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April 26, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:18
April 26, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #2
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The views expressed by the host on this program make more sense than anything anybody else out there happens to be saying because we are engaged in a relentless and unstoppable pursuit of the truth, and we find it, we proclaim it, and it causes agony and panic out there on the left.
We're happy to do it.
Great to have you back with us, folks.
So the EIB network.
Already the middle of the week, the uh fastest uh week in media.
By the way, thanks to Paul W. Smith of uh WJR in Detroit yesterday for doing a halfway decent job hosting the program uh yesterday.
I was a lot of people have sending me emails that I enjoyed the program yesterday with uh uh poll W. Smith.
So thanks, Paul, for helping out.
Uh telephone numbers 800 282-2882, if you'd like to be on the program.
Senate voted today to divert some of the money that President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase patrols against illegal immigrants on the nation's borders, and to increase security at the ports.
Speaking of which, we've got ports deal news.
Well, we don't have ports deal news, but we have we have port news to find where the port news is.
Uh there we goes right here, and we get to that here in just a second.
Basically what's happening here, the somebody offered an amendment cutting uh Bush's request for money for Iraq by 1.3 billion dollars, and instead they're gonna use the 1.3 bill to go out there by new border patrol agents, have some aircraft out there and some fencing at uh border crossings, widely used by illegal immigrants.
The uh amendment adopted 59 to 39.
Now, while the border security funds had sweeping support, Democrats and Republicans argued over whether the cuts to Pentagon war funds would harm troops on the ground in Iraq.
Um the uh the cuts here, the amendment uh it turns out it was offered by Judd Gregg, Republican from New Hampshire, trimmed the president's request uh for the war by almost three percent, but it doesn't specify exactly uh how uh that will take place.
In a related story, President Bush and a group of senators yesterday reached general agreement on an immigration bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for many illegal aliens.
Uh left out of the closed door meeting were senators who oppose a path to citizenship, and the meeting even snubbed two men who had been considered allies of the president on immigration.
Uh Senator John Corny, Texas Republican, chairman of the immigration subcommittee, and Senator John Kyle, an Arizona Republican.
The President, in brief remarks to the press, said there was agreement to get a bill that doesn't grant automatic amnesty to people, but a bill that says somebody who's working here on a legal basis has the right to get in line to become a citizen.
But Senators speaking afterwards said Mr. Bush was far more specific in the meeting.
Uh there was a pretty good consensus that we put into the Hegel Martinez pro no, when I see the name Hegel in it, it can't be good.
Uh the Hegel Martinez uh proposal.
Uh that's the right way to go, said Senator Mel Martinez, uh Florida Republican, the Martinez half of the Hegel Martinez proposal.
Uh Martinez said, I think he was very clear on pathway to citizenship so long as it goes to the back of the line, and he even opened the door here for something that we've haggled back and forth on that you can shrink the time for people to become citizens by simply enlarging the number of green cards.
Senator Sam Brownbeck, uh Kansas Republican said that the President endorsed the concept of an earned citizenship.
That would represent a substantial change on the part of the Bush administration, which just last year said it opposed a path to uh citizenship for those currently here illegally.
In yesterday's meeting were Republican Senators Bill Frist, uh Lindsey Graham, Judd Gregg, Chuck Hagel, John McCain, and Mitch McConnell.
The Democrats were Richard J. Turban, uh the swimmer, Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leakey Leahy, Joe Lieberman, Robert Menendez, uh Barack Obama, and Ken Salazar from uh from Colorado.
Now, Senate Republicans proposed immediately spending nearly two billion dollars to combat illegal border crossings.
That's the uh the story here about the uh the vote now having taken place on that end run.
Uh so the uh uh the Senate is is is uh it's an election year, folks, and everybody's trying to stake their turf on this.
Uh the not not letting the president have the uh the whole inertia or or movement on this, so uh I don't know.
I I just I it's the era of snake oil.
It is the era of pandering.
It's it's I'll tell you something.
There are times like this.
When we get into election years like this, that uh I I am I am tempted not to believe anything anybody says about anything when it comes out of Washington.
And I I know you have the uh the same temptation.
Because it's it's condescending.
It's treating everybody like uh just a bunch of spoiled brat kids.
All we do, the American people whine and moan about whatever.
Uh and in election year, politicians say, okay, kids, here we'll give you what you want, and they give you about five-tenths of one percent of what you want, claim they're doing great things for you, and people who've been crying think that the power of their voices has actually made a significant change in things when in fact it's the same old, same old.
I want to go back to this gasoline business real quickly.
Yes, I know, I know Mary McCarthy is denying now that she leaked anything, she's denying that she uh even had access to the information on the on the black site prisons.
We'll get to all that in uh in due course.
But I made a couple statements in the last hour and I told you I would back up, uh, and that is that um gasoline taxes exceed oil company profits.
Uh the media continuing to blame big oil for gouging you as they collect record-breaking profits.
Uh but the windfall profits raked in by the government in the form of energy tax revenue actually dwarf the oil company's jackpot.
I have warned you people about this.
I have tried to tell you I don't know how many times.
That if you uh if you really want to get to the site of gouging, go to your governments.
The uh the media sounded the alarm last year when the largest U.S. oil company, Exxon Mobil, announced profits of $36 billion.
But according to the Tax Foundation, the biggest price gouging profits here was the U.S. government cashing into the tune of $54 billion in oil and gasoline taxes.
The think tank, the Tax Foundation said tax collections on the production and the import of gasoline by state and federal governments are already near historic highs.
In fact, in recent decades, governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest U.S. oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits.
Since 1977, federal and state governments have collected more than 1.34 trillion dollars, folks, and that is about half of our budget this year.
That's about half of what we're gonna spend this year.
We're at 2.7 trillion now.
Now, admittedly, this is since 1997, but that's uh you know, 29 years.
They've collected more than 1.34 trillion dollars in gasoline tax revenues in inflation adjusted dollars.
That's more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period, according to the Tax Foundation.
But it doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter because despite government tax gouging on oil industry revenue, you have pandering senators like Chuck Schumer who want to raise energy taxes even more, complaining that oil company profiteering is simply unconscionable.
In fact, grab audio soundbite number eleven.
There was a uh press conference on Capitol Hill yesterday, and this is what the panderer Chuck Schumer said.
We also have to re-examine whether having only a handful of giant oil companies can coexist with the needs of the American consumer and a rational energy policy in this country.
I do not believe it does.
And so I'll be offering an amendment to the supplemental that will require a complete examination as to whether or not we should break up the big oil companies.
Enough is enough.
We have no competition.
You know, I uh I I can just imagine when the when big oil people hear this.
They say they have no competition.
The biggest competition is people like Senator Schumer.
They're in a I well, facetiously speaking, but they are in a competition with it, competition to produce more supply.
It's people like Chuck Schumer who wants to break up the oil companies because they're price gouging.
It's Chuck Schumer that keeps the oil companies from expanding their supply and expanding their business.
It's just it's it's it's maddening here, folks.
It's just absolutely and of course the Republicans up on Capitol Hill, they're not gonna speak up, they're not gonna get it, oh, we're gonna join the whole presentation of snake oil.
Yeah, we all gotta jump now on big oil.
Because your vote is at stake.
And of course, they're not gonna do anything to alleviate the circumstance.
What the president's gonna do is gonna is gonna have more impact than what anybody in the Senate's gonna do by relaxing these uh formulation regulations.
But I mean, it's just it's insulting, and it gets worse here.
Uh at another press conference.
Here is Miss America, Nancy Pelosi.
We have two oil men in the White House.
The logical follow-up from that is three dollar a gallon gasoline.
There is no accident.
It is a cause and effect.
A cause and effect.
How dare the President of the United States make a speech today in April, many, many, many months after the American people have had to undergo the cost of home heating oil.
A woman told me she almost fainted when she received her and her home heating bill uh over this winter.
And when so many people making the minimum wage, which hasn't been raised in eight years, which has a very low purchasing power, have to go out and buy uh gasoline at these prices.
Where have you been, Mr. President?
Now, don't sweat this, folks.
She's got about as much respect as the uh as an iguana swimming around in your bathtub.
Uh you know, this is this is uh just pure demagoguery, and even the people on the left are embarrassed uh by Nancy Pelosi and even Dingy Harry.
And by the way, Dingy Harry's in trouble.
He's he's encountering the Tom Dashell problem.
As he goes to Washington and spouts all this left-wing kook bilge and drivel, the people back home in his red state are going, wait a minute, wait a minute.
This is this is not what we're for.
This is not what we're in favor of.
So his uh his own approval polls in Nevada uh not doing well.
We'll have the tales coming up along with your phone calls right after this time out.
Back to the phones as promise of West Palm Beach, uh, Florida.
Ben, welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, how are you?
Fine, sir.
Thank you.
Uh, just one of those sales reps that's been listening to you for 15 years, and thank you for entertaining me on a almost daily basis.
I appreciate that.
Thank you for being there.
Yeah, uh, just my point was uh just actually I think I saw the fork in Chuck Schumer's tongue during the press conference.
But uh it's entertaining watching these guys and and them acting how surprised they are at the result of what basically is a democratic policy of higher gas prices.
They are getting exactly what they wanted.
Um high gas prices lead to smaller cars, less use of gasoline, uh carpooling, public transportation, and all those things.
That's exactly what they want, but they can't be honest about that and win an election.
Uh that's their position that the Republican or conservative position is we need to supply the market and keep pricing low to fuel the economic growth.
Exactly.
And being able to win an election by being honest.
Well, let's just wait and see if they if they win any elections here.
I um in terms of taking over the house or something.
Let's just see.
Because you're exactly right.
The Democrats have been plugging for this ever since the Clinton administration.
Maybe maybe even further back than that.
They've wanted everybody to be driving around little cars, lawnmowers with a couple seats on top.
Uh they want high prices.
They've been advocating for us to be paying about the same thing they pay in Europe.
It's unfair.
We don't pay as much as they do in Europe.
It's unfair.
Why is that and they're demanding that uh people use less uh so that we will pollute less.
And now all of a sudden, why we get exactly what they want, and it's panic city.
And I want to remind you again of this, folks.
First Gulf War.
Democratic mantra was no blood for oil.
We're not gonna go over there.
How dare President Bush 41 fight this war for oil, lose American treasure for oil.
And of course, that's exactly what it was, even though the administration back then didn't want to admit it, but it was all about the free flow of oil at market prices.
It's all it was about, making sure that the free flow of oil was maintained so that market prices would be maintained.
The free market.
But the left is never thought oil was worth going to war for.
But now listen to them.
Now it's full-fledged panic city.
It's Bush's fault.
He's in bed with big oil.
Uh I I if if if they were going to be consistent, what they would what they would say is, Mr. President, you've cornered the Iraqi oil market.
We know you lied about weapons of mass destruction.
You only wanted to go to Iraq so that you and Cheney and Halliburton could get the oil.
Well, turn it loose, Mr. President.
Turn it loose.
Put us give us all the oil from Iraq.
They're just inconsistent as they can be, and they're absolute idiots.
Here's more from Nancy Pelosi.
Outraged about this.
Come home and make a speech.
Let's see that matched in your budget.
Let's see that matched in your policy.
Let's see that matched in your separating yourself from your patron, big oil.
Cut yourself off from that anvil that is holding this part, your party down and this country down.
Instead of coming to Washington and throwing your Republican colleagues under the wheels of the train, which they mightily deserve for being a rubber stamp for your obscene corrupt policy of ripping off the American people.
Thank you all very much.
She chastises the president for throwing his party under the bus and then says they deserve it anyway because of his being a rubber stamp.
Let's let's also not forget the campaign of 2004.
Remember when gasoline prices were coming down?
And John F. Kerry, who uh served in Vietnam, uh was accusing the president of having a secret meeting with the Saudis to suppress the real price of gas.
He was advocating for higher prices in the middle of a campaign.
There was something fishy about the gasoline price coming down during a campaign.
Well, let me tell you what's going to happen, folks.
The gasoline price is going to come down once we get into this year.
The gasoline price is going to come down.
There are there are cycles in these things.
Besides that, Bush has the ultimate power.
He can call big oil, he can call Lee Hayward.
Hey, Lee, I know you like your 400 million bucks.
If you want to keep it, get hold of your successor and lower the price.
I'm just kidding.
But they are going to come down.
Prices are going to come down, and then the Democrats are going to start screaming about a conspiracy to benefit the Republicans during an election year.
Now they're not going to go back down to buck eighty-nine, don't misunderstand.
But I don't care what the price gets up to get to the 325, 350, 40 in some places in the Beverly Hills it was for a while.
If it comes down fifty cents, it'll be significant.
And the Democrats will raise hell.
It won't be significant.
You don't think it will?
I know they're hurt by another hurt, but if the price starts coming down at some point, I'm just predicting to you, Democrats are going to scream bloody murder about it.
And they're uh well, I don't know if it's Sturdley's asking me if we're if we're at the uh stage where this is going to uh start becoming uh inflationary.
Uh you would think that it would have already, and it isn't.
So uh I'm I'm not I'm not gonna predict that.
I'm not gonna sit here and act like a no-it-all.
I'm not gonna join the pandering snake oil salespeople on this.
Dan in Holland, Michigan.
You're on the EIB network.
Hello.
Greetings, Rush.
Thank you.
Nice to be talking with you.
Your show leads uh to a lot of uh exciting conversation with my uh law class that I teach at Grand Valley State University here in Grand Rapids.
As I told your screener, I respectfully disagree with your argument regarding oil taxes and prices.
I don't know if you can cite any statistical information or any information for that matter, that prices for oil for gas would go down if the taxes weren't there.
I think the oil companies would charge the same amount.
At least this way, when the taxers are there, we're getting some of that money back and fixing our road.
Social programs, etc.
You sound like Senator Kennedy who wants to have you.
Senator Kennedy wants the oil company to give even more of their profits back to the people.
See, this isn't when the oil company gets the this is what's wrong.
This is what's wrong, Dan.
Um I appreciate your comment about uh inspiring conversation, but let this do the trick too.
You see, when the oil companies get the profits, or when Microsoft gets the profits or any other business, Google or or Yahoo, when they get the profits, nobody cares.
Big oil gets the profit, they care.
If government gets the money, why that's fine because we get something back for it.
We get services.
Well, you're also getting something back when you buy a gallon of gasoline and when you can be assured that there is gasoline when you go to the pump to get it.
And there's nobody in government that can guarantee either of those things will happen for you.
Still trying to make sense out of all this oil business.
Okay, so our our last caller said that uh if magically all taxes were taken out of the price of a gallon of gasoline, that uh it wouldn't result in cheaper prices because the oil companies would just raise the price to match the amount of money taken out in uh in taxes.
Uh now that uh, ladies and gentlemen, is is a bit of a misleading statement because it has as its bias the notion that the big oil companies are not oriented by supply and demand or market factors at all,
that they're just gouging and getting away with whatever they can get away with, and that if, for example, in New York, eighty cents was removed from the price of a gallon of gasoline because you take the taxes out of it that bam o the oil companies would raise it right back to eighty cents the next day.
That would not happen.
The the uh but the the the more troubling thing about this is is that you see, nobody is suggesting, and I'm not suggesting that anybody begin a movement to ban all these taxes.
I mean, the the th there will be some proposals, by the way.
If I'm not mistaken, I think I saw, and I'm gonna have to research this, but I think Dingy Harry uh has actually proposed a 60-day moratorium on the federal gasoline tax.
Would you is that true?
Is he done that?
Check to see if that's true.
I think I saw that.
Uh 60-day moratorium uh but but the the bottom line for me when talking about taxes versus other costs in in a gallon of gasoline, it just it's purely educational informative from my standpoint.
I mean, it's easy as it can be to get mad at big oil.
I mean, they're just a sit and duck target, and they have been uh ever ever since the uh the early 70s.
It's the easiest thing in the world, just like liberalism is the most gutless choice you could make.
It's easy to be a liberal.
Dingy Harry has proposed a 60-day moratorium.
If I were the Republicans, I'd jump on this.
I would jump on it.
I would do it, I would call him on it, but they don't want to give him credit for the idea, probably, so who knows what the politics of that are going to be.
But all I'm trying to accomplish here, folks, it's Menendez Who?
Oh, it's his, it's not Dingy Harry's, it's Menendez's idea.
Okay.
Okay, Reed is pushing it, but it's Bob Manita, a new senator from New Jersey.
It's his idea to have a 60-day moratorium on the uh federal tax on gasoline, which is about 18 to 20 cents somewhere in that in that range.
Now, all I'm trying to do, folks, is to get you focused here on the fact that there are a lot of factors that go into comprising or making up the price of a gallon of gasoline, and it just amazes me that the one entity that is always exempt from any criticism is the government.
When big oil gets the money when a price goes up, well, everybody is mad as they can be.
But if govern if government's going to get the money, nobody seems to get mad about it at all.
You know, nobody ever says, we need to investigate the government.
We need to do this, we need to we need to bring and bust up the government.
We need to diversify.
The government's got too much power.
They will never do with any less.
The government refuses to do with a penny less this year than they had last year.
Uh any time a tax cut's proposed, well, they're going to come up with a way to raise taxes somewhere else to make up the shortfall, because they will not do with less.
And while it's easy as hell to sit out there and attack big oil, they are not the lone player in all this.
Now, teen T-Bone Pickens, uh, who is one of the smartest people around when asked about the price of crude recently said that if Venezuela cuts out, if old Hugo down there, you know, goes even loonier than he is, uh, and he cuts out his supply to the United States, we could see a hundred dollar a barrel oil.
Now, Venezuela sells us about as much oil a year as we could get from ANWA.
So the mathematics on this is easy.
If cutting out Venezuela could add $25 a barrel, that means that another Venezuela, i.e.
and war, could drop the price per barrel to some extent.
I don't know if it'd be the same 25 bucks.
Uh but it's it's maddening just to listen to all that.
You know who our biggest supplier of oil is, by the way.
Take a take a wild guess out there.
It's Canada, Canada, we import more oil from Canada than anywhere else.
It's uh what is it about um nineteen, it's somewhere between 19 and 24% of our uh imported supply comes from Canada.
Uh Venezuela's up there, but if if if he cuts us off and says, you know what the hell would you gringo, uh then the price is up to uh to a hundred bucks a barrel invade Canada.
We don't have any problems with Canada.
If we invaded Canada, let's say we annexed Canada, the environmentalists would stop us from drilling up there.
And whatever we get from Canada would dry up.
Bob in Chicago, welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, WLS 890 Ditto's rush.
Thank you, sir.
Hey, Rush, uh uh Lanny Davis went to great pains to to say that since Tony Snow disagrees with Bush once in a while, he's no rabid right winger like you and Ingram.
But you know, I wonder if Lanny would would agree with Tony's latest disagreement.
Tony published a column on Town Hall this week that just Lamb basted the Bush administration for its for its witch hunt against big oil.
He said it, you know, he said the president's pandering the Democrats, and if the president's party is becoming the party of Chuck Schumer, he didn't want any part of it.
So I wonder I wonder how Tony's going to do defending that.
Because he's sure going to get asked.
Uh well uh what he I think it was uh I think it was Tony Blankly's column, that was not Tony Snow.
I think Tom Hall made I'm sorry.
No, no, no, no, it's not your fault Town Hall made a mistake.
All right, I'll be able to do that.
It was Tony, but let no it's still a good question because there are a number of instances of uh uh uh Tony having said things opposite the administration.
Of course, and and if I yeah, if I got the job, I'd be in the same boat uh because I have said a lot of things that this administration is folks, I've tried it, I don't know how many times I have had emissaries from powerful places fly down here to try to get my mind right on immigration.
Uh I have uh uh on on uh an any number of uh of issues, the spending, the health care with Ted Kennedy, but you people who listen to this program regularly know it.
So Tony's gonna get these questions, and I I would imagine the answer is going to be, well, I'm not the president, and I work for the president now, and uh yes, I wrote that, and yes, I said that, but what I think about this is not what we're here to discuss, because I'm not the president, George W. Bush is.
That will not be hard to uh to deal with.
The the the funny thing about that to me is notice how the Libs in this arrogant, superiorist, condescending view of things, note how they determine who's a good conservative and who's a bad conservative.
And if you disagree with Bush, why you're a cut above.
If you disagree with Bush, why we can do business with you.
If you disagree with Bush, why you're pragmatic and you're reasonable.
If you disagree with Bush, why you have a future in this town.
If you disagree with Bush, why you are showing that you have room to grow.
In in offering this analysis of Tony Snow, we s we learn, should there be any doubt, remaining, exactly why it is that these same arrogant, condescending snobs so love John McCain.
Or anybody else who's willing to be pragmatic and condescending and they're in their own way and disagree with Republican policy, not just the president.
So it's all just you have to know who these people are, and I I I refuse to, and I'm sure they'll call this hate speech.
And I refuse, folks, to anoint these people as anything better than the rest of us, smarter or any of the type.
They are they are the elites and they think they're all that uh but but they're just a bunch of snobs.
They're just a bunch of blue blood snobs.
And uh I you know I'm I don't need to be flattered.
Uh you know, I I've I've been places and I've been introduced by people saying, oh, no matter, no matter what you think of his politics, this guy is uh X, Y, and Z. You don't have to insult me or pander to me by saying no matter what you think of his politics, because I know what that means.
Despite the fact this guy is an ideological right wing extremist, hate mongering, racist, sexist, big and homophobe, he's XYZ, still a nice guy or what have you.
This arrogant snobbery and pandering and condescension is so obvious to me, and they don't earn it in my book.
They are not the leaders.
They're not the majority.
They're not they are inside the beltway, but not outside the beltway.
Not in this country, not yet, not now.
Brian, Pontavidra Beach, Florida.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hi.
You bet so I just uh I'm sorry.
I just wanted to say that uh if the Republicans don't want to give Menendez credit for the uh 60 day moratorium on the federal tax on gasoline, why don't they just uh see them the 60, raise them a hundred to a hundred and eighty and go right for a vote?
Uh that's a good idea.
But they're still they're still going to be perceived and portrayed as uh as the followers on this.
And I don't I in this case I don't think they're gonna have the guts to run the risk that uh in the aftermath that Democrats will be credited for the single one action that reduced gasoline gasoline prices the most.
I think that's their fear.
It's an election year, and so while everybody's sitting around talking about doing the right thing, well, we got to get the price down.
We've got to respond to the needs of the American people.
So the Democrats outflank them come up with this proposal.
Well, we can't support that, we're gonna be on the losing end of it.
And I don't know that that's the case.
I just haven't heard any of them get on board with this yet.
Uh some of them will respond to it at some point, and then we'll know more.
Quick timeout.
Back after this.
All right, now don't misunderstand me on this, folks, because I understand there's a lot of pain and suffering out there with the gasoline price uh skyrocketing.
Oh, I just you know, I got I got up yesterday morning in uh in uh in New Jersey, and and uh I got I had my BlackBerry with me to my laptop with me, Blackberry with me, and friend says the New York Post has published the biggest lie as a headline as I have ever seen.
Of course I didn't see the New York Post, I didn't know what it was.
So I wrote back and said, I don't have a computer, tell me what the headline says.
And it was that picture, this new portrait of Der Schlickmeister that's going into the uh into the Smithsonian, and the caption with the with a reproduction of the uh of the portrait was well hung.
I know he's not wearing his wedding ring in that uh he's he's flashing the peace sign if you look carefully, he's not wearing a wedding ring in that portrait.
Uh I'm sure it's just an oversight.
Uh and and then he's got a I think he's holding copy of the New York Times and the uh in the Wall Street Journal.
Uh it it yeah, it it's almost like he's getting getting ready to go to the bathroom.
Uh that's what newspapers are for these days.
That's when most people read them.
Is in the bathroom.
Now I I back back to what I was saying, but I know there's pain and suffering.
We've talked to landscapers out there and we've heard from them.
They uh they have to drive so much each and every day, they can't raise their prices commensurate with the fuel price increase, they had to fire people, lay people off.
I know there's there's suffering out there, but at the same time, um what's interesting is that that despite all of this uh uh talk about uh the gas price going up, people are still driving the same.
Uh and and despite you know, interest rates going up, inflation is staying the same.
And then and the interest rates going up and housing starts are are rising.
You know, with all this supposed crisis-oriented bad news, the economy just keeps chugging along.
And so I'm wondering how much built in hysteria in the reporting there is.
For example, how many of you, and I'm just I I I'm asking it rhetorically, because I know the price of gasoline going up is a crimp.
Please don't misunderstand, but how many of you were able to weather it?
How many of you are eating dog food because of it or making major uh uh uh changes in other aspects of your life in order to afford it?
I know some are, but how many of you are?
And how many of you think the rest of the country is devastated by this and all is lost?
That we're going to hell on a handbasket, and we might even have a shortage of handbaskets.
I'm just it is uh it it's fascinating.
You still see uh traffic's no less wherever I go.
Trap.
Traffic consumer confidence, exactly it's consumer confidence for the conference board hit a four-year high yesterday.
Now, would somebody explain to me with all of this tumult and chaos and disaster, impending doom over the rising gasoline price.
How can all this be happening at the same time?
How can inflation, core inflation, be holding steady?
Uh I ask.
And there's an interesting little passage here from Forbes magazine, too, that that uh I want to share with them to print it out here in just a second.
In the meantime, Jim in Houston, uh great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
Just fine, sir.
Good.
I uh listened to that gentleman call who called in a few minutes ago that talked about how the taxes went away, the uh gas stations would just price their gasoline higher to keep the price the same.
And uh I'm a retired uh oil company fellow.
Um one of my last jobs, I was the uh general manager of the retail gasoline division for our oil company.
We set the prices at 600 gas stations.
So I can tell you how we set the gas prices.
We uh figured out what it cost to replace the barrel of gas that we were going to sell today.
We priced it three to six cents higher than than replacement cost, and that's where we set our price.
So I'm one of the guys that set the gas price uh and uh Yeah, but what he was saying is that you and your greedy buddies would simply gouge and see an opportunity since people are already uh uh willing to pay uh three bucks a gallon.
Let's say reducing taxes brought the price down to two eighty.
That you guys wouldn't leave that you'd add twenty cents because people are already accustomed to paying three just to gouge.
Right, but that won't work because the uh you we all know that people will drive five miles to save an extra penny a gallon, and uh the Sam's warehouse gas station will price it lower.
The uh uh grocery store gas stations are pricing things at slightly below cost to get traffic in, so it won't work.
And it won't work because of the market.
Right, marketing.
You try to jimmy the market all you want, but the market wins every time it it's tried.
Exactly.
You you cannot fight the market.
And well, let me let me ask let me ask you a question, because I'm I'm trying to relate to the audience here like Republicans and Democrats tend to relate to their voters.
So I just you how long ago did you leave big oil?
Two years.
Two years ago?
Yep.
Uh how many people do you think you hurt or destroyed?
Uh none.
Well, we were you know, we constantly evaluate the kind of uh demand you get for gasoline, and uh historically in the in the United States, people fill up uh on average once a week.
That's uh at a dollar and a half a gallon, that's twenty to twenty-five dollars a week.
Yeah.
At three dollars a gallon, they're now paying twice that, so if they're paying an extra twenty or twenty-five dollars a week for gasoline, which is less than what cable TV costs.
Uh it's a difference in their budget than people seem to think I'm sure Ted Kennedy has a copy of the Constitution that says I think it's fascinating you compare yourself to another monopoly, cable TV.
Hey, Jim, I'm only kidding here.
Um I know your point, I'm running out of time.
I I I know you're kidding, and I'm I'm just I'm I'm just as I say, I'm just I'm just you're absolutely look at the profits that Microsoft's making.
Look at the profits and a bunch of other they dwarf.
I know people have a choice to get software and all they need oil and all that and so forth.
You know, folks, do try my solution to all this.
Go out and get four cars and keep them constantly filled up and you'll never run out of gas.
Okay, I've got to tell you for uh take a brief break here, folks, uh, but we'll be back.
Time will fly, and we'll be back before you know it.
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