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July 13, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:09
July 13, 2007, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
That is absolutely right, Johnny Donovan.
And welcome to the show.
We're going to take these three hours to push back the frontiers of ignorance as far back as we can get them.
But however, ladies and gentlemen, this is Friday the 13th.
So, Friday the 13th, I guess this may be a bad luck day.
And so, I might be making, and if you hear any errors, just attribute to sabotage, because I am the only person of color here, and I think that people want to sabotage the show.
But anyway, this is going to be a kind of open line Friday, but not solidly open line Friday.
But to prove that Friday the 13th is not a bad luck day, I'd like to make an announcement.
And it's time to announce the winner of our eighth iPhone, ladies and gentlemen.
Today's iPhone winner is Mr. Terry M of Lincoln, Nebraska.
He listens on KLIN radio.
And Terry receives the 8-gig iPhone, gets a check from us to cover two years of AT ⁇ T, of service with AT ⁇ T, a one-year subscription to the Linball letter, and a one-year subscription to the website 24-7, plus $100 gift card from Bocajava.com.
Okay, now, for the rest of you to register to win an iPhone, all you have to do is go to rushlinball.com and register for Rush in a Hurry.
It's a free flash email that goes out about an hour, hour and a half after the program, and it's a summary of the program that day.
It's a little heads up of what's happening on the full website later that night.
And it's nothing more to do.
Once you sign up and give us your email address, you'll be registered and eligible.
And Rush will have two more iPhones to give away next week.
I hope I get one.
Do you think I will get one?
I hope so.
Kit Carson asked me, did I register?
I don't have to register because I am a privileged character.
Okay, ladies, and that out of the way, proving that Friday the 13th is not necessarily a bad luck day for some of us, let me move to what I think is kind of important in the news today.
It's important not because of who wrote it, but it's, you know, there's a myth going around.
And anyway, in the New York Times editorial today, there was a little article called The Land of Opportunity.
And it says that United States is not a land of opportunity that people make it out to be because there's a lot of income inequality and the American dream is not broadly accessible.
Now, that doesn't pass the smell test because if you ask anybody in the world or most people in the world, I'm not saying anybody, where would you like to go to live, it would be United States.
And people are coming in legally and illegally to enjoy the great benefits that we have in our country.
And here's the article.
It goes on.
It says, America's sluggish mobility is not surprising.
It says wealthy parents can give inheritances and they can pay for better education.
Poor people cannot.
And it quotes, it doesn't really quote it, but it gives a remark by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernacke.
And he argued while the inequality of awards fuels the economy by making people exert themselves, he says that things should be a little more equal.
Well, folks, let's look at it.
Now, I know that if I were in heaven, an unborn spirit, and God said to me, we're going to condemn you, Williams, to a life of poverty, but I'm going to let you choose the country to be poor in.
I would say, give me United States.
And let me just give you a few figures about our poor people in our country.
And these are figures presented by a colleague of mine, Robert Rector.
He's at the Heritage Foundation.
And he says, 46 of all poor households own their own homes.
76% of poor households have air conditioning.
Now, back in 1971, only 34% of all Americans had air conditioning.
Now today, you find many of the poor, most of the poor, 76% of poor households have air conditioning.
The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe.
Now, we're not talking about poor people in Europe.
That is, the average poor person in the United States has more living space than the average middle-class person in these countries that I just mentioned.
Robert Rector goes on to say that nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car.
30% of them own two or more cars.
And it goes on and on and on.
73% of America's poor people have microwave ovens, and more than half have telephone stereos, and a third of poor people have automatic washing machines.
Now, you go to Kandahar or Bangladesh or Ethiopia or any other country where they're poor people, and I doubt whether you find that.
Now, the whole idea of this column or this article about the land of opportunity, this not being the land of opportunity, I mean, it's plain bogus.
And when you think about our country, ladies and gentlemen, one of the great things about our nation is that just because you know where a person ended up in life doesn't mean that you can't be, that you're certain where he started.
That is, there's so much economic mobility in our country that if you look at the average at the average rich person in our country, he didn't start out rich.
Matter of fact, the rich people in our nation now are not the Rockefellers, the Goulds, the Vanderbilts, the Fords.
It's all new money, proving the income mobility in our country.
But then there's another question.
People say, well, what about the distribution of income, Williams?
What about the income inequality?
Well, I know a lot of economists talk about the distribution of income, but that gives the impression that there's a dealer of dollars out there.
And the deal or dollar says, one for you, five for you, ten for you.
And so the reason why some people have fewer dollars than other people is because the dollar dealer is a racist, a multinationalist, a colonialist, or just a bad guy.
And so justice requires redealing the dollars.
And so you have to have income redistribution.
Now, the key thing, folks, that I tell people when I have more time to talk about this, is that the so-called income distribution, that is how incomes are distributed across our society, is a result.
It's a result of something.
And when you look at justice and fairness, you can't be looking at results.
You have to ask process questions.
Let me just give you a quick example before we go to a break.
Imagine that you have three people, let's say Mr. A, Mr. B, Mr. C, and they play poker every night.
Mr. A wins 75% of the time, Mr. B wins, say, 15% of the time, and Mr. C wins 10% of the time.
Now, knowing that result, can you say anything about whether there was poker justice?
No, you can't at all.
Just by looking at the result of the game.
In order to determine whether there's poker justice, you have to ask process questions.
You have to ask questions like, well, did each player play voluntarily?
Were the cards dealt from the top of the deck?
And then if you get yes answers to those questions, then there is poker justice regardless of who won what.
And that's the same thing that we have to ask about the market.
That is, we have to ask process questions.
That is, does everybody have equal access to the market?
Now, let me give you an example of that.
In New York City, the license to own and operate one taxi has just reached $500,000.
That's the medallion you see on top of the taxicabs.
Now, that is a violation of fair rules of the game.
That is, the government ought to allow anybody who can prove that his car is safe, he has insurance, he can drive to get in tax business.
Why should he have to go out and pay a half a million dollars for license?
So what we should do, ladies and folks, ladies and gentlemen, when we ask the questions of justice and fairness, we ought to ask process questions.
We'll be back with your calls after this.
We have a bit of news.
It says it starts off with consumers put away their wallets in June, sending retail sales crashing by the sharpest amount in two years.
This is what you'll hear on the news maybe tonight.
But there's another bit of news.
It says stocks surge on retail sales information.
It says U.S. stocks rallied Thursday, boosting a Dow to a record.
And as sales from retailers reassure investors around our country that the economy was moving up, has continued to move up.
Now, so which is which?
Well, I think maybe the people who said, well, consumers put away their wallet, maybe people are buying fewer cars, maybe less furniture, maybe fewer building materials, but they're buying a whole lot of everything else.
So the economy is doing very well so far.
And you know, one of the great things about our economy that people just don't appreciate is that we're doing great despite the interference by Washington.
I mean, just imagine how we would be as an economy and as a people if there wasn't so much interference and meddling by the people in Washington, you know, regulating this, regulating that, taxing this and taxing that, and giving us all kinds of orders and edicts and mandates.
If we didn't have that, I think that we would just be booming.
Maybe we'd have a growth rate of 10% every single year without inflation.
And if I had it my way, we would never have inflation because I would just, I hate to say this because I haven't met Ben Bernanke at the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
I would just get rid of the Federal Reserve and replace it with a computer.
Well, let's go to the phones.
Let's go to Rochester, New York and talk to Jason.
Welcome to the show, Jason.
Hello, thanks.
You know, I want to talk about how great the opportunities are in this country.
I'm an immigrant, and I came to this country.
The American taxpayers through the National Institutes of Health helped get me a PhD in sciences.
I've met many people through that experience and through it actually starting a company, a new technology company.
And you talked about access to capital.
We have people lining up that want to invest in our company here.
So this is a tremendous place, tremendous land of opportunity.
But were you going to say, but?
No.
No, but.
Okay, well, great.
I agree with you 100%.
We at EIB Institute, we agree with you 100%.
But thanks for calling in.
By the way, whenever you hear somebody talking about redistribution of income, you know, in terms of to help the poor, to help the elderly, to help failing businesses, when you think of redistribution of income, that's what a thief does.
He walks up to you.
He walks up to you with a gun.
He walks up to you with a gun in his hand and he says, give me your money.
He's going to redistribute your income.
Now, what's the difference when Congress says, give me your money, we're going to give it to somebody else?
Well, it's the same thing.
It's just, one, if you do it privately, you'll go to jail.
But however, if you do it through government, you'll be seen as a wonderful person and you won't go to jail.
People say, oh, look how compassionate he is.
You know, example I typically give, I very frequently give, is that, I mean, suppose I see an elderly lady sleeping on a grate in downtown New York in a dead of winter.
She's hungry.
She needs some medical attention.
She needs some shelter.
And I walk up to one of you with a gun in my hand.
And I say, give me your $200.
And then having gotten your $200, I go down and help the lady out.
Well, would you find me guilty of a crime?
I think you should.
I'd be guilty of theft because what's the definition of theft?
Theft is taking the rightful property of one person, giving it to another to whom it does not belong.
Now, there's no distinction between that and when the agents of Congress say, Williams, you know, that $200 you made last week, you won't spend it on some Lafitte Rothschild Bordeaux wine that you love.
You'll give it to us, and we will go downtown and help the lady out.
There's no difference between those two acts.
It's just a matter of legality.
You say, oh, well, we live in a democracy, William, blah, And I like to tell people, well, the frame is intended for it to be a republic because they hated the term even democracy.
But if I you say, well, look, we got together to do this.
Well, suppose I walk up to you with a gun in my hand and I say, well, look, I got five people who agree with me that we ought to take your money.
Or a million people who agree with me we ought to take your money.
It still doesn't change it.
It's still theft, regardless of how you look at it.
So, now, by the way, folks, don't misunderstand me.
I believe in helping my fellow man.
I think reaching into one's own pockets to help his fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable.
I think reaching into somebody else's pocket to help your fellow man is worthy of condemnation and it's despicable.
Now, for those of you in the audience, probably most of you in the audience are Christians.
And keep in mind, when God gave Moses the commandment, Thou shalt not steal, I'm sure that he did not mean thou shalt not steal unless you got a majority vote in Congress.
Moreover, if you say, Well, God, is it okay to be a recipient of stolen property?
What do you think?
Do you think God would say that that was sin?
I would think that He would say it's a sin.
Now, again, folks, at least from my perspective, and I believe the perspective of our founding fathers, the people whose ideas found this nation, they would say, Yes, help your fellow man, but let's do it voluntarily.
Let's do it by reaching into our own pockets.
And that's the great history of our country.
I think that Americans are the most generous people on the face of this earth.
At least, according to some statistics that I read some years ago, 80% of all world giving is done by Americans.
That is, Americans are the most charitable people on the face of this earth.
And charity is noble.
We'll be back with more of your calls, and we're going to talk about a few lighter things.
The deficit is declining.
That is, according to estimates, it's about $205 billion.
And it's declining.
In 2004, it was $413 billion.
Now, why is the deficit declining?
Well, it's surely not because we've cut spending.
Spending has gone out of the roof.
But what has happened is that tax revenues are coming in.
They're at very high levels.
And one of the reasons why tax revenues are increasing is because of the tax cuts that were enacted by Congress that George Bush proposed and was enacted by Congress.
And so it's generating more revenue.
Now, so it seems to me that the people who want bigger government, I don't want bigger government, but let's say if I were a guy who wanted big government, I would say, let's cut taxes.
Because if we cut taxes, we get more revenue.
And it happens every single time.
Now, you hear many of the Democrats coming in.
They're saying, well, we're going to repeal the tax cuts.
We're going to raise taxes.
And what do you think that does to revenue?
It's going to lower the flow of revenue.
See, you know, Congress think in this world, they live in a world of what economists call in grown-up economic language, we call it a zero elasticity world.
That is, Congress, they live in a world where they think that if they raise taxes, people are going to do the same thing that they did before they raise taxes, and the only difference will be more money.
But people are not going to do the same thing they did before taxes.
They'll find loopholes, they'll find legal loopholes, they won't work as much, they won't save as much, they won't invest as much, and revenue goes down.
Let's go to the phones and let's welcome Kate from Dayton, Ohio to the show.
Welcome to the show, Kate.
Hi, Do.
My comments are about poverty and income opportunity in this country.
And my point is that poverty is a relative term.
And as long as we have people who have incomes that are higher than other people, we will always have people who are called the poor, even though, as you've pointed out, they live with resources that are the envy of people in many areas of the world.
You're absolutely right.
You're absolutely right, Kate.
And matter of fact, I've often pointed out to people: look, let's say there's significant income differences.
Let's say, for example, Kate, that you earn $1,000 a year.
I'm sorry, you earned $100,000 a year, and I earn $1 million a year.
And let's say we double both of our incomes.
Now you make $200,000 a year, and I make $2 million a year.
Aren't you better off?
Yes, but I'm still poor.
Yeah, because it's a relative thing.
Now, if you define poor, if you define poverty in a relative sense, well, the poor are always going to be with us.
But if you define poverty in an absolute sense, we don't have any poverty in our country because if you look at what was how poor people lived in 1940, it's far different from how poor people live today.
Yes, and Ted Kennedy talks about the millions of children going to bed hungry in this country.
Oh, my God.
That is a lie, except for the children of parents who are too drunk or drugged or mentally ill or just plain useless to even go get the food stamps.
Well, but I'll tell you something else, Kate.
That the nutritional problem of poor people in the United States is what?
It's obesity.
Absolutely.
That is, you go to Ethiopia, you don't find poor, fat people.
There's one other thing that I have learned recently that I'd like to share with you.
My husband and I are, you know, we're empty nesters, and we're both partially retired, and we both cook.
And I've learned recently that our food bills are less than the amount that would be allotted in food stamps for people in our situation because we cook.
You know, we don't use prepackaged, pre-prepared foods.
We bake our own bread.
And we eat very, very well.
Grassley gourmet cooks.
Well, that's great.
That's great.
Well, that's a great call, Kate, and thanks for calling in.
And let's now go to Dean.
How do you pronounce that?
Vincennes.
Dean and Vincennes.
Oh, okay.
We have a big ship named V Sinns.
Oh, this is named after the city.
Okay.
Well, thank you for taking my call.
You know, I'd like to ask you about you had one of your compatriots at George Mason who won the Nobel Economics Prize, James Buchanan.
Yes.
Actually, we have two Nobel laureates.
But he wrote very extensively, and maybe I was hoping you could synthesize his theory on people who work for government, how they make economic decisions.
And it's in their self-interest as opposed to their own, the people's interest.
Well, that's right.
That is, historically, we've all thought of people who go into government, whether they're politicians or bureaucrats in government, that they're going in government to serve the public and they lose all their self-interest.
But Buchanan's contribution, and as well as his colleague Gordon Tulloch, their contribution was that people's motivations, their desires, don't change when they go into government.
And when they go into the political arena, the only thing that changes are the constraints or restraints that they face.
That is, maybe they can't take all their income in a money form.
So they'll take it in a non-money form.
Power and prestige, and maybe after you stop work for the government, you'll get a job with some lobby firm.
That is, they were pointing out that it's self-interests of politicians and self-interest of bureaucrats that motivate them, not the public interests.
So should we only make wealthy people public servants?
Oh, no, by no means whatsoever.
The kind of people that should be public servants, or at least politicians, are people who don't really want the job in the first place.
That is, and people who are willing to say, okay, I'll do my civic duty for two years in the United States Congress, and then I want to go back to my business.
That's the kind of people that we would want, I would think, instead of these career politicians that get caught up by the bureaucracy and the bureaucracy get caught up by the people that they regulate.
It's not a very big, pretty picture of the people that are elected.
Aha.
But see, this is the very reason that this is the wisdom of the framers of our country.
That's why they want to keep government small.
And matter of fact, it was Thomas Paine who said that government under the best of circumstances is a necessary evil.
Yeah, we do need some government to protect us from international thugs and domestic thugs.
So you're saying more liberty means less government, as you're that is that is absolutely right.
Thanks for plugging my book.
That is absolutely right.
And you have it right on the money.
And we'll be back with your calls after this.
Now, here's a story from Lima, Peru.
It goes on to say, about a dozen public school teachers tried to set a train station on fire in southern Peru.
Now, why are these teachers upset?
Well, the teachers are upset, 60,000 of them who are on strike.
They're upset because the education ministry wants them to take a competency test.
That is to prove that you can teach, that you're competent enough to teach.
And What the minister said is that they will fire the teachers who failed a job competency test three times.
They're going to give three times the failure.
Now, I'm guessing if that competency test is like the competency test that we have in the United States, then it's a ninth grade test to prove your competency as a teacher.
And you say, oh, come on, Walter.
What do you mean ninth grade tests for teachers?
Well, if you go to the C-BEST test, you might check it out on the web.
I don't know whether they still have these questions.
And C-BEST is the California Basic Education Skills Test.
And they have questions like, you know, I might not give you the answer to this.
I'll think about it.
They have questions like, it's a math question.
Four times a number plus four equals 32.
What is that number?
Now, another test on, another question on the C-BEST test is, it's a multiple choice question.
And it says, Monday is what fraction of the week?
And so you get, you know, maybe A is 132nd, 15th, 17th, 120th.
And it turns out that students or people who are taking this test to become teachers in the United States are missing those questions.
Now, so I'm wondering whether in Peru the questions are harder or easier.
Maybe I'll just get one of the EIB staff to check it out to see whether the test is harder or easier than in the United States.
And I think the, Kit, what's that, what's the answer to four times a number plus four equals 32?
Kit said seven, but I believe he was peeking at my notes.
Kit Carson, he's doing my call screen day, and he thinks he's smart.
He knows the number.
It is four times seven.
Let me show you how it works out.
Four times seven, which is the correct number that he gave, is equal to 28.
Plus four gives you 32.
And one would think that a sixth grader or a seventh grader would know the answer to that.
Check it out with your junior high school kid.
Okay, the question is four times a number plus four equals 32.
What is that number?
And he better tell you seven or you ought to cut off his spending change.
Okay, we have time for, we have time to go to Janice in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Welcome to the show, Janice.
Thanks, Walter.
I liked your story about the lady on the park bench.
I've always, of course, a lot of people realize how the government's taking over the job of the church that the churches used to do.
And of course, they have to raise our taxes to do this.
And most churches preach as the ideal to give 10% to the poor.
And it seems like a lot of money for a lot of people.
In fact, I'm sure for a lot of people, it almost seems impossible.
But I've always thought, and I did this one time, and I don't think I've ever heard anybody Say this, but take your gross salary and take 10% and see how little that is, how reasonable, how reasonable that is.
No, you're absolutely right.
And moreover, charity, charitable acts are not the role of the federal government.
And if you read through statements, you look at Grover Cleveland, and Grover Cleveland is my favorite president.
That is, Grover Cleveland vetoed more bills than all of the presidents that came before him.
And he often would read, he often would write, it is not in the Constitution.
And to give you an idea how charity is not in the Constitution, let me just, and I have all these quotes on my website if you ever get walterewilliams.com to look at the quotes of our founders.
James Madison, well, let me go back.
In 1792, Congress appropriated $15,000 to help some French refugees.
James Madison stood on the floor of the House Irate, and he said, and I'm virtually quoting him, and James Madison is the acknowledged father of the Constitution.
He stood on the floor of the House I-Rate and he said, I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article in the Constitution that authorizes Congress to spend the money of their constituents for the purposes of benevolence.
Now, if you look at the federal budget today, the two-thirds of it, perhaps more, is for the purposes of benevolence.
I'm talking about Medicare, prescription drugs, welfare, business handouts, college student handouts, aid to higher education, and all this stuff is for the purpose of benevolence.
And the founders of our nation, they're probably rolling over their graves looking at how we have destroyed the Constitution.
Now, of course, the founders gave us Article 5 to amend the Constitution, but I would like for somebody to tell me whether the Constitution has been amended to permit Congress to take the money of one American and give it to another American to whom it does not belong.
I have not seen that amendment to the United States Constitution, and we'll be back with your calls after this.
Let's go back to the phones to Deborah from Richmond and Virginia.
Welcome to the show, Deborah.
Hey there, Dr. Williams, I, like you, am a professor at a major university in Virginia, and the summer reading program for which I'm a group leader is Nickel and Dimed on Not Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.
And it says, yes, it says that the millions of Americans work full-time year-round for poverty-level wages, but how can anyone survive, let alone prosper on $6 to $7 an hour?
I want you to tell me, as a professor leading a discussion group, what do I tell these students?
Well, I think one of the things you tell them, you can get by easier, more easily, on $6 or $7 an hour than $0 an hour.
That is, if you raise the minimum wage as people want, then that destroys jobs, and so you have fewer opportunities.
And so, you sound like a much younger person than I am, but I'm 71 years old.
I remember all kinds of jobs as teenagers, you know, ushers in theaters.
We fill up, you know, you pull into a gasoline station and there are two or three kids to wash your windows, check the air in your tires.
And now all those jobs are gone.
So they might be making $0 instead of $6.
But thanks a lot for calling in.
Folks, you have to stay tuned for the next hour.
I'm going to talk about whether we can trust the free market to deliver health care to our nation or whether we need Washington, whether we need Nancy Pelosi and all those other characters in charge of our healthcare system.
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