GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

GLENN: Let me go to Stephen Moore who is a, what is your title at the Wall Street Journal? He's a bigwig financial guru, smartest man, "hey, I'm smarter than you are" kind of guy and a good friend of the program and I'm glad you're here, Stephen, how are you?

MOORE: Hi, Glenn, how are you?

GLENN: Before we get into Warren Buffett and death taxes, I love what you wrote. Let me just ask you this. I'm taking a quick poll today on the air of the Democratic debate is happening tonight. Will the -- two-part question. Will the Democrats for the first time in any of the debates utter the two words Islamic extremists? Yes or no.

Stephen Moore

MOORE: Oh, that's easy. No.

GLENN: No?

MOORE: Not in their vocabulary.

GLENN: Here's the next question. If by chance they do, what will the ratio be between Islamic extremists and wealthiest 1%?

MOORE: Well, I would say a ratio, if they mention it.

GLENN: If they mention it.

MOORE: Islamo terrorism, it will happen once and they will mention the top 1% a thousand times.

GLENN: Right. And it will probably be like, why is everybody concentrating on Islamic extremists when we should be -

MOORE: The other thing they will do, Glenn, is the ratio, talk about water boarding and Guantanamo will be about 50:1.

GLENN: Unbelievable.

MOORE: Versus the war on terrorism.

GLENN: Okay, I want to talk to you about Warren Buffett. Yesterday he wanted to let everybody know the death tax is a good thing. Here's the wealthiest man in the world. I love how you began this editorial. Yesterday America's richest man Warren Buffett attracted Capitol Hill where he received red carpeted hero's welcome. Gee, if only General Petraeus who leads our troops in Iraq on the war on terror received such admiration when he led the war on Capitol Hill. How true is that?

MOORE: It was a hero's welcome, no question about it. Anytime a rich person comes to Capitol Hill and says tax me more, he's going to get that kind of adulation.

GLENN: I wonder how it is the Democrats want to eat the rich except those rich who say, please take more of my money.

MOORE: Well, you know, there was an interesting study that just came out last week that the real super rich, the guys who are making, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars on Wall Street and the people in technology, the Google people, they're Democrats. They're Democrats and they're all for taxing people more. You know, they can afford it. If you've got billions, you can afford to play a little more. It's little guys like you and me that can't afford their taxes.

GLENN: No, I've got to tell you, Stephen, I don't care how much I make. It is the inherent unfairness of the system. Why would we penalize people for making more? I mean, for instance, you know, I've got a book out. You know, it's not for smart people like you, you know, that know the economy. It's for simpletons like me but in it I talk about John Edwards where he just wants to tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, and at the time he's talking about it, he's talking about building a 23,000 square foot megamansion.

MOORE: How many -- how many global warming gases is that going to emit.

GLENN: Yeah. So I think to myself it is not only wrong but it is un-American to say, let's take some more money away from people, let's take this away and hurt the rich man, and I don't know if I'm evil for saying that or if I'm just quoting Abraham Lincoln. I mean --

MOORE: Yeah. Well, how many people have ever been hired by a poor person. I mean, you know, I've said this before on your show. Liberals love jobs but they hate employers. They hate people that actually do the employing and hiring of people. You know, it was amazing hearing yesterday, though, Glenn, because what happened was, you know, here you have the second richest guy in the entire United States, only behind Bill Gates saying, oh, you know, people can afford to pay these higher taxes, we should have a higher death tax and so on. And then the three people who he's on the panel with were all genuine small businessmen, who have businesses, you know, between, say, $5 and $25 million which is small to medium size business.

GLENN: Sure.

MOORE: And they all said if Warren Buffett has his way with these higher estate taxes, my business goes away. So the super rich like Warren Buffett can afford it. By the way, he's got all of his money in charitable trusts and other types of tax dodges. So even if congress has 100% estate tax, he is not going to pay any. But these people who are, you know, employing 50 or 100 or 300 people, those are the businesses that get hammered by this tax.

GLENN: I have to tell you, I was going to start, and I still am, I'm just -- I'm just waiting to see what happens in the next 18 months. I'm starting a business that has nothing to do with radio or anything else. I'm starting a small business in a small town. It will employ about 40 people and it will be, you know, a smaller business that, you know, will probably be, you know, -- I don't know how much, you know, a year, but it will employ a lot of people in a small town that needs this labor.

MOORE: Right.

GLENN: I intentionally don't do it because if they change the tax structure dramatically, I won't be able to afford to employ those people and my business would implode.

MOORE: Yeah, and who are the people who get most hurt by that, Glenn?

GLENN: The people who I would employ.

MOORE: The people that get hurt the most, not you because, you know, you'd probably survive without this business. It's the 30 or 40 or 50 people --

GLENN: Exactly.

MOORE: -- you might otherwise hire who would be earning $15, whatever, I don't know what kinds of jobs these would be. But that's the point. The people who get really hurt by these kinds of high taxes are the people whose jobs go away.

GLENN: It's absolutely amazing how they just don't get it because if I -- you know, I'm lucky enough to be in a very good position financially right now, but if you start hammering me or my corporate taxes, I will -- it won't hurt me the way you think it's going to hurt. I will contract the business.

MOORE: Yeah.

GLENN: How do you get this across to these dummies.

MOORE: Well, there was a great moment in history yesterday, a poignant moment where after Warren Buffett said how wonderful it would be to have the higher death tax, this gentleman who owns a grain company in Iowa said, look -- he was asked point blank, what happens if we come back with a 50 or 55% estate tax and he said, I go out of business. Then he points to Warren Buffett and he said, you know what, Warren Buffett probably buys my business because one of the ways Warren Buffett, he's a great capitalist, one of the ways he's made a lot of money is big distressed companies, buying businesses that had to have fire sales because the heirs of the company couldn't afford to pay the death taxes.

GLENN: You know what, is this article in today's journal?

MOORE: No, it will be in tomorrow.

GLENN: In tomorrow's journal?

MOORE: I have you an advanced copy, my friend.

GLENN: I love you for that. Wait until you see this, America. This is fantastic. You didn't take this and say he probably buys it. You took it the next step and you did your homework. Which companies did he buy that were family-run death taxed to death and he swoops in? You want to list them?

MOORE: Oh, I remember some of them off the top of my head. He's a majority holder in Dairy Queen and he got control of Dairy Queen by buying shares of people who had to sell because of the death tax. There's a major jewelry chain out in the northwest. I forget the exact name on this that he bought.

GLENN: Jordan's.

MOORE: He bought furniture companies. In every one of these instances, either myself or others have interviewed the people sold and they said, we had to sell this business, we had to sell the ranch, the farm, the family business because we couldn't afford to pay the taxes. You know, and how -- you know, when you think about it, how really evil is this tax? Here you have the most traumatic experience. Your father or your mother dies and then you have to sell the business they spent their whole life putting their sweat equity in because 55% of it goes to Uncle Sam.

GLENN: Let me ask you this. If Warren Buffett really believed in the death tax, why did he just give half of his holdings to charity? Why didn't he just wait to die?

MOORE: Very good question, Glenn. I wish you could have him on your show to say that. If you think about it, look, he gave $30 billion to the Bill and Linda Gates foundation. Great charitable gift, I applaud him for giving his money to charity. But when you think about it, that $30 billion gift was the greatest estate tax dodge in the history of America. Yet this same guy has the gall to then come up on Capitol Hill and say, you know what, those little guys, they should be paying more estate tax.

GLENN: Yeah. Barack Obama said last week, "I deserve to pay more."

MOORE: Right.

GLENN: Barack, hear me loud and clear. You can pay more. No one's stopping you. I don't want to pay more.

MOORE: That's the thing. You know, you should set one "Tax me more" fund for all these liberals who want to pay higher taxes.

GLENN: Yeah, nothing -- nothing stopping you. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it, Stephen. You bet, bye-bye. That's in tomorrow's Wall Street Journal.

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