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Jan. 24, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:23
January 24, 2007, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And hello, folks.
Greetings and welcome to you.
Nice to be back with you here on the EIB network.
Rush Limbaugh and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
We got broadcast excellence straight ahead for you for the next three hours.
You will be part of it when we go to the phones.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
Email address, rush at EIBnet.com.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, as you all know, when I say something about anything, there's nothing left to be said about it.
As such, I'm not going to start out here with an in-depth analysis of the State of the Union speech last night.
I will wait for your input on this.
I'm not going to deny you my input.
If I start telling you what I think, there's no reason to take any calls about it because there's nothing left to be said once I say something about it.
So I want to mix.
I got some little overviews here without getting too specific.
Nancy Pelosi, everybody's commenting on the blinking rate 30 to 40 times a minute or whatever.
It used to be she was unable to blink.
Now she can't stop blinking.
I think it was Morse code.
I think she was sending code to the Democrats as to when to applaud and when not to applaud.
In addition to when she stood up, that was a signal for them.
She also looked like she was chewing her cud to me.
I don't know if she had chocolate or something stuck, breath mint in her mouth or something, but she's constantly moving.
It was distracting.
I finally switched a network that didn't have Cheney and Pelosi in the background because it was odd.
President was classy and you should have seen this.
Dawn, you would have loved this, the way he opened the whole thing by acknowledging her and her dad.
And she is the first female speaker of the house and so forth.
And she was beaming and waving like a queen there when this happened.
The whole thing last, you know, people ask me, how come you don't go to the White House Correspondent Center?
Because I'll tell, folks, it's phony.
One night a year, these people in the media get together and act like they love everybody and love the president and so forth.
And you know, they hate his guts.
The same thing last night.
The most interesting aspect of all this in terms of the show of this, and I'm just an average guy.
I don't watch this stuff as a policy wonk.
I just watch this as an average guy.
And I get so I'm jaded.
I mean, I hear Democrats and I've heard them for six years literally trying to destroy this guy's life.
I hear them doing, making up some of the most outrageous insults, calling him names, and then he walks down the aisle and they all can't wait to be in the front row or on the front edge there.
So they get their pictures taken with big smiles and handshakes and so forth.
It's just a bunch of phonies.
And to me, it doesn't sell.
It may be a minor thing to you, but as a person of cultured refinement and manners, you know, I think it's just disingenuous.
It burns me up to watch.
And then, on the way out, all these people are asking, the Democrats included, for Bush to sign autographs of the program that they were all given.
And Congress women couldn't keep their hands off of him, both sides of the aisle.
And he's walking.
He's nice and he's gracious.
He tells Jesse Jackson Jr., you look just like your old man.
He's chatting up Sheila Jackson Lee, who won't stop chatting, but she would not shut up as he's trying to walk out.
Runs into Dennis Kucinich, both in and out, telling Bush, God bless you, Mr. President, and so forth and so on.
And in warm embraces, Tom Harkin out in the hall after the thing is all over, with Russ Feingold doing the same thing.
And I'm sorry, I don't buy it.
Something here is not one of these two situations is phony.
Either last night, when their professed love, respect, and admiration for George Bush is phony, or their behavior every day of the week other than last night, every day of the year other than last night is phony.
But it's just unseemly to me.
It is not natural.
And I don't want to hear, well, it's all about the collegiality, Rush.
It's a State of the Union show.
Everybody stands up and applauds.
Collegiality, trying to put forth the image that we're unified as a country.
Fine.
Does it work?
The Democrats and a bunch of Republicans today are back at it, complaining and whining and moaning about the Iraq policy.
There's no plan.
Chuck Hagel lost it during a Senate committee today.
We've got the audio soundbite of this coming up.
It just, I don't know, the whole thing, whatever else happened, it just sort of sours the occasion for me.
I know one of the best parts last night was when Bush introduces these real people heroes.
The military personnel, the woman that was an entrepreneur had her daughter there, the subway hero from New York, Wayne Autry, who was the highlight of the night for me.
This guy gets introduced by Bush.
He stands up and starts pointing at Bush, yo to man, you to man, and accepting all these accolades, just a real guy.
And he was, it was great.
And Bush was amused by it.
You can see it on his face.
But I'll tell you something.
And I have taken, I don't care.
I'm just illustrating this to make the point.
I've taken a lot of grief from people, even some of you who are quote-unquote fans, supporters, listeners, when I have openly said the Democrats are invested in defeat.
And some of you have written the find another way to say it.
You're not going to convince the American people that Democrats want us to lose.
Well, I'm not going to change the way I talk about it.
Certainly not after last night, when the president absolutely mentions that what this is all about is forging on to victory.
Half of that room sat still.
Half of that room did not applaud.
Nancy Pelosi didn't make a move other than her dancing eyes.
Now, you can be critical of me for being too direct or whatever you think, brazen, but I just ask you to look at the video from last night.
If you saw it, the concept of victory is mentioned, and they sat still.
And some of them had dour looks on their faces, such as Mrs. Clinton.
Try as much as she can.
She just can't pull off warm.
She just can't.
You look at her and you feel like, my gosh, I'm in one flu over the cuckoo's nest, and there's Nurse Ratchet following me.
I can't get away from her.
Now, you might say, okay, Rush, well, why do they want to lose?
Look at it.
Have you noticed the latest that they're talking about?
They now want us to start withdrawing in four months.
Well, let's count four months: February, March, April, May.
Hmm.
May.
What's interesting about May?
Well, May happens to be the date, the month that General Praeus says that we will begin to see signs of success or failure in this new surge by May.
So they want us to pull out before there is even an opportunity for the surge to work.
But it's not really about calendars.
It's all about politics.
Folks, here's the dirty little secret: the Democrats cannot afford for this country to win this war now.
After the position they've taken here, the position that it's an unjust war, that Bush lied, that this is not even necessary, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.
I don't have to go through the whole litany for you.
They have been invested in defeat.
They've done what they can to sabotage victory over this enemy.
They've done it consistently.
They do it loudly.
And they've broken ranks with victory a long time ago.
They've broken ranks with their own votes to support this war long ago.
It is well understood where they come from.
And it's well understood by even average people that the Democrats are trying to get us out of there before any sense of victory has a chance, especially with this latest strategy of sending reinforcements.
Why would this be?
Why is it not about the calendar?
Why is it about politics?
If this goes well, if Baghdad gets stabilized, and Prey has said, we're going to do this.
It's worked before, he said, we pulled this off in Mosul.
We've pulled it off a couple other places.
And it's got a chance to work if it works.
Can you imagine in 2008 as the presidential race is heating up and coalescing?
And imagine if the stories coming out of Iraq are 180 degrees different then than they are today.
What if we're hearing and reading headlines like, snapping victory from the jaws of defeat?
What if Iraq and Baghdad in another two years end up tamed?
What if this works?
They are cooked.
They are doomed.
They cannot permit this.
They cannot allow this to work, not after the position they have taken.
And they also know, if you watched last night, the president mentions the concept of victory.
And one of the greatest lines last night, by the way, was, whatever you voted for, looking at members of Congress, whatever you voted for in this war, you didn't vote for failure.
That's right.
They didn't back then.
Now they're invested in it.
And when the concept of victory is mentioned and they sit still, they don't stand up and they don't applaud.
The people watching this don't have to hear it from people like me.
They saw it.
They can't afford to applaud victory.
Every time the troops were mentioned, they stood up and they rapidly applauded that.
But if victory and the troops are mentioned at the same time, sat still.
If they had applauded victory, it would have destroyed everything they've been trying to do the past year, oriented toward troop withdrawal, redeployment, whatever they want to call it.
Plus, they would have started riots out there amongst factions of their base.
Anyway, little long, quick timeout.
We'll be back and continue.
We've got audio soundbites going.
We've got 25 of them here so far, and we're still putting together, you know, on Fox last night, I don't know if other networks did this.
The first time I'd ever seen it is the president's walking out after the State of the Union speech.
They left the microphones on all the way up the aisle and out into the hallway outside the House chamber.
And you could hear the president talking to people and people talking to him as he was signing autographs.
And it was, for me, a first.
And Fox wisely shut up.
They got everybody out of the way, and it went on for like 10 or 12 minutes.
And to me, it was something new.
And it was, wow, look at this.
And when able to hear what people are saying to the guy, especially from a Democratic side of the aisle, it presented even a more stark contrast to the daily dose of venomous rage and hatred we get from these people about George Bush to the way they acted last night.
Anyway, sit tight.
We're coming right back.
Rush Limbaugh, America's real anchor man, truth detector, doctor of democracy, radio racing tour, general all-round good guy and harmless, lovable little fuzzball serving humanity here on the EIB network.
You know, I think as people assess this last night, the human aspect of this sometimes gets overlooked, certainly by the drive-by media.
In many ways, President Bush was magnificent last night, and some people might think that it, given circumstances, that it could have been one of his finest hours.
You know, we don't think about these things much.
Well, I shouldn't say that.
I'm sure some of you do.
But very few of us can understand what daily life for George W. Bush is like and all about.
I mean, we all are seeking happiness, and we're all pursuing it.
We all want contentment.
We all want to be liked.
You know, we have these normal human emotions.
None of us ever pull that off, of course, because it's impossible.
But here is a man who life is lived in public.
Every president's life is.
And he's no different than any other president here in this sense, other than the ways I'm going to mention here in just a second.
But vilified countless times a day, ask yourself how you'd hold up under it.
And I know you could say, and you'd be right.
But I look, Rush, I'm not seeking that.
And he is.
He wanted to be president.
He wanted to be power.
You have the power.
And you know that he knows the rules that it comes with it.
Yeah, but still, they're all human beings.
I'm leading up to somewhere with this or something with this.
People are still human beings in the end.
And I don't care who you are.
I don't care how much power you've got, unless you're a dictator.
You do not, as a human being, want to go through life being hated and despised and having things misstated about you and your character constantly maligned and this sort of thing.
You may sign up for the power of being president because you want to change the country for good.
You believe in the things you believe in.
You think the country can't do without you.
That kind of ego is necessary, somebody to put up with all this.
But it's still, it can't be easy.
And most of us would crack under it.
Most of us would say, I don't want to deal with this.
And we'd slink back into a normal existence where nobody cares what we do or comments are certainly not publicly and so forth and so on.
In that circumstance, you have the president showing up last night in what was a lion's den.
There were hopes and dreams and expectations that he would crumble as a human being last night.
Make no mistake about it, my friends.
The drive-by media was hoping, and they still hope that they can crack this man's spirit and his emotions and his resolve and his confidence.
And they hope to make that happen publicly.
And they were hoping that last night Bush would finally realize just how ostracized and isolated he is and admit that he's made all kinds of mistakes and beg people's forgiveness and so forth.
And he did just the opposite.
He went into a room that is now controlled and dominated by Democrats.
He went into that room during a crucial moment in the war on terror.
Not just the war in Iraq, a crucial moment in the war on terror.
He went into that room last night knowing that the left and the Democrats are emboldened beyond even their normal arrogance and condescension.
He went into that room knowing that there's a bunch of wobbly-kneed, linguini-spined Republicans that are willing to sell him out within five minutes of his departure last night.
He went into that room with a dozen odd sharks circling the room, circling in the waters for his job in 2008.
And yet, take away the, you can't take away the substance or the specifics.
And yet, he ended up dominating the room.
He ended up controlling the room.
He ended up getting the same kind of applause that presidents always do.
And he got his message, and he didn't buckle and he didn't waver on the thing that matters to him the most, and that's this nation's national security and defense.
And he put the Democrats on the spot and he forced them to sit on their hands when he mentioned the concept of victory, not just in Iraq, but in the war on terror.
And then the guests of the first ladies sitting up in the gallery there added to the warmth of the night.
He opened up with his classy warmth and graciousness and introduction of Nancy Pelosi and making her the focal point of the beginning of a state of the union.
It was the kind of class that we have yet to see from anybody in the Democrat Party today in elected positions.
They simply aren't capable of it.
They are too enraged.
They are too twisted with just venom.
And so in light of all these circumstances, and you could, by the way, see the proof of what I am saying if you wanted to waste your time after the speech and watch the post-speech analysis and commentary.
Almost universally, drive-by media commentators on cable news had to begrudgingly, wow, this is far better than we expected.
Why, this dive, I thought this guy would come in and crumble and be an emotional vegetable.
He knows the country hates him.
He knows we hate him.
He knows they hate the war in Iraq.
And they were stunned.
They did not get what they wanted.
In fact, the post-speech polls, they were pretty positive, too.
In terms of people who watched the speech, it was so ridiculous that somebody, some CBS pollster, I'm not sure who we got the video here.
It's coming up.
It was Bill Plant had to talk about, well, but our poll is only of people who watch the speech.
He had to report the good news of the poll.
But he said it's only, remember now, this poll is only of people who watch the speech.
Well, Bill, what good would a poll be of people who didn't watch the speech or what they thought of it?
This is the kind of twisted logic and position that the drive-bys were in last night trying to explain their own polls.
Bill Schneider did another masterful job of trying to dilute the effect of the upbeat nature of the post-speech polls as he's wont to do.
So overall, I think it was in terms of what people's expectations were.
I mean, you know, going into last night, how many of you get the impression as you watch a news every day and just look at things, the whole thing's disintegrating in front of our eyes, that there's no cement, that there's no glue holding anything together.
It just seems like a bunch of renegades off the reservation running around on their own and expected last night to be similarly chaotic, and it wasn't.
We'll be back.
Your phone calls, audio soundbites, coming right up.
Mike, I'm not sure the IFB is working.
Standby audio soundbite number three.
We have news on the minimum wage bill.
The Senate has just rejected an effort to pass a minimum wage bill without accompanying tax cuts.
House passed their minimum wage increase, and it went over to the Senate.
The Senate said, well, we want to want some tax cuts for small businesses in there to help them defray the increased cost of the minimum wage.
House Democrats said, screw that.
I mean, that's never going to happen.
We're not going to pass a minimum wage bill with tax cuts in it.
Senate said, well, if you're not going to pass a minimum wage increase with tax cuts, then there isn't going to be a minimum wage bill.
And that's what the Senate voted.
So this, I asked early on, how long will it be before Dingy Harry becomes Nancy Pelosi's biggest thorn and she stops speaking to him?
She's not going to like this.
Queen Bee.
Senate's supposed to bow down to what the House does.
Make no mistake about it.
I mean, now they are.
I'm not talking about constitutionally.
She's of the mind that the people elected the House and the House is going to dictate these things.
Although she knows that they need 60 votes for anything in the Senate, nobody's going to get 60 votes on something like this.
So it'll have to go to a conference committee.
And the question now is, will the House cave on tax cuts for small business?
You know, they've put themselves out there.
They're praising themselves for already raising the minimum wage, even though the bill isn't even done.
So you think, well, maybe they're going to have to cave and there will be a tax cut for small businesses in order for the Democrats to get their minimum wage increase.
Are you people aware of how sensitive the Democrats are if you say Democrat Party, not Democratic Party?
You know, they love it to be called Democratic Party because of the subliminal connotation to Democratic, i.e. fair.
But they are called Democrats.
They are not called Democratics.
And so people have started calling them the Democrat Party.
It really upsets them.
Last night on CNN, Anderson Cooper had the forehead Paul Begala on asked him what he thought of this.
He congratulated the new Democrat majority, as he said.
Now, the White House transcript says Democratic.
There is a difference.
My party's the Democratic Party.
But the sort of kookrite, not the responsible Republicans, but the fringe, the Rush Schlimbaugh crowd, likes to call my party the Democrat Party.
They seek it some sort of an insult or something.
And frankly, I guess it is insulting.
So it's an insult.
We just know you guys don't like it.
I think being a Democrat would be an insult, but that's another thing.
Anyway, did you hear, you know, there's this big argument going on between Fox News, CNN, over the Insight magazine story that supposedly Barack Obama was raised as a Muslim for some years when he was a single-digit guy of four, five, six years old, whatever.
And CNN just went out.
They sent a reporter over there and they've been lambasting Fox for discussing the news rather than reporting the news.
CNN says, we report the news.
There's no truth to this story whatsoever.
Insight magazine, part of the Washington Times, Sun Young Moon, it's just outrageous that Fox would devote a whole day to this.
Now, the editors at Insight said, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Go back and read our story.
We never said it.
We reported that Hillary Clinton's camp is saying it.
Now, I told you that Hillary Clinton is going to, it won't be long, systematically start to dismantle Barack Obama and make it look like the Republicans are doing it.
This is a good example of that.
Insight Magazine simply reported, there she is up there on TV.
You tell me that that looks warm, sitting right there behind Barack Obama.
You know, if he would move a little to the right, his ear there would cover half her face.
Somebody should have told him that.
But I guess nobody got to him on the staging of sitting in front of Mrs. Clinton.
At any rate, Insight Magazine says, well, we didn't assert it.
We said this is Hillary Clinton's people are putting this out.
Anyway, the Fox News channel issued a press release.
This is fabulous.
So Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, said that CNN was mainly looking for publicity in attacking its higher-rated rival, the Fox News Channel.
Of Anderson Cooper, she said, this is just yet another cry for attention from the Paris Hilton of television news, Anderson Cooper.
What a line.
What a fabulous line.
All right, to the phones.
You've been patient long enough.
Matthews, Virginia, this is Joe.
Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network.
Great to have you with us.
Tommy, great to be on your show.
Thank you very much.
You bet.
After your last segment, though, giving kudos to the president and his speech, I'm not sure I can criticize him, but I do have some criticisms as a conservative.
Now, wait a minute now.
Wait, a minute.
I made it plain I was not going to talk specifics in my opening comments.
I was going to wait for specifics for you all to weigh in because once I say something about it, there's nothing left to be said.
And you want to go get specifics.
I talked some specifics about the war, but the domestic stuff, I have some problems with it, but I was going to wait for the program to unfold and let you all have your say before I shut you out.
Here's my specifics.
Yes.
He rolled on climate change.
He rolled on the workers' program.
We're going to have amnesty.
And he rolled like his father did on taxes.
We're going to get taxed on health benefits.
Now, any one of those things is a show in itself, but let me tell you about the taxes.
If you're a producer, like I am, you know, I go out and work and I produce things and say my salary is middle class, which I am, and I get health benefits as part of my salary, they're going to get taxed because I'm going to make a little more than the $15,000 he's going to give us a write-off on.
Well, if it's a family of four, let me tell you, the health benefits are more than that.
And let me just go ahead and buy my own insurance.
I'd like to do that.
Well, that's the plan.
And if you do, you're going to get a deduction for it, just as the standard exemption for kids is.
Yeah, but my company provides help, and that company provides help more than $15,000, and that's going to get taxed.
No, Hold on a second.
No, you're not going to be in both circumstances.
If you go buy your own health insurance, you're not going to be employed or enrolled in an employer health care plan.
Yeah, but I'm not going to get that salary either.
You recognize that health benefits are part of your salary.
Well, I do.
Yes, me too.
But it's not part of your take-home pay.
You never see it.
Well, no, no, no, no.
It's part of your take-home pay.
You don't get it cash, but it's part of your take-home pay.
No, it's not.
I don't have to put out that bill later on.
Take-home pay is what your paycheck is.
Other benefits you never see.
It costs the employer that much to hire you, but you have no choice over the expenditure of that money you never see.
Well, let's look at it this way.
If I were offered a job, say, by a company that gave me full health benefits, and that was in addition to my salary of $100,000, and another company gave me $100,000 salary with no health benefits, and I had to fork it out of my own pocket, which job would I take?
Well, that's a very interesting question.
That provides an incredible insight.
You bet.
Because a lot of people don't consider health benefits and all the other ancillary things to your salary as being salary.
See, that's the baloney part of it.
Here's the problem that we face.
The problem, particularly with healthcare.
And by the way, I must tell you that if a Democrat had proposed this plan last night, the drive-by media and everyone would be all over it.
You know, we keep clamoring in this country for new ideas.
Nobody wants Hillary Care.
Do you want national health care run by the government?
Absolutely not.
I would just like to do this by myself in the marketplace.
Well, that's the that's the Bush plan.
Well, not quite.
Yes, it is.
It exactly is.
And the Democrats are saying it's dead on arrival precisely because it would involve the free market and market forces.
It would take the employer relationship out of it for those who opted out of it.
There's no requirement that you do either.
It's up to you to choose.
My gosh, freedom.
How about that?
A little liberty throwing.
The Democrats, in fact, the Democrats are today talking about, how can they destroy the employer-based health care?
Well, you're going to because you're going to have the government run the whole thing.
Yeah, well, I don't want the government to run the whole thing, and getting into the free market is still not part of his plan.
We can't sit here and complain and moan about, gosh, there's no new ideas on healthcare association.
And then a new idea come, a genuine new idea.
The Democrats aren't even willing to debate it.
Well, of course not.
They're not going to debate any of this stuff unless it's Hillary plan or government plan.
Yet you call here and you want to dump on Bush.
I'm not dumping on him.
Yes, yes, I am.
I'm dumping on him because this is a tax event.
I'm sorry, Rush, I don't agree with it.
It's a tax event.
It could be a tax.
Look, look, let's run through the details of this.
And there are some people that have fears that this is going to end up raising taxes along the line.
Anytime Washington does anything, that's a legitimate fear to have.
You bet.
And it's a legitimate suspicion to have.
But the health care system as it is now is out of whack for two reasons.
A, the customer, the patient, doesn't pay for anything.
And the patient, secondly, thus assumes it's all free.
They assume the employer coverage that it gets a benefit.
Well, even though they don't see the money, it's good.
It's free.
Healthcare is free other than the copay and the deductible and so forth.
It's basically free.
But back to my example, so if the guy was getting there.
If the guys didn't give me my salary increase in lieu of health plan, what happens then?
You see?
They have to give me another $20,000, $25,000 to buy it in the market.
No, then they're buying it, not you.
No, no, no, no.
And under his health care, I go out into the market.
Yes.
Yes, you do.
One of the underlying theories here is that there are people enrolled in health care plans that are far more than they need.
They are lavish beyond what's necessary for normal everyday health care.
Catastrophic is something else entirely.
The point here is to get people buying their own health insurance like you buy your own car, like you rent your own hotel rooms, like you shop at the mall.
And when you do this, theoretically, you're going to shop price when you're paying for it yourself.
This will bring competition into the mix and reduce prices.
And in exchange for whatever you, and by the way, health savings accounts will be part of this.
There still has to be a transition from the company paying this to the company paying for health care to the company paying salary.
Sure.
And that's going to be the tough part of the business.
Nothing like this ever happens from a standing start.
Of course, there's going to be a phase in if this thing ever saw the light of day.
Look, I'm going to try to explain this to you one more time.
I've got to take a break, though.
Can you hang on?
Go ahead.
All right.
Go ahead.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Be right back.
Stay with us, though.
All right, we're back now to Joe in Matthews, Virginia.
By the way, you know, Joe, your state's not producing some winners lately here.
Jim Webb response last night.
My gosh.
Well, we just had the other one go into the other column, too.
Yeah, well, I know.
I know what's going on here.
There's no question of Democrats.
I mean, this is the governor gave the governor, Tim Kaine gave the response to something a year ago.
Yeah, right.
Look, here's the way this is going to work.
This is the plan as it's offered.
And as you know, if this were ever to be debated, and Fortney, Pete Stark, the House committee that would look at it, he's not even going to conduct hearings.
He's not even going to let, they're going to open the book on it.
But this is all theoretical and academic here.
But in political sense, it may not be.
The Democrats, you know, they're standing in the way of something here.
Big idea, new idea.
People say I'm tired of the same old, same old.
The way this will work is you go out, you family, and four, you go out and buy your own health insurance, and all of the attached market force results occur.
For people who don't do that, and by the way, you get a tax deduction for the total amount.
No, you get a 15K.
Well, you get an wait, hold on a minute.
I'm going to get there.
You're combining two things that are separate.
So you get an exemption just like the standard exemption for your kids.
Now, for people who don't do that, Joe, who stay in their employer-funded health care plan, they are the ones who will get taxed on every dollar above $15,000 worth of benefit.
But you can't possibly be taxed on your employer health plan if you don't have one.
If you've gone out and bought your own to that point, now we were talking about somebody's going to have to give me the additional $15K, right?
To even it out.
The company's no longer going to pay that salary so I can buy my own in the free market.
I know what you're saying.
They're going to get a lot of money.
I know what you're saying.
But see, that's where the health savings account comes in.
The health savings account does that in a way, but you're not going to be equally, your health savings account is going to be based on your health care expenditures, not so much what the sum total of your employee benefits package is.
Look, but look, listen, Joe, I wish you could hear you the way I hear you.
All you're concerned is what somebody's going to give you.
And this is the, look at, if you're going to consider the value of your health care plan from your employer to be income, then you've got to accept the concept that it is taxable, which it isn't now.
And I've predicted that it would become taxable for many, many moons now.
Little Indian lingo there.
What you are illustrating, and I don't mean this personally or even negatively.
The big problem with this, we have become a nation.
So many of us have become a nation that expects and now even demands that government do things for us.
And that's one of the problems I had with the domestic portion of the speech last night.
I thought it, and all State of the Union speeches do this, but the first half of this speech was the government's going to do this for you so you don't have to do it.
Government's going to do that.
Government's going to do this.
They're going to make sure you drive less.
And this creates expectations and demands on the part of average citizens, not just people who are in entitlement programs.
And, you know, that's why it's tough to reduce these things.
We've got a health care system that everybody whines and moans about, while at the same time, they think it's free, other than the copay and the deduction.
Always have to throw that in there.
And when anybody starts talking about taking away the worst health care plan, they screw, you can't take my health care away.
The concept of doing something on your own for yourself can enrage people when the concept has been established for decades that somebody else is going to do it for you and that it's somebody else's responsibility, like your employer or like the government.
And so the real problem that anybody who wants to propose a plan like this is going to have is that when people are told, you know what, go do it yourself.
How dare you tell me that?
Do it myself.
What do you mean?
Do you know how expensive it is?
What do you mean, go do it myself?
And that worries me about the softness and the passivity of the country.
I know, understand.
I mentioned this yesterday when talking about the going out and buying health insurances isn't cheap.
Who has the money lying around to do that?
I mean, you still have to spend it before you get the tax deduction.
Hello, health savings accounts.
But you have to understand what this is about.
Folks, you're going to have to do one of two things.
Either stop griping about how expensive health care is, while it's apparently free to you, or roll your sleeves up and understand to get prices down, it's going to take a little self-involvement responsibility.
Sorry, didn't mean to insult you.
Boston Globe just reported that John Kerry will not seek the presidency.
Surprise, surprise.
I am stunned.
John Kerry served in Vietnam, by the way, but he's out for 2008.
Sit tight, folks.
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