Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, you can't say it wasn't a heck of a game.
I mean to tell you, that Super Bowl lived up to the hype.
And they are celebrating in Pittsburgh today, kind of subdued down in Phoenix, down in Arizona.
And part of the problem is when you lose a big game like that, you don't get any endorsement money.
And so a lot of the athletes are a little concerned, no endorsement money coming from their Super Bowl loss.
But, you know, look at it this way.
Michael Phelps just got an endorsement from High Times over the weekend.
So that's kind of odd, really, a swimmer getting an endorsement from high.
Did you hear about that?
Michael Phelps now?
I mean, he got caught for drunk driving years ago.
We forgave him for that.
Now, apparently, he's been smoking.
And they aren't camels.
Somebody took a picture.
This is what I can't figure out.
If you are a high-profile athlete, star, whatever the case might be, and you're at a bong party, first rule, get rid of the cameras.
Not a good idea.
You can just see the next swim meet.
I mean, there's Michael going down lane five.
What's that smoke coming out of his lane?
He's exhaling.
Michael Phelps in a bit of trouble.
Hi, everybody.
Good Monday to you.
I am Jason Lewis.
Minnesota's Mr. Wright filling in for El Rushbo, taking a Super Bowl break, by the way, and well-deserved, I might add.
1-800-282-2882.
The number is always.
You know, speaking of the Michael Phelps of the Barack Obama cabinet, I love this.
What was it, Friday night this was released?
7 o'clock, 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock.
Oh, I don't know, midnight, whenever the case was.
This wasn't released till the media cycle was done for the weekend.
Tom Daschell has a little problem with taxes.
Whoa, hey, didn't see this one coming.
Timothy Geithner, oh, I didn't know we had to pay self-employment taxes.
Now, Tom Daschell, the populist, uber liberal from the Dakotas, so concerned about everybody all the time, so concerned about that tax gap.
You know, when corporations go offshore to avoid paying taxes, when people take legitimate tax shelters, when you're just not paying enough.
Tom Daschell apparently failed to pay, what was it, $128,000 in back taxes?
$128,000 he failed to pay, as well as some self-employment taxes.
Apparently, he also failed to report $255,000 in income for a car and driver supplied to him for personal use.
The chauffeur service provided by a big-time Democrat donor, so says the Wall Street Journal today.
He told a committee staff, apparently, according to the journal on Friday, he told a committee staff that he, quote, had grown used to having a car and driver, and then therefore didn't think to report it as income or anything like that.
You know, these people are in touch with the common man.
That's the beauty of all of this.
These are the people that constantly lecture us about not paying enough in taxes, constantly trying to raise taxes.
Well, no wonder they're raising taxes.
They don't pay them.
Now we know what John Edwards meant by two Americas, those of us that pay taxes and, you know, the Democrats that don't.
This is starting to reach critical mass at some point, even under the current media double standard.
You take a look at these Democrats and their attitude of do as I say, not as I do, a grotesque double standard.
Sooner or later, even Matt Lauer will get it.
Although I got to say, and maybe I missed it, could be, but I've got to say, I was watching the morning shows today and I did not see anything about Daschell.
In fact, I saw a Matt Lauer interview.
Well, it really wasn't an interview.
It was more of a lapdog session.
He was obsequiously interviewing some lady from Vanity Fair about how bright and competent and energized the Barack Obama cabinet is.
I'm not making this up.
I didn't see anything about Daschell.
Now, again, maybe I missed it.
Didn't see it all.
I mean, after all, you do have to eat in the morning, so I have to turn off the Today Show every now and then when I'm trying to digest.
But this is the reason, folks, that some of us on the right, some conservatives are terrified of what is happening here.
We have elected a group of people who feel as though they can simply do anything they want, that the rules don't apply to them.
You know, there's nothing to hold them back constitutionally anymore.
The Jeffersonian chains of the Constitution, Jefferson said the chains of the Constitution will bind government.
Remember, government has one thing nobody else has, the force of law, a monopoly on force.
You know, you don't have to go out and buy a software program.
You don't have to buy a gallon of gasoline, but you've got to pay your taxes.
And if you don't, they throw you in jail.
That's called a monopoly on force.
Government has it.
The framers then figured, well, therefore, government must be limited.
And they limited government in this remarkable document known as the Constitution through enumerated powers.
If it's not in the Constitution, guess what?
The federal government can't do it.
We don't get our rights from the federal Constitution.
We have all the rights.
We grant limited powers to government.
But the enumerated powers doctrine, the chains of the Constitution, have been eviscerated, emasculated.
So now there's nothing to hold back these people.
There's unlimited power.
This is a liberal's dream.
Now, you would think that therefore the media would hold them accountable.
To quote Jefferson again, he said, you know, Jefferson had his day with the newspapers of the day.
He did not get along with the media.
But he once said, I would rather live in a world without government and newspapers than with government and no newspapers.
And you want to know the reason why?
In those days, the media, instead of being cheerleaders for government, were critics of government.
Today, that's gone as well.
So there are no checks and balances.
The chains of the Constitutions, they're gone.
Media, they don't watch government.
They cheerlead for government.
And now we've got Mr. Daschell.
We've got Mr. Geithner.
We've got God knows how many of these people that think, well, this is the rule of men, not the rule of law.
These laws, a higher fixed law, doesn't apply to me.
We can do any damn thing we want.
That is why this is so terrifying.
This is the way they're behaving, and there's nothing to stop them.
Not originalist jurists, strict constructionists on the bench to stop their government power grabs.
You know, a lot of people felt aspects of the bailout were patently unconstitutional.
So nobody's going to stop the government.
The media aren't going to stop the government.
You've got Daschell also, what?
He made $5 million over the past two years.
He was provided with travel and entertainment services for him and his wife, an aviation lobbyist, a lobbyist.
Wait a minute.
We don't have lobbyists anymore.
This is the Obama era.
Why is it that a lot of these cabinet members have relatives or aides that are lobbyists?
Wasn't it Geithner?
I think it was Geithner who had an aide who was a lobbyist and therefore has to recuse himself for a while, something along those lines.
So we've got this total hypocrisy going.
Oh, by the way, Mr. Daschell made his $5 million over the past couple of years speaking to groups that he now wants to bankrupt the health care industry.
Isn't this special?
This is really remarkable stuff.
$128,000 in bag taxes that he not only did not pay up until recently, waited months to pay up, he didn't even tell the Obama transition team about his tax problems until the Senate confirmation hearings were set, and I believe there's one today.
What?
What?
I don't know what's funnier, Tom Daschell or Michael Phelps here, but they're both smoking something funny if they think they can get away with this.
When is this stuff going to end?
Whether it's Geithner at the Treasury Department, who now, by the way, says he wants to eye Wall Street bonuses.
Timothy Geithner says it's very hard for the American people to understand how a bank executive should get a multi-million dollar bonus at a time when he's asking the government to essentially bail out his institution.
Yeah, it's kind of hard to ask people to pay taxes, Tim, when you forgot to pay self-employment taxes, even though the IMF did inform you that those things do exist.
And now you want to run the IRS?
Is there no limit to the hypocrisy here, to the double standard?
Where are the Woodwards and Bernsteins here?
This is a slam dunk.
If this were any Republican, this would be 24-7 news.
They wouldn't stand a prayer in getting confirmed to anything.
Dashel should be finished if we have any justice in the world.
If we have, in the spirit of the 14th Amendment, equal protection under the law.
If we have, in the spirit of our common law, that people should be treated equally in similar circumstances, Daschell is toast.
Daschell is done, which might save the health care industry, might save free market health care for a while.
It never ceases to amaze me what's going on.
Now, I got to say, to be perfectly honest and to be the free market fiscal conservative I am, you know, it's not a bad idea to go after some of these Wall Street bonuses.
I was down in Topeka, Kansas over the weekend.
Yeah, some people go to the Bahamas.
I go to Topeka to get out from under the snow.
I'm just, I was giving a speech.
I just like to hang out in Topeka on a Saturday night and go, buddy, got a quarter?
No, I really don't do that.
I made that up.
It was a great group down there.
It was good fun.
But I was giving a speech down there, and I look at the newspapers, and the senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill, is all over these bonuses on Wall Street.
How dare these idiots?
She called them idiots.
These people must be idiots to give themselves bonuses.
Yeah, it's kind of like all these Democrats that got the sweetheart mortgage deals from countrywide.
Oh, never mind.
We don't talk about that.
So she wants a compensation cap of $400,000 on executives who receive bailout money.
Now, believe it or not, I don't want you to think I've gone loco, but the point is, it's not a bad idea.
You want to know why?
The more regulations, the more limits on markets.
I mean, there should be, look, the maximum wage should be zero, just like the minimum wage.
Government does not have a role in regulating prices or wages.
But if they're going to keep doing that, it might be a good idea.
Therefore, fewer and fewer firms will take bailout money.
So I say load on the regulations, load on the compensation requirements or limits, and then get everybody back to a market-driven economy where you can give yourself a bonus as big as you want, but when you go under, if and when you go under, sugar daddy Uncle Sam is not going to be there to save you.
And finally, this, in the category of hypocrisy, this is a beauty.
The GAF machine, known as the Vice President of the United States, Mr. Biden, his wife apparently got tired of getting mail at their house where it said Senator and Mrs. Biden.
Now, Joe Biden likes to talk on the campaign trail, according to the L.A. Times, about his wife's educational achievements, to a master's degree, a doctorate, all of that.
Isn't she accomplished?
She's a real, you know, 21st century woman.
But apparently, Biden explained that his wife's desire for the doctorate was in response to what she perceived as her second-class status on their mail.
I was so sick of the mail coming to Senator and Mrs. Biden.
She allegedly said, I wanted to get the mail addressed to Dr. and Senator Biden.
That's the real reason she got her doctorate.
She wants to look important.
A little insecurity going on there, you know, just like her husband.
What is it with these people?
These are exactly the kind of people that should not have the reins of power.
I'm Jason Lewis, in for El Rushboat to the phones we go, 1-800-282-2882 when we return on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
And it's great to be back behind the golden EIB Mike filling in for the big guy, I should say, El Rushbo, taking a break, but check out RushLimbaugh.com.
In fact, we've got some new Gitmo merchandise you might want to check out at RushLimbaugh.com.
It's the new t-shirt, Club Gitmo, When America Was Safe.
They've added a swimming pool and a diving board to the Club Gitmo logo, along with the labels water and board to identify the pool and diving board.
Club Gitmo, When America was safe, get your t-shirt at rushlimbaugh.com.
We've got some Gitmo news coming up a little later in the program.
Now, this whole Daschel thing is important because there was a plan.
Well, not a plan.
It wasn't even a conspiracy.
It was a consensus on the part of the Democrat left to nationalize, like they're doing with the bailout bill for the financial industry and the automobile industry.
The creme de la creme was the health care industry, one-seventh of the total economy.
And they're going to nationalize this with the Barack Obama's pledge for universal coverage.
And it's going on.
And so if, in fact, because of Dashel's transgressions, I mean, so, so palpable, so, so clearly an affront to any taxpayer out in America that Daschell absolutely cannot be confirmed.
He's got, in fact, he ought to drop out if he's got any honor at all.
And Barack ought to twist a few arms to make certain that happens.
But it would be good because if you nix this guy, you might, for a while, upend their nationalized or socialized medical care plan.
Remember, we're already moving on that front.
We've got the S-CHIP expansion underway.
Remember the state children's health insurance program, the S-CHIP?
That was Hillary Clinton's nationalizing health care for the kids back in 1997.
And Bush vetoed the expansion twice there.
We were going to, before we got all of the indigent, before we got all of the poor kids on health care, the Democrats wanted to expand it to folks making as much as $83,000 a year up in New York.
And they were going to be eligible for S-CHIP money.
A lot of states, you know, fold this into their state plan, whether it's 10Care or MinCare, your favorite state-run state health care plan.
They were folding S-CHIPs into there, getting waivers and the like.
This is the famous, I believe it was the $10 cigar tax.
Well, they're backfunding it now with cigarettes once again, and they're set now to expand the S-CHIP program once again.
And this time, Barack Obama has pledged to sign it.
But this is key, and this is what's in store.
They're not concerned about using extra funds to make certain every poor kid is enrolled in the state children's health insurance program.
They want to move beyond that to middle-class folks.
And this is the key method to the Democrat madness, and that is to get everybody addicted to some handout, to either be a servant of the state or a ward of the state.
Then they've got you in perpetuity.
Then, just like Social Security, these nasty conservatives want to privatize.
They want a market-based approach.
We'll keep the checks coming.
We have no idea how we're going to pay for them, but don't worry.
The Fed will print some more money.
After all, we've already printed a couple of trillion already.
Don't worry about inflation.
That's for another generation to worry about.
So they'll print money to expand this.
But then they've got the middle class hooked on a middle-class entitlement.
And that is the goal.
And that's what Dashel wanted to do.
So we're already moving forward on the S-CHIP plan to insure the middle class by, once again, going after the poor via cigarette taxes.
It used to be the cigar $10 tax, and there was so much of an outcry there, they backed off and the president, you know, Bush wasn't vetoing the S-CHIP plan based on, I'm just a firm believer in free market health care.
He said, I'll expand it, but we've got to get poor people insured or poor people into the program.
The dirty little secret of 47 million uninsured is 15 million of those folks or so are eligible for Medicaid and S-CHIP plans, but they just don't bother to enroll.
Well, before we expand these programs, might be a good idea to get everybody enrolled that the program's ostensible purpose was designed to serve?
No, no, no, that's not the goal.
The goal is to expand and get everybody locked in.
Well, the Dashell plan that they've already drawn up and they're ready to go as soon as the tax avoider gets confirmed, if he does, was to set up a national health care plan run by the federal government that would create a national health insurance exchange.
So everybody, everybody would go through this exchange, essentially, to get cheap health care.
Now, here's what the exchange was set to do.
The exchange board was going to regulate the heck out of private plans, community ratings.
That is, regardless of whether you use more health care or not, your premiums will be the same as the healthiest guy in the world that never goes to the hospital.
There was no other insurance market in the world that operates that way.
If you get in more car accidents, guess what?
Your premiums go up.
But the Democrats' idea of health insurance is free.
Therefore, if you're going to the emergency ward every other day for hangnail removal, your premium shouldn't go up.
So they're going to use the exchange board to regulate private plans by community rating.
Guaranteed issues, another big one.
Why, we can't deny you any health insurance if you've got a past history.
Well, folks, if that's the case, I'm dropping my health insurance.
I'm going to wait till I get sick, and then I'll buy it at the community rating level and say, you can't deny me for a pre-existing condition.
So they're going to screw up the private market.
Then they're going to take the National Health Insurance Exchange Board and they're going to subsidize the government plan.
And so pretty soon, there will be no private plans left.
Everybody will be forced into the government plan.
And voila, they've got the coup de grace.
This is the ultimate in a middle-class entitlement.
And that's the goal of all of this.
The S-CHIP plan, the Dashell health care plan, is to get everybody hooked on some government gift.
Then we are all wards of the state.
Then we will all be, well, servants of the state.
A government, my friends, a government that feeds you cannot free you.
All right, enough of the dilatory tactics.
Let's get right to the phones.
1-800-282-2882.
I am Jason Lewis.
Minnesota is Mr. Wright filling in for El Rushbo taking a few days off after, I just have a feeling he was at the Super Bowl.
I'm going to go out on a limb.
Got a feeling El Rushbow is at the Super Bowl and his team did win.
But I got to say, the Cardinals proved that they deserved to be there, had great heart.
Great game, by the way.
Anyway, to the phones, we go.
Mark in Chicago, you're first up today on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network High.
Earth to Mark.
Megan Dennis from Chicago, buddy.
How are you, man?
Good, good.
Hey, I'm in a little transport plane to the air transport car to the airport.
I don't have the luxury of Dash or having a chauffeur limousine.
But real quick, I work for a Fortune 100 company, and my wife is a private nanny to people next door.
And the thing that really frosts me is, you know, we take every nickel she earns and then claim that at the end, you know, I got to pay all the appropriate taxes on it.
And I'd love to see the position I'd be in if I missed one of those things in relationship to.
Well, I can tell you, I can tell you, my friend, I can tell you the position you'd be in if you did this.
You'd be a member of the cabinet.
Yes, that's what I was thinking.
It might be pretty good to get on something like that.
But I just wanted to express that.
And for your listeners, I'm sure a lot of them out there in the same boat.
But for us not to be totally upset with this thing and absolutely pathetic of what he's doing.
And I think that's what I'm saying.
There are two fundamental subsets, if you will, of this.
One, it is the Democrat liberals in this country who constantly lecture us, a la Joe Biden, paying taxes is patriotic, that we need to pay more legally.
And it is, two, the same group that says we've got to close, quote unquote, the tax gap.
That is, the taxes that are legally due, but people don't pay.
They use tax, oh, they just don't pay them.
They use tax avoidance, sometimes legally, sometimes illegally.
So in both instances, by having the Treasury Secretary and the Health and Human Services Secretary to be go to great lengths to get out from under paying taxes is just untenable.
If they want any particular moral standing with the American people.
Well, change we can count on, right?
I didn't realize it was going to be this kind of change.
Appreciate Get Me On, and God bless you.
Keep up the good work, buddy.
Same to you, Mark.
I appreciate your call today.
Let's go to Florida and Paul.
You are up next from Mariana.
Hi.
Hello, Jason.
Hello, Paul.
Yeah, hey, I haven't been at a time machine here, and actually, I'm in Grand Ridge.
I wanted to let you know about it.
I've always felt like Al Capone got a bad rep. He didn't have proper representation.
So I'm going to go back and get him acquitted.
And all I'm going to have to do, Jason, is just tell Al to apologize.
Now, you remember, let's cue the listeners in on this.
Al Capone, who was a thug extraordinaire thanks to prohibition and a few other things, was actually convicted and charged with tax evasion.
That's how they got him.
That's right.
Right.
You see, he wasn't properly represented because the attorney should have told him that all he had to do was apologize.
Just say, I'm sorry.
Doesn't that work?
Well, we'll see.
I don't know that this will work for Dashell, to be honest with you.
Maybe I'm being a little bit too sanguine about this.
Yeah, work for Geither.
You're right.
Why wouldn't it work for him?
And that was pretty tough to swallow because this guy who was, who in fact wanted to, wanted to run, well, he did.
He is running the IRS was getting out from under paying taxes, and he should have known.
The IMF told everybody that he told or he was informed.
And that was pretty tough to begin with.
I think this one might be a bridge too far.
It just depends if the American people are going to roll over for all things, Obama, if this orgy of love coming from the media, what other kind of orgy would you expect, I guess, if that's finally going to, you know, the bubble's going to burst there, and they're going to say, well, we all voted for Barack here in the fourth estate, but we really have to hold somebody accountable here.
This is just, this is just astounding.
And to let the Democrats adopt this double standard is precisely, as I say, why conservatives are terrified.
There are a group of individuals now in power who have no limits, who can literally do anything they want.
They can get out from under the law.
They can expand the Constitution without an amendment.
They can do anything they want.
And unlimited power or absolute power, as Lord Acton reminded us, corrupts absolutely, and it's happening.
Chris in Cincinnati, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
I think that maybe you're looking at this the wrong way.
I think that we should support Dashel and Geithner in the fact that they cheated on their taxes and embrace it and encourage everybody to do the same thing.
If you go equal protection, just have everybody cheat on their taxes.
That'll eliminate the stimulus bill because there won't be any money to pay for it.
No, no, that's a great point.
It's a perverse logic, and I like it.
It's kind of like countering the ridiculous nature of a minimum wage law with a $400 an hour minimum wage.
I mean, if $10 an hour is good enough for Senator Kennedy and others, well, $400 an hour would be even better.
Of course, it's untenable.
It can't work.
There would be massive unemployment.
So sometimes you can take it to the absurd and make your point.
And I like that idea.
Certainly, a whole lot of people, if the IRS comes down on them with an audit, will have a precedent.
We'll have a standing defense.
It will be the Barack Obama cabinet.
That will be the defense.
We need to follow their leader, the Secretary of the Treasury.
You know, if these guys had any sense of compassion, of ethics, of vision, they would say, you know what?
And here's what Geithner should have said, and this is what Dashel should say.
You know what?
I guess the supply siders were right.
People do behave in ways to avoid the tax man.
And I guess the tax code is a little bit too complicated.
And I guess these corporations that can't repatriate their profits because they get double taxed, I guess they have a point in locating offshore.
And maybe, maybe I've had my epiphany, and I'm going to look to simplify the tax code and to cut some of these taxes.
Why, then, people might say, oh, okay, maybe you learned your lesson the hard way.
But instead, they're going to get up, they're going to get confirmed, and the next day they're going to stand on their soapbox and say, we have had it with these corporations trying to get out from under their patriotic taxes.
We have had it with people not paying their taxes and the rich getting off easy.
No shame whatsoever.
Exactly.
Brigadine, New Jersey, Al, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program next time.
Good afternoon, sir.
I'd like to start this call really quickly just by telling you that I think I'm in the minority in that while most of the country seems to have been brainwashed.
I think, for me personally, I'm almost glad that Obama was elected and that this all happened because it opened my eyes.
I guess you could probably call me a moderate Democrat initially, until I started to see some...
Oh, so you're the one.
Yeah, really.
You know, the ironic part about it, though, is as this continues to go on, I feel more and more frustrated.
Mostly, I think, just because of the way that Democrats talk to us like we're imbeciles.
You know, I don't have a political background.
You know, I care about things as far as the country is concerned, as far as my family is concerned.
Well, then why are you a Democrat?
I'm not anymore.
That was my whole point.
It took something as crazy as this happening to our country for me to realize that I had been on the wrong side of the fence all along.
But to the point of my call, if I could, please, here's my problem with everything that's been going on for quite some time now.
And it's, you know, I listened to gentlemen like yourself, like Rush, trying to soak in all of this information, getting a better understanding about, you know, our founding fathers and how the Constitution was drafted, the meaning behind it, what's involved.
The more I start to understand, the less what happens in this country makes sense to me.
How is it that all of these things can happen?
See, again, going back to my question.
Let me interject something.
I think you're onto something here because I've long argued that if we're going to go to hell in a handbasket, let's get there as soon as possible so we can recover.
And this is my problem with moderate Republicans.
Instead of a $400 an hour minimum wage, which would prove the fallacy of regulating wages and prices, they adopt the Democrat version.
Well, we'll have a $10.
We'll go along.
We'll be compassionate.
We'll get the endorsement from the New York Times.
So you're just turning up the hot water slowly and prolonging the agony.
So there is a case to be made.
You know what?
Let them own these policies.
Let the Democrats own the stimulus bill if it gets through the Senate.
Let them own the bailout.
Let them own this ridiculous health care plan.
And then when people see the folly of all of this, they will be held accountable.
The Republicans should stop cooperating.
They should say, hands off of any of this stuff.
We are done working with you guys.
You won the election, as the president said.
You can have it.
This is your baby.
I understand what you're saying.
I guess my concern is: based on what we're seeing right now about the blind sheep mentality of the country, how is it that we can expect that the Democrats don't just figure another way to spin it off?
If they destroy this entire thing, if everything goes.
I'm up against the clock.
I got to cut you off, my friend, but I know exactly what you're saying.
And this really is the $64,000, I was going to say $64,000 question these days with the dollar being devalued by the Fed.
It hasn't hit yet, but it will.
It would be the $64 trillion question.
Is the country still a nation of self-reliant, liberty-loving individuals?
Or have we gone European?
Have we decided that the only problem with socialism that fails is there's not enough of it?
Whereas in the 1970s, we rejected Jimmy Carter's big government and got Reagan.
And that really is the big question.
How we're going to react to all this when it all implodes.
Thanks for the call.
I'm Jason Lewis in for Rush Limbaugh.
Don't go away.
Much more coming.
Talent on loan from Rush for just about what?
Almost a week and a half.
Let's see.
I'm in today.
A couple of marks are in the rest of the week.
Mark Stein and Mark Belling.
He'll be back.
And then I'm in a week from today.
Then Rush returns geared up and galvanized, ready to galvanize after a well-deserved break.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I am Jason Lewis.
And in beautiful Bismarck, North Dakota, here's Gene on EIB.
Hey, Gene, how are you?
Good, Jason.
How are you?
Could not complain.
It could be a little warmer out.
Yeah, no kidding.
I agree with you there.
What's the temperature in Bismarck these days?
I am showing minus six.
Well, more proof that we've got a climate in crisis.
Yeah, yeah, we're really feeling it this year.
Oh, boy.
I wanted to explain to you why Tom Dash should be confirmed.
It was told to us this morning on a local talk show by our senator, Kent Conrad.
He is the mortgage giant.
This was Kent.
I got a great deal on my mortgage, but only because I promised them they could offload the bad paper to Freddie and Fanny.
Exactly.
Right.
That Kent.
He explained to us that Tom Dashel is just doggone South Dakota honest.
And he would trust his life to Tom Dashel.
And for that reason, Tom should be confirmed.
Well, he might trust his life to him, but don't trust his 10W40.
Or 10W40.
Isn't that a motor oil?
I just wanted to clear it up for you because Kent cleared it all up for us this morning.
It is just too much to stomach these guys.
This is, look, you know, I hate to get too philosophical or quote too many founding fathers.
It sounds pedantic and all of that.
But it was Adams who was talking about the difference between the rule of law and the rule of men.
And what the Framers fundamentally believed in is fixed law.
You know, they came from a group of people who would govern from a hereditary class.
They wanted to do away with hereditary, and they wanted a fixed law and manifest itself in the Constitution that everybody would be subjected to, that no one would be above.
And yet these people get in there, and apparently none of it applies to them.
It really is, in Adams' own words, the rule of men, not the rule of law.
And if this nation lets this go on, we have essentially turned the Republic or the concept of the Republic upside down.
I fully agree with you.
They have no concept of fundamental law, fundamental belief.
Gene, thanks for calling.
Mark in Independence, Missouri.
You're next up on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Welcome to the EIB.
Thanks, Jason.
Recently, Walter Williams reported that the unfunded liability for Social Security and Medicare is now $100 trillion instead of $53 trillion.
We were heading toward catastrophe before Obama.
Now he wants to destroy our health care by socializing it and spend unimaginable amounts of money on who knows what.
Do you see any chance that this can be turned around by statesmanship by Republicans or a one-person Reagan-esque Republican in the future?
Or is this hopeless?
Has there been any country in the past that has ever turned around and marched towards socialism?
It's a great worry.
And there may have been, or do you see any hope at this point?
Well, there is, you know, look, this is the problem with government and why it needs limits.
The natural inclination, just the pure kind of inertia in reverse of government is that it just grows.
Government wants to expand like a weed.
And so people in government want to expand their fiefdom.
And you have this natural mechanism that will grow government if you don't get a Reagan-esque figure to say, stop.
If you don't get somebody to say, no, we're not going any further.
And I would say an ideologue on the right, quite frankly, to say no.
That's why I don't trust moderates, because the flow, the tide of government takes you to bigger government, takes you portside.
So you're right.
You need a strong individual.
Maybe it will come from some governor out there in the states that senses an opportunity.
And you know how it might manifest itself, Mark, is a governor that might stand up to Washington.
And that would be refreshing, who might say, you know, you're taxing us with the federal gas tax.
And the only way we can get that money back is if we build a mass transit line, if we adopt a drinking age, which has nothing to do with a highway, adopt a speed limit, a primary seatbelt law.
I'm the governor of this state.
I believe in the 10th Amendment.
I believe in federalism.
I'm not doing it.
You give us our gas tax back right now, or we're not going to submit it to you, and really confront the federal government.
I think you would see a groundswell under a governor like that, and it would probably catapult them to national stardom, at least for conservatives such as you and me.
Do you think if they ran on a national scale like that to say, we're going to cut back Medicare, we're going to cut this government in half, do you think they can get elected?
I mean, is that a possibility?
Well, you know, that is the method to their madness.
Once they think they can get everybody in the government wagon, they will have everybody's vote.
If everybody's getting a small business administration loan, everybody's getting a Pell Grant, an ethanol subsidy, a food stamp, everybody's getting something, now a bailout, why, who's going to be there and speak for the taxpayer?
So it's a matter of numbers.
The problem they've got is it never works.
It's called a command and control economy, and economies implode when you do this, and we can hope for a political revolution when that occurs.
We're just looking for the leader to stand up.
There are a few out there, but nobody really shining right now.
I'm Jason Lewis on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Don't go away.
You know, the previous caller brings up a great point, and we talked about it a moment ago, but that is, is this the same country it was in 1980 that would reject the overreaching socialism of a nationalized health care plan?
You know, if you take a look at the S-CHIP bill I talked about earlier, the expansion that Bush, to his credit, vetoed twice of the state children's health insurance program, basically it's socialized medicine for kids.
If you take a look at that, and in the stimulus bill, the last trillion dollars we spent, they have expanded Medicaid.
They've expanded COBRA so you can get it at 55 and have the government pay 65% of the premium.
You are looking roughly at, and nobody knows for certain, anywhere from five to seven to maybe even 10 million people just so far being removed from private insurance, health insurance, to government insurance.