Mac, iPhone, and iPad user Rush Limbaugh today discussed Apple’s appearance before U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations regarding corporate taxes on his radio program that, since its inception on August 1, 1988, is the highest-rated talk radio show in the United States.
The 3-hour Rush Limbaugh Show airs daily on a network of approximately 590 AM and FM affiliate stations. The program is also broadcast worldwide on the U.S. Armed Forces Radio Network. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that Rush Limbaugh was the most trusted news personality in the nation.
From the live transcript:
As we speak, ladies and gentlemen, the Senate — some stupid, idiotic committee — is attempting to blame Apple Inc. for the deficit, for the national debt, unemployment, and tax fraud. (Ah, I should be careful!) The interesting thing is that nobody — and, by the way, the Senate committee chairman here of whatever this committee is, is Carl Levin. He’s a liberal Democrat from Michigan, but he has an echo. He has a Republican echoing everything he says.
That would be Senator McCain.
Senator John McCain is joining in this senatorial effort to crucify Apple Inc. over taxes. You want the truth? And, by the way, I could probably spend a half hour telling you everything Apple is doing tax-wise. I have spent a lot of time last night learning how Apple is using tax law. They’re not breaking it. Nobody, nobody — not Carl Levin, nor any of his witnesses, nobody — is accusing Apple of violating tax law. Yet they’re being persecuted today…
The only person on the committee defending Apple, and defending the concept of low taxes and limited government, is Senator Rand Paul. Apple Inc. pays more taxes than any US corporation. GE ought to be up there explaining how they don’t pay any tax on their multiple billion dollars of earnings. Instead, it’s Apple. Apple paid $6 billion last year to the US Treasury. To put that in perspective, that’s $16 million a day Apple paid in taxes. Apple pays 2.5% of all income tax collected by the US Treasury…
Apple is to the United States government what Clarence Thomas was to the civil rights coalition. How dare you get this big sidestepping us…
I’m just assuming that most of the people out at Apple are politically liberal, and so the question I’m getting is, “Rush, how do you feel? These guys are in their inquisition, and the president they supported and the Democrats they vote for are giving ’em hell today and attacking them and trying to destroy their company, destroy their image. Don’t you just have a little schadenfreude, Rush? Aren’t you just a little pleased to see this?”
I said, “No. I am totally frustrated.” This kind of thing totally frustrates me, that otherwise intelligent people can be this kind of wrong, and I’m wondering how these Apple execs feel. There’s one guy in that Senate committee that’s defending them — and to the left, this guy is a racist, extremist, Looney Toon, wacko, Tea Party kook by the name of Rand Paul. He’s the only senator in this committee defending Apple, the only senator on this committee defending low taxes…
You know, imagine this, folks: You have this bunch of senators who’ve demonstrated they’re totally inept at balancing a budget; they’re totally inept at administering the country in a reasonable fiscal sense. They can’t manage the nation. It’s horrible what these senators have done — and members of the House, too — and here they are preaching to the CEO and the CFO of perhaps the country’s most profitable corporation, the country’s most successful corporation.
They ought to be asking these guys at Apple for help. They ought to be asking these guys at Apple for their advice. But I know it’s all a game because most of these people at Apple support the very people that are ripping ’em today. Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, just did an interview in the New York Times. She talked about how she’s gonna start doing more for climate change, gun control, and immigration. I guess it didn’t help. The Senate still went after her husband’s company.
Much more in the full transcript here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
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