Here are some of the nitty-gritty details-some facts and figurer-about what really happened in the so-called "Decade of Greed." I advise all resident scholars of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies to commit them to memory so you are well armed in your never-ending pursuit of truth:

• Average real family income grew by well over 15 percent from 1982 to 1989, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
• For the poorest fifth of Americans, real income grew almost 12 percent.
• Families earning more than $50,000 (in 1990 dollars) went from less than 25 percent of families in 1980 to 31 percent in 1990.
• The percentage of families earning less than $15,000 dropped.
• According to the U.S. Treasury's Office of Tax Analysis, of those who were in the bottom-fifth income brackets during the 1980s. In fact, more made it all the way to the top than stayed in the poorest group.
• Taxpayers were five times more likely to increase their income than have it fall.
• Federal Reserve data show that families with incomes between $10,000 and $50,000 a year experienced a higher percentage of growth in net worth than those in the top-one-fifth income group.
• The top 1 percent paid more than 25 percent of all federal income taxes in 1990, a 40 percent increase over 1980, accordingly to the Congressional Budget Office. The bottom 60 percent paid 11 percent of federal taxes in 1990---20 percent less than in 1980. ("Don't do a double take here. You hear me correctly. The rich did pay their fair share in the eighties, and Clinton knows it. More on this in a moment.)
• The black middle class grew rapidly, from 2.6 million households with incomes of $25,000 or more in 1979, to 3.9 million in 1989.
• Between 1983 and 1989, the total population under the poverty line decreased by 3.8 million people, with an unprecedented number of poor entering the work force.
• The proverbial misery index took a nosedive: We experienced sustained economic growth without inflation, low unemployment, and low interest rates. Also, some 20 million new jobs were created, 82 percent of which were in the higher-skilled, higher-paying occupations.
• The poor were not neglected: Federal spending on the poor for income, food, health care, housing, education, training, and social services increased.
• Between 1978 and 1982 the number of poor blacks rose by more than 2 million; between 1982 and 1989 the number of poor blacks fell by 400,000.
• The 1980s was a decade of greatly increased personal and corporate charitable giving.
• Despite the change that the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the middle class was almost decimated during the 1980s, all income groups from the poorest to the richest experienced real income gains. Yet during the Carter years-when liberalism was flourishing-only the income of the top 1 percent grew. The share of income gains going to the top 1 percent of families was 160 percent higher under Carter than under Reagan.

Between 1982 and 1989, real after-tax income per person rose by 15.5 percent, and real median income of families, before taxes, went up 12.5 percent. * Despite the charge that "the rich got richer and pay less tax, the poor got poorer and pay more," between 1980 and 1992 the wealth not only paid more income taxes in actual dollars, but they paid a greater share of income taxes as a percentage of their income, compared to other income groups. The income taxes as a percentage of their income of all income groups was reduced, with reach of the four lowest quintile groups experiencing greater percentage reductions than those income groups above them. In other words, all income groups paid less taxes as a percentage of their income during the Reagan years, but the poor received the most relief, the middle class the next, and the right, the least. Further the rich paid a greater share of all taxes paid in the 1980s than in the Carter years.

But Rush, you may ask, isn't it a fact that Reagan cut poverty programs? Didn't he destroy the social "safety net"?

No. That's absolutely false. Federal spending on poverty programs in 1991 dollars increased from $140 billion in 1982 to $180 billion in 1991, an annual growth rate of 3 percent. In other words, the welfare state grew under Reagan-and the liberals are still complaining!

But, you may say, l this is all well and good, but during those years the federal deficit skyrocketed. That, my friends, is undeniable; in fact, the deficit did rise to $230 billion in 1985-86; but it was not because of the tax cuts. It was because of unchecked growth in entitlement spending. And don't blame that on Reagan, either. He tried his best to reduce spending, but every one of his budgets was problem pronounced "dead on arrival" by the Democratic Congress. Plus, if you look at 1987, 1988, and 1989, when the real economic growth reached full steam, the deficit fell to $150 billion, even with the unchecked spending. It fell because of economic growth that crated a bigger base of taxpayers and, therefore, more tax revenue. If Congress had made any strides toward curbing skyrocketing spending during this period, there would have been no deficit by the end of the Reagan presidency.

In the interest of illuminating the present discussion about deficit reduction, it should be pointed out that even President Reagan begrudgingly agreed to sign on to a couple of "deficit reduction" tax increases, one of which was, at the time, the largest tax increase in the nation's history, which included $2 of spending cuts for every $1 in increased tax revenue. But guess what? In a foreshadowing of its double-cross of George Bush in 1990, the Congress failed to make the budget cuts it had pledged. We are still waiting for them. And you think the promised cuts of 1993 are going to happen? Heh, heh, heh! So I don't mind telling you that I'm growing weary-in fact, angry-at the duplicitous assertion that the tax cuts caused the deficit to increase. News commentator Sam Donaldson must say it very other week on "This Week with David Brinkley." Syndicated newspaper columnist George Will is even tired of arguing with him about it. In fact, during the Reagan tax-cut era, IRS collections actually nearly doubled. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the top marginal tax rate was at 70 percent. When he left office in 1989, the top marginal rate was down to 28 percent. Liberal logic (an oxymoron if ever there was one) would thus suggest that the government would collect less money in taxes because the rates have been cut. Right? Wrong. Actual revenues nearly doubled, from $550 billion to about $991 billion. How did that happen? If the liberals would stop ridiculing so-called "trickle-down" economics for a while and take an honest look at reality, they would understand.

Cuts in marginal tax rates spur economic growth by providing entrepreneurs an incentive to invest their marginal tax dollars, causing many of them to earn more money and pay more taxes on their earnings, albeit at a lower marginal rate, and create new jobs. Again, this is an application of Adam Smith's "invisible hand." These new jobs result in a bigger employment base and, thus, more taxpayers. More taxpayers translates into higher tax revenues-even at lower marginal rates.

Supply-side economics is nothing new. It's a restatement of the classical economists, from Adam Smith to nineteenth-century economists David Ricardo and Jean-Baptiste Say. Supply-side is an extrapolation of Say's Law: Supply creates its own demand. In very rudimentary terms, if you increase productivity, i.e., supply (through tax incentives), you will cause more dollars to be pumped into the economy (demand), and the economy will grow. Of course, Clinton, at his best, is a demand-sider-a Keynesian who believes that artificially increasing aggregate demand through boosts in government spending will cause real economic growth (witness his "stimulus" package). The truth is, as most credible economists will now confess, government pump-priming only artificially stimulates demand on things such as short-term public-works jobs, and causes inflation and deficit expansion.

But Clinton et al. Won't even engage in a discussion about their own economic programs (and they are never put to the test by the self-styled watchdog media). Again, their tactic is simply to divert attention from them by exploiting class-warfare themes. They pejoratively refer to supply-side as trickle-down economics. You've heard it before. Here's how liberals define "trickle-down" economics: "You give tax breaks to the rich with money that really belongs to the middle class and poor. [How that works out is beyond me, but so goes the propaganda.] Then the rich, who are supposedly honest and compassionate, will just hand out this extra money in ways that the middle class and poor get it back."

You see, the liberal problem centers on the notion that what people have they are given, or somehow receive as benefits. When "the rich" selfishly didn't stand around on corners stuffing dollars into the pockets of the starving hoi polloi, our liberal buddies declared the venture a failure. "If you are going to give money away, let us show you how it's done," they demanded, demonstrating their belief that no one legitimately earns what he has-he is given it. So now it is 1993 and they are showing us, aren't they?

Well, that is not what the 1980s were about. Nevertheless, "trickle-down" has negative connotations because the term has been misappropriated by liberals and mercilessly ridiculed. However, let me illustrate for you that there is nothing farfetched about the trickle-down theory and that even liberals sometimes have to acknowledge that it works. For instance, how does Bill Clinton say he won the election? Who does he say he appealed to? He claims his was a grass-roots campaign, right? Think of "trickle-down" as nothing more or less than a system of applying water to the Earth's surface in the expectation that some will soak through the earth and nourish the grass roots. It's really a matter of common sense, isn't it?

How many liberals do you know who dig holes in their lawn so they can apply water directly to the roots of their grass? When you drive through Beverly Hills and look at the homes of people like Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, top TV producers and Clinton confidants, how many open trenches do you see on their lawns?

The governor of New York State, Mario Cuomo, is another liberal who, notwithstanding his disclaimers, sometimes believes in "trickle-down" economics. Let me give you an example. Mercedes-Benz has been planning to build a factory in the United States to make four-wheel-drive vehicles to compete with Ford, Chevrolet, and Jeep. Every governor, including Cuomo, wants that plan in his state. What's Mario offering? Tax breaks. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but Mercedes is a big company. Businesses, according to liberals, are the root of all evil. Why is he offering them tax breaks and other kinds of economic incentives? He's even offering to relax some of New York's harsh environmental restrictions. In other words, he's trying to make it very easy for Mercedes to turn a profit. Why does he want Mercedes? Certainly not because he like the company. Precisely because the economic activity spurred by its presence in the state will trickle down to others in the state in the form of new jobs, greater spending, increased revenues, and the rest.

Just look at what liberals do when they want new business. They offer incentives. They try to bribe companies. They try to reward them. But then they turn around and punish existing businesses. And, after a while, if Cuomo lures Mercedes, he'll no doubt punish the company by raising its taxes and tightening the regulations. If Mercedes then moves the factory, Cuomo will find some way to blame it on Ronald Reagan.

It's as plain as day for people to see how the world works. This is not theory, it is reality-even the liberals grudgingly acknowledge supply-side or trickle-down economics when it suits their purposes. But once again, their hypocrisies are never exposed, present company excepted.

But we've probably got to stop using the term "trickle-down." It has been corrupted beyond repair by the Clinton gang and the media. Therefore, I am going to suggest we ban further use of it. From now on, let's go back to referring to the kind of free-market, entrepreneurial capitalism we witnessed in the 1980s as "Reaganomics." The beauty of that term is that, like "trickle-down," it was coined by liberals as a term of derision. But once the truth is universally understood, the eighties will have been so effectively vindicated that the term "Reaganomics" will be used only as a term of endearment and respect.

Liberals simply reject the notion that the Reagan tax-rate cuts had anything to do with all the wealth and prosperity that were created. If you listen, for instance, to Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Bill Clinton's chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, taxes have nothing to do with the economy of a nation.

"In direct contradiction to twelve years of Republican ideology [Uh, Ms. Tyson, don't forget about the 1990 budget deal, which slew the Reagan dragon], there is no relationship between the level of taxes a nation pays and its economic performance," she said.

Imagine that! Not only does this statement defy mountains of evidence to the contrary, but it simply defies logic and common sense. Here is President Clinton's top economic adviser telling us that it doesn't matter how much you tax a nation; it won't have any impact on the productive side of the economy. It is possible she can really believe this? Apparently so; as I've said before, some of these sixties throwbacks still believe the economy is a zero-sum game, with people's economic behavior being wholly unaffected by the level of taxes.

John Fund, a friend of mine and editorial write for The Wall Street Journal, who collaborated with me on The Way Things Ought To Be, provided some illuminating insights into the mind-set of the Clinton policy wonks. In a Journal column, he explained that "much of the Clinton administration has a quiet love affair with German social democracy." He quotes Christian Tenbrock, U.S. correspondent for the German newspaper Die Zeit, as saying: "It's surprising how much of the German economic model Clinton is trying to adopt." Fund notes that this shouldn't be surprising in that "most politicians are captives of the ideas they had in their twenties. They seldom re-evaluate them once in the electoral rat race." Fund added that Germany was the first place on the Continent that Clinton visited during his 1968-69 sojourn in Britain. At that time, according to Fund, Germany was considered a model welfare state whose "structural weaknesses remained hidden for another decade" when Clinton was long gone. He also says that Clinton and his advisers have a fatal attraction for the highly statist policies of Germany and other Western European nations and are trying to emulate them, despite the economic crises all those nations find themselves in. Mr. Fund's research and brilliant analysis may help us understand the incomprehensible: how Clinton could be attracted to socialism when it has failed everywhere it has been tried.

So, the facts are indisputable that as soon as the Kemp-Roth tax cuts kicked in in 1983, the job-creating machine in this country took off and continued unabated until President Bush broke his "no new taxes" pledge in 1990.

Before we leave the subject, let's dissect another liberal-spawned myth associated with the eighties. I've mentioned it before, but it too is worth of repeating. They call lit the "Decade of Greed." Well, my friends, it was in this so-called "Decade of Greed" that Americans became more charitable than ever before. No matter how you measure it-whether it's in absolute terms, in real dollars adjusted for inflation, or in contributions relative to national income-the 1980s were, indeed, the Decade of Giving. According to a report by Richard B. McKenzie, professor at the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Irvine, the annual rate of growth in total giving in the 1980s was nearly 55 percent higher than in the previous twenty-five years. And this trend continued right through 1992, year twelve of the so-called Reagan-Bush era. Americans gave 2.01 percent of their income to charity in 1992, the highest rate since 1971. Overall, donations totaled $124.31 billion, up 6.4 percent, after inflation. Individuals gave $109.98 billion, representing the greatest percentage of total family income given to charity since 1963.

It's common sense to realize that when people earn more and feel more secure in their positions, they give more. The converse, of course, it also true. When gargantuan portions of people's paychecks are confiscated by the federal, state, and local governments, they will have less discretionary income to donate to charity, or anything else, for that matter.

But you must understand that when liberals refer to the eighties as the Decade of Greed, they mean it in a different sense. They mean that because marginal income-tax rates were lower across the board (of course, they lie and say they were lower only for the right), people paid less taxes and didn't finance necessary government spending. So, people were greedy for keeping a larger portion of what they earned for themselves, rather than donating it to the government to spend on wasteful, pork-barrel projects. As a result, deficit spending was necessary and we had to rob from our grandchildren-all because we wouldn't finance these necessary spending projects. But don't fall for this. Again, people did not neglect their fiscal obligations during the eighties, as demonstrated by the near doubling of revenues. The spending simply outpaced the revenues. Rather, the paradigm of greed during the eighties, as well as the years before and since, was and is the federal government under the stewardship of the socialistic Congress.

When you hear Clinton talk about people getting a free ride during the eighties, who's he talking about? You. Productive working people. When he talks about those who benefited from the eighties, who's he talking about? People like you. People who busted their behinds. People who earned a living. These are the people he is coming after today. Did you get a free lunch during the 1980s? Listen, folks, the only people getting a free lunch are those who are being given money by the federal government. That happens to be Bill Clinton's constituency. And he wants it to grow-at your expense.

So many people have become convinced that government is the only vehicle that can deal with problems. Let me tell you, there are always going to be problems and inequities. What do liberals attempt to do in the process of making life fair? They take from achievers. Under the guise of fairness, they redistribute wealth. Through regulations, taxation, disincentives to invest, they bring people down, lower their financial status, and make them wards of the state. That's what I mean by spreading misery. I'm not going to quit saying it: It's simply repackaged socialism.

Clinton's approach short-circuits the American Dream. It doesn't allow for people who are trying to become wealth. It discourages them. It maligns their ambitions. Reagan's approach was to allow the miracle of the marketplace to elevate everyone. And it worked!

Government simply cannot be the source of prosperity. No country has ever become great because of tax increases or government spending. Nations become great because people are given the freedom to achieve. By freeing people from the burdens of government intervention in their lives, Ronald Reagan empowered millions of people to reach new heights of excellence.

Everybody agreed now that we need to create jobs. But for the economy to be turned around, wealth needs to be created, too. We have been indoctrinated with the idea that creating wealth is somehow evil. Remember this: The government can't create wealth; it can only destroy it or confiscate and redistribute it.

The greatest thing about the eighties was the incredible upward class mobility-the way poor people became middle-class people, and sometimes even rich people. It would be comical if it weren't so tragic, but Bill Clinton talks about making those people pay now-the ones who had a "free ride" in the 1980s. Funny thing is, prevalent was upward mobility that he is not talking about the same people. Even Slick Willie can't hit a moving target. Large numbers of the "wealthy" today, as Clinton defines them, were not nearly so well of in the 1980s. They were able to become wealth because of the robust opportunities made possible by Reaganomics. Clinton plans to dismantle all of that. So despite what he tells us, his tax is not on the wealth, but on the creation of wealth. This climate of growth, of upward class mobility, is American's greatest promise, and it was never fulfilled better than in the 1980s. This is not something government does for people, it is simply something that government can allow to happen.

When Reagan came along and explained this and showed us by example how it all worked, liberals were shocked and running scared. If the real lesson of the 1980s were allowed to take hold, it would have been the death knell for liberalism. But fortunately for liberalism, George Bush came along and, seeking to get along with the Democrats in the interests of smooth government, changed course-at least economically. He betrayed the most important political promise he ever made and made a huge political sacrifice in the process, and ended up compounding a cyclical recession.

Liberals then brilliantly took the natural cycle of recession and blamed it completely on the 1980s. They had been predicting doom and gloom for ten years and finally had some evidence. Now, I can predict that something is going to happen. An if I say it very day for ten years, eventually there is going to be some evidence that is actually happening. That's exactly what the liberals did, with the full support and complicity of the media establishment.

This was a conscious, deliberate strategy, too. Clinton adviser Stanley Greenberg exposed the scam when he wrote in the journal American Prospect: "Democrats need to create an imagery of Reagan-Bush America that supersedes the Carter years and impeaches the credibility of conservative governance for middle America. The battle to define the Reagan-Bush years in a critical arena where Democrats have the opportunity to disrupt the Republicans' hold on the middle class."

Greenberg also betrayed the Clinton plan to create more dependency on government: "To re-create a rationale for electing Democrats, the party must once again become the part of government." He advised expanding social-welfare programs that cater to the lower and middle classes.

Still, despite all that, look what Bill Clinton had to do to get elected. He had to pretend he was a conservative. He had to convince people that he was a "New Democrat." He talked about welfare reform. He promised a middle-class tax cut. He talked conservatism. People thought they were getting someone from the Democratic Leadership Council. They thought that the moderates were taking the party back from the liberal wing. He fooled a lot of people. He didn't fool me. I predicted exactly what was going to happen. SITYS.

I have predicted that when Bill Clinton serves out his first and only term as president, people will no longer be talking about the twelve years of Reagan-Bush. Instead, they will link the Bush and Clinton years. The era of Reagan will stand along as clearly one of the most prosperous periods in American history. Just the other day in The Wall Street Journal, the lead editorial referred to the Bush-Clinton ear. Economist Milton Friedman, I understand, has also been referring to it that way. I apologize for being so prescient. I can't help it. I have talent on loan from God.

The only reason this isn't obvious right now is the role of the media. Hollywood and the press establishment love to poke fun at what conservatives believe in. They love to ridicule us and impugn our motives. For a long time, people were intimidated by that. Nobody likes to be laughed at. But during the Reagan era, conservative ideals prospered just like the economy, and conservatives became confident. We need to rediscover that confidence, folks.

This is a war that is never going to end. But you have to remain optimistic. Never compromise your beliefs, your integrity, your honesty. Eventually even the liberals will learn to respect you if you stick to your principles. That's when you can persuade them.

I am never going to compromise on Reaganomics. I will never stop promoting economics that empower people. I will never give up talking about the importance of pursuing excellence. I will relentlessly and tirelessly urge people to be the best they can be.

I'm a long-term thinker. I have a passionate concern for people who will live after us. I understand that to return to these principles requires us to change the way people think. It will require educating people-informing them. People need to understand how the world really works, not how we would like it to work or how we wish it would work.

The reason I'm passionate about this is that I love people. I care about people. It disturbs me when young people are told by America's leadership that it doesn't matter what you do because the system is rigged, or that unless you are born to wealth and privilege, you can't succeed, so you might as well be grateful for the crumbs that government will through your way.

That's not what America is about. As I've said, I want people to be the best they can be. For that to happen we need strong, self-reliant individuals. We need to reward risk and stop punishing achievement. Let the marketplace work. President Reagan showed the way in the 1980s, President Kennedy in the 1960s. We can return to that kind of prosperity again with the right kind of leadership.

But before we get there, folks, we've got to understand fully those who are calling the shots today. We've got to understand the way their minds work. This is no easy assignment with liberals. But, again, I am up to the challenge. Take a deep breath. Pour yourself a beverage and prepare for the most lucid analysis of the current liberal mind-set every published.