All Episodes
Previous Next
July 13, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:15
July 13, 2006, Thursday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Thank you, Johnny Donovan.
Welcome back to the third hour of the big program today.
My final hour for this sojourn.
Paul W. Smith from Detroit will be here tomorrow.
Rush back on Monday.
And I've told you before, for those of you who haven't heard me before or forget or did not hear the time I was yapping about it, this talk show stuff is kind of a, well, it's a hobby of mine.
My real life is, my education, my degrees are all in finance and accounting, and I've worked in and I still run an investment firm, and that's what I do for a real life, is I'm a financial person.
I'm financially educated.
I'm financially trained.
I've been in the financial business since 1977.
And so I come to these economic stories and I look at them and I just, I've got to scratch my head because I'm sitting here and going, James Carville misses, he doesn't, he is so, and it's not just James, it's others as well that are in the political, you know, within the beltway.
They get caught up on we versus them, how we're going to beat the other guy.
It's all about Democrats versus Republicans.
And I think out here in the hinterlands, what we would like is we would like to be able to find somebody to put in office that understands and is willing to follow good, solid economic reasoning.
We want them to quit spending more than we bring in.
We want them to have some sort of financial responsibility.
The difference, as we all know, is that Democrats truly believe in their hearts that bigger government is a better deal, that people need and rely upon and won't know what to do unless the government is standing there helping them, holding them, pushing them, showing them, giving to them, whatever it is.
And Republicans are just the opposite.
We think, okay, that's nice, but that's not.
I mean, how about personal responsibility and get out there and do what you can do and make the best of it.
And it's much more fun and much more lucrative, much more exciting.
So we've got these different ideologies, and you know what they are.
But Carville misses the point by saying, well, what we need to do is say that our tax deal is better than their tax deal, and they're the guys that are running up the deficit.
And yeah, I think the Democrats are smart if they do hang their message on the Republicans are running up the deficit because they are.
You can't avoid it.
And when some Republicans would finally start getting the message, and there are some, and they're starting to grow in influence and getting more media attention that are saying we need to watch our financial house here.
But see, it goes against everything the Democrats want because the Democrats want bigger government, they don't want smaller.
And that's why Nancy Pelosi says, I'm trying to talk to the caucus.
I'm trying to get my fellow Democrats to this place where we cut back on earmarks.
But she said, it's not realistic to expect that they will be eliminated because it's against the whole Democratic mindset.
Can't go there.
So again, she wants to raise taxes on the rich, and she wants to spend more, more government spending.
And see, this is where Carville misses the point because he's going, how you going to get around that, James?
How are you going to get around that?
And the reputation, well-deserved and well-earned, and people haven't forgotten the tax and spend moniker of the Democratic Party.
So the other part that she goes to, and I've done this before on this program, I'll do it again.
I'll just bring new facts to you, different facts maybe than what I've talked about before.
Her other big idea is to increase the minimum wage.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is an admirable idea.
We all would love to help, especially conservatives would love to go out and help those that are less fortunate through no fault of their own, through illness or injury.
Let us reach out.
Let us be charitable.
Let us help these people that are less fortunate.
It's morally and ethically the right thing to do.
And what's happened with that idea has been transformed into this thing called the minimum wage with a good sounding idea, admirable idea.
The sentiments behind it are wonderful, but they don't work when you apply them to economics.
And they haven't worked in a long, long time.
And that's why I say this is not an economic issue.
This is a political issue because it makes whoever is for minimum wage sound good.
It makes them sound like they're for the little guy.
And Republicans have a reputation of being for the rich.
And the Democrats have somehow snookered people into thinking that they're for the little guy because that's what's gotten them elected many, many, many cycles ago.
But it hasn't worked.
People are smarter.
They have more information.
And so what's happening is they're pulling the in California, Governor Schwarzenegger says, you want a minimum wage increase?
And the Democrats go, yeah, Well, what do you want?
And they said, well, well, what we want is a big raise now, and also we want it to be automatically increased every single year.
So Schwarzenegger says to them, okay, election's coming up.
He's running for governor this year.
And he says, all right, I'm for the minimum wage increase, but not the automatic updates every year.
I want to revisit this.
So he's taken the wind out of their sale by saying, okay, I'm for it.
I'm for a minimum wage increase.
And this article in the journal today says that the idea of a minimum wage increase, 64 Republicans joined Democrats in a procedural vote signaling support for a $2.10 increase in the minimum wage.
So the Republicans can come out and say, I don't know if anybody will listen, or it'll be widely reported and say, yeah, we're for the minimum wage.
But all these people that are for the minimum wage, the sentiments, like I said, are great, but they're not economically sound.
I've told you this before.
The census, the United States Census has clearly shown over and over and over again that when you raise the minimum wage, the rich people get more than the poor people.
And I know everybody shakes their head and says, what?
I've never heard that before.
Yes, it's true.
Only 15% of all the jobs, all the people working in this country, that not only minimum wage, but also within $1.50.
Paul Kersey wrote about this back in 2004, July 23rd, 2004.
You can pick it out of National Review Online.
You can see.
This is just one of many of these reports.
Census data shows only 15% of workers earn within $1.50 of the minimum wage belong to poor families.
Minimum wage and add in $1.50 on top of that.
And you take all those jobs and you look at them and you say, who are these people that are making within $1.50 of the minimum wage?
And you find out that 15% belong to, defined by the Census Bureau, as poor.
However, 20%, more than that group, 20% belong to families whose earnings exceed $80,000 a year.
The average person who makes within $1.50 of the minimum wage has a total family income of more than $40,000.
So what are we doing with this?
It doesn't do anything.
It doesn't help anywhere.
The Employment Policy Institute, they went back and they took a look and they said, here's the problem.
A lot of people, the Democratic Party primarily, that keep pushing this concept of a minimum wage look at that minimum wage job as a dead-end job.
That's where you're going to go to work.
That's where you're going to stay.
You're not going to get any advancements.
You'll never get promoted.
You'll never get a pay increase without the government.
And in fact, that's not true.
The Employment Policy Institute went back between 1998 and 2002 and said that the typical minimum wage workers saw their wages go up by better than 10.5% within one year of beginning at that minimum wage job.
And during that period of time, there was no change in the minimum wage.
It went up simply because of the fact that people, and this is where it plays a valuable role.
It gives unskilled people skills.
It gives them dignity.
It gives them the chance to go in and be able to get some experience, which they can parlay then into a raise, into promotions, into having some experience where they can go to another company and get even a better paying job.
So there's a role for the minimum wage job.
It is for the unskilled worker, 15% of which live in poor families.
20% live with families that make more than $80,000 a year.
Every single economic study I've seen comes up with basically the same conclusion.
All right, let's go back and take a look at some more little analysis.
This is from that wildly political group, the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
You talk to these guys.
I mean, these people are just the most geeky people because they are a bunch of statisticians.
I don't think they have a political bone in their body.
So their report, they went back to 90 to 91.
And when the minimum wage went up, there was a 12% decrease in employment opportunity for beginning jobs, primarily for teens.
Now, you say, aha, but Tom, you know, in 1990 and 1991, we were in a recession.
So those jobs are being lost for other reasons.
Maybe so.
So let's go look at the boom, boom, boom period of the late 90s, 1996 through 1997.
Same, not as dramatic, but there was still a substantial decrease in the number of job opportunities for first-time minimum wage jobs.
They go down when you raise the minimum wage.
I mean, think it through.
You own a small business.
You now have to pay somebody that has no skills that's coming in.
They've never worked anyplace or they don't have any experience in your business.
And you're going to teach them the business.
You're going to teach them the job.
But you're going to start them at the minimum wage, and you need three of them.
Well, if the minimum wage goes up, you might say, I need two of them.
That's just how it works.
We need to take a short break, and when we come back, we'll take your phone calls.
The phone number to join the program is 800-282-2882.
My name is Tom Sullivan.
This is the Rush Limbaugh Radio Program.
So the Wall Street Journal does this big interview with Nancy Pelosi, and they're kind of scratching their heads, I think, and they come back out.
And remember, this is the opinion page is more to the right.
The journalistic news sections are more to the left.
They come out and they ask this question.
They said, all right, so we all know what we want, and we're just not hearing it from the politicians.
These people in Washington are tone deaf when it comes to fiscal management, fiscal responsibility.
So who is the most effective voice?
They did a poll today.
Who is the most effective voice for Democrats in Congress?
No, not John McCain.
H.R. John McCain's a Republican.
Oh.
Oh, yeah.
So they asked the question: Hillary or Teddy or Joe Lieberman or Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reed.
Well, who came in bottom as far as the poll going on right now for who is the most effective voice for Democrats in Congress?
Bringing up the back of the line is none other than Harry Reid.
Old Dingy Harry himself got 6% of the votes.
Next to last, back there in the end of the line, with 7% of the votes, it's a tie between Teddy Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi.
So the back three are Pelosi and Kennedy and Harry Reid.
Democrats are you're looking at your leaders and going, people are saying these people are our pinheads.
Let's see, who comes in fourth last is Hillary.
She got 11% of the votes.
It really comes down to two people.
Barack Obama got 30%, but number one, number Uno, who is the most effective voice for Democrats in Congress, is Joe Lieberman.
39% said, yep, I'm for Joe.
And that's kind of interesting.
I don't know if this is, I don't know if Joe is going to, if this is going to help Joe or hurt him in his reelection bid in Connecticut.
I don't know.
But it looks like people like him.
And we'll see what happens.
Come, when is that, August 8th?
It's coming up pretty quick.
Isn't it the 8th?
I think it is.
It's August, first part of August.
Another great quote from an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, Kevin Hassett, about this minimum wage business.
He says, it is wrong to redistribute money from the worst-off workers to other low-income workers.
That's where it comes from.
Well, you're not, does the minimum wage change your income?
Most of you?
Almost all of you?
No, it doesn't.
So what they're doing is they're taking from low-income workers and shifting the money around to another low-income worker.
Isn't that really what happens here?
Kevin in Oregon on your cell phone.
Kevin, hello, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Yes, sir.
Yeah, it's good to talk to you.
I don't generally listen to Rush, but I like what you had to say.
I agree that Mr. Rather's a prima donna and probably a bit of an egomaniac, and he is from Texas, too, right?
Yes, sir.
He's modeling cowboy.
He's got that cowboy attitude, yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm a construction worker going to a pipeline job.
I agree with you.
You can't bleed the rich.
I am kind of a left-to-center Democrat, but 100 years ago, I would have been a Teddy Roosevelt Republican.
Yeah.
Does that put me in the right context?
Yeah, no, I've got you figured out.
Okay.
So I agree with you.
Yeah, you cannot bleed the rich, and if you bump up the minimum wage appreciably, it's going to make black teenagers harder to employ, et cetera.
But I think there's some compromises like if we're going to cut back on spending for domestic programs, we've got to do something about the $3 billion a month we're spending in Iraq.
We've got to cut back across the board.
Defense spending, education, environmental, you name it, it should be a proportional cut, not just in certain areas.
Would you use that as a possible negotiating point that we have to cut back across the board?
Yeah, no, I think I like the idea.
In fact, what I like is if they have problems trying to pass a budget, just go back and use the budget from last year.
Or why don't you take the one that worked fine five years ago or one that, yeah, I don't have a problem with doing it across the board, and it makes it very simple and it politically gives them cover.
So I don't know why they don't do it.
But here's where the boogeymen are hiding.
The boogeymen in federal spending are Social Security and Medicare.
Those are the largest entitlement and Medicaid.
I mean, you put Medicare, Medicaid in there, but it's Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
And they're the largest spending programs by far, followed up by, and it's going to get worse the more we keep spending more than we bring in, is the interest that the government pays on the debt.
That's all this other stuff.
And I don't have a problem with your views on that, Kevin.
But the spending that we're doing here, there, and everywhere else is nothing compared to what we spend on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
And here's the other part.
Here's the part that drives me absolutely nuts.
Here are these people that are jumping up and down about the fact that the government needs to do something about its spending and needs to rein in all this spending.
And it's the evil Republicans that are doing all this spending.
But when it came time to do something about it, when it came time to do something about the number, well, number one, but quickly the Medicare, Medicaid's growing faster, is to fix the spending problem that we have every year and it's going to get worse is Social Security.
They voted no on don't touch Social Security, don't do any reform, don't do anything to bring it up to date.
And even though it's the largest expenditure out there, let's not do anything about that.
Let's instead just pretend that we're against government spending and, well, we'll just raise taxes.
That's what we'll do.
That's the answer to everything.
We'll talk about it more when we come back.
Tom Sullivan in for Rush Lindbaugh.
Just looking at the market, another big down day down 143 on the Dow right now.
But here's another little part about all of this, folks.
We're going through something that's also, well, first of all, whenever you stir things up in the world, you're going to get this sort of reaction, and you're going to use Wall Street uses us as a tool to be able to do some selling.
We, up until just the last few weeks, we have not had a correction in the stock market since the first quarter of 2003.
It was pretty long in the tooth waiting for something to go backwards on us.
And we're okay.
We now have officially have a correction going on.
I think it's going to, you know, corrections take weeks to months to go through.
I wouldn't be all that worried about what's going on today.
Side, you should be looking at what's going on three to five years down the road.
And speaking of trends, who's this from?
This is Congressional Budget Office.
They've got the numbers down on what I just said to the last caller about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and how much it's costing.
Let me just give you a little goodie here.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, they start here with 1962 to 2001.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid was 2% of the gross domestic product in 1962.
2%.
It's now almost 8%.
Meantime, defense spending has gone from 9% of the GDP down to 3%.
That's what we're doing.
We're reducing our spending, and we have for many, many decades on defense so that we can boost spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
And yet nobody wants to fix any of that.
It's not going to last.
It won't work, especially when the boomers start retiring.
Mark in New Brunsville, Texas.
Hi, Mark.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Yes, it's New Bronfels.
I just had a comment about Nancy Pelosi's master plan.
And it's really simple arithmetic.
If there's going to be $13 billion for deficit reduction and then $13 billion in new spending, the result is zero change on the budget.
Oh.
That's pretty hard to figure out, isn't it?
Yeah, well, and I even had a public education in the U.S., you know.
And you still got it.
Yeah.
The whole thing is based on the assumption that the tax increases will actually bring in new revenue.
Of course, they've never heard of the Lapper curve, or they forgot the 60s and the 80s, and more recently, the boom that we're currently experiencing based on tax reduction.
Well, yeah, they do static analysis, which is, well, right now, so much is coming in.
So if we raise the rate, so much more will come in.
But what they don't do is dynamic scoring, which says, hmm, if you raise the rate, how many people are going to do something to not pay as much?
And that's what they don't do, because I'm with you.
They will not meet their revenue projections.
They never do whenever they do static testing.
Never has happened in the past.
Appreciate the call, Mark.
Let's go to Gerard in Marietta, Georgia.
Hi, Gerard.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I can't tell you how mind-blowing it was to have the phone actually ring since 1991.
Always busy.
I have to say something before I get into it.
I always thought Tony Snow was the only one that could replace Rush Limbaugh and make it interesting.
And now I find out there's another one with the same initials, Tom Sullivan, that's equal to the job.
It's very interesting.
You're very kind, and I know Tony, and I like him.
But does that mean that I get to be the next press secretary?
Do you really want it?
Are you kidding me?
I don't sound that stupid, do I?
No, not really.
That's why I asked.
I got to tell you, though, a few minutes ago when you were talking about the profile of Democrats and Republicans, big government, small government, I think you were being way too kind to the Democrats.
I don't believe it's philosophical at all.
I think they learned it from Roosevelt with all his programs, divide and conquer, that maybe there's some Democrats who believe a bigger government does better things and helps the country more, but the bulk of them want power.
They want to get back in power.
And all I've got to do is look at an issue and say, which one would generate most likely the most votes?
And you can see Democrats standing in line.
And immigration is the perfect one that's major right now.
The war, they were all for the war.
Then as they saw the trends changing, they started creeping back into the true ideology, which, by the way, I do think is against the American military, but it's down to the votes again, and I get so sick of it.
No, I don't disagree with your comments, but I got to correct something.
What I'm talking about is the way that they play.
The electeds play to the Democratic electeds play to the Democratic members of the citizens that are registered Democrats in this country.
They go out to them and say, let me bring you more big government.
And people go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like gifts that are voted for me.
I'll go for more of that.
That's what I was talking about.
Not the people in office.
I agree with you.
It's a power grab.
It's hardball politics.
That's all it's about.
But they hide behind the skirt of, let me give you something for free.
Let me bring you bigger government.
And that's where the rank and file every day go to work Democrat goes, yeah, that's what I'm for.
I think that's the difference.
Going with the numbers might win, and that's sad.
Yeah, it's not about the country.
It's about how can I beat the other person.
So, hey, Gerard, thanks for your observations and your kind comments, too.
Lawrence in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Hi, Lawrence.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi, Tom.
Tom, in regards to that shrill Nancy Pelosi's comments about raising the minimum wage, the dinosaur unions, the majority of them, their pay increases are predicated in their contract to the minimum wage.
So Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are playing to one of their biggest groups, which are the unions.
And the biggest unions happen to be government.
Yes.
And so that is the largest, other than the goodwill and the good thought and all that baloney.
The fact is, is those people will gain the most.
And then who gets screwed the most?
We the voting public.
Yeah, all the taxpayers.
All the people that.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
So most people don't think about that.
And I think the last time I saw the number of jobs in this country that are union is something like 7 or 8 percent, other than if you throw in public employees, government employees, it brings it up to, I think, 12 or 13 percent.
So then everyone will be crying about the stamps going up at the post office and all this kind of stuff because the minimum wage is set and their raises are predicated on that minimum wage.
I forgot about that, but I know I've heard that before, that, yeah, their contracts are based upon the minimum wage, even though it's not the minimum wage, it's based upon that as the multiplier.
And yeah, you're right.
I mean, what that then says is they don't give two hoots about one of those persons from the 15% of the minimum wage jobs out there, the poor folks.
They're not worried about the poor folks.
They're just pretending they are.
They're looking for the labor.
And yeah, labor unions still have an overabundance of power in this country because of the fact that they do have few people that belong to them, but they've got a paycheck to be able to buy a lot of politicians.
Jim in Tampa, a lot of Florida calls today.
Hi, Jim.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi, Tom.
Your last caller was really right on what I was going to say.
And the unions are pushing and driving that.
I'm retired.
And the people who have to be against it the most are retirees, particularly those that are on fixed incomes, whether it's just Social Security or Social Security and other kinds of retirement plans.
We lose.
Cost of living goes up.
We don't get to buy the hamburgers anymore because they've gone from $3 to $6 because of the cost of living.
And if you increase minimum wage, you're going to multiply those kinds of factors.
Yeah, but there's somebody right now listening to you, Jim, is saying, well, but wait a minute, if inflation goes up, then your wages, the increase in Social Security and all these pension benefits, you get a big increase from there.
But you know, and I know that.
You've got to be kidding.
Yeah, I know.
It doesn't work.
No inflation is there.
The companies are the big losers.
And specifically, but the whole economy loses because of it.
Well, but mostly it starts with inflation hurts the lowest income and the fixed income the most over anybody else.
The rich folks are still going to be rich and they can afford the adjustment, but it hurts the people who can least afford to be hurt.
So your point's well on.
Jim, thanks for the call.
We're going to take a short break and come back.
800-282-2882.
Tom Sullivan sitting on the Rush Limbaugh radio program.
All right, all right, all right, all right.
So we got it.
We've got some calls that said, oh, you know, government, government jobs are not tied to the minimum wage.
They just negotiate their contracts.
Yeah, but in the contracts, you can darn well bet that they're sitting at that table going, look at, look, we got to, you know, if the minimum wage goes up, we've got to get an increase too.
And I wouldn't blame them for doing that because if you're making seven bucks an hour, minimum wage is at $5 and some change, and they raise it to $7 and some change, you're going to go, excuse me, me too.
I want my raise.
I'll tell you about jobs in this country in just a minute.
Let's get Susan in here from Houston.
Hi, Susan.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi, Thomas.
When talking about Tom Rather, you ask if, I mean, Stan Rather, you ask if any of us ever known people who wouldn't leave when they should.
And I would say that we have a whole crowd of them on Capitol Hill, a bunch of dinosaurs who need to leave.
I don't think our forefathers intended people to go up there and spend 40 or 50 years.
I think they're supposed to be our peers, shopkeepers, farmers, whoever, go spend a few years to serve the country and then go back home to their businesses and live in the real world.
We've got a bunch of people who want to stop their perks.
It's a good analogy.
Good analogy because of the fact they believe they're self-important and they also start getting, like you said, they start to become big deals and they like being a big deal because they're not a big deal when they go back and live like the rest of us in any town USA.
Your analogy is perfect, Susan.
They've totally lost touch with real people who run businesses, you know, and just work day to day or whatever.
And I want term limits, but it's never going to happen since they are the ones that have to make it happen.
Yeah, they've tried before and the court said you can't do that.
So yeah, there's not going to be term limits at the federal level.
There are at a number of state levels.
But no, that's a good analogy.
Dan Rather isn't going to leave, and there's a whole bunch of members of Congress that they get in these jobs.
And then the other thing, in states where there is term limits, what they do is most of these people have never, ever, ever run a business anyway.
In fact, it's one of those rare campaigns where you see somebody and they always put it in if they've done it.
Say, I met a payroll.
I've employed people.
I know what it's like to be you.
And that's always a big deal, but you rarely see them in ads because most of these people have never been in business for themselves.
Have never met a payroll.
Have never had any economic requirements on them.
They've always had somebody else's checkbook to help them get through the day, through the week, through the month, through the year.
And so I, yeah, you know, if you go back to the farmer citizen, lawmaker, oh, we're so far away from that.
But in states where there is term limits, you get the person who's termed out of being a senator, and they go run for the state house as a representative.
And then they get termed out of there and they go run for state treasurer.
They run for lieutenant governor.
They run for they just go from, or they get appointed to some commission or some agency by all their buddies, and the same group is still running government that was before.
It never seems to change.
Walter in Irvine, California.
Hello, Walter.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hello, Tom.
Thanks for the opportunity.
I enjoy very much your program.
Thank you.
I wanted to explore with you and your economic background some advantages of the minimum wage looked at from the technical.
And I'm an engineer, mechanical engineer.
So basically, I spend my life designing little things that put people out of work.
So every time there's a income.
No, no, you didn't put people out of work.
You increased productivity, which has helped the economy tremendously to make up for the gap in the number of people that are following the big bulge of baby boomers.
I congratulate you.
True, true.
But I mean, I'm talking about the minimum wage people is the one I'm putting out of work.
Oh, oh, okay.
Well, no, I don't think so.
Well, if you increase the minimum wage, the stuff that I design and try to sell you is going to be much more exciting for you to look at because to change from labor value to technical value added to your product.
And if I get a chance to develop that thing because now the minimum wage is making my product affordable, then I have to hire a bunch of people that are way above the minimum wage.
So it does have an advantage in my view to a little like a boomerang.
Yeah, But here's the difference, though.
Here's the difference, Walter, is what you're talking about is somebody who has a skill, a skilled job, a skilled craft.
And skilled people can have problems when a machine comes along and does the same thing for a lot less money and also shows up seven days a week.
But when you're talking about the unskilled person, I know you can design some things to do some rudimentary jobs, but there are always, and there have always been, entry-level jobs where something needs to be done by a human, not a machine.
And that is where the entry-level jobs are, and that's where the minimum wage jobs are.
But even if you do, say, have an impact on this, remember, again, the slim, small, 15% of the people that make minimum wage live in homes that are in poverty.
The rest of them don't.
And more than not live in fairly well-off homes.
Short break.
We'll come right back and wrap up this program.
Tom Sullivan sitting in on the Rush Limbaugh radio program.
I have, I don't know, I have this overwhelming urge as we're wrapping up the program today and I'm out to Paul W. Smith's back tomorrow and then Rush is back on Monday.
I just had this urge to end the program today by just saying courage.
I don't know why.
It's just, if the word came to me, I don't know.
I don't know either.
All right.
So the jobs, folks, take a look at the economy.
We're adding an average of about a quarter million jobs a month.
Wages are going up a little inflationary, but wages went up better than 4.5% in the second quarter.
It's the best, the fastest quarterly gain since 97.
Wages tend to grow when the job market gets tight because people want to hire those good people.
That's what gives people more money.
It's been a pleasure to be with you.
Have a great day, and Rush will be back on Monday.
▲
Export Selection