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April 10, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:17
April 10, 2008, Thursday, Hour #3
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And third hour now up and running on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I am Jason Lewis, Minnesota's real anchor man, having more fun than a human being should be allowed.
Every time I get to sit in for the big guy, it is a lovely Thursday.
Hope you're having a great day.
I'll be back tomorrow for Open Line Friday.
And then Rush returns on Monday.
RushLimbaugh.com, always up and running.
Phone lines here, 1-800-282-2882.
You know, in keeping with our theme today, and I've tried to paint a bit of a broad brush, about how government screws things up.
How refreshing it was when in 1980 Ronald Wilson Reagan said, in this present crisis, government is not the solution.
It is the problem.
And how we never hear that anymore.
Now, obviously, we don't hear it from the socialist left.
They don't care that government's the problem.
They just want power.
These are the people.
I mean, the socialist left today are the people in the sixth grade when your teacher forgot to give you homework, would raise their hand, you forgot, right before class was out of grant.
Those are the nanny state liberals that we live in or that we live with.
And there used to be an opposition to that, that believed in freedom as the only condition proper to human beings.
And we've lost that.
We've lost this notion that government still is not the problem.
Or I should say not the solution.
It is the problem.
And now maybe we've lost it because we're a nation at war and there are legitimate functions of government.
We do need a police force.
We need courts of justice.
We need a national defense.
But all of those are geared towards one fundamental purpose, liberty.
A true public good benefits everybody.
You don't take money from taxpayer A to give taxpayer B and call it a public good.
And real rights don't require anything of any.
I love to hear people talk about I have a right to health care, I have a right to housing, I have a right to this.
Well, how do you have a right when exercising that right infringes upon my rights?
Rights coexist.
And my right to liberty, my right to buy health care, my right to buy a home if I can afford it, that doesn't infringe upon you.
In fact, I have to have your cooperation to do that.
But I don't have a right to take it from you.
And that's what government's about.
Last time I was filling in for Rush, I mentioned if the founding fathers, and you throw in a great, a few great philosophers like Locke and Hume and Burke, when they were sitting around developing government, they didn't say, hey, I got an idea.
We're sitting here in this unorganized society.
Let's develop a government that can enslave us.
No.
Their goal was to develop a government to keep them free, to embellish freedom.
And yet today, as we've been talking about, whether it's the subprime crisis, whether it's health care, whether it's the manufactured government energy crisis, whether it's the cost of food because of the ethanol policy, even the New York Times is admitting that now.
Whether it's the college tuition crisis perpetrated by government subsidies to higher ed, which drive up the price, don't lower it.
All of these things are a result of not freedom, not markets, government intervention.
Who do you think said this?
Quote, under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior.
Much paternalistic scrutiny has recently centered on personal economics, including calls to regulate mortgages.
With liberalized credit rules, many people with a limited income could access a mortgage and choose if they wanted a home.
And most people are hanging on to their mortgages.
According to National Delinquency Survey rates, the vast majority of subprime adjustable rate mortgages are in good condition.
Their holders neither delinquent nor in default.
There's no question, however, that delinquency and default rates are too high, but some of this is due to bad investment decisions by real estate speculators.
These losses are not unlike the risks taken every day in the stock market.
Healthcare paternalism creates another problem that's rarely mentioned.
Many people can't afford the gold-plated health plans that are the only options available in their states.
Buying health insurance on the internet and across state lines where less expensive plans may be available is prohibited by many state insurance commissions.
They've got to buy the Mercedes or nothing at all.
And this author called this the nanny state phenomenon, as we've called it over time and time again.
Any idea who that was?
And this shows you how far we've drifted.
Try none other than former presidential candidate, senator from South Dakota, George McGovern, writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago.
Now, folks, I don't have to tell you we've got a crisis when George McGovern sounds more market-oriented than the vast majority of incumbents.
We've got a crisis.
So that's been the theme today.
And it really is important politically for those of us that believe in limited government because it's hurting all of these government interventions hurt the conservative cause.
Because even though Bush is right on, obviously right on tax policy, he was right on Social Security policy, he was right on health care reform.
But if we intervene and drive up the cost of health care, we intervene and drive up the cost of energy because we are quote unquote addicted to oil, not, we intervene and drive up the cost of housing with the Federal Reserve policy, with government guarantees and the like, those costs of living, those are cost of living taxes driven by government.
They are going to dwarf any of the good things that many of us on the right would do.
And the best way to get those costs down is to get government the hell out.
And yet we're seeing more and more, just the opposite.
Every crisis deserves a government program.
No, markets fluctuate.
There are good times and bad times.
It's called the business cycle.
You cannot forego little, I'd rather have a little recession every now and then than an artificial bubble induced by government and a big correction.
And yet that seems to be the road we go down.
And really, you know, above and beyond the economics of it all, the government wasn't supposed to do this.
And the idea, I mean, the framers would have never met in Philadelphia.
Ostensibly, they were just going to redo the Articles of Confederation.
Nobody would have ratified a Constitution that allows the government to do what it does today.
No one.
Think about the premise here for a moment.
Where was it written?
Where is it in the Constitution?
Where is it in the founding of the nation that somehow the government should control the price of gasoline, the price of a house, the price of a drug, the price of anything?
The price mechanism in a free market is going to adjust up and down.
Shortages create more of a product.
I mean, a shortage and a big profit is a good thing because it encourages people to produce more of that product, bringing down the price.
But no, we need the government to do it.
Well, it's a Faustian bargain, as I said earlier.
Unlimited government never works.
And the goal is not a good economy.
These people, some people in Washington have to know this.
The goal is control.
The goal are these nanny state busybodies who haven't outgrown their lust for telling you what to do.
Laisai-faire is, you know, French for leave me alone.
Did you see that article?
I can't remember where it was now, but apparently Starbucks is refusing to print on their personalization cards the word laissez-faire, but they will print people not profits.
I think David Boaz wrote that from the Cato Institute.
So you got big government getting in bed with big business all over the place and creating this sort of corporate socialism that we've been bemoaning today.
And that's what's driving a lot of the anti-freedom legislation.
I got to mention one other thing, too.
Have you had your local Department of Natural Resources come out and investigate your backyard puddle for a wetland?
The wetland Gestapo is all over the place.
And, you know, here in Minnesota, it's ubiquitous.
I mean, these people are in helicopters looking to see if there's a puddle in your backyard in the spring so they can come down on you.
Well, it's going to get even worse than that, thanks to the environmental insanity of which we find ourselves and to a bunch of power-hungry liberals.
Representative James Oberstar, who sits on, I think he chairs the Transportation Committee in the House of Representatives.
This is the guy that used the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis last summer to immediately call for a gasoline tax.
The bodies weren't even out of the river, and the guy's holding a press conference on the bank saying, well, this is it.
Dead people make great talking points.
We need a gasoline tax increase.
And by the way, where were these Democrats?
They've had control of the Congress.
They've had control of the Transportation Committee since 06.
How come they didn't prevent American Airlines and Southwest Airlines from missing these technical inspections?
They're in control.
But I digress.
Oberstar now wants the wetlands Gestapo not to be a state function.
They want the Army Corps of Engineers to have access to every puddle, every pond, whether it's a navigable waterway or not.
And we had kind of a half of a victory in the famous, or not famous, but in the Supreme Court case a couple of years ago called Ropanos or Ropenos versus United States.
And what they did there is a guy was sent, fined and I believe sent to prison for filling in a ditch without a permit from the Army Corps, I believe it was.
Now, we used to have property rights in this country until the New Deal came along, but we've even got a few left.
It goes all the way to the Supreme Court.
They send it back to the lower courts.
They vacated the decision and told the lower courts to retry it.
They at least put somewhat of a limit on the federal ability to regulate wetlands because here's why, folks.
And this is a fundamental concept we've lost.
The federal government doesn't have any more power than what is specifically stated in the Constitution of the United States.
It's called the Enumerated Powers Doctrine.
If it is not in the Constitution, the federal government can't do it.
We define our rights.
The Constitution defines our rights negatively by telling the government what they can do.
You know, I don't know if any of you scholars out there remember the great debate over the Bill of Rights.
The Federalists didn't want the Bill of Rights.
Hamilton, Madison, and Jay said, what do we need a Bill of Rights for?
Why would you want to tell the Congress they can't infringe upon free speech when they already have no power to do that in the body of the Constitution?
And they feared, they feared, even Madison feared, that if you install a Bill of Rights, then people are going to think those are the only rights we have when we have all the rights.
And the only rights the federal government has are what's in the body of the Constitution.
And I got news for you.
That's the way the country was governed for the first 150 years until Roosevelt packed the Supreme Court.
Well, there is no provision in the Constitution for the federal government to go within a single state and say, oh, guess what?
You're violating the provisions of the Clean Water Act.
You're violating the wetlands law.
You can't fill in your puddle in the backyard because we think, well, because we think you can't, because we want no new wetlands or no net loss of wetlands, I should say.
The only way they could do that would be if it's a navigable waterway, then they could say, well, we're regulating interstate commerce.
And it's true, Congress may regulate, or a Congress may regulate commerce amongst the states, but they may not regulate it intra-state.
It does not give the federal government more power than the states had.
They may regulate commerce among the states, but they can't regulate what I do within the state with another individual of the same state or what I do on my own property.
And that's what the Supreme Court fundamentally found, to a degree, anyway, in the Rapanos case.
Said, no, Congress does not have the enumerated power to do this.
We're going to send the decision back, and maybe we'll adjudicate it at a later date.
Representative James Oberstar said, I don't care.
I'm going to author legislation that would provide under the Clean Water Act that would extend to all waters in all wetlands, even those that are not navigable interstate waterways, so that the federal government can control them.
The wetlands Gestapo can spy on you, and we're going to rescind the Supreme Court decision.
This is your brain.
This is your Democrats' brain.
Unlimited governments.
18 after the hour.
I'm Jason Lewis.
More calls when we return on the Rush Limbaugh program.
1-800-282-2882, the contact line for the Rush Limbaugh program.
I am Jason Lewis, high atop the EIB tower at the Northern Command.
We'll call it the Global Warming Command, where a foot of snow is expected in Minnesota by tomorrow night.
Perhaps we'll talk about that tomorrow on Open Line Friday.
One more thing on this interstate commerce clause, because that thing has been used for environmental legislation.
That has been used for government programs from every which way to grow and expand government.
Now, think about what I'm saying.
When I talk about government may regulate, not ban, may regulate interstate commerce.
The fundamental purpose was to prevent the states from erecting trade barriers within the new union.
It wasn't to allow the government to regulate anything under the sun.
As Clarence Thomas said in the famous medicinal marijuana case, if the government can regulate this under the interstate commerce clause, the government can regulate anything.
And that is not what the framers intended.
Because under that version of interstate commerce, allowing the federal government to regulate anything that has, quote unquote, an effect on interstate commerce, why, you could have banned slavery without having a war.
You could have said, look, we're going to ban the slavery within the states, and therefore it has an effect on interstate commerce, and therefore we're going to ban it.
Now, as odious as it sounds, the fact of the matter is the Constitution would not have been ratified in 1787 at that particular juncture if that was their version of the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Even when we banned alcohol under prohibition, they had to amend the Constitution because at that date, at least we had some fidelity to words or what it meant.
Under today's jurisprudence, under the liberal version of the Interstate Commerce Clause, which gives the federal government unlimited powers, well, you wouldn't have needed an amendment to ban liquor or have prohibition.
They just said, well, we're going to ban liquor because it affects interstate commerce.
So that's how far we've come from the intention of the framers on a limited central government and literally leaving most of the matters of internal order to the states, which is where it belongs.
But I'm a little long-winded here as always.
That's why we're talk show hosts, I guess, folks.
Let's go to Polt, Nebraska, beautiful Polt, Nebraska, Vacationland USA.
And Byron, you're up next on the EIB.
Yeah, how are we doing?
Doing fine there, partner.
How you doing?
Well, I'm a fifth-generation farmer from Polk, Nebraska.
Yes.
And ethanol, I don't agree with ethanol subsidies.
Hallelujah, sir.
But $1.40 corn didn't work either.
No.
Production costs.
Right.
And right now.
How about six bucks a bushel, corn?
Well, you know what?
Very few guys have got $6 a bushel for corn.
Big agribusinesses are getting it.
That's Chicago Board of Trade.
Yep.
Yeah.
And that's a different world than farmers out here forward contracting corn.
Well, wait, no, You've got all this.
Wait a minute, Byron.
You telling me you can't go to your grain elevator and enter into a futures contract, which would guarantee you over $5 a bushel right now for the fall harvest.
You can't do that?
Yes, I can, but I did that earlier because you know what?
I haven't seen these prices in my whole lifetime.
I'm 29 years old.
So you price it a lot earlier.
So when you say everybody's getting $6 a bushel for corn, they're not.
Well, come on.
A couple of years ago, I'll tell you how this ethanol diversion has affected prices.
It wasn't like it was 20 years ago or 30 years ago.
Just a couple of years ago, it was $2 a bushel.
I understand.
This is massive food inflation by this ethanol policy.
And it's not just, you know, what drives me nuts is I'm all for you making as much money if you can get $5.50 a bushel and lock it up.
Well, you know what?
It's going to go down again.
Save your money now.
I agree.
Yeah.
I agree.
I'm just saying, why should we subsidize any business when income has gone way up in the last few years?
You know, when $6 corn hits here, the ethanol companies will buy it on paper and shut down.
Well, I think, I mean, when you get places like the New York Times and Paul Krugman, of all people, I mean, Paul Krugman even realizes this is a mistake, which is living proof that even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then.
When you get people like that admitting that the biofuels is causing a worldwide food crisis and food inflation, I guess there is some progress to be said.
I mean, it should be a closed deal that this ethanol experiment has failed.
And if you can create ethanol or a biofuel without subsidies, without the 51 cent a gallon subsidy, without the 54 cent a gallon tariff, why have at it?
I'm all for it.
But the idea that the taxpayer needs to subsidize that is just plain silliness.
And we wouldn't do it for any other business.
So why should we do it here?
And it's causing all sorts of dislocations.
So that's just, it's got to stop at some point, I would say.
Anyway, upward and onward to Richard.
I'm sorry.
I'm up against the clock.
We'll come back with Richard and Ventura after this.
Yes, you are.
Rush will be back on Monday.
I'm in here today and tomorrow for Open Line Friday.
Big day coming up then.
So looking forward to that.
1-800-282-2882.
Jason Lewis in for Rush.
As I say, Government Accountability Office, did you see this?
They have now outlined 13 recommendations to save the taxpayer dollar.
Apparently, a new GAO audit has found that over a 15-month period, 41% of credit card purchases by federal employees violated procedure.
Well, newsflash, call 60 minutes.
Didn't see that one coming.
The credit cards served personal lines of credit at times.
Federal workers posting charges for internet dating.
Well, guys, got to live.
Tailor-made suits, lavish dinners, more than $150 per head.
Let's see, we've got the GAO audit found the Agricultural Department had employees who paid $642,000, or one employee, $640,000 to a live-in boyfriend.
That's called family-friendly, I guess.
Money was apparently used for gambling, car and mortgage payments, among other things.
How much do you want to bet?
Mortgage payments.
The Senate passes the mortgage bailout.
They're probably going to get their house paid for by us as well.
At the U.S. Postal Service, workers expense $14,000 via the credit cards on internet dating.
Pentagon tab, 77 grand for clothing, sporting goods.
State Department employee, $360 on the credit card for lingerie.
For lingerie.
You know, we just have cut the budget to the bone, folks.
We're going to have to raise taxes for the children, for the need.
We have needs.
Even though the federal budget is $3.1 trillion going forward, we have needs.
Even though we're at an all-time high.
You know, we're spending right now about, what is it, 18.5% of GDP at the federal level.
If you take a look, coming out of World War II, right up until the Great Society, the federal government was spending about 15% of GDP.
We'd have a massive tax cut if we just go back to those pre-Great Society days.
By the way, poverty fell as fast during the 1950s as after the Great Society.
Once again, it doesn't work.
Richard in Ventura, California, thanks for the patience.
You're on with me, Jason Lewis, on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Good afternoon, Jason, and you're doing a great job.
Thank you.
I appreciate all the economic analysis and information you've shared.
Well, I appreciate that.
I think you and I could agree that per today's program, government is the problem.
I think you've got to.
There's kind of a subtle message there, yeah.
Right.
And I think that the people who actually govern the government are the voters of the country.
We the people.
And so I would suggest that in order to fix our problem with the government, that we need to vote in November for the most conservative presidential candidate, Senator McCain, and then hold his feet to the fire, that he be a conservative government president.
Do you think, given John McCain's inclination, his predilection for reaching across the aisle, McCain Kennedy, McCain Feingold, McCain Lieberman, Gang of 14, do you think it's possible at all as this economic downturn continues, the deficit goes up, and the deficit is not the problem.
It's total government spending that's a problem, no matter how it's financed.
But the deficit goes up, let's say, to 1.8% of GDP instead of just 1.2%.
But do you think there's a possibility in your John McCain supporting heart out there, Richard, that he's going to reach across the aisle and cut a deficit reduction deal with the majority party, the Democrats in Congress, which will include tax increases, of course, only on those who can afford them?
Well, if he does that, he's making the same mistake that President Bush the Elder did in breaking his new tax pledge.
And the conservatives, of course, would be upset.
But I think that if we accept McCain as our presidential candidate, and he wasn't my first choice, by the way, but if we accept him, then we have to provide him with the type of economic support that he needs.
He's already admitted that's his shortfall.
Well, why doesn't he support ⁇ we're supposed to support John McCain.
At what point does he reach out to conservatives?
I mean, all I hear about since he's basically sewn up the nomination is, look, conservatives need to warm up to McCain.
I mean, Senator Norm Coleman from Minnesota is running around the state telling people, talk radio ought to be ashamed of itself for not backing John McCain.
Well, when does John McCain back us?
When does he reach across the aisle to say to conservatives, you know what, some of the points you made are pretty good.
I probably shouldn't have gone down this road with McCain Kennedy.
McCain Lieberman, the global warming legislation, which I support and is going to be a massive tax on the economy, I'm going to rethink that.
I'm going to reach out to conservatives.
Does he have any obligation to do that?
He definitely has an obligation to reach out to us, and I think it'll be an economic fact that in order to gain the monies and financial support he needs to get elected and to get the conservative vote that he needs to get elected, he's going to have to come to us.
He still has to do that.
I hate to break it to you.
I hate to break it to you.
That's not the strategy.
The strategy is he's got the nomination.
He really doesn't need the conservatives because, quite frankly, people like you are going to vote for him regardless.
What he's going to do now from now until November is go to the middle even more and reach the independents.
You're going to hear more environmental talk.
You're going to hear more.
America needs to rein in its imperialism talk.
You're going to the strategy from the new Republicans, and this isn't just John McCain, to be fair to the senator from Arizona.
This is something that has occurred during this administration, and not primarily from the president, but from the people he surrounded himself in.
This big government conservatism that says, you know, the era of small government is over.
You know, one of the guys being mentioned for McCain's running mate, Richard, is the governor of Minnesota, Tim Poleny.
And he had a quote a couple of years ago.
He said, look, the era of small government is over.
We need to do things.
We need to handle health care and the environment and education.
We need to have our version of government.
That is the new mantra in the Republican Party, and it's evident with every single governor who's a Republican these days, from Mike Huckabee to Charlie Chris to Arnold Schwarzenegger to Tim Poleny.
And so if your notion is McCain's going to swerve to the right from now until November, frankly, I'd be surprised if that happened.
I too would be surprised, but I think it's an essential thing for conservatives to step up.
We've been kind of remiss in not voting for conservative representatives in the Senate and in the House.
And where the president has to work with these congressmen, if the representation in Congress isn't there to support him, you run into the dilemma that George Bush has had.
No, Wow, this is ironic.
Can you see the irony in what you're saying, my friend?
You're saying we have an obligation now to get behind the standard-bearer, no matter whether we agree with him or not.
Well, haven't we done that?
I mean, you can go back to Gerald Ford in Bush 41.
We've always been told the right, which is now considered a problem within the GOP, you need to get behind the standard bearer.
You need to get behind the Republican establishment.
So we did it.
We gave them a Republican Congress, Republican Senate, Republican House, a Republican president.
Isn't that enough support?
What did they do with it, Richard?
I think that what we're calling Republican presidents and Republican Congress is really a group of rhinos.
We've not been selective to get conservatives in there who will maintain a limited government, who will lower taxes further.
Right.
But now we're supposed to rally around the McCain flag.
Isn't that doing exactly what you just said we haven't done or shouldn't have done?
No, well, I would prefer a more conservative candidate.
We don't have one.
I still think that McCain is far better than either of the liberals from the Democratic Party.
But I'm saying that given McCain in Congress, we'd have a winning package.
I think you're right on all of those, and I'm not just going to sit here to bash McCain.
He wasn't my choice either.
But I will finish with one question.
What do you think or what do you hope that John McCain will do that warrants your support right now?
What do you hope that he will do?
What are you expecting him to do that says, oh, well, since he's going to do that, I'm going to support him.
My hope is that he will gain the economic knowledge he currently lacks, and it'll be coming to him from conservatives who, like you, you've done an excellent job today at explaining the conservative principles, especially in the area of economics, that McCain is not the only ignorant person on the American people needed to do what you're holding today.
And they need to take this new knowledge to the polls with them in November and get the conservative Congress and then hold the new president's feet to the fire to be a conservative president.
Let us hope that's the case.
Richard, thanks for your patience.
Thanks for calling.
The real danger here is, you know, our politicians in the final analysis are a reflection of us.
You get the government you deserve, and maybe we've just become soft as a nation.
Maybe we want big governments.
And that's what really scares me.
I'm Jason Lewis, in for Rush Limbaugh, and more coming right up after this on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
I mean, look, no question, Richard is right.
The Democrats will be a disaster.
Not only will the Bush tax cut or the expiration of the Bush tax cut result in a massive increase for 115 million taxpayers, $1.9 trillion in more taxes over seven years, but Barack Obama's got $1.4 trillion planned for new spending.
That's $300 more billion dollars a year over five years.
So look, there's no question the Democrats would be a disaster.
But I think a lot of conservatives are to the point in their life where they're saying, look, I'm just so tired of holding my nose and voting for an echo, not a choice.
And then kind of getting double-crossed by it.
If the Republican Party wants to get folks that listen to Rush Limbaugh excited again, return to the Reagan roots and start talking about government being the problem, not the solution.
1-800-282-2882, Allen in Springfield, Illinois.
You're next up on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
I'm getting ready to run down to Rockford in a couple of weeks for a little talk there.
Beautiful Illinois.
You're quite a bit further north than I am.
Yes.
Hey, I always miss Rush when he's gone, but you're doing a really nice job.
I had a comment.
You made a statement earlier.
Who would write a loan if they didn't expect to get paid back for it?
Right.
And unfortunately, in this whole mortgage mess, there is somebody that's doing that, and it's the mortgage agent.
This is not the local bank.
Local banks.
They service it.
They want to get paid back.
The guy that sets up in the strip mall that says bankruptcy, bad credit, divorce, no problem.
Come on in.
He's writing the loan, approving someone, and then immediately selling it off to countrywide Bear Stearns, any of the guys that will do the underwriting.
You're right.
He gets his money up front.
He doesn't care at all if he's ever going to get paid back on that thing.
He's off looking for the next person he can approve here to sell another loan.
You are right.
And the market always has excesses, but here's why that was already being taken care of.
This guy is not going to hold the mortgage.
These guys are going to initiate the mortgage.
They're going to close the mortgage.
They're going to get their fees, but they've got to have a market, a secondary market to sell the mortgages.
And those people are not going to sit there and continue to take bad paper perpetually, indefinitely.
This is what it broke down, though.
The guys who were the market buying it from these mortgage agents were looking at the blue sky scenario that that home's worth $100,000 now.
In five years, it's worth $150,000, in 10 years it's worth $200,000.
They weren't looking at it realistically that there could be a cap on the valuation.
So why is that a government problem?
My point here is...
Here's the thing.
As long as that secondary market was buying, the agent had to find warm bodies to approve.
He was getting to the point where he was faking W-2s.
He was lying on forms.
He was a couple of points.
Hold on, pal.
A couple of points.
Number one, the vast, vast majority of mortgages are not in foreclosure.
And even, by the way, even all the subprime mortgages, the vast majority, I shouldn't say vast majority, the majority of those are not in foreclosure.
It's not as big a crisis as people think.
And by the way, it's not a crisis at all for the homeowner because they just walk away.
But the point is, look, if the secondary market made a mistake and they were lax, well, then they're going to pay.
They're going to have bad paper.
They're going to take the hit.
Again, what does that have to do with government getting involved?
That's the point.
And eventually, and what was happening already, I would remind you, is a lot of the secondary markets were refusing to take this bad paper.
Naturally, you're not going to take bad paper ad infinitum.
You're not going to buy accounts receivable paper or a mortgage paper at 100% and have it written off.
You know, you might be able to sell some bad debt paper at 50% on the dollar or something like that.
But that's not the point.
The point is the market would have corrected that unless business doesn't want to stay in business.
And if they made a mistake, if they bet wrong, as you just said, which is what I've been talking about all day, if they bet wrong and the housing prices still didn't keep going up, why they made a wrong bet?
No different than I bought a stock that doesn't go up.
Should I have the government bail me out?
And I don't want to give any lawyers any ideas because you had this William Laratch character out in California with these strike suits essentially trying to sue companies for their stock price volatility.
That's where we've come.
So I'm not disputing that clearly people originating the mortgage had an incentive to do that, but you got to sell the paper.
They don't hold the mortgages.
And there is a built-in market incentive over time.
And again, let me be clear about something.
The market isn't perfect in a snapshot.
It is perfect over time.
There are excesses always in a market.
People speculate.
They bet the wrong way.
There are excesses when it comes to, oh, I don't know, typewriter manufacturers in the day of the word processor.
Why, look at all these people who used to make typewriters going out of business.
The market has clearly failed.
No, people like word processors, so things change.
It's a dynamic economy.
And you get an excess here, it corrects itself, and then you learn your lesson.
Unless the government comes in and says, oh, don't worry, you made a bad bet.
We'll bail you out.
And you can keep on going making the bad bet.
Not a wise move.
Not wise at all.
I got to take a break.
We're up against the clock.
I'm Jason Lewis.
We'll squeeze in one more call or two when we come back.
So don't go away.
You're on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Ooh, this is kind of spooky music.
Sounds like global warming music.
Yeah, foot of snow in the Northland coming tonight.
The winter of 2007 and 2008, finally putting the last nail in the fiction known as man-made cause global warming.
More on that tomorrow on Open Line Friday.
I'm Jason Lewis wrapping things up for a Thursday.
Let's squeeze in Chris in Gainesville, Florida on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Thank you so much for taking my call.
I was listening to you earlier about the federal government using the interstate commerce clause versus, you know, intrastate.
And, you know, here in Florida, one of the things that we're doing to try to limit government and what it can do as far as its budgets is the taxpayers' protection amendment, it would make to cap the budget growth except for inflationary index and population growth.
It's a brilliant idea.
It's locally.
Yeah, absolutely brilliant idea.
And it's been used well in Colorado with the Tabor Amendment, notwithstanding some tweaking.
It is something we need at the federal level in every state, the taxpayers' Bill of Rights.
Government spending should not go up any faster than population growth or inflation, period.
I absolutely agree.
And on a federal level, I'd like to give a PSA if I can.
Quickly.
H.R. 1359, the Enumerated Powers Act.
It's co-sponsored by Cliff Stearns here in Florida.
Wouldn't that be refreshing?
What it would do is each portion of an act from Congress would have to designate the constitutional power from which it comes from.
Wouldn't that be refreshing?
Rediscovering the enumerated powers doctrine and all of the other limitations on a central government.
Great call.
I'm glad you did.
I'm Jason Lewis.
We're back tomorrow for Open Line Friday.
In the meantime, let me thank Ed and Kit back in New York, Rob Goldberg, Robert Guinearini here, and young master Brendan Kieran helping me out in the Northern Command as well.
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