20 percent, with full expensing, which is really important, if you're going to encourage manufacturing in this country. Which, as you know, Glenn, I mean, that's been my passion for a long time, is to make sure that America can be number one in manufacturing again. And we'll have a tax code that's going to be as strong on manufacturing -- has a repatriotism provision to get that $2 trillion sitting overseas to come back to America. Invest it in plant and equipment here. You know, there is a guy in this race who is famous for saying you're fired. I want to be famous for saying you're hired. And that's -- this thing will -- this tax plan will explode the code. It's a single rate plan. There's no deductions. No special tax provisions. The -- we eliminate everything on the individual side, except every person gets a 2,750-dollar tax credit. So depending on how large your family is, multiple that by $2,750 for every person in your house. Get a credit off your taxes for every person in your house. It's pro-family. It's pro-growth. And it keeps the rates low, and that means growth high.

PAT: So you're talking -- Rick, you're talking run rate for everybody, including --

RICK: One rate for everybody.

PAT: Wow.

RICK: All income. All income is set to 20 percent. So there's no gaming. Oh, I can move this money here. Move this money there. It's all passed at the same right. Provides generous -- for the corporate side, this being able to write off capital, equipment, and buildings. You can expense the year -- so it's a very powerful incentive.

GLENN: Tell me about capital gains. Is that income?

RICK: Just a flat -- everybody pays a 20 percent capital gains tax.

PAT: Okay. So the capital gains would be 20 percent as well?

RICK: And we get rid of the marriage -- we get rid of the death tax. So there's no estate tax.

PAT: That's good.

RICK: Get rid of all the Obamacare taxes. And under our plan, obviously you want to get rid of Obamacare. If you look at how it's scored by the tax foundation, if you get rid of all the Obamacare taxes, as well as the Obamacare subsidies, it comes out over a ten-year period of time at actually increasing revenues over ten years by $600 billion. It does that, and it's while still increasing growth by 1 percent a year for ten years. So it will go from 2.3 to 3.3. We add another 3.2 million new jobs, above what's projected. And wages go up almost 1 percent a year.

GLENN: What happens to the IRS?

RICK: We explode the code. It's gone. There's no IRS as we know it. It's simple. I mean, there's -- there's the tax credit that I talked to you about. There's the deduction for home mortgages and for charitable donations.

PAT: Oh.

RICK: The difference is, everybody can take that deduction, not just those who are high income. So everybody has this available to them. So it's really helpful for everybody to have this deduction. And that's it. No other exemptions. No other exclusions. Same thing with the corporate side. Nothing. No special energy provisions or any kind of things. All that -- all that stuff goes away. It's a very simple code. And it gets the IRS out of everybody's hair.

GLENN: Okay. So I love this. From what I know -- then, again, I loved Rand Paul's until you just told me some things.

RICK: Sorry to burst your bubble there, Glenn.

GLENN: So I loved this. With one thing you said. And it's a red flag to me. And if we can get really geeky to me. Most people won't even think this way. But I believe, Rick, you and I believe that what the fed has done is just absolutely disastrous. You said you wanted to repatriot $2 trillion into the United States. That money comes flooding back into this system, and we could have hyperinflation. Are you concerned about that at all?

RICK: Well, I mean, there will be a tax on it. It's a 10 percent tax when you bring it back. Am I concerned that it will have economic growth that will cause inflation? Yes. Any time you have -- you know, we look at going from around 2 percent growth, to under our plan, about 4 percent growth, that's a concern. In there, we talk about sound money policy and obviously auditing the fed and putting the fed back on the course of being a -- a sound money fed, not a, you know, growing the economy fed, not a lowering unemployment fed.

GLENN: And how do you do that?

RICK: Well, I think part of it is who you appoint to the fed and the messages you send out. You know, that's -- that's the -- that's the leverage you have. Look, there's no question this president hasn't had a huge impact over the fed and its policies. By his policies and what -- and the governors he's put on the fed. And that's what you have to do. You have to put sound money governors on the fed and as chairman of the fed.

GLENN: Yeah, but you don't as president get to pick that person. They give you a list to pick from.

RICK: Well, that's true. And as you all know, you have some influence on that process. The president is not -- if you look at the people that they put on the fed, they've been put on the fed who are very much in line with where the president wants to take the fed. And I think that's been the case really since the fed has been around. There's an accommodation made to where the president wants to take the fed.

GLENN: Okay. So, Rick, let's get down to brass tacks on you and your campaign. I was with a candidate on Friday, and I heard him -- actually it wasn't him. It was somebody in his campaign. Talking to a group of people. And they were saying, you know, they were just going through all the people. And they said, and Rick Santorum is going to be in this thing even if he has no money, he will go and he will go door to door on foot if he has to, he is never leaving this campaign because there's a chance of a lightning strike and he will take advantage of that. Is that -- is that where you're at -- that you're just -- I mean, because we're looking at a new debate two weeks away on CNBC. I don't know if you'll make it. I don't know if Rand will make it. I don't know who will make it to the big table. They're playing all these games. How long do you survive? And do you believe that it's the right thing to do, if you continue to poll the way you are?

RICK: Well, all I can tell you, Glenn, four years ago I was in the same situation. In fact, in national polls, I was at 2 percent the week before the Iowa caucuses and won the Iowa caucuses. And, you know, I don't know if you saw, Gallup is no longer polling national elections. Pew is saying that they may not do it because the polls are simply wrong.

I can tell you. I mean, I was talking to one of our folks. And she works with five people. And they're all for a particular candidate. I won't say who. And she asked the question, have any of you ever been to an Iowa caucus? And they all said no. And she said, well, do you know what a caucus is? And they all said no. And she said told them. And all of them said, oh, we're not going to do that. We're not going to show up at 7 o'clock at night and spend two hours at some place to vote.

There's a lot of polling that goes on that simply doesn't reflect who will actually vote. I saw it. I witnessed it in reality. And what I have to do is I have to trust what I see on the ground. I did that four years ago. I trusted what I saw on the ground. I trusted that, even though in the state of Iowa, four weeks out, I was at 3 percent in the polls. I knew what I was seeing from caucus goers in Iowa who actually make these decisions. And so had I gotten a good break, which is to win on caucus night, instead of getting an errant count that didn't declare me the winner, I think it would have been a very different situation.

But here's what I do know. The media focuses in on polls and how much money you've raised, both of which feed into each other. They don't focus on what's going on on the ground, which counts, which is, who will vote? And that's what I focus on, and that's what I'm going to trust.

GLENN: Well, I will tell you, you have the -- the image of the hardest working guy in politics. You have the image of a good who is just not going to let a single door go unknocked.

RICK: Well, here's the thing, Glenn. I mean, you can spend all your time raising money. A lot of guys do it. And you look at their campaign schedule. They don't have a lot of town hall meetings. They don't get out and talk to voters. And they're relying on people presenting their image to the voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. I do the opposite. I don't spend a lot of time raising money. I spend a lot of time out there, and I try to present that image directly and try to obviously build a very loyal cadre of folks who in a caucus state will make a difference.

GLENN: So tonight is the Democratic debate. If you had one question to ask all of the candidates, what would the question be?

RICK: You know, as you know,, I mean, my focus is on right now, the biggest problem -- this president is going to deal with, is a potential nuclear Iran. So my focus is, you know, will you stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? Because there's no question in my mind that under this deal, Iran is on a pathway to getting a nuclear weapon. And it's necessary to make sure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon. And I suspect that the policy of containment, which is what the Obama administration has now put us toward, is the policy that every one of those candidates will follow along.

STU: Rick, I was wondering, maybe this will be a good question to answer, maybe you'll have a good answer to it. Can you identify anything that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, would identify as an actual violation to this agreement? It seems like they could do literally anything, and it still would fall within their framework.

RICK: Yeah, this is -- if you look at what's going on in Syria right now, in Syria, we have an agreement with Syria that supposedly is the model for verification and making sure that they're following along with it. And, of course, Syria has been using chemical weapons since this treaty was put in place. There's no question that chemical weapons have been used and that the Assad regime is the one that's been targeted. Yet, there's been no claim of violation of this treaty, even though they're using chemical weapons. And the reason is, they structure the treaty to where if they don't have weapons at this site and at this location or at that location, they're not in violation. So they can go ahead and use chemical weapons. Develop them somewhere else. Use them on their people. And still be in full compliance of a chemicals weapon treaty. This is the problem, is that we have a president who doesn't want to act. And he's trying to create a facade that he's actually doing something, when he's actually enabling people to move forward with their weapons of mass destruction.

GLENN: All right. Rick, just last night on TV and the rest of it is happening tonight. Last Friday, we spent an hour on radio with Bobby Jindal. And I'd like to offer this to you. I'm not offering this to everybody. I'm just offering this to about six of the people that I think America needs to see and meet. Would you come in and spend a couple of hours with us here in the next couple of weeks.

RICK: I'll spend a whole day with you, Glenn.

GLENN: Okay.

RICK: I'll take you out to breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

GLENN: No, and you're not going to knock on my door and ask me for my vote either. I mean, no.

STU: Also, Rick, you don't know how much he eats. I don't think you have those kind of campaign funds.

GLENN: Yeah, you haven't seen me for a while, Rick. It's gone down quickly.

RICK: I know the rest of the family doesn't eat much. They're in great shape.

STU: That's true.

GLENN: Rick, God bless you. If you want more information, go to RickSantorum.com. It's RickSantorum.com. Rick, thanks a lot. We'll talk to you soon.

Let's get him scheduled to come in.

STU: Yeah, that would be great.

GLENN: Do the same thing we just did with Bobby Jindal. By the way, the rest of the Bobby Jindal interview is tonight at 5 o'clock on the Blaze TV. You don't want to miss it. Really, really a good candidate.

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

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Democrats accused the president of declaring war on civil rights. In reality, he’s defending habeas corpus while they drown it in delays and legal loopholes.

Tuesday’s congressional testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem turned heads for all the wrong reasons. Pressed to define “habeas corpus,” she stumbled. And while I respect Noem, this moment revealed just how dangerously misunderstood one of our most vital legal protections has become — especially as it’s weaponized in the immigration debate.

Habeas corpus is not a loophole. It’s a shield. It’s the constitutional protection that prevents a government from detaining a person — any person — without first justifying the detention before a neutral judge. It doesn’t guarantee freedom. It demands due process. Prove it or release them.

Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

And yet, this doctrine — so essential to our liberty — is now being twisted by the political left into something it was never meant to be: a free pass for illegal immigration.

The left wants to frame this as a matter of compassion and rights. Leftists ask: “What about habeas corpus for migrants?” The implication is clear: They see any attempt to enforce immigration law as an attack on civil liberties.

But that’s a lie. Habeas corpus is not an excuse for indefinite presence. It doesn’t guarantee that every person who crosses the border gets to stay. It simply requires that we follow a process — a just process.

And that’s exactly what President Donald Trump has proposed.

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Habeas corpus is the front door to the courtroom. It simply requires the government to justify why someone is being held or detained. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about human dignity.

America’s founders knew this — and that’s why they extended the right to persons, not just citizens. Habeas corpus isn’t a pass to stay in America forever — it’s a demand for legal clarity: “Why are you holding me?” That’s it.

If the government has a lawful reason — such as illegal entry — then deportation is a legitimate outcome. And yet, the left treats any enforcement of immigration law as a betrayal of American ideals.

The danger today isn’t that habeas corpus is being ignored; it’s that it’s being hijacked. The system is being overwhelmed with bad-faith cases, endless appeals, and delays that stretch for years. Right now, the immigration courts are buried under 3.3 million pending cases. The average wait time to have your case heard is four years. In some places, people are being scheduled for court dates as far out in 2032. Where is the justice in that?

This is not compassion. This is national sabotage.

Weaponizing due process

The left uses this legal bottleneck as a weapon, not a shield. Democrats invoke due process as if it requires the government to play a never-ending shell game with public safety. But that’s not what due process means. Due process means the state must play by the rules. It means a judge hears a case. It means the law is applied justly and equally. It does not mean an open border by procedural default.

So no, Trump is not proposing the end of habeas corpus. He’s calling out a broken system and saying, out loud, what millions of Americans already know: If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country.

This crisis wasn’t an accident — it was engineered. It’s a Cloward-Piven playbook, designed to overwhelm the system. Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

Abandon the Constitution?

Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But how do we balance the Constitution and our national survival without descending into authoritarianism? Abandon the Constitution? No. Burn the house down to get rid of the rats? Absolutely not. The Constitution itself gives us the tools to take on this crisis head on.

The federal government has clear authority over immigration. Illegal presence in the United States is not a protected right. Congress has the power to deny entry, enforce expedited removals, and reject bogus asylum claims. Much of this is already authorized by law — it’s simply not being used.

President Trump’s idea is simple: Use the tools we already have. Declare the southern border a national security emergency. Establish temporary military tribunals for triage. Process asylum claims swiftly outside the clogged court system. Restore “Remain in Mexico” so that the border is no longer a remote court room. Appoint more immigration judges, assign them to high-volume areas, and hold streamlined hearings that still respect due process.

That’s not authoritarian. That’s leadership.

The path forward

Trump is not trying to destroy habeas corpus. He’s trying to save it from being twisted into a self-destructive parody of itself. Leftists have turned due process into delay, justice into gridlock, and they’re dragging the entire country into their chaos.

It’s time to draw the line. Protect habeas corpus. Use it lawfully. Use it wisely. And yes — use it to restore order at the border. Because if we lose that firewall, we lose the republic.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

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Editor's note: This article is sponsored by Chapter.

The U.S. government has filed a major lawsuit under the False Claims Act, targeting some of the biggest names in health insurance—Aetna, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), and Humana—along with top insurance brokers eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote. The allegation? From 2016 to at least 2021, these companies funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to brokers to steer seniors into their Medicare Advantage plans.

If the allegations are true, it means many Americans may have been steered into Medicare Advantage plans that weren’t necessarily the best fit for their needs—not because the plans were better, but because brokers were incentivized by illegal kickbacks.

The Kickback Conspiracy

Navigating Medicare Advantage’s maze of plan options is daunting, so beneficiaries rely on brokers like eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote, who claim to be unbiased guides. But from 2016 to 2021, insurers Aetna, Humana, and Elevance Health allegedly paid brokers millions in kickbacks to favor their plans, regardless of quality. Disguised as “co-op” or “marketing” deals, these payments were tied to enrollment targets. Internal emails revealed executives knew this violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, with one eHealth leader joking that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would miss a $15 million Humana deal for minimal enrollments. Brokers used call routing to prioritize high-paying insurers, betraying beneficiaries’ trust.

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

The scheme wasn’t just about profits—it targeted vulnerable beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage must accept all eligible enrollees, including disabled people under 65. Yet Aetna and Humana allegedly pressured brokers to limit their enrollment, as these beneficiaries were deemed to be less profitable. Brokers complied, rejecting referrals and filtering calls to favor healthier enrollees, incentivized by bonuses. This violated federal anti-discrimination laws and CMS contracts, undermining the founding principles of Medicare by discriminating against the very people it was created to aid.

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

The schemes led to false claims to CMS, with insurers certifying enrollments as “valid” despite kickbacks and discrimination. The government paid billions, unaware of the fraud. Examples include Humana’s $12,477 for a 2016 enrollment and Aetna’s $79,047 for a 2020 case. On May 1, 2025, the U.S. filed suit, seeking treble damages and penalties under the False Claims Act. Aetna and others deny the allegations, per May 2025 reports, promising a fierce defense. The case, demanding a jury trial, seeks justice for beneficiaries and taxpayers.

POLL: Does Brooklyn crash expose a cyber sabotage plot?

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A Mexican Navy ship crashing into the Brooklyn Bridge has left the nation stunned, and Glenn is demanding answers.

Are recent devastating ship collisions—first Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in 2024, now Brooklyn in 2025—really just accidents, or is something far more sinister at play? Glenn recently warned that these incidents, both involving foreign vessels losing power near critical U.S. infrastructure, could be “shark bumps” by foreign adversaries testing our defenses through cyber sabotage. With the government and media quick to dismiss concerns, Glenn is calling for urgent investigations into possible hacking, independent audits of our ports and bridges, and a serious look at whether our enemies are exploiting vulnerabilities in our digitized systems.

Glenn wants to know what you think: Are these crashes coincidental, or are we under attack? Let us know in the poll below:

Could the recent ship crashes into American bridges be the result of cyber attacks by foreign adversaries?

Should the US government investigate these incidents for possible foreign interference?

Is our critical infrastructure adequately protected from cyber threats?

Are you concerned that foreign adversaries might be targeting US infrastructure through cyber means?

Do you think the media and government are properly addressing the security concerns raised by these incidents?

Glenn: Biden’s autopen scandal rocks White House

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Top Democrats knew Biden’s health was deteriorating but covered it up to keep power. Jake Tapper’s book finally lifts the lid on their deception.

Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book confirms what we suspected all along: Joe Biden’s health was rapidly declining, and the Democratic Party establishment knew it. Rather than be honest with the American people, they chose to cover it up, to prop up Biden just long enough to survive the election cycle. And the media helped them do it.

For years, any mention of Biden’s cognitive decline was framed as a “right-wing smear,” a baseless conspiracy theory. But now, Tapper and Thompson reveal that Biden’s top aides privately discussed the need for a wheelchair after the election — because the man can hardly walk.

We had no functioning president for much of the past administration.

And while Biden’s closest aides were planning that, they and their allies in the press were publicly spinning the fantasy that Joe Biden’s halting gait was due to a heroic foot fracture from a dog-related incident four years ago. They said his frailty was due to his “vigor.” That’s not a joke. That’s a quote.

And while they said this, they were having special shoes made for him with custom-made soles to help him stand. They weren’t planning for a second term. They were planning how to prop him up — literally — just long enough to survive the election. That is a cover-up.

It doesn’t bother me that Biden might need a wheelchair. What bothers me — what should bother every American — is that his aides talked about hiding it until after the election.

Biden wasn’t leading

Needing a wheelchair in your 80s is not a moral failing. It’s human. I own President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wheelchair — it sits in my museum. That chair represents the strength and resilience of a man who, despite paralysis, led this nation through World War II against a dictator who was gassing the disabled and infirm. He hid his disability out of fear the public wouldn’t accept a leader who couldn’t walk. But he led.

Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images

But Joe Biden wasn’t leading. He was a puppet played by faceless swamp creatures whose only concern was maintaining their iron grip on power.

Whatever you think of Tapper, the book reveals the chilling reality that we had no functioning president for much of Biden’s administration. Our commander-in-chief wasn’t just aging — he was declining. And the people around him — government employees, funded by your tax dollars — weren’t honest with you. They lied to you repeatedly and willfully because the truth would have guaranteed a second Trump term. That’s what this was all about.

Who signed the pardons?

Consider the implications of this revelation. We had a president signing documents he didn’t read — or even know about. We had an autopen affixing his name to executive actions. Who operated that autopen? Who decided what got signed or who got pardoned? Who was in charge while the president didn’t even know what he was doing?

Those are not minor questions. That is the stuff of a constitutional crisis.

The problem isn’t Biden’s age. The problem is that the people you elected didn’t run the country. You were governed by unelected aides covering up your elected president’s rapid cognitive decline. You were fed a lie — over and over again. And if anyone tried to blow the whistle, they got buried.

Don’t get distracted by the wheelchair. The chair itself is not the scandal. The scandal is that people inside your government didn’t want you to know about it.

They made a bet: Lie until November, and deal with the fallout later. That is an insult to the American people — and a threat to the republic itself. Because if your government can lie about who’s running the country, what else are they lying about?

We need further investigation and to hold these crooks accountable. If we don’t, it will happen over and over again.