Rush Limbaugh Program - January 8, 2008, Tuesday, Hour #1

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Jan. 8, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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January 8, 2008, Tuesday, Hour #1

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	Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
	I I just want to say this is personal to me.
	This politics, the country, it's it's personal.
	Talk amongst yourselves.
	Hi, everybody, and good Tuesday afternoon to you.
	It is, or I should say Tuesday morning, wherever you might be.
	It is uh New Hampshire Day, New Hampshire primary day.
	The first votes are in from Dixville Notch.
	We'll get all of that.
	Hart's location, Dixville Knox Notch location in as well.
	I am Jason Lewis, uh coming from the great state of Minnesota, the land of 10,000 liberals, and that's just the legislature.
	Hey, what what is this?
	The Hollywood strikers or the Hollywood writers have gone on strike, as you know, and now they say they've got their first show casualty.
	Have you heard about this?
	NBC apparently may not be broadcasting the Golden Globe show as planned for January 13th.
	Instead of a broadcast, it's going to be a stripped down press conference aired by NBC News.
	Now I understand both viewers are really upset over this.
	I mean I you know I had a great day yesterday until I heard this.
	The Golden Globe's not on TV.
	Well, there you go.
	Talk about ruining a good day.
	Does anybody care about this stuff?
	It's quite it's like Naomi Campbell going down to Venezuela.
	You heard about this as well.
	She goes down to visit who else, Hugo Chavez.
	Get this.
	The new contributing editor for the Men's Lifestyle magazine in the UK, GQ, interviewing President Hugo Chavez, describes him as a rebel angel who is unafraid to speak his mind, but poses absolutely no threat to democracy.
	You know, later in the magazine, Naomi writes that Fidel Castro's in perfect health as well.
	So you might want to pick that up if you haven't seen it.
	Talk about odd.
	The contact line here is always for the Rush Limbaugh program, 1 800-282-2882.
	That's 1-800-282-2882.
	Of course, Rushlimbaugh.com.
	You can check that out.
	Rush will be back tomorrow.
	I am Jason Lewis sitting in today, however, as we go through the New Hampshire primary, and as uh Hillary Clinton said yesterday, it's not easy.
	An emotional Hillary said.
	Now, look, uh lots of presidential candidates have cried in the past.
	Um lots of presidential candidates have uh had their eyes well up.
	Lots of presidents have done this.
	I remember Reagan at Normandy in uh what was it, the eighty four, I think.
	Uh I can't remember exactly the date, but he was talking about uh the boys who climbed the cliffs and he broke up.
	Uh George W. Bush has broken up.
	Ed Muskie broke up at the primary in New Hampshire, and it cost him.
	I think that was what, in 72, I believe.
	So that's not the issue over Hillary's newfound um affinity for tears.
	But an overly mawkish Hillary Clinton yesterday, it just strikes a lot of people as contrived.
	It looked as though, okay, were they genuine?
	Now I'm not going to make up your mind for it.
	You saw the the video tape.
	You've heard of all the audio.
	You can make up your own mind.
	But it does it come off as more of a campaign strategy as opposed to a genuine moment where somebody got a bit verklemmed and just couldn't take it anymore.
	It's a it's a rough road on the campaign.
	The Senate, you know, would quote Groucho Marx.
	Sincerity.
	If you can fake that, you've got it made.
	But I'm not going to be cynical there.
	This could be very, very difficult, a difficult day for Hillary, as most of the polls show Obama in the lead, and meanwhile, in the Republican camp, you've got McCain and uh Obama, McCain and Huckabee, McCain and everybody else fighting for the center.
	Which, as we all know, if you've ever listened to Rush, the center, the independence, is a euphemism for what?
	Liberals, Democrats.
	Def I mean, by definition, they're liberal.
	Otherwise, they would be conservatives in the Republican Party.
	So somebody that's an independent is a liberal who just doesn't like the Democrat Party anymore, or a liberal who doesn't want to get pegged as a Democrat anymore.
	And you go take a look at all of your independent governors, all of your independent candidates.
	Maybe Joe Lieberman would would be the exception, although he's liberal on a number of social and and fiscal issues.
	But the bottom line is that's what's going on.
	And it really smacks of this move, frankly, in both parties towards this kind of kind of Teddy Roosevelt populism.
	It's a fall populism almost.
	I mean, I'm watching the debates on Saturday.
	And we watch ABC and the Fox uh news debate.
	And I'm watching the debates, and I see the candidates go after the pharmaceutical companies as evil, demanding that we import price controls by allowing uh drugs to come into this country from countries where there are price controls.
	That's importing price controls.
	The candidates going after big pharma, big tobacco, big oil, big insurance.
	I'm watching candidates refuse to talk seriously, except for Fred Thompson about Social Security and getting a handle on that.
	So here we are watching the debate Saturday.
	They're going after big pharma and all the big bad business.
	They're refusing to handle Social Security in a grown-up way, and that's the Republican debate.
	You know we got problems now.
	These guys are going portside quicker than Ted Kennedy and spring break.
	I mean, this is just a little odd here, and I want to try to set the record straight before we get into the calls, because it it does strike me as a little bit of well, not a little bit.
	It strikes me as pure pandering.
	This whole this whole notion of the little guy getting the shaft.
	You want to know what economic populism is.
	You want to know what this whole move towards we're gonna help the little guy, we're not gonna help the big business guy, we're not gonna help the rich, we're gonna help the little guy.
	It's the oldest tool in politics except for hiding behind children.
	You know, when they need more money, they hold up a kid for health care, for education, there's another crisis, you gotta have a kid.
	Well, the second oldest profession, well, wait a minute, I guess it would be the third, then I won't mention the first, uh, would be this notion of I'm gonna help the little guy.
	I'm John Edwards, and as soon as I get done repainting my mansion, I'm gonna get out there and help the little guy.
	Let me tell you what economic populism is.
	It's two wolves and a lamb discussing what they have for dinner.
	That's what it is.
	It's mob rule.
	Why is it that we pride ourselves on individual rights when we talk about unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment?
	We respect our house, our private property.
	That's individual rights.
	That's the epitome of individual rights.
	The bill of rights, we're all about individual rights, not collective rights, whether it's the second amendment, the fourth amendment, or the right not to incriminate yourself in the fifth.
	It's all about individual rights.
	Even under the right to privacy, the ubiquitous right to privacy, all about individuals And then when we get over to the economic arena, individual rights be damned.
	If somebody's got more money, well, let's hire a politician to take it from them and give it to somebody else.
	You know, you do something in the political arena that you can never do on the street, it would be called theft then.
	And but if you do it in the political arena with the majority, how many times have you heard the ACLU rant and rave about the evils of the majority?
	We gotta respect the rights of the minority, except when it comes to economics.
	I don't care if so and so is the last billionaire on earth.
	Three hundred million people do not have a right to take his estate and divvy it up.
	That is what the country was founded upon.
	I'm reminded of the founder of the Republican Party.
	Abolitionist Representative Justin Morrill, Republican of Vermont back in the eighteen sixties.
	And he talked about economics under our Constitution, and he said, quote, the very theory of our institutions is entire equality.
	We make no distinction between the rich and the poor man.
	Now get this.
	He said the man of modest means is just as good as the man with more means, but our theory of government does not admit that he is better.
	The man of modest means is just as good as anybody else, but under our theory of government, equal justice for rich and poor alike, it does not admit that he is better and yet.
	And yet, it's sad to see the some in the GOP take a cue from Edwards and Obama and Hillary on this economic populism argument.
	And here's what's really frustrating about it.
	Since when, my friends, since when has the the big guy or big business got off easy?
	I mean, uh I I'm a little confused here.
	Have you noticed the number of lawsuits going after deep pockets and big business when you got dry cleaners in Washington, D.C., you know, being sued for millions by a greedy trial lawyer?
	What is John Edwards' income compared to the average w average wage earner?
	You talk, you talk about, well, the CEO makes a hundred times a thousand times what the average wage earner earns.
	What is old John's income has a ratio of the average wage earner?
	We've got a trial lawyer running in Minnesota for the U.S. Senate who made five hundred and fifty-six million dollars on one case.
	How does that compare if you divide the average worker's salary?
	Why doesn't anybody ever talk about that?
	But you get the corporate uh the corporate arena, and far from getting off easy, we are bashing the oil companies.
	We're regulating tobacco right out of its use.
	We're going after the the health insurance industry is the most regulated in the world with individual state mandates now amounting to a thousand.
	You want to know why insurance is not affordable?
	Take a look at your individual state mandates.
	When anybody comes into your state to write a traditional indemnity insurance policy, they have to cover acupuncture, they have to cover substance abuse, they have to cover the removal of port win stain.
	They've got to recover so cover so many things that you price insurance out of the market.
	How is that helping the insurance company?
	Doesn't sound like they're getting off easy there.
	Uh oil can't drill on offshore.
	By the way, Exxon Mobil, ExxonMobil, Texaco, and Chevron, in 2005, according to the Security and Exchange Commission documents, paid forty-four billion dollars in taxes.
	In taxes.
	The ethanol industry gets subsidies.
	They're the little guy.
	Big oil's the bad guy.
	Doesn't sound like they're getting off easy.
	You go back to 1977 and we've made a collectively 1.34 trillion in gasoline sales taxes.
	That dwarfs the oil industry's profits.
	Doesn't sound like they're getting off easy.
	The United States of America now has a corporate tax rate of almost 40 percent when you include 39.3 percent uh federal rate, uh I should say a 35 percent federal rate and about a 4.3 percent state rate, according to the Cato Institute and Tax Foundation.
	We've got the highest rate in the Western world.
	Let me repeat that.
	The highest rate in the Western world.
	You've got countries, eleven nations behind the iron curtain with flat rate taxes of twenty-five percent or lower.
	Germany, France, Ireland slashing their corporate tax rates below America.
	Doesn't sound like corporate America's getting off easy.
	You want to know why they won't bring the profits back here?
	They get taxed twice.
	Once overseas, albeit at a smaller flat rate, and then they bring them back here, they repatriate the profits, they get taxed again.
	No wonder they're offshore.
	No, nobody's getting off easy.
	And the top one percent of income earners in America, where they pay forty percent of the income federal income tax burden.
	Top one percent.
	You're making three hundred and fifty grand or more a year, you're lucky duckies out there.
	You're you're getting with a hit with the AMT and everything else, you're paying forty percent of the total burden.
	By the way, that's as much as the bottom ninety-five percent.
	The top one percent pay as much in federal income taxes.
	This is these stats are from the IRS, that right wing think tank, you know, as the bottom ninety-five percent.
	Doesn't sound like they're getting off easy.
	And finally, this from the Tax Foundation.
	They did a study, uh, Andrew Chamberlain, Gerald Prant, and Scott Hodge, who pays America's tax burden and who gets the most government spending.
	The lowest earning one-fifth of households, the bottom quintile.
	You know how much, by the way, they pay in federal income taxes, the lowest one-fifth.
	Try nothing.
	That's right.
	Try nothing.
	When you add in the earned income tax credit, you've got a situation where they pay zero or they actually get a check.
	But yet the bottom one-fifth of households, the little guy receives eight dollars and twenty-one cents in government spending for each dollar they pay in taxes, while the highest earning households get forty-one cents back for every dollar they pay in taxes, according to the tax foundation.
	That's called a redistribution of wealth.
	Tell me again where the big fat rich guy is getting off easy and the poor little guy is really stuck in the middle.
	Now, those are facts that no political candidate wants to talk about because they're inconvenient.
	We have these people pandering now because they know there are more little guys, middle class guys than there are rich guys.
	There are more employees than there are employers, so they're going to the most base instinct and going after the majority and to hell with the minority rights in this case.
	I don't think that's good for the health of the Republic.
	I'm Jason Lewis, in for Rush Limbo on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
	Great to be behind the Golden EIB Mike once again in the Attila the Hun Chair.
	I am Jason Lewis, Minnesota's Mr. Wright sitting in for the big guy, Rush.
	We'll be back tomorrow on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
	One more thing before we get to the phones at 1800, 282-2882.
	Hillary Clinton going after Obama, saying, Look, you're no Martin Luther King.
	Or words to that effect.
	I mean, Obama was saying, what's wrong with hope?
	Dr. King had hope.
	Clinton countered in an interview, I think it was yesterday, she said, Well, uh, you know, all that hope wouldn't have been worth spit if Lyndon Baines Johnson hadn't passed the Civil Rights Act.
	Oh, yes, I think of the Civil Rights Act, and I think of those Southern Democrats getting on board.
	Hello, they were the ones who were filibustering, I believe Al Gordon Sr. and a number of Southern Democrats filibustered.
	You want to talk about you know in uh inveterate racism in the United States of America.
	I mean, take a look at the agricultural department during the era of the New Deal, not exactly kind to black farmers in the South.
	You can go right through the Jim Crow era.
	So I wouldn't, if I were Democrats, I wouldn't get too far out in front on that.
	But here's the thing.
	Hillary counters Barack and says uh the the dream began to be realized because of President Lyndon Johnson.
	It took a president to get it done.
	Lyndon Johnson.
	Let me think.
	Lyndon Johnson starts out as a poor school teacher in Texas, goes to Washington, comes home fabulously wealthy.
	Huh.
	Lyndon Johnson, the Bobby Baker scandal.
	Lyndon Johnson pressuring broadcasters to to do what they wanted him to do.
	Lyndon Johnson and oh yeah, illegal wars.
	Can you say the Gulf of Tonkin resolution?
	When the administration deliberately suggested we were fired upon in order to gin up support.
	Is that the upright Lyndon Baines Johnson administration, which gaze uh gave us every single great society program that has cost the American taxpayers six point four trillion dollars since nineteen sixty-four, and has it has encouraged povert poverty, has subsidized poverty, has discouraged work and savings and investment, has created huge budget deficits, huge pro fiscal problems.
	That Lyndon Johnson, boy, I tell you.
	Hillary, you need to come up with a new icon there.
	To the phones we go, Jason in Chicago, you're first up today with another Jason on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	Hi.
	Jason to Jason to Jason, I love it.
	It sounds like a bad sounds like a bad horror movie.
	There's another side to Jason that we represent that side, don't we?
	That's right.
	That's the golden fleece side.
	That's right.
	And I'm agree with that too.
	But let me, you know, I want to preface what what I was gonna say uh by agreeing with you on uh Johnson.
	It's funny.
	I was watching JFK last night and um call it uh crazy timing, but of course you forgot to throw in uh how he was sworn in uh you know, just kind of waiting, hovering in the wings, and how he took office after the assassination.
	We don't want to, you know, forget about that also.
	What are you suggesting, Jace?
	Oh, well, you I think the Gulf of Tonkin comment you made uh suggests enough.
	But I mean it is amazing how the mainstream media talks about well, we got into war on a lie and all of the other canards they throw out with ever without ever bringing up their hero, Lyndon Johnson, a much more clear-cut case of an administration clearly lying to the American people, and everybody knows it.
	And why is that not?
	Why wasn't Lyndon Johnson impeached?
	Yeah, interesting.
	So times change, right?
	I wanted to get to that point.
	I I you know, I'm gonna have to go ahead to head with you on a comment you made about the oil companies, because it kind of hit a nerve.
	And I just want to know your thoughts here, but I gotta throw this out there.
	Um I did a little research.
	Um when the market was hot and I was training a lot right up to 2000, I noticed, and I'm sure maybe a few other people noticed a slew of oil mergers that failed to catch the SEC's eye as they were hunting down, you know, the tech companies and other companies.
	Uh Royal Joy Show, BP Amico, ExxonMobil, Conico Phillips.
	I mean, that's just a few.
	That's unprecedented.
	Texon Mobile, Exxon Mobile, you mean.
	Texaco Chevron, ExxonMobil, yeah.
	Right.
	So so a lot of these are um foreign domestic, like PP Amical Royal Dois Show, for example.
	Now we need to take a look at this because yes, we need to do a backtrack because when you mentioned the 44 billion in taxes, that that may sound you have a resounding impact on our thinking, but if we look at the profits yielded, and the fact that we'll sound like Jace, Jace, hold on.
	Let me let me be clear, my friend.
	Let me be clear.
	You've just stated a false premise.
	When you look at the profits, here's a news flash for you.
	Profits are good.
	They send market signals, they reward investors.
	They are the salaries, they are the salaries to capital.
	You can't have profits without investors, and you've got to pay the investors.
	The more profits, the better.
	That's not even my argument.
	I'm just throwing that in there because you mentioned taxes, and well, there's a if there's a lot of money, there are gonna be a lot of taxes.
	Oh, well, get to your point.
	Get to your point.
	The point is this.
	Why why um wasn't that w where are the the investigations?
	And that looked like a pragmatic step to oil companies took two in the Middle East, they're taking the natural gas out of there right now.
	They have subsidiaries.
	What other people are doing.
	Have you ever heard in economics one oh one of economies of scale?
	That's what happens when you're in a global market.
	You don't want to duplicate services and you get a few mergers.
	Why are you concerned about the single largest monopoly the world has ever known?
	It's called public education.
	From K, quite frankly, through 16, in most cases where it's where it's pr uh publicly run.
	Five hundred and thirty-six billion dollars a year we spend on this government sanctioned monopoly.
	The oil companies are competing all over the world.
	There is no corner on the market.
	You know if corporate America gets their way, there would be no EPA, there would be no minimum wage law, there would be no corporate income tax, there would be no double taxation of dividends.
	Where do we get off on this sort of Michael Moore Oliver Stone on steroids conspiracy nonsense anyway?
	The vast majority of Americans who produce something work for a corporation.
	Now, now I'll I'll be the first to say we've gone down the road of subsidizing corporate America, export import banks, Archer Daniels Midland farm subsidy, ethanol subsidies.
	You can go right down the list where you've got eminent domain where local governments will will take somebody's property for another corporation.
	Those have to be handled.
	Those have to be, quite frankly, ceased.
	But I am non-plussed as to why people are so anti-business in America and how this f this sort of populism that ignores the income tax rates.
	You know, the the previous caller, Jay said, Well, look, they paid forty-four billion, these three big oil companies, but that's nothing compared to their profits.
	No, actually, as a percent of their profits.
	I told you earlier we have the highest corporate tax rate in the Western world at 35%, add in state corporate.
	You know what this the corporate tax rate in the state of Minnesota is?
	Are you sitting down?
	Wonder why our economy is moving slower than the national average now uh in Minnesota?
	Nine point eight percent.
	I'm not making that up.
	Boy, sounds like corporate Minnesota sure controls the state house in the in the North Star State, doesn't it?
	Why they got off with a nine point so you add that to the thirty-five percent corporate rate at the federal level, you're looking at forty-five percent, which dwarfs every other industrialized country.
	Dwarfs it.
	So where is corporate America getting their way here?
	The big three oil companies that had so many credits and deductions removed that they actually paid a higher statutory rate than the federal rate in 2005.
	That forty-four billion represented forty-one percent.
	So in 2005, according to SEC documents, the big three oil companies paid forty-one percent of their income in corporate taxes.
	Does that sound like they're lobbyists or doing a good job?
	And by the way, when you talk about the little guy, let us not forget, everybody, that we don't live in a static economy.
	There's not this one set of individuals who are little and another set of individuals who are big rich and smoke cigars in the back of the train.
	Uh there are there is there are well, think of yourself.
	You got out of college or you got out of high school, you went to work.
	You were in the lowest quintile.
	You work and you work, and by the time you're fifty-five, you're in the second to highest or maybe the highest quintile.
	Now, is that unfair?
	Why, when they surveyed you when you were twenty-three, you were in the low.
	You were the little guy.
	There's something wrong with that.
	All of this income quintile analysis is so erroneous.
	It is such a myth because it doesn't take into account age, marital status.
	It doesn't even take into account work.
	If you don't work, you're gonna be in the lowest income quintile.
	Is that a societal problem?
	No, it's a problem for you.
	But I digress.
	The point here is the Treasury examined ninety-six thousand seven hundred income tax returns from nineteen ninety-six to two thousand and five for Americans over the age of twenty-five, late last year.
	You know what they found when they tracked these tax filers over ten years?
	Fifty-eight percent of the filers who were in the poorest income group, the bottom quintile, had moved into a higher income category by two thousand and five in less than a decade, and over five percent made it all the way to the highest quintile, the richest.
	People move up and down the economic ladder.
	So there is no rich and poor in a static analysis.
	We need to disabuse ourselves of this politics of envy class warfare.
	That's what liberal Democrats do.
	It shouldn't be what the party of free markets does.
	The you know, let me just say one more thing.
	You cannot have a country that prides itself on equality under the law without the result being inequality when it comes to social status when it comes to income.
	If you are hell bent on equalizing incomes, you must also then admit that you believe in unequal treatment under the law.
	Now I'm not talking about the you know this being a violation of the 14th Amendment, the progressive income tax, but I'm certainly talking about it being a sp uh in the spirit of a violation or violates the spirit of equal justice.
	So let us let us forget this nonsense.
	That's why, you know well, flat tax and I know some of you like a fair tax, regardless, you're always going to have economic inequality in America because you have people with differing levels of talent, differing levels of initiative, differing levels of of work, and therefore that's the way the world worked.
	That's what our revolution was about.
	In 1765 they revolted against the Stamp Act.
	That was an economic revolution the coercive and intolerable acts to enforce all those economic measures.
	The Boston Tea Party it was America was a place where you could come to get rich.
	That was the idea.
	Why are we demonizing it today?
	In Lafayette, Louisiana, Kevin, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program with me, Jason Lewis, hi.
	How are you doing, Jason Lewis?
	Could not be better, sir.
	Well you know, you know, I agree with what you're saying, you know, this is just ridiculous.
	This year I've made more money than I've ever made since I've been working.
	And uh I paid out more taxes.
	Me and my wife were talking about it to do our taxes.
	I can't work as much as I have.
	You know, I work in the gas industry and this is just ridiculous.
	People don't understand.
	And let me tell you what else happened.
	What else happened to you?
	You lost some of your personal and child uh exemptions when you filed your income taxes.
	You lost some of all of the deductions that other folks get you get the it's called the the the uh the Pip and Pep, the uh the phased income phase outs as they call them all those deductions that most people take you lose them as you go up the income ladder.
	So your rate is actually higher than 35%.
	Right.
	When you get to the top level.
	So how is that is that another sign of the rich getting off easy?
	No, I mean to me I've I got friends that make uh you know less money than I do but yeah it's just talking about how much you know they pay and I'm telling them you have no idea how much you pay I a lot.
	The bottom the bot according to the CBO uh roughly the bottom forty percent of federal income earners have no income tax liability it really takes me to no end but I'll tell you you know we have got to change something something has got to change because can't keep having this you know here's the dirty Yeah that's right I got to let you go but here's the dirty little secret and I know this sounds callous and we're not supposed to sound that way in the context of a political race,
	especially as the GOP reaches out to Democrats.
	There aren't a whole lot of poor folks who open factories.
	There aren't a whole lot of poor folks who fund venture capital firms.
	You better realize pretty quick that if you keep...
	Anybody remember the luxury tax?
	The luxury tax in the early 1990s.
	We're going to go after those people that have yachts and expensive cars and all of that.
	And you know what it did to the yacht industry?
	so bad in Rhode Island that Representative Patrick Kennedy helped to repeal the luxury tax just going after the rich it is tautological my friends that if you take away the incentive for those with money to invest, you take away the incentive to create jobs, to create capital and that's the road we're going down.
	I don't know how why anybody thinks you know discouraging investment and capital and income earning by guys like Kevin is going to help the economy if we're teetering on a recession.
	It will drive it into a recession.
	Pamela in Toledo thanks for waiting you're up next on the Excellence in broadcasting network hi.
	Hey Jason how are you?
	I'm very well waited I'm not supposed to anyway I want to talk about Hillary Clinton for a second.
	Her blubbering on TV yesterday annoyed me to no end and here's why she managed in those few minutes to undo about thirty years of feminism.
	Now maybe I'm overstating it, but one of the worst things that we've had to overcome as women is stereotypes about how we behave when we're in power and her crying because it's a little tough in a primary what's she going to do when she comes up against Putin and he decides that he wants to play heartball with her she's going to start crying and calling for Bill to come and help her.
	It's an interesting it's an interesting point the the uh the idea that uh the Helen ready crowd you know we're just as good as a man and a woman can be president uh And then all of a sudden when the the going gets tough.
	I if it were the question for me is if it were genuine.
	If it were genuine, lots of men cry.
	Uh lots of of leaders cry.
	Now it did hurt Ed Muskie, destroyed his candidacy, but nevertheless, I've seen Bush's eyes well up, seen Luther Reagan, lots of the heroes of the right of have shed a tear.
	And I think it's kind of endearing at times, if it is genuine.
	If however it if it's contrived, as some suspect, then what does that say about Hillary's view of women that okay now I'm going to pull out the tears, and that is a direct attack on feminism.
	Well, you know, Jason, I don't think it matters whether it was real or whether it was contrived.
	The point is I think when you're in that job, you learn to control yourself.
	And you put your emotions aside and you mean like her husband.
	Who's the woman in that relationship?
	I don't know.
	If you were married to Billy, you'd be crying too.
	Pamela, thanks for the call.
	I I do appreciate your thoughts on that.
	Let's uh take a let's squeeze in Lawrence real quick before a break.
	Uh St. Pete, Florida, Lawrence, you're on the Excellence and Broadcasting Network.
	Hello, Mr. Wright.
	Uh, you started earlier uh setting the record straight.
	I'd like you to help me set the record straight about John Edwards.
	Um uh I lived in Charlotte, the um uh largest city in North Carolina when you were there, and uh we referred to John Edwards as Senator Who, if you will will recall.
	There was a reason he didn't run for reelection, wasn't there?
	That that is correct.
	Um he proposed very little, if any bills.
	He had the worst absentee um uh uh problem i in the Senate uh in the history.
	Um he didn't win his own state in the last election.
	And the thing that really galls me is uh I I saw him on his last speech uh that he doesn't take any money from PACs.
	What in the world are trial lawyers?
	What is the American Trial Lawyers Association or the Association of Trial Lawyers of America?
	They had to change their name because they had such a bad rep. Look, it is the epitome, the epitome of shameless hypocrisy for a guy that is, you know, literally has that much money.
	Let's compare the average working stiff's wages like we do to CEOs.
	Let's compare it to John Edwards.
	And then he's talking about about you know the the downtrodden and all of this.
	It really is a joke.
	And once again, if you take a look at America's pension for suing for fun and profit, why doesn't big corporate big corporate America get tort reform passed if they get their way with everything?
	If everything's about corporations and business, why don't we have limits on punitive damages?
	Why don't we have the English rule law or the English uh the English rule as it's called where the loser would pay?
	Why don't we eliminate junk science or have some reasonable sanity about discovery rules that can drag corporate America and i in in the courtroom or in discovery for hours, hours, days, months, years, and drain them.
	Why isn't corporate America getting their way?
	It's an absolute canard.
	Great call.
	I'm glad you did.
	I'm Jason Lewis, right here in for the great one, Rush Limbaugh, back right after this.
	Talents on loan from Rush, Jason Lewis back at the helm at EIB, rush gone for today, but we'll be back tomorrow for the analysis of the New Hampshire primary.
	Dixville notch voted what?
	Late last night, midnight, I guess, or the early this morning.
	Dixville notch, Obama gets seven, Edwards two, Bill Richardson one.
	I didn't know he had relatives up there.
	On the Republican side, McCain got four votes.
	Romney two, Giuliani won.
	So seventeen votes in at Dixville notch, Hart's location, the other early voting uh precinct, Obama nine, Hillary three, John Edwards one, which he threatens to sue over.
	I'm just kidding.
	And the Republican side, uh McCain six, Huckabee five, Ron Paul four, Mitt Romney one.
	This is gonna be this is going to be fascinating, but look, uh it's palpable, this pandering to quote unquote the center.
	And now the Democrats in Congress say we need a stimulus package.
	Wait till you hear what they plan for that.
	More of the same, which will drive the economy into stagflation.
	We'll talk a little bit about that next hour and some other topics, but right now in Cambas, Washington, Doug, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program with Minnesota's Mr. Wright, Jason Lewis.
	Hi.
	Hello, Jason.
	Pleasure to speak with you from a former Minnesotan.
	Oh, well, you escaped.
	Yeah, I did.
	No, actually, uh, I love Minnesota.
	I'm thinking about going back.
	I actually first met you back in 2000 when George W. was campaigning right before the election when we thought we might actually take Minnesota.
	Oh, really?
	How intriguing.
	Yes.
	Hey, the comment I wanted to make has to do with what you said earlier about the you know the the the panel at the debate uh the other night uh actually sounding like like liberals.
	They don't sound like conservatives.
	The only true pr person that sounded like a true conservative was Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney, and quite frankly, Mitt Romney, uh you know, I don't trust him because of you know where he came from his stand in Massachusetts.
	But what really stood out to me was the comment by Mike Huckabee, you know, using the praises of Time magazine and the New York Times as as and gloating about it.
	I mean, here's an extremely liberal, you know, journalist praising him as being one of the top five governors, and he's he's saying this at a Republican debate trying to get the Republican nomination.
	It just makes no sense to me.
	It it you know, when you when Rush talks about this new conservatism, wow, that was a case in point right there.
	This is a time for choosing.
	This election is not just about the president, it's about the future of the Republican Party as we know it.
	It will either be the party of a choice, not an echo, or it will go the way of the Whigs.
	Because this this I I don't know what these these liberals, whether they're the secular liberals or the new evangelical left, I don't know what what they're thinking.
	Without the conservative base, they will never win another election, period.
	If somebody you know, this is so silly.
	If somebody wants economic populism, Doug, if somebody wants to soak it to the rich, if somebody wants a more pacifist foreign policy, if somebody wants, you know, the more economic regulation, and by God, we're gonna solve global warming, we're gonna have bans on smoking, and we're gonna get the endorsement of the National Education Association, they're not gonna vote Republican.
	They're going to vote Democrat.
	So moving in that direction only feeds the beast and encourages people to go all the way.
	Uh that's why the Republican the party reached its ascendancy with the most conservative president in my lifetime, Ronald Reagan.
	And I was very disappointed in Mitt Romney's response to when Thompson uh correctly said, look, we are going to have to adjust the benefit scale to cons consumer prices, not wages, if we're ever going to get a handle on Social Security.
	Everybody knows that.
	Ronnie said, Oh, no, no, no, not me.
	No, not not maybe maybe we'll do that for the the Uber rich.
	What he was really talking about is something called progressive indexing, which would turn social security into a welfare, redistributive welfare program where the more you make uh in your in your you know lifetime working hard, why the less you would get from Social Security, and the less you make, the more we get.
	Now that the Social Security contract, as it were, is such today that it it's it's as we talked about earlier.
	It treats you know rich and poor alike.
	It's a contract.
	You put in so much, you get back so much.
	Fact of the matter is the wealthy have to live much, much longer to get back everything they put in.
	Because as the the wages subjected to Social Security taxes go up and up and up, they're in the what, 92,000, 93,000, and the Democrats want to raise that to 100, 125.
	Medicare has no limit.
	So you can make 10 million and still pay Medicare taxes of almost three percent.
	That's all that money that that funds the system.
	You're not gonna get that back if you're wealthy unless you live to be 94.
	However, if you're the little guy, you get that back long before you die in most cases.
	Now I'm speaking in a general terms here.
	Another example of the little guy not getting the shaft.
	Um but Thompson was right, and Romney kind of chickened out on that, and that was disappointing because he said some pretty good things in defending business in America in the past.
	But you're right.
	There is this, you know, we're listening to our enemies.
	Uh, the the GOP is listening to the enemy saying, Oh, everybody knows you got to drift leftward.
	Oh, I don't know that.
	Reagan didn't know it.
	And we won.
	I got to take a short pause.
	We'll be back with more, so don't go away.
	Okay, coming up next hour.
	More of your calls at 1800-282-2882.
	Also want to get into Obama's real voting record, this ridiculous stimulus package that some are talking about, which will exacerbate the uh the threat of stagflation we've had with the expansive monetary policy and and too high of a tax level.
	We'll get into all of that and maybe even the voter ID Supreme Court case.
	Think of it, friends.
	You gotta show your ID when you vote.
	Why, why, what's next?
	Lower tax rates?

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