But Rush is right.

The question "What would Jesus do?" is a whole different kettle of fish, and there are very good reasons why Rush won't ever ask that question. I'm pretty certain that, if Jesus had a pool of tax money to distribute among government programs, the army would not be the top benefactor. Likewise, if he had to make budget cuts, I'm pretty certain that he wouldn't be making cuts in the same places that the Republicans are.

But, if you frame the question "what would Jesus take?" then the answer is a very clear nothing. Jesus wasn't there to force people to follow God. He wasn't there to force people to take care of the poor. He always gave people the option (in contrast with the Old Testament God, who would eventually get pissed off enough to send giant fish out to harrass you into doing his bidding), and told them the spiritual consequences of the choices. "If you follow me..."

The imposition of taxes is not giving people that choice, so having your money go to the poor in that manner is of no value, from a spiritual perspective. All the rebuttal's biblical passages did (with one exception) was outline the spiritual consequences. That one exception was telling people to quit their bellyaching, because if a poor woman could pay her taxes, they could too. At best, from the quoted passages, you can assume that Christ would be in favour of using collected tax money to pay for social programs, but in no way can you extrapolate that to assume he'd be in favour of progressive taxes, or higher taxes, or anything else regarding taxes. There just simply isn't enough there to make a case for that.

Rush is a master of twisting words. He asks the question that lets him give the answer he wants, not the question that needs to be answered.