GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
GLENN: All right. Stephen, how are you, sir?
MOORE: Hi, Glenn.
GLENN: First of all, let's start with this fact check. By the way, if you don't know who Stephen Moore is, he started Club For Growth. He's now the lead economic editorialist for the Wall Street Journal. Hey, you are reviewing my book, aren't you?
MOORE: I love the book. And by the way, did you see when I was on earlier this week, we caused quite a stir with the liberal bloggers.
GLENN: Oh, I didn't see it. What happened?
MOORE: Oh, they have been saying, you know, that, you know, when we were talking about taxes, raise tax cuts, raising more revenues, it caused a huge stir among all the liberal bloggers saying, lie about the data and --
GLENN: How is that possible? I want to try to be fair here.
MOORE: Yeah.
GLENN: Try to be fair and I know that's very tough for us, Stephen, but try to be fair. How do you make a case it's not true?
MOORE: Well, look. Sometimes when you cut tax rates, you know, you are not going to get as much revenue as you would have gotten but there's no question when George Bush cut the capital gains tax in 2003 and when we cut the income tax rate, I mean, we got a huge throe of revenues. In fact, we had $700 billion in new tax revenues over the last three years. And my other favorite example of this is in the 1980s when we cut the top income tax rate from 70% all the way down to 28%, over that decade -- and you can look this up in President Bill Clinton's own budget documents. The federal revenues doubled. They doubled from $500 billion to $1 trillion. Now, Glenn, that's not a revenue loss.
GLENN: But how do you -- again, how do they make the case? What stat are they trying to quote?
MOORE: Here's what they say. They say if we hadn't cut taxes, we would have had even more revenues. But you can't disprove that. I mean, you can't ever say what might have happened if we hadn't done it. All we could say is every time we cut taxes in the Sixties, in the Eighties and now in the 2000s, every time we have done it, we have gotten more revenues, not less.
GLENN: So what they're trying to do is disprove a fact by using a theory?
MOORE: Exactly.
GLENN: Yeah.
Stephen Moore |
MOORE: And it's a problem because in Washington what happens is we have these official scores. The people actually tell us how much a tax cut is going to cost and so any time any conservative says, well, let's cut the estate tax or let's cut the capital gains tax, the scores always say, oh, this is going to cause a huge amount of lost revenue, we can't afford to do it when all they have to do is look at history. Glenn, all they have to do is look at the history books and see what happens every time we do it. We cut the taxes, we get more revenues.
GLENN: Are you amazed, Stephen, at the people? We were just playing a clip from The View. I know you probably spend every day watching The View.
MOORE: Oh, Oprah -- I mean not Oprah. You mean Whoopi? I love this story. It's too good to be true. Remember when I was on your show a few weeks ago when Warren Buffett came to town and said we have to increase the estate tax. The liberal media was all over it saying what a statesman he is for wanting higher estate taxes. Now, Whoopi Goldberg gets it right. She says, look, when I die, I shouldn't have to pay more taxes. I already paid my taxes when I was alive and, boy, have the liberals come down against her.
GLENN: I love these people who are always for bigger government, always for higher taxes but when it actually hits them, they are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that doesn't -- I've already paid my taxes; that doesn't seem fair. I don't think the death tax seems fair to anyone.
MOORE: That was what was so great about -- people should actually read the dialogue because when Whoopi Goldberg said on the show, I don't think anybody should have to pay tax when they die, all the other liberals on that -- I've got to tell you, Glenn, I'm not a regular viewer of that TV show, The View but all the other liberals on the show, they are like hyperventilating when she said she didn't want to have the estate tax.
GLENN: I'm so surprised. Here he is the chief guy for the editorials of the financial section of the Wall Street Journal. You are telling me you don't watch Joy Behar religiously?
MOORE: I don't care too much what Rosie O'Donnell has to say.
GLENN: Stephen, she said -- and I think she's wrong. She said that everybody is saying that the death tax is a double tax and that's not true. She says it is true. I say she's wrong. It's a triple tax.
MOORE: Good point. Yeah, because you pay your taxes when you earn it. Then you have to pay a capital gains or a dividend tax if anything comes in to you. And then if you do the right thing and you save up your money so you can leave a little bit of your business and your assets to your kids, which is really what the American dream is all about, the Government comes in with a -- right now it's a 45% estate tax. And don't forget, Glenn. I mean, this is something important for your listeners. In 2010 the estate tax goes down to zero but in 2011 it goes all the way back up to 55%.
GLENN: Okay, hang on just a second. I missed one because it's not triple. It's quadruple tax.
MOORE: Which one did we miss?
GLENN: Didn't we miss if you give it to your children, don't they have to pay tax on it as well?
MOORE: Well, there's not an inheritance tax. In other words, what happens is the money is taxed out of the estate. So if your parents or grandparents leave, you know, a --
GLENN: I don't have to pay any kind of capital gains, nothing? That's free and clear for the recipient?
MOORE: Exactly. And so you basically get the assets after the estate tax is paid. But don't forget, Glenn, in a lot of cases that's over half of the -- the Government, the IRS gets more than half of your estate.
GLENN: And I love the fact that last time we were on, Stephen, you know, you told a story that, of course, Warren Buffett is for this. This is the way he cannibalizes family businesses. He goes in and he buys, like, Dairy Queen because they couldn't afford the estate tax. Stephen, we'll look for your articles in The Wall Street Journal. God bless you. We'll talk to you again soon.
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