Limbaugh: “Economic Recovery Is Not Caused By The Middle Class”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From the July 23 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Now, here's the next New York Times story. This one -- this one is unbelievable. It's by Annie Lowrey. “President Obama says prosperity does not trickle down and that a rising tide does not lift all boats. The conservative policies predicated on those ideas, Obama maintains, amount to a you're-on-your-own economics, when the country really needs a we're-in-this-together approach.”
In short, what Obama is gonna say in these speeches -- I want you to look at me, I want you to hear this so that you know what's coming, because when the press amplifies this and applauds it, you are going to become enraged. The president is going to say that prosperity comes from the middle out. “Prosperity needs to come from the 'middle out' rather than the top down.” Never mind that this has never, not once, worked. It has never succeeded, this formula of the middle class leading the economic rebound. It's not possible. The middle class benefits from it, but an economic recovery is not caused by the middle class. An economic expansion is not caused by the middle class. The middle class, by and large, are consumers.
In order for the middle class to consume to the level that economic growth takes place, they must be paid a lot of money. And in order for that to happen, the businesses where they work must grow. The places where they are employed must do well. They must be making more. They must have more customers they're servicing. Whatever the enterprise is, it has to grow so that people working there earn more, get raises, get more benefits, and so that new people get hired. This idea that the economy bubbles up from below is absurd.
That's what Obama's gonna sell, though. Obama is gonna sell “we've gotta take more money from the rich and we've gotta raise taxes on businesses and we gotta get that money to the middle class where it will cause the economy to grow.” That's not how this happens. You start taking money away -- just like the government takes from the private sector -- the private sector shrinks. You take money away from the rich and business owners and entrepreneurs, you get less of what they do, including employment.
Previously:
Limbaugh Perverts Obama's Rejection Of Trickle-Down Economics Into An Attack On America