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March 6, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:07
March 6, 2008, Thursday, Hour #2
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Besides, I vacuumed.
What?
What?
Kit and Mike are having some fun with me.
A couple of weeks ago, I went down to play golf in Florida.
And Kit and Mike, you know, apparently they are totally controlled by their spouses.
They think, you got away on a solo trip for golf.
How did you do it?
And I said, I put my foot down.
I told my wife, I'm going to play golf.
That's it.
No questions asked.
Besides, I vacuumed.
I think kind of like that.
I'm in control in my household.
I don't know about you other guys.
I'm in control.
I told my wife when we got married, I'm going to make all of the big decisions from now on.
I'm going to make them all.
You're not going to have an input in any of those.
The strangest thing is, ever since we've been married, there have been no big decisions, just little ones, and she gets those.
And that's kind of odd.
Hi, everybody.
Second hour now up and running on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Jason Lewis here.
Hayatop, the EIB Tower and the North Command, I guess, the frozen tundra of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Great to be back, filling in for Rush, taking a couple of well-deserved days off.
He will be back on Monday.
We'll hold the fort down today and tomorrow for Open Line Friday.
Did you hear about Al Franken speaking of Minnesota?
All right, DFL.
It's a Democrat Farm Labor Party in Minnesota.
Democrat wasn't good enough.
They had to throw in a couple of other activist acronyms, I guess.
Democrat Farm Labor, going back to the agrarian populists of the turn of the century, who knows?
And they are a wholly owned subsidiary of the labor union.
So DFL, that's the Democrat Party in Minnesota.
Al Franken's running for the Senate up here.
Are you done laughing?
All right, stop the laughing.
All right, now we'll continue.
Al Franken is, well, we couldn't get anybody else.
Running against Norm Coleman, the incumbent U.S. Senator.
And Franken's running on the typical Democrat platform of compassion, tolerance.
We need to treat the downtrodden nicely.
We need more welfare, more redistribution, the disabled, you name it.
And certainly, you know, upping payment and workers' comp claims is part of that.
Well, a little problem with Al.
Apparently, he owes $25,000 to the New York State Workers' Comp Board for failing to carry workers' compensation insurance for employees of his namesake corporation from 2002 to 2005.
I guess we could pretty much rule out family leave then benefits for those people as well.
Here's a guy that's touting the virtues of these people who are injured on the job.
They need more compensation.
Standard Democrat orthodoxy.
And he's not paying the workers' comp premiums or taxes.
25 grand to the state of New York.
We'll keep on top of that.
Probably won't hurt him up here.
You never know.
And in New York City, Times Square recruiting station, last protested in October 2005 by the Granny Peace Brigade.
I was not aware of this.
A group of activists in 2005 protested the same recruiting station that was apparently bombed today in New York City, Times Square.
The group was called the Granny Peace Brigade.
Any woman over 65 with boots, I guess, I'm not quite certain who that would be.
They were protesting the Iraq war.
Now, apparently, the same station was, I don't want to be too melodramatic here.
It was an explosive device and it caused minor damage.
Nevertheless, it did go off in this recruiting station, Times Square, early this morning, shattering the station's glass entryway.
The Marriott Hotel four blocks away felt the building shake.
So this is some pretty serious stuff.
Fortunately, nobody injured in that.
You know, Iraq brings up an interesting case here.
Now, the Democrats are running around, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton saying, we're going to get out of Iraq.
We're going to get out of Iraq.
Meanwhile, as you know, the surge has had some pretty astounding success.
McCain has said he would maintain the current approach, keeping troop levels at or near 130,000.
The two Democrat candidates say they want out of Iraq, and they're leading their own constituency to believe they're going to get out.
But they're not going to remove non-combat troops.
And nobody's telling you, you Democrat lefties, nobody's telling the Granny Peace Brigade that both of these candidates have already made the distinction between combat troops whom they say they want to withdraw and non-combat troops who they say will stay there indefinitely.
Now, I'm not making the case for the Democrats.
I mean, there's going to be a distinct shift in our policy in the war on terror.
I don't think a good one if they get elected.
But the idea that they're going to pull out all of the U.S. military presence there may or may not be true if they've already pledged to keep the non-combat troops in there.
So what do you, Al Frankens of the world, think about that, running on the notion we're going to get out of Iraq entirely?
No, you're not.
Hillary's not going to do that.
Barack has said he's not going to do that.
So conducting such a non-combat mission is going to require the sustained deployment of probably tens of thousands of American military personnel, foreign policy advisors, and both camps effectively acknowledge this.
Why aren't they telling their peaceknicks this?
Hmm, somebody in the news media ought to ask them about that.
I think that would be fascinating.
And Venezuela and Colombia, have you heard about this?
Otherwise, I mean, this guy is an absolute loony bird.
Maybe Pat Robertson was right.
All right, I'm not going to go there.
But Hugo Chavez has now ordered 10 battalions deployed to the Colombian border to battle Colombia.
This is Castro with oil, folks.
That's what Hugo Chavez is.
And he's supporting terrorists inside Colombia.
They went the other day and got the terrorists who retreated into Ecuador.
And they got a computer belonging to the expired commandant that reveals Chavez's secrets, such as his help for some terrorist organizations within Colombia.
That's why he's raising such a stink.
This guy has got money, and he's doing what Castro couldn't do.
He wants to export leftist revolutionaries throughout South America, Central America, and across the globe if he has his way.
America better wake up to Hugo Chavez.
He's not just expropriating Exxon's private property.
He's going to go after everybody who believes in freedom.
But, I mean, the real story about this is not that Chavez is worried about Ecuador or Chavez is worried about Venezuela.
Colombia has much more in common with freedom than Chavez could possibly ever imagine.
It's that Chavez was supporting the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia or the terrorist group known as FARC.
And he got caught when they went after the FARC guerrillas in Ecuador.
They found a computer revealing that Chavez was doing just this.
And it's embarrassing.
So he's raising the stink as though, oh, Colombia's intervening and doing all of this stuff.
So I want you to keep that in mind as well.
The phone number is always 1-800-282-2882 on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
And don't forget rushlimbaught.com.
Some great info there as always.
Could we just say one more thing about the so-called housing crisis?
Believe it or not, House Democrat leaders are now floating the idea of a second economic stimulus package.
This is the Taj Mahal syndrome.
And every time your local government wants to build a convention center, wants to build a bear exhibit, wants to dish out local pork, wants to build urban redevelopment or a baseball stadium or a basketball arena.
What do they tell you?
Well, it's going to provide economic stimulus.
This is the old Keynesian multiplier effect.
If we just build this convention center, it's going to create jobs.
And the Taj Mahal response to that is, really, well, why don't we build 10?
If one is going to have a great economic stimulus, why don't we build 10?
Now, most people would realize how ridiculous that is, but most people aren't Democrats.
They actually believe it.
So if the first stimulus package, which was nothing more than make work, robbing money from you to hand out to give to other people, literally, borrowing and taxing one group of taxpayers to hand out rebates to another does nothing for overall production.
Does nothing to increase overall demand.
It is a fallacy.
The first rule in economics is opportunity cost.
If you tax me, if you rob Peter to pay Paul, not only do you end up with a sore Peter, you don't do anything for the economy.
You've merely reshuffled the deck on the Titanic.
And so House Democrats are pondering a second stimulus because of the more public works make jobs.
Reminds me of the old Carter-Aracita programs.
Because of the credit crunch, because the mortgage crisis, the foreclosure crisis, you know, in Minnesota, get this.
Now, you got to understand Minnesota is the Democrat Party on steroids.
You know, they're just to the left of Hugo Chavez in Minnesota.
They are proposing a representative in Minnesota's Pilot Bureau is proposing a mandate that you could not foreclose on someone.
That under the latest bill introduced, that banks could not foreclose for up to one year on anybody.
It's time to prevent avoidable foreclosures in Minnesota, says the political potentate representative.
Now, I want you to think about this, and I want you to think long and hard.
Why is it that you can get a mortgage in America for 5.5%, 6, 6.5%, and your credit cards cost you 18%?
There is no price gouging going on.
It's a pure function of the marketplace.
Because you know what the first debt written off in bankruptcy is, or one of the first?
You're allowed to remove all that nasty credit card debt.
You declare bankruptcy.
Those creditors are SOL.
So what the credit card companies do is say, look, if you're going to walk away from your debt and we have to write off the bad debt, we are going to charge a higher premium.
We're going to charge a higher interest rate so that when we have to write off the Deadbeat's debt, at least the interest we're collecting on people doing the responsible thing will make up for that loss.
So those interest rates are three times as high as a mortgage rate.
This ridiculous move to freeze foreclosures, this ridiculous move to not allow people to have to correct their lifestyle and downsize, and that includes banks, by the way, is going to lead to mortgage rates at 10, 12.
Think about this.
If you're in the secondary mortgage market and you're going to assume these loans, and all of a sudden a legislator can come in and say, oh, by the way, we're going to tell the debtor he or she doesn't have to repay you.
What is your interest rate going to be for that high-risk loan?
It's not going to be 6%.
So what the Democrats and what Hillary is offering these bailouts and Barack promising freezes and all of the usual suspects are doing is really raising the cost of credit in the mortgage market.
And then they'll no doubt blame the banks.
Now, the banks are not innocent here.
They're demanding that the Federal Reserve keep pumping money by buying T-bills on the open market and inflating the economy to try to keep those housing prices up.
Folks, there's a simple answer to the so-called crisis.
Let the markets work.
Let the banks, let the banks mark to market some of these loans and secondary derivatives and packaged securities, credit default swaps and the like.
Let them mark these to market and take their losses and let people who are going through foreclosure go through foreclosure.
Housing prices will come down.
People will downsize.
The market will correct.
Everything will stabilize, including the prices.
People will have more money left over after this.
And then everything will start floating back up again.
But if you allow the government to intervene by freezing lenders or keeping lenders at bay, freezing foreclosures, or you tell the banks that they can't collect on these foreclosures, and the banks don't want to do this.
They don't want the house.
They have to sell and try to recoup their loan.
But if you start intervening in the market, all you do, and especially when it comes to the Federal Reserve and inflating the economy, trying to prevent the banks from taking these big losses, all you're doing is putting off the day of reckoning.
And a nation that will not accept a little correction or a small recession right now in the economy, in the housing market, is setting itself up for a much, much bigger one down the road when the bubble finally pops.
And what the Fed is doing right now, frankly, is not defensible.
It is untenable.
The way they keep inflating the economy, CPI up 4.7%, food costs up near 6% a year ago.
We better get a handle on this before it's too late.
I'm Jason Lewis.
To the phones we go right after this on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Always having more fun than a human being should be allowed when you're filling in for the great one, Rush Limbaugh taking a couple of days off.
I am here, Jason Lewis, Minnesota's real anchor man, Minnesota's Mr. Rights, filling those big shoes today and tomorrow on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Let's go to the phones in Columbus, Ohio.
Chris, you are next up on EIB.
God says the Republic.
Go to mercy on Mr. Limbaugh and yourself, sir.
Better health to him.
There are some coincidences about this New York bombing that are starting to disturb me that some folks are trying to make their rhetoric match their actions.
It just happens to be the anniversary, sir, when an American combat brigade landed at a small village called the Nang just south of the Vietnamese DMZ back in 6 March 1965.
That attack in New York just happens to have some eerie earmarks of riding in on a bicycle and pulling a hit-and-fade operation on an American facility.
I wonder if a Democrat president would authorize wiretaps on these terrorists.
Not only that, I also wonder if they had some of the same people because yesterday, when the planning stages would have been happening, just might have been the death of Stalin and the birth of the founder of the German Communist Party.
Good Lord have mercy, sir.
It's hard coming together.
Chris, it's hard to get into these conspiratorial theories.
I mean, who knows?
But I will say this.
The double standard, once again, in the way, quite frankly, the media, as well as liberal politicians, treat left-wing terrorism with quote-unquote homegrown right-wing terrorists, a la Timothy McVeigh, is palpable.
I mean, the hypocrisy is bizarre here.
There doesn't seem to be a left-wing organization, including some terrorist groups, that liberals don't like.
I mean, they worship Castro.
Hugo Chavez is the next golden boy.
How many people have Stalin?
How many did he kill?
Enforced relocations, starvations.
So you could go right down the list, and there is this bizarre preoccupation that the Che Guevaras of the world are to be honored, even put in campaign offices, you get my drift, posters of Che Guevara.
And yet, we've got to do something about these militia types.
I mean, that particular double standard is worth noting.
Thanks for checking in.
Christian in Melbourne, Florida.
You know, you're not worried about global warming down there, are you, Christian?
No, not at all.
It's another beautiful day here in sunny Florida, Jason.
Don't start with me.
Hey, man.
Listen, first of all, Fair Republic did us, and you're doing a good job to him in France.
I wanted to talk about the recruiting center, like the previous call, but I wanted to tie it to what's going on right now.
The anti-war crowd has been waging a campaign against the recruiting offices around the country for several years.
And many recruiting centers have been attacked.
Most of the time, it's rocks being thrown through the windows or the recruiting centers being ransacked.
But I've talked with recruiters in the Washington, D.C. area who told me that their government vehicles get torched if they leave them unattended in the parking lot overnight at their recruiting center.
So the act of terrorism that we saw today in New York City is, you know, it's very prominent, but it's on a par with things that have been already happening around the country.
You know, how many times have you heard?
You bring up a great point.
How many times have you heard that the talk radio, hate radio, needs to temper its rhetoric because it's instigating some violent acts?
I mean, have you been, you know, Oklahoma City, the Clinton administration, declared war on talk radio with these smears.
And yet I'm wondering how many liberals going after the military-industrial complex should be held accountable for these violent acts by left-wing terrorist groups.
Well, you're right, Jason.
And what the left is trying to do right now is recreate some of the organizations that served them so well during the 60s and early 70s.
Probably the most virulent of them being right now is the SDF, the Students for a Democratic Society.
Do you remember Bobby Seal?
Do you remember Bobby, I believe it was Searse?
Yeah.
Bobby Seal from the Black Panthers?
Yeah.
Yeah, he was invited, was it last week or the week before to speak, of course, at the University of Minnesota.
And you've got college campuses trying to kick off recruiters on college campuses.
And if it weren't for the Supreme Court and the Solonoman Amendment, they would have done it.
You've got high schools in the Twin Cities trying to boot recruiters off their high school campuses.
So I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that, at least rhetorically, the liberal left in this country has declared war on these honorable men and women trying to fill the ranks of our armed forces, the recruiting stations, the recruiters everywhere.
And I wish we would hold some of that inflamed rhetoric to the same standards they would like to hold talk radio to.
So I think you bring up a very, very interesting point.
More on this when we return.
Don't go away.
We are back on Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
I am Jason Lewis filling in for the big guy today and tomorrow.
Great to be here in the Attila the Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
A real pleasure.
Always Rush taking a couple of well-deserved days off.
He's been working hard lately, and we will continue with his efforts to educate America.
You know, I'm kind of recovering probably from the same thing Rush had, this kind of a nascent flu, if you will, or almost a rebound effect.
And every time my voice gets kind of cranky like this, I start to revert into Mom Bill Clinton.
So we, I'm telling you, I am sick.
Everybody does that, though.
I hate to, you know, everybody does the Clinton thing now, so it's just, I don't know why I did it.
Pardon me.
Richard in Memphis, you'll kick off this segment right here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Hi and welcome.
Hey, how are you doing, Jason?
Good to hear you.
Seven for Rush again.
Thank you.
The reason I was calling, a lot of times I hear all the conservative talk show hosts, and I know I can understand where you guys are coming from as far as the stimulus package or rebates going to people actually coming from other people.
But there are, you know, there's a lot of Republicans out here.
I think sometimes that may feel alienated that might not make the 75 grand or anything like that.
And that little bit of money does help them.
And sometimes I think we get a little discouraged when we hear all the negativity about it.
Well, let's be clear about this.
Let us call it what it is then.
It is government charity, which frankly is an oxymoron.
There's no such thing as charity when you're forced to give it.
But that is not an economic stimulus.
If you're suggesting that, look, people need the money, and by God, we've got a monopoly on force in America.
We're the government, and we're going to get them that money, and you're going to do it on the basis of charity or of a safety net, fine.
It does nothing to pump the economy up.
Okay, okay, let me address that then.
Sure.
Like, for me, like, what I'm using the money for, which I've already used it, I just know I got the money coming, so I went ahead and used it now.
See, I'm an underground rap artist here in Memphis, and I use that money to go ahead and make my graphics from my album.
So it will stun the economy if people are actually using it.
You're an underground rap artist in Memphis.
Yes, sir.
What would be an above-ground rap artist?
I guess 3-6 mafia from Memphis.
Well, you know, I don't know about most people.
But when I think what's really going to catapult this economy into the 21st century, I'm thinking underground rap.
I don't know about you.
Well, I'm saying individual people, if they are using it, you know, for whatever they do, if they could actually use it to make money off of it, then I could see, you know, then it wouldn't be.
Richard, let me.
All right, let's take this step by step.
If, in fact, you get a rebate, and by the way, the stimulus, the first stimulus package was not quote unquote paid for.
So what the Democrats said when they pushed this through is, well, we like these kind of deficits.
We don't like the Bush deficits, but we think it's just fine to borrow $150 billion so the government can write checks.
So remember, if you're a deficit hawk, you've got some real problems with this.
But where did the money come from?
You get a check for $500.
Where did that money come from?
It came from either me, if I'm paying the taxes because I don't get the rebate or somebody else, or it came from the capital markets where the government went out, floated some treasury obligations.
They got the money.
They borrowed it from the capital markets and they gave you $500.
Where is the economic stimulus?
Had the money stayed in private hands, the money would have been invested in, frankly, in capital formation, which is a better way to stimulate the economy, or I would have kept it and I would have spent it.
So again, if you want to make the case that, look, you need the money, therefore you're going to support people that get it for you, fine.
I don't agree, but that's one thing.
You can't make the case that it is some sort of macroeconomic stimulus because there is no magic money tree.
The money's coming from somebody.
Well, I mean, I understand that it is coming from somebody, and I do agree that it's unfair.
I do think there could be other ways.
You know, if we stop earmarks, maybe taxes wouldn't be so high in the first place, things like that.
Trust me, I am a conservative.
I do not agree with anything coming from the Democratic left.
I just think that there are some people out there, this money, there are some people, you know, that they got a couple of kids, they end up getting $1,500 or whatever back.
They might actually use that money.
Let us see if we can meet in the middle in true political fashion.
I would be for rebates, number one, for everybody, none of this class warfare, for everybody, if every single rebate check that the federal government cut was matched dollar for dollar in a reduction of federal spending.
I would definitely agree with that.
Now, that, frankly, probably wouldn't be as good a stimulus as marginal rate cuts or cuts on the, you know, you got to understand, people who are not making the big bucks now, they are not going to get rich with rebates because rebates do not stimulate an economy.
Because let's say I'm a business owner and I'm thinking, gosh, should I expand?
Should I go, you know, I'm in Memphis, Tennessee, and I got a little shop on Beale Street.
Should I expand in the suburbs?
Maybe it's my rap shop.
Maybe it's my record shop.
Well, wait a minute.
Taxes are going to go up on corporations.
We've got the second highest corporate tax rate in the world as it is.
Taxes are going to go up on capital gains, on dividends.
The marginal high rates are going to return.
In fact, everybody's rates are going to go up if the Bush tax cuts expire, as the Democrats promise.
But hey, I'm going to get a $500 rebate.
That's a joke.
The rebate is not going to encourage that businessman to expand.
And the only way that you can get rich, and I want you to get rich, that's the American dream, is to get other businessmen and women to grow their businesses or you to grow a business.
And the only way to do that is to foster increases in production.
And the only way that government can possibly help the economy grow is to increase the permanent rate of return on work, savings, and investment.
And that means permanent marginal rate tax reductions, not intermittent rebates that you may or may not get, and do nothing to really, to really lessen the impact of government.
So I'm glad I could give you a little economics lesson there.
I understand your angst.
I want you to make more money too, but don't be fooled by this nonsense.
It's pure redistributionist nonsense.
It's the old demand side nonsense.
It's never worked and it never will.
Got to move.
Let's go to Lewiston, Idaho.
Here's Jim.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hi.
Thank you, Dittos.
You're doing a great job.
Listen, I am in business, and this crisis they're talking about isn't a crisis.
These bankers are just too greedy.
The problem is the bankers and the people that made these loans are equally responsible.
And the bankers should have to eat half of this, and the people need to pay the other half.
And the bankers know that they can make the payments that they have been making.
It'd be much cheaper, less turmoil on everybody's part if they just tack the consumer's half on the end of their loan.
And they'll get more interest, and there'll be no turmoil.
And if they've got a little cash crunch, they could take about half of the CEO's outrageous overrated payment to stop gap the crash, the cash crunch, and this wouldn't be a problem at all.
That's what I have to do as a businessman.
I got to lower my prices when things when the atmosphere requires if you say, Jim, that the markets are going to force the banks to write off or write down some of these loans, that people who have mortgage payments that are higher than what their house is worth, the mortgage walkers, and therefore they're going to have to take these things and sell them off at a lower price.
I'm all for that.
I'm all for it as long as it's voluntary.
Let the market work.
I am 100% opposed to the government coming in and saying, and Bernanke suggesting yesterday or the day before, suggesting the banks ought to be forced to forgive the home loans.
No, I don't agree with that either.
They shouldn't forgive the home loans, but they're equally responsible in this stupidity.
The banks make it too easy, and the people are not bright enough to see.
So they should equally pay half of this overrun harm.
Jim, that's exactly what will happen if the government stays out of it.
If the government stays out of it, they're going to be forced to eat a number of these, primarily these packaged securities they've been trading that are based on mortgages.
And people who are going to, you know, let us not talk about some of the real culprits here.
The real culprits are the liberals out there who demanded that everybody should have the right to a home.
So therefore, if you were a mortgage broker or a secondary lending institution for that matter, who was buying the loan, if you dare not have enough mortgages in a bad part of town, why you were accused of redlining.
So they made credit easier for people who may possibly shouldn't have got the credit.
And everybody got these homes.
And then they reduced the down payment to almost zilch because of the pressure of home ownership for everybody.
Then you had these government-sponsored enterprises like the FHA and more importantly, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, literally subsidizing, in effect, a home ownership.
And the government has created this mess.
And now you've got people literally whose mortgage payment or whose mortgage on their house is greater than the value of the house.
So you get a mortgage for $200,000, the housing prices fall to $190,000.
You didn't have already anything in the investment.
You didn't have a big down payment.
What are they doing?
They're walking away.
They're just getting up and leaving.
Now, I don't feel sorry for the banks either, but I'm not feeling sorry for those people either.
Those people ought to walk away, and the market ought to correct.
And if we just let it do that, you're quite right.
The real danger I see in a macro sense is what the Federal Reserve is continuing to do as we speak.
And that is they're afraid that the mortgage crisis is spilling into the overall credit markets, and it has to a degree.
That is, you've got so many banks holding these derivatives or credit default swaps that they bet wrong on that were based on mortgage packages.
They were holding these things.
They went south.
It's like betting the wrong way on an option.
I'm not going to get into it, but it's more complicated than radio needs.
But the point is they bet the wrong way.
So they're holding the bag on this.
And so the banks are now hesitant to loan to each other.
And a whole lot of people for fear they won't be able to repay and nobody can get any credit.
So what's the Federal Reserve's response to this?
Well, I know we'll lower the federal funds rate.
We'll lower the discount rate.
We'll keep buying T-bills on the FOMC and we'll keep inflating.
They are spitting out money, trying to make credit easy for the banks that are in trouble.
And all that's going to do is keep these prices aloft or keep these prices afloat higher than they should be.
And when the real correction comes down the road, it's going to be even more severe than if we just let these people market to market now, let people who are getting foreclosed upon do the right thing, that is downsize, and keep government the hell out of every little blip in the economy.
I think it's a symptom of the entitlement society.
I really do.
I think we've become, we've so enamored with permanent growth that we don't understand the business cycle, and we feel we should never have to go through a slight economic contraction.
Well, if you think that and you let the government intervene, you're going to go through a big one a little later.
I'm Jason Lewis, Infor Rush on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
You know, I don't want to belabor this stagflation point, but it's something you should be aware of.
I mean, we've got gold at $1,000 or nearly $1,000.
All of the commodities are way, way up.
The dollar's hitting all-time lows.
And we've got the specter, if the Democrats win and you get Barack or Hillary as the commander-in-chief.
Okay, enough jokes.
If you do that, you get the specter of massive tax increases.
So you combine the disincentive to work and save and invest, the tax increase, the fiscal side, putting breaks on economic growth with easy money, all of the Jimmy Carter era.
And you have something that the Keynesians said wasn't possible.
You've got high unemployment and high inflation.
You've got stagflation.
And if we don't get a handle on cutting taxes rather than raising them and making certain that our Federal Reserve policy is a sound dollar, a strong dollar, not a weak one, and that means reining in the money supply, even if it means some of the banks take a hit, even if it means nobody bails you out when your home is foreclosed, we're going to have big-time problems.
Let me remind you what it was like under the Carter era.
I mean, 21.5% prime interest rate, 13% inflation, misery index, double digits, unemployment, pushing double digits.
Why do you think he was a one-termer, folks?
It was economic chaos.
Chris in Cleveland, Ohio, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hey, Jason, how's it going?
Good job filling out for Rush here.
Thank you, sir.
You know, I wanted to kind of bring up a few things.
I'm actually in the finance mortgage field, and I think the worst problem is gas prices.
I mean, if you take a look at it, everybody, my budget, your budget included, I'm sure, includes a lot more spending on gas.
And, you know, if the dollar keeps decreasing and cost keeps going up, you know, there's a massive gap there.
You know, I can remember coming back from the military, gas was about 98 cents a gallon.
This was in 1999.
Chris, Chris, you've got to help me out here.
I'm confused.
Buddy, I'm confused because oil reserves worldwide are now estimated at 1.4 trillion barrels.
That's up 12% in the past 10 years, according to British Petroleum.
A couple of United Kingdom consultants, Wood McKenzie and Fugrow, say Arctic sea floor oil should account for 400 billion barrels.
We've got many more unproven reserves.
There is no such thing as peak oil.
Oil is ubiquitous in the world right now.
So why are gas prices so high?
Check the money trail.
Well, you know as well as I do.
The environmentalists and the Democrats and the big oil haters won't let us get at the oil.
We haven't built a refinery in 30 years.
We can't drill in our own country when we've got 124 billion barrels here and we can't get at most of them.
I mean, this is a situation, Chris, and I think you're right about this, on the cost of fuel and commodities.
We've got an ethanol policy that diverts precious food, corn, to inefficient fuel.
And so grocery prices are going up 6% a year, 5.7% the last year, according to the Labor Department.
We don't have an energy policy in this country.
We have a political policy, and it's being run by the Sierra Club.
And that's why we've got abundant oil, but yet we've got inflation at the grocery store, and we've got high gasoline prices.
This is a policy where we are denying ourselves our own resources.
So it is not a, you know, in part, that's due to the inflation that you mentioned and I mentioned.
But another part is due to the crimp on supply put forth by these politicians who think they're going to get elected by doing whatever environmental defense tells them to do.
And that's a huge problem.
Chris, thanks.
And Annandale, let's see, this is Virginia Brad.
You're on EIB.
Hi.
Hey, Jason, my sister, my liberal sister lives up in Loonland.
They're with you.
They're the only kind.
Yeah, I turned her on to Russia's website.
She checked it out.
I told her the same about you, so she's going to check that out, too.
Cool.
Anyway, about the rebate, the stimulus package, I was just wondering, my wife and I are scheduled to get about $1,200.
And I was thinking, well, if that's good for the economy, wouldn't giving us $12,000 be 10 times as good for the economy?
Exactly, sir.
That is exactly the fallacy of the multiplier effect.
The idea of building a convention center or a rebate is going to stimulate the economy.
Well, heck, as you say, if $1,200 is good, make it $12,000.
And people see the fallacy of that, unless, of course, you're a Democrat.
More coming right up on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Don't go away.
You know, it's an important point the last caller made, this notion that the government can prime the pump and economically stimulate the economy.
It simply doesn't happen.
All you do is shift spending from, quite frankly, spending on production capital investment.
People don't stuff money in their mattresses anymore.
If the government taxes or if they borrow money in order to cut rebate checks or to create a welfare state to get people to prime the pump and spend more money, and somehow that's going to stimulate the economy, that money comes from you.
What you would have done with the money is you would have put it in an investment.
A bank would have loaned it back out, and that money would have been spent on a business, building this business, creating jobs.
Now, which type of spending is preferable?
Spending on production is always preferable.
And sadly, a lot of Republicans have fallen for this economic stimulus.
Folks, it is just a ruse, a way to get around what they really want to do, create government make-work jobs.
And in the case of rebates, buy an election.
That's all this is.
So don't fall for this economic stimulus nonsense.
If the government really wants to stimulate the economy, cut taxes.
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