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Sept. 21, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:57
September 21, 2007, Friday, Hour #2
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Thanks, Johnny Donovan.
What a pleasure it was seeing Johnny today.
I I used to work with him over there at WABC in about 1985.
And Frank DeLia is still there.
Ro is still there.
She's been there twenty-five years.
Frank's been there thirty years.
Johnny Donovan's been there.
Got to be close to thirty years.
People don't stay in radio jobs that long, generally.
So it was nice to see all those guys.
I am here at the East Coast campus of the uh Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies where there is never a final exam, but we are tested every day.
Bo Snerdly came up from Florida.
Nice to be able to sit across the glass from uh Snerdly, also Mike Mamon, our engineer.
Uh almost half the man he was last time I saw him.
He has uh he's taken control of his life.
He's exercising regularly.
He's cut out some bad habits, and he looks great.
He's withering away, but he looks great.
Uh and of course, uh Kit Carson on uh on the assignment, I guess, with uh Rush.
Kit, the chief of staff and everything overseen by our executive producer, Cookie Gleason.
Uh, it is the uh Jewish Day of Atonement, Jam Kipper, uh beginning at sunset, and I wish our Jewish friends an easy fast.
There's a lot to talk about, but since we have Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House on the other end of our line right now, and I don't know how long we have Newt, let's get to him right away.
It is a pleasure once again to say hello, Newt.
Well, it is it is great uh to be talking with you as always, and I'm actually going to be in uh your backyard tonight and tomorrow morning up in Mackinac.
Oh, no kidding.
Oh, because of the uh yeah, I just spoke with Saul Anozis, he is the head of the Michigan GOP and uh very excited about all that they have.
All of the Republican uh candidates are going to be there.
Mackinac Island is beautiful, Grand Hotel and all the other places on Mackinac Island.
Uh if if be if people don't know what we're talking about to rent the movie uh somewhere in time.
That's a good uh good movie to get a feel for Mackinac Island, for example.
Well, I'm glad you're going to be there.
I know people will be looking forward to hearing from uh the guy who I've heard many, many conservatives say uh is the guy who's probably the brightest and can uh speak to the issues and problems this country faces better than anyone, but they do worry uh two things.
One, whether you're gonna run or not, we don't know.
Uh and if you have too much baggage, but everybody's got too much baggage if you look for it.
Look, that is that is a fairly strange introduction.
Yeah, I thought so.
Uh let me let me just say first of all, uh as you know, and I've said this before on your show um in Detroit, and I've also said it when we've been together on Russia's show.
I am totally focused from now through next week.
We have uh the uh American Solutions Workshop.
For winning the future.
For winning the future.
Next Thursday night at the Cobb Galleria in uh Atlanta, and then next Saturday at West Georgia University out in Carleton where I used to teach.
It is a nationwide project.
It'll be on Dish TV, it'll be on direct TV, and it will be on the uh internet.
Uh we'll be webcasting it so that anybody in America who wants to can Democrat, Republican, Independent can watch it uh starting at seven o'clock uh next uh Thursday night, and then we have on Saturday uh some twenty plus workshops that'll be available on the internet.
Uh three of them will be available uh on television, but on the internet we're gonna have Dick Army talking about the flat tax, we're gonna have Congressman John Linder and Neil Borst talking about the fair tax.
We're gonna have uh Brian Billbray out at uh San Diego on the border, talking about immigration and border control and an issue that matters to an awful lot of people.
We have uh former Democratic Governor Roomer of Colorado, who has been the head of the Los Angeles school system, was gonna be talking about the uh vital importance of education reform, the need to think boldly and in new ways about education reform.
Elaine Kmark, who was our gore's uh head of reinventing government, is gonna be talking about what we need to do uh in order to replace bureaucracy and get rid of bureaucracy.
And uh Dennis Smith at New York University, who may be the leading student in America of how uh Rudy Giuliani used evidence-based government and metrics to fundamentally make New York dramatically safer, uh reducing crime by seventy-five percent from nineteen ninety-three uh to last year, making it four times as safe as Houston.
Dennis Smith is gonna be talking about how to have evidence-based government.
So a lot of people doing A lot of exciting things.
Bob Walker, a former congressman, former chair of the Science and Technology Committee, will be talking about how to use hydrogen as a as an energy source to uh make uh the dictators dramatically less wealthy and dramatically less important.
I would I would recommend that people go right online to American Solutions.com and and get this entire uh rundown of the Solutions Day workshops and uh opening presentation and uh a sign up and television and uh video and all of that again uh Thursday, September twenty-seventh, and then uh back at your old uh when it was West Georgia College, now West Georgia University.
You have a good memory.
Well, I I don't really have a good memory.
I just try to research and get ready when I'm going to talk to somebody, and I and I I just did a little of that.
And and uh but but the point is you're going to be there in over twenty workshops, and uh they're available all over the country, which is important.
That's the uh September twenty-seventh, and then again September twenty-ninth, American Solutions for Winning the Future.
And you can go to American Solutions.com and get all of that information.
Now this thing about running for president, I only brought it up because earlier today on the Drudge Report, and I di I was doing my morning show in Detroit, I did not access it, and it's gone.
Did you to did you remove it?
It said something about it said something about uh Newt Gingrich would need thirty million dollars to run his campaign uh to to run for the presidency.
What was that about?
Well, uh what what I I was asked a question once we get past the workshops, and I'm not I have I've said all year I am not thinking about anything until we get done with the workshops, because American Solutions is a citizen movement aimed at not the White House.
It's aimed at changing a hundred five hundred and thirteen thousand elected officials.
You and I have talked about the Detroit School Board, for example, is one of the places that needs to change, the Michigan legislature, uh local county governments.
I mean America is a very, very dense system with with thousands and thousands of officials who need to be changed if we're going to move towards uh the kind of future that we ought to have.
So I've said I won't think about it till after next Saturday.
All right, I'm not gonna ask you.
I'm not gonna ask you.
But uh what I have said is that that uh my close friend and advisor, Randy Evans, uh starting uh next Sunday, the thirtieth of September, is going to look around.
And and there's a there's a reality-based check here.
I mean, Governor Romney, who's been very successful and and and and very legitimately successful in business, uh can write a personal check for a hundred million dollars if he wants to.
Uh you can't play in that game if you're a middle class person, unless you can raise enough money to be able to at least you know offset it.
Uh you don't have to match him dollar for dollar, but you've got to get above some threshold.
And my judgment is that that takes about thirty million dollars in pledges uh to be realistic.
So if Randy comes back and says, uh, you know, there really is a desire to have somebody who can debate Senator Clinton head on, and somebody who can represent uh a really bold ideas and bold solutions, and somebody who's willing to have a clean break from the current bureaucracy and the current mess, uh then Caliston I'd be facing a very big decision.
I'd probably end up back in your show one morning uh having to explain what I was doing.
But but I think that we've got to be honest and realistic.
What we're doing at American Solutions is really important to the future of this country.
It's offering very dramatic new ideas, very bold new approaches, using science and technology for really big breakthroughs.
And I don't want to give that up and weaken that in any way for you know, sort of a a uh hopelessly quixotic effort uh just for the fun of it.
So if there's a big enough vacuum and there are enough resources, then as a citizen, I would feel compelled to respond to fellow citizens to to try to represent ideas in this race, and we'll know by you know the middle of the end of October whether or not it's practical.
But not practical.
I'm I'm very happy doing what we're doing, uh developing the ideas and the approaches and continuing to grow American solutions as a genuine nationwide movement.
We'll we'll have over two thousand sites uh next week that are participating in in uh have signed up to participate uh in these workshops.
Newt, stick around, we'll be back.
Newt Gingrich on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
It's the Rush Limbaugh program.
Rush will be back with you Monday in the uh in the chair behind the golden EIB microphone.
Uh but if you can't wait, you can actually see him this Sunday on the Fox Network in uh I think the season premiere of The Family Guy.
Uh you'll hear him on The Family Guy.
Uh and uh you have to check your local listings, but it's Fox, the Fox Network this Sunday, Family Guy.
You will hear Rush even before he's back Monday.
Newt Gingrich is with us uh and we're uh taking your calls as well.
1 800 282 2882, 1800 282 2882 also rush limbaugh.com.
I'm Paul W. Smith, happy to be here with you once again and uh talking with uh Newt.
We've been talking about American Solutions for Winning the Future for a very long time, and it's it's coming up.
It's uh September twenty-seventh and September twenty-ninth, real change that requires real change.
And you can go online, American Solutions dot com for all the details.
Now, ever since uh Newt wrote the book, Winning the Future, uh 21st Century Contract with America back in uh January 2005, right, Newt?
January 2005?
That's exactly right.
All right.
You uh you've been talked about, it's probably annoying, uh mentioned so many different times about uh uh put uh uh being a potential presidential candidate.
Now I know you don't want to talk about that now until after this event.
But uh but y but I think you'd be a good candidate.
You've brought us uh green conservatism, uh entrepreneurial environmentalism.
You brought us uh the things that are important to a lot of people without the extreme twist to it that makes it impossible for folks to really follow uh unless they go off the deep end, as as many do both ways.
But you've talked about health care and health care management for a very long time.
What do you think of this latest approach by uh Hillary Rodham Clinton?
Well, you know, I had the funniest experience the other night.
I w I was at Fox and I was going down to to uh do Hannity and Combs, and I look up on the TV, and here is Senator Clinton with Hillary Kerr and O.J. going to jail.
And I felt like it was the twilight zone.
Wow.
And it was nineteen ninety-four.
And we were back.
And it was weird.
I mean, it was just you had this sense of he doesn't seem to have learned much, and we'll find out how much she's learned.
But it was truly one of those frightening moments when you think to yourself, if I just lost, you know, thirteen years of my life, am I back in nineteen ninety-four?
Uh now, here's my primary objection.
I let me say up front, by the way.
I believe that Senator Clinton's package is better than what she offered in nineteen ninety-three.
I think she has learned a number of things.
I actually agree with her on health information technology.
There are some other pieces of her proposal that are pretty reasonable, but there's one core underlying thing where I think she's being less than candid, and I think it weakens her whole case.
Her proposal clearly is big government.
It clearly relies on the power of bureaucracy.
It is clearly coercive.
It clearly involves a huge tax increase.
And it is clearly underestimated in total cost.
I mean, she's talking about spending a hundred and ten billion dollars a year more coming right out of somebody's pocket.
And there were reports this morning that experts are looking at it, going, no, no, no, that's way too low.
So I I think she would have been better off, you know, not to defend this.
This was an idea, it was a proposal, it's ten full pages.
The outline is ten full pages.
I mean, we're right back into a massive omnibus problem.
I I I tried to convince her back in nineteen ninety-three when she came to see uh then uh Health Task Force Chairman Dennis Hasterton, uh then Republican leader Bob Michael and me, and I said, don't try to write an omnibus bill.
Nobody can write a bill that affects sixteen percent of the American economy.
This is the biggest sector of the economy.
Nobody's that smart.
Instead, offer a series of specific steps, each one of which can be defended on its own, each one of which moves us in a direction that you believe in.
And when you get the first wave done, come back with a second wave, and then come back with the third wave.
And I'm afraid that that she has uh once again not learned that lesson.
And I just I don't see how anybody can believe that they can take three hundred and three million lives plus, a nationwide system that's the most complex use of knowledge we have, and the largest single sector of the economy, and by the way, an area of the economy so big it is equal to the Chinese economy.
I mean the health economy in the U.S. is about the same size as the entire Chinese economy.
And and to write an omnibus bill Almost by definition is a mistake from day one.
And then second, her bill carries us back to what we know doesn't work.
Uh two quick examples.
The New York Times reports that Medicaid in New York State has four billion, four hundred million dollars a year of fraud.
When I say fraud, I mean a dentist who filed nine hundred and eighty five procedures a day.
It's pure fraud.
There is an article today about Miami and and South Florida, where it turns out that three counties in South Florida have filed two point eight billion dollars of federal HIV AIDS money for one year, while the entire rest of the country filed a billion.
And there's a suggestion that this is because of the scale of fraud in these three counties.
Now, if the federal government can't run the Medicaid program in New York City without four point four billion dollars a year of fraud of your tax money.
If they can't run the HIVA's program with bureaucracy without allowing for what looks like on the surface is at least one point eight billion dollars of fraud a year just in three counties.
Why would anyone think they can run a nationwide health program and micromanage it and control it with red tape?
Well, that that's and there is that's the problem.
There's the the question that nobody can answer honestly, because the federal government can't do it.
We already know that.
They prove it every day.
Quick question uh I don't know if it was with Sean and Alan, uh handed in combs, but did I hear Newt Gingrich say that John Edwards had some pretty good ideas?
Did I hear you say that?
Yes, John Edwards on occasion has had good ideas.
All right, so then do you agree with his wife, Elizabeth, who says that Hillary's Hillary care was merely the same plan that John Edwards uh put forward about seven months ago.
No.
Well, that's what she said.
I don't agree with that.
Okay, all right.
That's what she's saying.
I think we gotta get past the point of saying, you know, if you're on the blue side, you're always bad.
If you're on the red side, you're always good, and we ought to say occasionally.
Sometimes the other team has an idea that's pretty good.
Well let's use it.
In fact, uh it was one of the points I was making last hour that you couldn't hear that I'm I I'm I'm like everybody.
I mean, I'm I'm just a person that goes out and and does my job and and votes and all of that, and I'm pretty sick and tired of how politicized everything has become, and the only people who are really, really, really losing are those of us who are not in the political game, who are just trying to live our lives and build something and and help grow our families safely.
And we watch men and women in Washington and in our state governments and in our local governments bash each other over the head relentlessly just because they're in different parties.
Well, let me ask you this.
Could uh I I want to reverse roles here for a second.
All right.
Can you explain to me?
We've got Newt Gingrich here on the Rush Limbaugh program and uh special guest Paul W. Smith.
Newt, go ahead if you have questions.
Could you explain to me what this hundred hour plus battle over tax increases is all about in lasting?
I mean, uh are the are the Democratic state legislators nuts?
I mean, you have you have the worst economy of any industrial state in the United States.
They they are killing jobs, they are driving businesses out of state, and they've spent a hundred hours in a state of the city.
It's been over seven it's been over seven months they haven't been able to fix our budget and our deficit and the crisis that is consuming the state of Michigan.
No one more frustrated than all of us.
All the taxpayers who have sent our employees, the legislators, to Lansing to do their job, and they're not.
We continue with Newt Gingrich on the Rush Limbaugh program on Paul W. Smith.
Thanks, Johnny Donovan.
I know I have I'm not very good with computers anyway, so I I have this new Sony uh Vio or something.
I think it's called Vio.
And I uh it was up till two o'clock in the morning trying to get it to work, and it was uh it was very confusing.
But you know, uh the iPhone too, which is wonderful.
I love it.
But I was probably it it was not meant to take I was writing a uh uh the like war and peace by you know one finger tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.
And it took me about an hour because it was a very important note to someone.
And just before I sent it, it disappeared.
It just disappeared.
What?
He you when were you gonna tell me that he left?
Oh no.
I was I folks, I why didn't he tell us that?
I'm so sorry.
We had expected for Newt to stay and take these calls.
Call back.
Do you have the numbers in there?
I have them here if you don't have them.
Call uh no.
I knew we had him for the half hour, but generally we're able to twist his arm and have him go longer.
I didn't even know I would have picked up the phone.
And uh and uh yeah, that's that's a good point, uh Maymon.
Generally he would say goodbye.
He said I gave him an unusual introduction, but I I skipped through some things and said the truth, which is I think he'd be a great president.
I I think that there are a lot of people who feel he has a tremendous amount of baggage uh to be a candidate.
But er but as I But I s well the truth didn't scare me, didn't run away with nothing scares Newt, and he knows how much I like him and respect him.
Uh but I'm I'm not gonna be uh crazy.
It's I mean, realistically, uh there'd be some baggage and luggage uh there.
I mean it's uh like a Samsonite story, but but I think uh he's well worth getting through all that.
I mean, in the same way that people could say that about Rudy Giuliani, the the fact of the matter is uh let uh whoever is perfect throw the first stone.
Snurdly, put that stone down.
Uh you know, nobody's perfect.
There are a lot of mistakes that have been made and a lot of different things that a lot of us would have done uh uh differently.
And uh I I think he's brilliant.
And I I think I really I think I may have really upset him in that introduction when I said that some people are concerned he'd have too much uh baggage.
I don't mean it in a bad way.
I'm just not gonna be dishonest.
Let me uh let me go to the calls anyway and uh and try to do the best we can.
Uh and I could answer them as if I were Newt Gingrich, but that probably wouldn't go over very well, and I'm not nearly as bright as Newt.
But Jim, I'm gonna give you a chance to be heard because you waited all that time, and I don't know what happened there.
I did not get a chance to speak with him about his timing, unfortunately.
1-800-282-2882.
1-800-282-2882, and it is Jim in Atlanta.
Hello, Jim, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Thanks, Paul.
Well, big question here.
I know that President Bush is everybody's favorite whipping boy for uh uh big spender.
But I also note that Congress is the one that is the group that would not make our tax cuts permanent.
So that makes me kind of go back and wonder who is really the biggest bigger spender?
Republican Congress or President Bush?
Obviously it's shared.
Well, it is shared, and and let's face it, the the Republican controlled Congress failed miserably at accomplishing uh what a lot of us thought they should be able to accomplish.
Whether it was immigration reform, I I don't want to go through the list now, but i i i they were in the driver's seat and they didn't drive.
In the right direction.
They they they didn't they didn't lose they handed over to the Democrats by default, I guess.
It was very sad, it was very unfortunate.
And as far as the uh president goes, and uh I had this conversation actually with uh George Stephanopoulos, but I uh for a moment I thought it was here, but it was no.
It was this morning on my morning show at uh uh at WJR in Detroit.
We have we have uh uh George on every uh every Friday talking about what he's going to be talking about with his his program.
And uh and the and and and the fact is when you look at these various uh circumstances and situations and uh who says what and who says this or whatever.
I I Well I sh I don't want uh you see, we didn't talk about this here.
We talked about it this morning, and I knew that was gonna happen that I would think of that and and I don't want to start uh another conversation and without George Stephanopoulos here to uh say, and I don't want to be uh uh misquoting anybody.
But but back to you back to your point.
The fact of the matter is.
The President is responsible, our congressmen are responsible, our senators are responsible.
They have all dropped the ball.
And that is the case in in not just Washington, but in many states uh and even local governments around the country.
So Detroit always ends up in the barrel because we've had some very rough times, but there are problems everywhere.
And uh and it's it's very difficult.
Now, as far as President Bush goes, if you if you he doesn't come off well in front of a microphone or a camera.
I don't know why.
I've never understood it.
He's not a buffoon.
No.
He is a very bright, good man.
But for some reason or another, it doesn't come through the way it does if you happen to be fortunate enough to be talking to him in person.
Anybody who spent any time with him in person thinks they're seeing talking, spending time with a completely different person than what everybody is privy to by just seeing them on television or hearing them on the radio.
That's not surprising.
And I don't understand why that is, to tell you the truth.
I really don't.
So uh you know, at one point or another we can point fingers and blame, but really we, the people have some blame.
More of us watch an American Idol than study who's running for offices, whether they're local offices, state and regional offices, or federal offices, and vote.
More people would rather vote for some kids singing or or whatever on a program than to pick the next person to run our country or to lead us as our president.
You can't blame the the Republicans or the Democrats for that.
Now you can argue that, well, if they weren't so bad, I wouldn't have lost interest, and therefore this or that, and believe me, this year we'll have more excuses than ever because this year we can say legitimately, I'm worn out.
I'm worn out it started too soon.
And now I'm done with it.
Vote?
I'm sick of these guys.
It's going to be real easy for people to say that.
It won't help anything.
But it's a a convenient excuse.
I appreciate the call, Jim.
I I wish that uh we could have had uh a new still with it's my fault because I didn't double check with him once he came on.
Uh and uh and and I don't think we checked double checked with him when we put him on hold for the break, and and and we should do that as well.
So it's our fault, and we apologize.
Kim is in uh Ridgecrest, California.
Kim, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
Hi.
Hello, uh Paul.
Uh I'm calling about uh the leaders of the religious right uh saying that they're not going to vote for some of the candidates.
Um we got uh we may get many to sit out the general election and give the left a win by default.
Uh that could result in some big changes in the Supreme Court that'll affect us for many years.
Uh I think uh we should follow Christian principles.
You know, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
And and I think we need to treat our politicians that way as long as their core beliefs are for the good of the country.
Yeah, it uh look, we're very willing to forgive certain people certain foibles.
I mean, let's face it, uh who uh who's had more problems, troubles than say Senator Kennedy, and even troubles and problems that would go against what one would call would be the liberal agenda in terms of the way he has treated women over the years, for example.
Maybe it's a long time ago now, but it was that way.
But he voted the right way on women's issues, so he was given a pass.
We do tend to have selective indignation the left, you know.
Uh the the things that they hold against Republicans and conservatives are um much more minor than the things that they let the uh liberals get by with.
Well, but it's because, Kim, uh if you stand up on top of a mountain and proclaim yourself without sin, and then you climb down the mountain and you roll in the mud, more people are going to react to that than if you're already hanging in the mud and don't proclaim that you're not.
Yeah.
Well, that uh I guess that's true, but uh we're we're gonna cut off our uh you know.
Noses noses.
Yeah.
Despite our face.
I didn't know where you're going with that, Kim.
Yeah, well, that's uh the phrase I was trying to think of.
All right, well, good.
I thought maybe uh that that Was the phrase you were trying to think of.
I thought I should help you.
That's part of my job here.
Rush actually leaves uh job instructions for those who fill in for him.
And uh one of the instructions is to help the caller get their point out, as he's explained before, on this very program on this very radio station, your favorite radio station where Rush comes to you every day, and it is my pleasure to tell you that he'll be back Monday.
But look for him in Family Guy, or no, listen for him in the Family Guy this Sunday on the Fox Network.
Check your local listings.
We continue with your calls on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
It is it is very light, and I I had one of these before, and this is the new improved uh uh uh Sony Valle, but I can't I can't get it to work right.
I don't know what I've done wrong.
Now it says I've never even seen this.
Windows did not shut down successfully if this was due to the system not responding, blah, blah, blah.
And it's it's got a little countdown, and uh I'm supposed to put the arrow on safe mode.
I can't find the arrow as the clock counts.
It's like it's gonna explode in a couple minutes, and I can't I can't do anything with it.
I'm just gonna set it over there.
All right.
Uh uh Forbes uh 400 richest people in America list is out.
Uh this is astounding.
There are eighty-two billionaires who didn't have enough money to make the list.
Eighty-two this is not in the world.
This is just in America.
Eighty-two billionaires didn't make the list.
The top four hundred, the richest.
On top of the fourteenth straight year, Microsoft's Bill Gates, with about, they have to estimate fifty-nine billion dollars, followed by his good friend, Warren Buffett, with fifty-two billion dollars, and it should be pointed out.
The two of them have given billions of dollars away.
Billions of dollars to help people in this country and people around the world.
The biggest jump in the rankings was you you follow Kirk Kakorian for a different reason.
You follow him because of his uh MGM Mirage uh casino and stuff.
We followed him because he wanted to uh force some changes at General Motors, and he kind of lost out, but he's done okay because the biggest jump in the rankings was by Kirk Kakorian, who vaulted to seventh place, doubling his net worth to $18 billion.
And the youngest person on the list, a hedge fund manager whose name I don't remember.
I wrote it for for my Monday column in the Detroit News.
I don't have it in front of me, and I tried to find it on the computer.
Thirty-three years old, worth one point five billion dollars.
Thirty-three years old.
Now I know uh uh Snerdley, you're not yet 33, but when you're 33, what will you be earning, do you think?
Not not 1.5 billion?
Not you won't be worth 1.5 billion?
Okay.
All right.
Uh me neither, when I'm finally 33.
Let's get to uh your calls, one-eight hundred-282-2882, one-eight hundred-two eight two-288-2 or Rush Limbaugh.com.
Paul W. in for Rush Rush back on the air with you Monday and in Columbus, Ohio, home of the Buckeyes.
They're along the Olin Tangy River.
It's Douglas.
Doug, your turn.
Welcome in to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
You know, you know I'm my Columbus then, right?
Listen, my question is none of these um Republican candidates, and I wanted to ask this to Newt.
Yeah, have uh gone in your face with why won't you let these guys let us drill for oil?
You're just m running up the price of oil.
It's your fault if the economy is is going down to twos because of inflation, because the inflated oil price or gas prices, not ours.
None of these have none of these Republican candidates have have even touched the subject.
Well, I've had a lot of people say that a lot of subjects aren't being touched.
That even uh even the one that was such a hot potato that uh didn't get talked about, at least initially, was immigration.
Right.
So there are there are a lot of the topics, and I don't know, frankly, uh, Doug, if it's because they too know they've started so early and there's this fatigue factor.
I I really don't know what it is.
I don't know.
And I haven't had the chance.
Uh there is going to be uh uh another debate, in fact, in Dearborn, Michigan, uh coming up in I think October that will be uh nationwide.
I think you're gonna be able to do that.
one quick comment.
Yes.
I think this starting early is a uh is a definite calculation by the left wing and the media to to fatigue the population.
Well, it's it's working.
It's working.
Uh thanks uh for the call, Doug.
Kurt in Evansville is here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hello, Kurt.
Yeah, Paul, thanks for taking my call.
Sure.
Uh you know, uh on this health insurance thing, uh something has to be done one way or another, and that's pretty obvious to most people.
Uh right now, I'm kind of like most middle Americans.
Uh my health is uh health insurance is provided partly by my employer.
However, my section of it that I have to pick up is still larger than my house payment.
Uh things things are out of kilter here a little bit.
Uh and what I was going to ask Newt in this regard was uh his knock on it, or one of his main knocks on Hillary care and any any uh reform of the health care industry is that it's going to create a giant bureaucracy.
Well, I my question is how would one giant bureaucracy be any worse manageable than the thousands of different bureaucracies we have in place now with all the different insurance companies having different regulations, forms, rates, coverages.
I think what I think uh I'm not gonna pretend to answer the way what I'll just say what I think.
Uh with the government being involved uh and uh our money, yours and mine being involved in underwriting that, we've seen that big government uh doesn't do such a good job with these things.
I suspect the argument would be in a free market economy and in an opportunity for uh real competition, yes, there'd be some uh problems and some some big companies that uh uh would do very well and some that wouldn't, and uh in the end you would have the big companies that do well, the ones we'd want to go to working.
But the system is broken.
Uh it started getting broken uh long, long time ago when you'd go to the doctor's office, and the doctor would say to you, I want you to take this, I want you to do that, or whatever.
And then you'd go out and sit in the office and you'd wait while one of his nurses or office uh people had to argue with somebody on the other end of a phone line at an insurance company in another town who was looking in a big book that said, Oh no, uh that patient doesn't have to take that drug.
They should take this drug, it's a lot cheaper.
Undermining what the doctor was saying.
I mean, when when we saw that the control was there, and when there's that much money at stake, you're going to have problems like that.
That's uh that's the problem, and and that's going to remain the problem.
All right, all right, I'm going.
Uh this is a Rush Limbaugh program.
We'll be right back.
Now I learned this uh from uh Mr. Limbaugh.
I'm sorry, with the time we have left, I would not be able to give you a fair chance to be heard and to say what it is you want to say.
I really wanted to go to Laura and Galen and Ben and everybody else.
I said, I can get four callers in in forty seconds, and they said, No, you can't.
And so, you know, they're in charge, and so I won't.
But I will tell you that coming up in just a moment, we'll have Michael A. Ledine.
He's the author of the Iranian Time Bomb, the Mullah Zealot's Quest for Destruction.
He is resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute.
You'll like him a lot.
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