[Beck:] Milk prices up 18 percent. Price of eggs 40 percent higher than the same egg that you bought last year. But somehow or another, the cost of beef is dropping. Wow. How come? And how is that connected connected to Washington`s obsession with ethanol? Wait until you hear the insanity in tonight`s "Real Story." It`s coming up. Barack Obama easily won victory last night in Democratic the Democratic primary in Mississippi. That gives him a substantial lead in delegate count over Hillary Clinton. So what does the No. 1 Democrat have to now say about the voters` No. 1 issue?
[Sen. Barack Obama , Presidential Candidate:] The truth is, working families are struggling today in large measure because the failure of leadership and the failure of imagination in Washington. It`s a Washington where George Bush hands out billions of dollars in tax cuts year after year to the biggest corporations and the wealthiest few who don`t need them and weren`t even asking for them.
[Beck:] I need them. I`m asking I didn`t know I had to ask. I`m asking. Can I have one, please? Jeez, talking about the middle class and their economic hardships, central to both Democratic campaigns. And don`t get me wrong. A lot of hardship happening in this country right now, because Washington had too much imagination, and they`ve screwed things up. Now, both say they want to roll back the tax cuts that President Bush passed in 2003. Well, you know, the Robin Hood approach, it hits home with people, because there are a lot more middle class Americans than rich ones, although there are more rich every single year coming out of the middle class. Taking from the rich and giving to the poor sounds so romantic and nice, doesn`t it? But it doesn`t address the financial needs of you, the average earner. And here is why. Maintaining the tax cuts that Bush established in 2003 is not a political favor to the rich. The wealthiest now are paying more taxes than ever before. Look it up. Go ahead, Keith Olbermann, get back to me. It`s good for everybody, because it puts capital in the hands of business, not giants like Exxon but places like Stanley`s Plumbing and Mom`s Diner and all the small businesses that make up 70 percent of all business in America. Those businesses have three basic choices when it comes to what they can do with their non-taxed income. They can consume it. They can save it. Or best of all, they can invest it and expand their business. All three of those choices improve the economic health of the middle class. John Tamny, he`s the editor of Real Clear Markets and a senior economist at H.C. Wainwright Economics. Sorry, John. Explain, if you will, because I I`m so tired of explaining to liberals and progressives the way the tax thing works because it works the same way over and over and over again. They have been proven wrong, that higher taxes mean more income for the government and is better for the middle class. Can you do it maybe one last time and speak slowly for any of Keith Olbermann`s staff that might be watching?
[John Tamny, Editor, "real Clear Markets":] Well, I think it`s amazing that Barack Obama can say this about helping the middle class by hurting the rich. And what the middle classes have to understand is when Obama talks about raising taxes on the rich, what taxes on the rich, what he`s really saying is he will lower the wages of the middle classes. Because as you point out, businesses are reliant on capital. When the rich have more money, when they get to hold on to more of their money, they can consume it, they can save it or they can invest it. All three accrue to the wages of the worker. And when we raise the taxes on the rich, we, once again, reduce the amount of income that the middle classes can receive.
[Beck:] I`ve never worked for a poor person. Never. I mean, I`ve never I`ve never heard...
[Tamny:] Neither have
[I. Beck:] A poor person has never come up to me and said, "You know what? I`m going to create a new business." Unless it was somebody who had an idea and then became rich and created jobs. I, as a small business owner, I`m a guy who had health insurance raised on my company. I cover everything for my employees. It`s the best health insurance we can possibly buy. It the premium went up 48 percent this year, and my company took that whole hit. Now what am I going to do when I`m paying I saw an estimate, that if a Democrat gets in, I`m going to pay about 50 percent of my income in taxes plus out-of-control healthcare and everything else. What`s going to happen? I`m going to lay people off. How do they not understand that?
[Tamny:] It`s a remarkable thing. And I think what it speaks to is that they are actually very Obama and Clinton are very contemptuous of the voters that want to vote for them. They think that they are so obtuse as to not understand that when you tax the successful people in society, what you do is you harm the chances of the middle classes. It`s amazing.
[Beck:] You know what, John? Help me out on this one, because this is why John McCain ain`t my candidate, Hillary is not, Barack Obama is certainly not. But John McCain doesn`t get it either. He`s been against the tax cuts over and over and over again. And he can say, "Oh, I get it now on immigration and taxes." But he`s never proven himself to get it.
[Tamny:] I think you`re absolutely right. And I think it`s so naive for Republicans to assume that McCain has just figured out taxes. He`s been in Washington since the `70s.
[Beck:] That`s the problem.
[Tamny:] It`s a problem, but it`s also something he`s witnessed the successful impact of tax cuts numerous times. And he still voted against the 2003 Bush tax cuts. We`re supposed to believe now that he`s discovered...
[Beck:] Yes.
[Tamny:] ... the positive effect of tax cuts? To believe that is ridiculous. I think he`s campaigning right now. It`s pure politics. But to believe for a second that he`s actually going to push for tax cuts when he`s in office...
[Beck:] Fantasy land. John, appreciate it. Now, I know this Robin Hood, you know, ideal of steal from the rich and give to the poor is really a popular progressive sentiment right now, almost Marxist in its thinking. And you may be sitting here and going, "Gee, Glenn, I don`t know why you hate so many poor people." Nothing could be further from the truth. I`m just emulating the ideas of yet another hate monger who said, and I quote, "Let not him who is houseless pull down a house of another, but let him work diligently to build one for himself." Oh, our hate-monger of the day, Abraham Lincoln.