'How good were you with math?': Glenn confronts Mike Lee on his controversial tax plan

April 15, 2015

WRITER

Senator Mike Lee helped co-author the controversial tax plan presented by Senator Marco Rubio and Glenn confronted him on the facts today on radio. Glenn, who has been one of Lee’s most vocal supporters, asked him if he was as good at math as he is the law.

GLENN: So yesterday, we read the Rubio Tax Plan, and we think it's butt ugly. However, the Easter egg, as we called it yesterday, was -- the co-sponsor was Mike Lee. So that got us scratching your heads, because we know Mike Lee. And maybe the brilliance of this is it only looks butt ugly, and that's the genes you, because all the Democrats will say this is butt ugly if you are conservative. Mike Lee is smarter than we are. We are missing something. Please tell me that is the case, Mike Lee.

LEE: That is absolutely the case. Thank you for having me on the show. It is hard to get people's attention when introducing a tax plan --

GLENN: Oh, no. Not on America's "Charity Day", when we all feel so very charitable for all the money we gave to the charity called the government?

LEE: Right. Right.

PAT: What are we missing --

LEE: Charity does not take money from people at the point of a gun. Look, our current tax code is bad, okay. It consists of tens of thousands of pages, together with implementing regulations. The current tax code discourages work, savings, investment, new business formation, marriage, and even having children. That's bad. So what we are trying to do is offset that.

I agree with what you were saying a minute ago. It would be great if we had a single rate system. What was true for Malachi ought to be true for government. There ought to be one rate. The problem is you can't really get there from here. You can't really go from a seven-rate system to a one-rate system without raising taxes on a lot of poor and middle class folks.

So we want to simplify the code and do it in a way that's pro-growth and pro-family and offsets the penalties against the very things the government is discouraging right now and ought not be discouraging any longer.

PAT: How did the Russians do it?

LEE: I'm not really an expert in Soviet tax policy.

GLENN: Maybe you should ask someone in the Obama administration. They know all about the Soviets.

PAT: Seriously, this a tax increase for people -- we were figuring about $116,000 to $600,000 some, an increase for them, right?

LEE: No. That is a distortion brought about through the media

PAT: We were looking at it, thinking it looks like an increase.

STU: I know there's more deductions in there, so how do you get rid of that? Seems like the people in that group would pay a little more by the basic numbers.

LEE: The other overwhelming majority of them would not. 80% of all Americans would pay under a simple rate. You could call it a flat rate of 15% under the plan. All income learned below $75,000 by single filerswould be taxed a 15% under this plan, subjection to two deductions.

Then all income below $150,000 for people filing jointly, married, would be taxed at 15% also. We think it is a huge improvement over the status quo, because we don't think your taxes should go up significantly just because you get married. And right now, that is true. Today, some of hat income below $75,000 for singles and below $150,000 for joint filers is taxed at 25%, not under 15% rate, as it would be under our plan. Importantly, and I think it has been misrepresented in the press on this point, is that your tax bill wouldn't jump to 35% on all of your earnings once you make $151,000. Instead, you would pay 15% on $150,000 and 35% of the marginal $1,000 over that level.

GLENN: Can I ask a question? You are saying that we are worried about you are going to raise the taxes on a lot of people paying at the lower end. So you've got a 15% flat tax there, right?

LEE: Yes.

PAT: Two rates.

GLENN: So why don't we do one 15 and one 25 over 150?

LEE: That would been one approach, but as we have run the numbers, we think it is the best way of making it work in a way that doesn't add unduly to our deficit.

This is a work in progress. Rome wasn't built in a day, we are open to all kinds of suggestions. We are open to considering something like that. We weren't able to make the numbers work the first round when we put it together.

But this is still a big tax cut. This is still a $1 trillion tax cut, and that's putting it conservatively. Some would say it is more like a $4 trillion tax cut. This is a very aggressive tax cut, a Reagan-esque type of tax cut. You could say a lot of things about it, but you can't call a tax hike, under any interpretation, any form of mathematics cannot call this --

GLENN: You are so good with the law. How good were you at math? I just want some assurance here, because I trust you, Mike and I like you, and you are really truly one of the good guys, but we are look at this and we just don't see this the same way. We are trying to figure this out.

STU: I'm sure you have accounted for this. But looking at it from the surface, right now, there's a 35% bracket, which kicks in at $411,000 before you start paying that. Now that same rate kicks in at $75,000 with your plan. That is a significant change. I understand the rate below 75,000 for some people will be lower, but that's a big change. You are getting hit with a high rate at $75,000.

LEE: Well, that first $75,000 or first $150,000, if you are married and filing jointly, is never taxed at 35%. It's taxed at 15%, and a --

GLENN: But at $76,000, if I am single, I am paying 35%.

LEE: Yeah. I've got lots of charts and things I could show you, if we were there, but the overwhelming majority of people would not see any tax increase on this, and for most Americans, this would be a very significant tax cut. As important as anything else, it is a tax code simplification. We have to remember, complexity is a subsidy for lawyers and for accountants, for lobbyists and for people who make their business the process of contacting and influences government.

So there are no easy fixes here, but part of the beauty of this plan is that it would dramatically simplify the tax code. It is pro-family, pro-growth, and this is a tax cut plan Reagan would be proud of.

GLENN: Tell me about businesses.

LEE: On the business side, we lower the rate quite significantly down to 20%. We look to a single layer taxation system, and it's at 25%. It's a business tax rate of 25%. We get rid of the double taxation that's in our existing code on the business side by eliminating taxes on capital gains and on dividends. And so we think this is incentivizing all the right things, incentivizing investment and business formation. And overall, it's diminishing the disincentives, the penalties the government is currently putting in place on getting married and having children.

We don't think the government should be involved in those decisions. It shouldn't. And it currently is, and it is punishing the very people who are building our society and getting married and having children. We shouldn't be doing that. We also shouldn't be disincentivizing people from forming businesses.

STU: Seems like every conservative that has looked at this plan loved the business side of this. It really does look like it is a role pro-growth plan and would really help people not only in corporations, but also LLCs and things like that, correct?

LEE: Yes. And it would also be very, very helpful to growing small businesses. It would allow for immediate full expensing to provide tax relief for grows small businesses. So look, Americans, all Americans, will end up being wealthier on this. They will end up having more disposable income, end up with a lot for economic growth as a result.

I'm not saying it's perfect or the kind of plan I would design if we were designing a tax plan ab initio. We have to start

with the government that we have, rather than the one that might have been, had we more sanity in your government over the years.

STU: Real quick, before Glenn comes in with a much smarter question, I'm sure. Reading the way it's structured, it seems to me that what you are doing here -- and there's a lot of good things. The business side is good. I think the vast majority of people, individual earners would pay less under the plan. Not just the majority, but the vast majority would. Is there an element, though, where you are saying let's be honest. Every time we introduce something like a flat tax, they come out, beat it up, say it is a tax cut for the rich. So if we let some of the rich get hit at little bit, we are shielded from that and maybe we can kind of get a bunch of good policy in, but not the whole thing. Is that --

LEE: No, that's not the motivation here, nor is it an accurate description of how this operates in any objective way.

The reason is, first of all, when we get rid of the double layer taxation from the double taxation by eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends, that by itself is opening up -- us up to a huge amount of attack from the left that hates this. They also hate the fact we are levering the playing field between big and small businesses. What we want is fair competition, instead of cronyism. What we've got now is cronyism. When we have fair competition, that creates millions of new jobs.

GLENN: But the only way you only have fair competition is to be flat.

LEE: That is a very fair point, Glenn. Again, I can't emphasize enough I would prefer a single flat --

GLENN: Because this is what you said. We can't get there from here. And I understand. I really do understand, you can't change a tire going 150 miles per hour. And so I get that. But, you know, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Barak Obama, they all gave us the biggest tire changes at 150 miles per hour this country has ever seen on our side, on the conservative side. We had Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Regan. That's it. Calvin Coolidge. That's it. Why is it we are so afraid of standing up and talking common sense and saying you damn right, if the Soviet Union can figure this out, we can do it. If the Marxists and the communists realize that this was a better system, then why can't we? When you look -- I don't remember the number, and I'm sure you know it, like 17.9 or 18% that's the number, no matter what you do to the rates you always collect about that much. So why aren't we just targeting that number?

LEE: Right. Well, again, I would love to go to that kind of system. On average we are able to collect about 18% of GDP through our income tax system. That seems to be a relatively constant figure, regardless of how high you set the top marginal rate, but again, what we are looking at here is the biggest simplification we can get, and one bit eliminates a lot of the --

GLENN: But may I ask you -- and Mike, you know I love you, right?

LEE: I do. And I appreciate that.

GLENN: I respect you. We all respect you and love you.

We are just so frustrated, because if people in Congress would have used and rightly so, and it's not too late -- if they would stand on their desks and shout at the top of their lungs, the IRS has become a weapon against the American people. You could redo it, because you could shut it down. There is nobody on the right or the left except for those in power, that want the IRS to become a weapon. And you have the best shot of shutting the IRS down and cleaning house right now than you have had in 100 years.

LEE: That is a very fair point, and that is exactly why we all ought to be reforming government along exactly the lines I describe in my new awesome book,Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document.

PAT: Nice.

GLENN: Whoa. Man, a week on the radio tour, trying to sell your book. You got good. That was good.

LEE: That stuff doesn't go -- it just flows from the lips. If we have to choose between two rates and tax fairness for working parents, or on the other hand, a one rate system that raises taxes on all families, I think we have to go with the two-rate system. That is fair. That is conservative. This is Burkean conservatism. You are taking a set of contemporary problems and dealing with them in a practical way.

PAT: You just said A 'Barack Obama' false premise there, Mike. I don't think those are the two options, are they? Can we not work it out where it's fair for working families and -- the wealthy are working families, too, by the way.

LEE: Under the current system, we can't work it out that way, because the current system really does punish people for getting married and pushing them for having children.

GLENN: You know why?

LEE: - interacts with your senior entitlement program. There's no way that you get out of having children without a huge penalty through our tax system. The parent tax penalty is something the mainstream media goes out of its way to obscure, and this is a proposal that finally addresses that, in a way that none other does.

GLENN: Because, Mike, with those penalties are there, because it's a -- say it with me -- a Progressive income tax. So maybe we should stop trying to play in the Progressive field. I have one question for you, when we come back, if you could hold for a second. I have to take a break, then I ever one question for you, then we'll cut you lose.

Featured image courtesy of the AP

Breaking point: Will America stand up to the mob?

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

Get your tickets NOW at www.MegynKelly.com before they’re gone!

What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

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