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Dec. 29, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:37
December 29, 2006, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
That is absolutely right.
This is Dr. Walter E. Williams uh uh sitting in for a rush on the last Friday of the year.
And uh I'm gonna spend the last Friday of the year uh doing what I typically do, and that is pushing back the frontiers of ignorance and uh trying to sell my fellow American on the moral superiority of the liberty and its major ingredient, limited government, as the founders of our great nation envisioned.
Now, since it's the last day of the year, we're gonna have a modified open line Friday.
Now, what that means is uh, you know, I've been substituting for 14 years, and if there's anything that you want to take issue with me over these last fourteen years and over my syndicated columns that are published nationally and internationally over the last twenty-five years,
you can call in with your disagreement or your question, and I invite not necessarily people who agree with me, but I invite liberals, that is people who think that the government should have more control over my life,
they should also call in, and I'm going to ask my uh sharp uh uh call screener, Kip Kit Carson, to just let these people in and come and talk to with me, and I can show them where uh they are wrong and I am right.
Okay.
Now there's a one breaking news before we really get into the program.
And uh I guess just a few minutes ago, maybe an hour ago, the United States authorities turned over Saddam Hussein to the Iraqi authorities.
And according to the predictions, his uh hanging is imminent.
And so I have the televisions on, and so I'll keep you up to date as the show progresses.
But uh what I want to start off today, I want to talk about uh our late uh former president um uh Ford.
And uh let me first say before uh uh before we start that I think that President Ford was a decent man, and he's worthy of our respect.
But there are a lot of things that are being said in the news media about President Ford's uh uh time uh during uh when he was president that I think just plain wrong.
Uh one thing that they're one thing that they're saying is that his pardon of Richard Nixon healed the country.
Well, that's kind of questionable in my opinion.
Uh first of all, we have to ask the question, who was for Nixon?
That is, uh it turned out that uh Goldwater, uh Senator Goldwater headed a delegation to Nixon's office and told him that he had no support on his impeachment.
Uh and he had no support uh anywhere in United States, maybe a little tiny bit of support, but there was not 50% of Americans for Nixon and 50% of Americans uh against him.
And so I I think that pardoning Nixon was a mistake.
And his other uh mistake, I think, was the appointment to the Supreme Court of John Paul Stevens.
And John Paul Stevens is a Supreme Court justice that I think, according to his opinions, uh have um the he appointed a person who has disrespect for the United States Constitution, and just look over his decisions and you can see this.
Then another part of the uh Ford uh presidency, I'm not necessarily being critical of Ford, but we just want to look at some things uh in the past so that we can better gauge uh the future or or know what to prepare ourselves for future events.
Remember during the uh 1970s, there was a lot of inflation.
And uh the Ford administration, they started uh inflation campaigns, uh such as whip inflation now.
That is you wear these win buttons, and then plant a vegetable garden.
Uh that would help with inflation.
And then turn down your thermostats.
Uh that would, you know, that would cut the demand for fuel and uh help restrain uh prices, price increases.
And matter of fact, I don't think it was during the Ford administration, but I think during the Carter administration, they were even suggesting sending Boy Scouts to people's houses to see whether they had their thermostat set on 68.
Now uh I commented during the time, and I can't quite say on this show what I actually said to the uh person who asked me about this uh boy scout business, but I told him I what I would do to a boy scout who came to my house uh wanting to check my thermostat, he would be in bad shape.
But let's think about uh inflation.
Inflation is not caused by rapacious businessmen or greedy unions and uh or oil prices.
Ladies and gentlemen, inflation everywhere is a monetary phenomenon.
That is, there's an increase in supply of money.
And who is in charge of increasing supply of money?
It's the government.
And so what we need to do uh to handle inflation, we need to have a sensible monetary policy.
Now you can kind of think about let me let me give you an example or a little experiment that you can do to check inflation.
Uh a lot of people have a monopoly game.
And there's a fixed amount of money in the monopoly game.
Now imagine somebody charges, oh, I don't know, $20,000 or let's let's say uh five thousand dollars for boardwalk.
Well, boardwalk prices will go up, but not every single price.
That is, if boardwalk prices go up, other prices will have to go down.
Now, inflation is defined as a general increase in prices.
That is all prices rise together, as we saw during the 70s, as we see during any inflation.
Now, here's a little trick.
To get all prices rising in your monopoly game.
That is the next time you go over to somebody's house to play Monopoly, sni sneak your money into the game.
That is, take the money from your game and sneak it into the game, and then you will see all prices rising.
But if you have a fixed amount of money, you're never going to see all prices arising.
Another thing that happened, perhaps uh t towards the end of the Ford administration and the beginning of the Carter administration, we had something called stagflation.
That is, we had the combination of prices rising, and we also had the combination of rising unemployment.
And economists, Keynesian economists had been talking about the so-called Phillips curve, and they said, well, there's a trade-off between inflation and unemployment.
That is, as inflation goes up, unemployment goes down, or as you if you try to lower inflation, unemployment will rise.
Well, that theory was thoroughly discredited uh during the uh 1970s.
As a matter of fact, much of the Keynesian uh Sir Maynard Keynes, the uh famous economist that uh uh that produced uh a work during the 30s uh and 40s uh uh commenting on uh the it was a general theory of employment, I forget the full title.
They typically call it the general theory.
But anyway, that was thoroughly discredited during the 1970s.
Anyway, so let's keep in mind, let's before you people call and saying, well, I'm speaking ill of the dead, I'm not speaking ill of the dead.
I'm saying that f uh Ford, President Ford was a decent man, he was a respectable man, and he's worthy of our our respect.
But I'm just kind of pointing out some things that were said in news media that are absolutely false and you should not pay attention to.
And I also point out that uh the his uh Supreme Court uh appointment, John Paul Stevens, I think was a disastrous choice, and Americans are paying for it today, and we're going to continue to pay for it.
We'll be back with your calls after this.
We're back, uh Walter Williams sitting in for the vacation rush.
And Rush will be back on Wednesday and uh and Roger uh Hedgecock will be in on Tuesday.
And you can be on by calling 1 800 28282.
Uh let's uh let's go to the phones right now and uh let's take a call from uh Robert.
Uh Robert from Santa Rosa, California.
Welcome to the show, Robert.
Yeah, hello, uh Dr. Williams.
Thank you for taking my call.
Unfortunately, I I have a bone to pick with you, sir.
Um bottom line is I I took your advice in regards to gift giving for my wife, and uh she hasn't spoken to me since Christmas.
What what happened?
Well, you know, I I I remember you saying once before when you subbed for Rush how you would uh had bought uh your wife uh pair of golf shoes so she wouldn't slip and hurt herself while she washed your car.
Yeah.
Well, I took that advice.
I went out, I got the best pair of golf shoes money could buy, and she my wife she's just angry.
She you know, she and she hasn't washed my car since either.
That's that's very unappreciative of your of your lady.
Well, it sure is.
And and let me give the audience some uh background on this.
This isn't a number years ago.
Uh it was around Christmas time, and somebody called in and said, Well, uh uh Professor Williams, what did you get Mrs. Williams for uh uh Christmas?
And so I told her I got a set of uh golf shoes.
Uh she doesn't play golf, but uh the golf shoes have cleats on it, and and and so she doesn't slide around uh in the winter once she's washed my car.
And then I had another gift, you know, matter of fact, uh Mrs. Williams was uh had a very short uh duration in the hospital a couple of years ago, and her doctor told her that uh she shouldn't be um uh lifting heavy uh heavy things.
So uh I got her and and I always wrap my gifts very nicely.
I got her a little a little tiny shovel that doesn't hold much snow uh at time when so when she's shoveling my driveway, uh she's not lifting up a whole lot of snow.
And and these have been uh very innovative gifts on my behalf.
And and matter of fact, and those of you who think I oppress Mrs. Williams, uh uh we've been married uh forty-seven years, so evidently she's very grateful of my uh my company.
But this but since people have been critical, they're saying, Well, well well, Williams, Professor Williams, you always give Mrs. Williams uh self-serving gifts, that is, uh gifts that help you.
And so this year I've been a little bit different, I've been a little more caring.
And so I looked around, and matter of fact, here's what I suggest to guys.
I said, look around the house and look for what you're gonna have to buy anyway and get that for the gift.
So uh this year I got her some uh lipstick, I got her some uh deodorant, and I got her ha actually a half dozen of of stockings and uh and bobby pins, and I wrapped them all very nicely, and I presented her on Christmas Day, and uh and she just looked at me uh kind of a certain way, you know, very lovingly, though.
I th I I interpret the the uh the glance very lovingly.
And then there's one final improvement.
Now you guys might really think about this because uh Mrs. Williams and I, uh we are in our seventies, and we only have thirty or forty more years to live in the anyway.
And so you gotta start preparing for one's own death and uh what you're gonna do.
And so uh I have an estate plan whereby um uh the instructions of my estate plan not to bury me or or decremate me, is that the instructions are that Mrs. Williams have to take me to a taxidermist and and have me stuffed.
And uh the the and the and and the uh fellow who uh who will hand out the money, my executor will just kind of go by the house and see whether I'm sitting at the kitchen table or see whether I'm uh sitting in front of television and and then give Mrs. Williams the money.
But I just don't want to leave this earth.
And so uh those are the instructions uh for uh Mrs. Williams on my demise.
Uh but let's go to um let's let's go to Frank in Troy, New York.
He wants to talk about the Nixon pardon.
Welcome to the show, Troy uh Frank.
Yes, good afternoon, Dr. Williams.
Pleasure to talk to you and uh I would never have thought you were in your seventies if you didn't say so.
Oh well you know the average person actually you can go to my website is Walter E. Williams dot com and I have very very handsome picture that the ladies all thrilled with.
And the average person would guess me uh uh kid what what would you say about forty one, forty-five?
Well I'm forty one.
Well kids I'll say fifty one just to be safe.
Okay, okay, right.
But but what's your what's your comment or observation?
Right, well my thought I mean I was eight years old when uh when the uh Ford presidency began and I didn't even know about a presidential pardon at the time.
So my research on that all came later on in life and my my thoughts on it were and again I don't have a problem with your your take on it just uh want to present uh an argument of my own on the other side is that uh the act of pardoning got Congress and the country away from something that was bogging it down and able to go on to bigger and better things.
And uh Well I I I think that the it's good for the country to have Congress bogged down.
That is the uh they can do fewer harmful things to the nation if they're bogged down by the way I won't argue that either no you you're right with that.
Um although I will say that um by the time it came around for Carter um it was definitely time to to come along.
Now when Carter's term ended or when Reagan was close to being elected I remember getting materials handed in school that was along that uh you know if we're not careful Carter might be just a one term president like Miller Fillmore and they were trying to indoctrinate us back then even in school about that.
Well that's uh um i th those are some uh additional thoughts uh but thank you for your call let's go to uh Geneseo is that am I pronouncing your name correctly uh no uh Genesio Genesio he's from on Ontario, Canada yeah it's uh uh a t Italian name my dad uh he uh he went to pick up Time magazine and then he picked up the Bible and he looked in the Bible said Genesis and he said Genesio put it on in kind of thing.
Yeah, I'm just calling, like in Canada, we have Medicare.
And I think it's a good thing because when my dad, 10 years ago, he had surgery.
The bill was $126,000 because of pay through the tax system.
It didn't put my dad into jeopardy or whatever.
Because we collectively, as a society, pay insurance, you pull money kind of thing.
I I'm thinking you think it's a good system uh universal health care was started by Tommy C. Douglas uh um in Saskatchewan in nineteen f uh forty four is uh his grandson is uh Kiefer Sulderling well let me run a few questions by because I think the audience might be interested in some of the issues uh in uh Canada's single payer system uh there's a uh uh the Fraser Institute in in Vancouver,
British Columbia uh each year they publish a waiting list how long Canadians have to wait for uh various kinds of surgery and I'm looking at the waiting list right now it's on their site uh it's the Frasier Institute and it turns out that uh the uh can average waiting time in Canada for a hip replacement surgery is fifty four weeks.
And matter of fact, because people in Canada wait so long for hip replacement Cleveland, Ohio is Canada's hip replacement center.
That is people come from Canada to uh uh Cleveland.
And let me just give a couple more uh there's um for cornea transplant you have to wait forty two weeks.
Uh for uh uh cardiac uh surgery you don't have to wait that long it's only eight weeks you have to wait and this is the waiting times from going from a specialist To the actual uh surgery.
And so there are huge waiting times.
Matter of fact, in Canada, a lot of people die while they're waiting for a particular uh particular procedure.
And and by the way, uh, so far as brain surgery is concerned, uh, you people should check on my website, Walter E. Williams.com, and and click on, I believe it's uh titled Canadian Brain Surgery.
It's the uh first on the list uh underneath there, and you'll see that, in my opinion, that Americans are not going to want anything to do with a health system like Canada has.
And but they might right now because they think it's good.
They they see it as a free thing, they see it as a great thing.
But uh once we have it, and once people have to women have to wait three months for a pap smear or two months for a patch smear, they're not gonna like it.
And we'll be back with more of your calls after this.
This is Walter E. Williams pushing back the frontiers of ignorance during Russia's absence.
Uh, there's something else in the news today, and it has to do with a column that was published in the New York Times by an economist from Princeton University, uh Paul Krugman.
And the gist of the column is that uh, as a matter of fact, the title of the columns called A Failed Revolution.
And uh and Krugman is talking about the Republican failure uh since Republicans have been in office uh since uh well held the power in Washington since 1994.
And he talks about the uh Republicans' failure to cut back uh government.
Now, is uh is it really a failure regardless of who's in, whether it's Democrats or Republicans to cut back uh government?
I don't know.
And that is can you blame uh can you reason can we reasonably ask the politician to do what he considers to be political suicide?
That is to end various handout programs.
Now, I I blame politicians just a little bit, not by not providing us uh leadership, but the bulk of the blame, ladies and gentlemen, lies with you and me, the American people, because politicians are doing precisely what we elect them to office to do.
And what do we elect them to office to do?
Think about this for a moment.
We elect them to office to use the power of their office to take the rightful property of one American and bring it back to us.
That is, we elect them to office to engage in legalize theft.
Now, you say, what do you mean by this, Walter?
Well, first of all, we have to recognize that government has no resources of its very own.
Secondly, we have to recognize that there's no tooth theory or Santa Claus that gives them the money that supports these various programs that we want.
Now, when you recognize that government has no resource of its very own, that forces you to recognize that the only way the government can give one American citizen one dollar is to first, through intimidation, threats, and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American.
That is, I believe Americans love government.
Why?
They love government because government allows us to do things and to realize things that if we did the same thing privately, we'd be sent to jail.
Now let me give you an example of that.
I could see an elderly lady sleeping on the grate in the dead of winter in downtown New York.
This lady needs some medical attention, she needs some food, and she needs some shelter.
Now, I could walk up to any one of you with a gun in my hand and say, give me your 200.
Then having gotten your 200, I could go down and buy the lady some medical attention, get her some shelter, and buy her some food.
Now, would anybody in the audience see me as guilty of a crime?
I think you would.
You'd be guilty.
You'd say, see that I'm guilty of theft regardless of what I did with the money.
Because what is theft?
Theft is taking the rightful property of one person and giving it to another to whom it does not belong.
Now, I think most of you could agree with me.
No question.
Now here's the problem.
Is there any distinction between that act and when the agents of the United States Congress comes up to me and says, uh, Williams, you know that $200 you made last week that you had planned to buy a nice bottle of uh Chateau de Kem Sautern wine?
You will not use the money for that purpose, you'll give it to us, and we will help the lady uh sleeping on the grate.
Well, uh what's the difference between those two acts?
Both acts involved taking the rightful property of one person and giving it to another to whom it does not belong.
And if you press me for a distinction between the two acts, the only difference I can find is the first act was illegal theft, and the second is legalized theft.
Now, now so here's here's the big problem.
Now, if I went downtown and took I if I took somebody else's money to help that lady out, then I'd be sent to jail.
But however, if I got Congress to legislate and take somebody's money, I'm seen as compassionate to help the person.
Oh, Williams is so caring, I'd be uh in in the news and everything.
Oh, Williams is just a wonderful guy.
So that's what I mean when I say people love government.
Many Americans love government because it enables them to achieve things that if they did privately, they'd be sent to jail, and but doing it through government, they're seen as compassionate.
Now, don't confuse me, ladies and gentlemen.
I believe in helping our fellow man.
I believe that reaching into one's own pockets to help one's fellow man is praiseworthy and laudable.
Reaching into somebody else's pocket to help your fellow man, I think is despicable.
Now, I know many of you people out there are Christians.
And Christians ought to be upset with this, because when God gave Moses the commandment, thou shalt not steal, I'm sure that God didn't mean thou shalt not steal unless you got a majority vote in Congress.
I'm very sure about that.
Then also, it's not in the commandment, but if you were to ask God, well, you say, God, is it okay to be a recipient of stolen property?
What do you think he would say?
I think he would say that is a sin as well.
But see, here's the problem, ladies and gentlemen, here's the big problem.
And which is a supreme tragedy for our nation, and it's going to it's going to lead to our undoing, is that so far as personal interests are concerned, it pays Americans to do what they've been doing.
I mean, imagine, imagine that, let's say uh you're in North Carolina.
We all I live in North Carolina, and say I'm running for the United States Senate, and during my campaign I go back and forth across the state, and I say, Look, I've read the United States Constitution.
When I take an oath of office to uphold and defend the United States Constitution, I mean it if you elect me to the Senate.
I'm going to obey the Constitution.
There is nothing in the Constitution that enables me to uh uh to bring back funds to North Carolina for highway construction, uh handouts to farmers, meals on wheels, aid to higher education.
Do you think I would get elected to the Senate from North Carolina?
No, I wouldn't.
Because North Carolina North Carolinians, they'd be acting in their self interest not to elect me before the to the Senate.
Because if I don't bring back billions of dollars to North Carolinians, it doesn't mean that North Carolinians will pay a lower federal income tax.
All that it means is that the money will go instead to South Carolina.
So when Congress establishes the rule that one American can live at the expense of another American, then it pays for all Americans to try to live at the expense of each other.
Or another way of putting it, once legalized theft begins, it pays for everybody to get involved.
Those who don't get involved wind up holding the brown end of the stick.
And for those of you with a rural background, you know what I mean.
We'll be back with your calls after this.
This is Walter Williams, back with you, pushing back the frontiers of ignorance, and let's go to the phones.
John in Orlando, Florida, welcome to show, John.
Yes, Dr. Williams.
It's an honor to talk to one of the greatest minds in American history, in my opinion.
Well, thank you.
But uh seeing that the lifespan of most democracies in history have been about 200 years, uh, and you the picture you just painted before is basically in my opinion where we're headed.
Uh I want to ask you about two things that possibly could extend our our lifespan, if you will.
Uh one being the fair tax, um, and the second being how if we limited who could vote, meaning if you're on government assistance, you lose your right to vote until you are no longer receiving that assistance.
And in your opinion, what do you think about those two things possibly extending our march towards socialism?
Well, uh, that's a hard question.
Now, if uh just let me uh uh brief the audience on the uh on uh Congressman uh uh representative uh Linder's idea on the fair tax.
He proposes, at least according to the book I read, that he and uh and Neil Bortz in uh Atlanta, Georgia, I believe, uh they're calling for a a sales tax on all of our purchases.
I think it'll be around 23 percent, that which they say is revenue neutral will generate the same revenue as the current um income tax code, and elimination of all other uh federal taxes.
And um and and clearly I would say that some taxes are worse than other taxes.
Or uh the as a matter of fact, the the income tax is an abomination and it and just one form of the abomination is that uh in terms of just complying with the income tax code uh that uh and forget about the amount of money that you send in, it takes billions of hours.
Matter of fact, the uh estimate is it takes five point eight billion hours of record keeping uh filing taxes, uh consulting with legal uh and accounting, and it turns out that uh breaking these hours down into 40-hour week uh it translates into a workforce of about 2.77 million people, and that's more than the workforce of our automobile aircraft and computer and steel manufacturing industries.
That is, we're kind of throwing all that into the drink because of this uh very cumbersome uh uh income tax code.
Yeah, I think Borts, too, uh they said that that's the compliance cost is around 500 billion a year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I I'm not absol I don't really recall the figure, but you could absolutely be right.
Now, but there's an there's an issue, I have some reservations about the fair tax, and this is my reservation.
That is, I think that I would only support the fair tax if we first repeal the 16th Amendment creating the income tax.
Because I guarantee you, if we don't do that, and we have a fair tax, well, and we legislate a uh a pass a fair tax, it's going to mean that we're gonna have a national sales tax plus an income Tax.
And so what we have to do, we have to repeal the 16th Amendment.
But I wrote a column on this uh several weeks ago, and I think that the American people, we have to uh we have to be concerned with one thing uh so far as this uh the our our relationship with government.
That is the true measure of the effect of government on our lives is not how much government taxes us, but how much government spends.
Spending is what we should uh look at.
And in 18 from 18 from I'm sorry, from 1787, the inception of our nation, from uh to nineteen twenty, the federal government was only three percent of the GNP except during wartime.
Today, the federal government is over twenty percent of the GNP.
Now, if the federal government is only three percent of the GNP, then any kind of tax system is is okay.
It's not it's not going to be burdensome.
But if government spending uh rises to 20, 30, 50, 60 percent of the GNP, well then no kind of uh tax system is going to be helpful to us because the tr keep we have to keep in mind that the true measure of federal spending in our life of uh of our relationship with the federal government is federal spending.
You know, for example, the federal government does not have to tax us at all in order to get resources.
That is the federal government can just just print money.
Of course, if it just printed money to fund its activities, there'd be uh a rampant inflation.
But the point, ladies and gentlemen, that they don't have to uh tax us at all.
They can either print money, inflate the currency, because that's what the uh that's what inflation is, it's a sneaky form of taxation, or they can just run deficits by going into the bond market or the borrowing market and driving up interest rates.
See, in order you have to keep in mind, in order for government to spend uh out of our GNP, which is around thirteen trillion dollars, if the if the government wants to spend two or three trillion dollars of that GNP that we produce this year, it has to somehow get us not to spend two or three trillion dollars.
One way to get us not to spend is to tax us.
But another way is to inflate the currency because if the if prices go up, we can we can buy less, or another way is to to uh force us not to spend is to enter the bond market and bid up interest rates.
And so that means we can do less investment, less buying houses, cars, etc., etc.
So, ladies and gentlemen, the key thing is for us to pay attention to government spending.
And matter of fact, if government obeyed the United States Constitution, if our senators and our Congress representatives obeyed the United States Constitution, the federal budget would be roughly one third of what it is today.
We'll be back with your more of your calls after this.
We're at the end of the first hour and we can take one more call from Brian in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Welcome to the show, Brian.
Hi, Walter.
Um I have a question regarding the use of the military with a tight monetary policy as you described earlier in your show.
I'm in total agreement with you regarding inflation and how big the government should be, but it occurred to me that it might be difficult to fight wars like Iraq and just in general to have our military gallivanting all over the world if we had such a tight monetary policy and GNP as you described, or federal spending as you described as just three percent of GNP, and I was wondering what your thoughts were on that.
Well, we fought the number of wars uh when the when the federal spending was just three percent of the GNP.
And uh matter of fact, as I said in my uh statement, I said that we went from 1787 to 1920, uh, except during wartime, uh the federal government only spent three percent of the GNP.
But however, uh the federal government can wage a war if we cut spending.
I mean, we we s we uh uh we we did not have all the kind of spending that we have now, and we fought World War One, and we uh that was one.
Would you agree though that it it might be a different question to Americans if the president had to come to the nation and say we're gonna go to Iraq for however long we're gonna go And it's gonna cost a trillion dollars or whatever, and Americans are gonna feel it in their pocketbook rather than just print more money or borrow more money.
That is absolutely right.
That is when the cost of war is truly revealed, and the one way that we can seal the cost of war is through uh you know inflating the the currency and as I wrote in a column for this week, having the military draft that understates the true cost of war.
So if we get back to the way that the Constitution dictates how our country will run, should be run, we'll be much better off and our children would be much better off too.
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