Feb. 3, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:19
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| Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast. | |
| Hey, great to be with you, America. | |
| America's Anchorman is away, and this is your undocumented anchor man, Mark Stein, uh sitting in. | |
| Uh it's an it's an all-mark uh week while uh while Rush is away. | |
| Mark Belling uh is uh gonna be in on uh Thursday and Friday. | |
| It's uh an affirmative action program uh for Marx. | |
| Uh Mark Belling will be here on Thursday. | |
| Uh I think on Monday, uh Mark Rich is going to be here, and uh Mark Foley uh wrapping up the week. | |
| So it's uh it's an affirmative uh action program for uh for Marx uh here on the EIB network. | |
| And this is Mark Stein from the uh foreign exchange student wing of uh the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, terrific exchange program. | |
| Uh guys like me get to come and study here while in return a nice young conservative American gets to go and study at the uh Jacques Chirac Institute of uh Gaelic uh charm double digit unemployment and confiscatory taxation. | |
| So it's good training for the way things are going over here in the United States. | |
| Uh glad to be here on an historic day. | |
| Uh as you may have seen, President Obama's approval ratings have tumbled, tumbled to sixty-six percent, according to Gallup, fifty-five percent uh in uh in another poll. | |
| Uh just a couple of weeks ago he was up there in the in the stratosphere, uh somewhere between Jesus and Gandhi, but uh obviously uh, you know, they've got far lower name recognition than he has. | |
| Uh and there was uh talk, you know, polsters were gonna have to recalibrate the scale, because uh he was getting approval ratings of a hundred and twenty-three percent, but he's not anymore. | |
| He's uh he's come down to to kind of mount Rushmore level. | |
| He's uh he's sort of around Washington and Lincoln now, but uh a couple more weeks uh uh like this. | |
| It's uh if he continues at this rate, by the end of the month, uh he could be down there in the uh George W. Bush basement of approval ratings, uh somewhere between uh Robert Mugabe and the Ebola virus. | |
| So we'll be taking a look at why why these two last two weeks have not gone quite as smoothly as they should have uh for our new president. | |
| Um maybe time for him to take his clothes off again and frolic in the uh Hawaii Surf and uh get his numbers back up there. | |
| Uh it's the growing questions, obviously, over the stimulus package, uh political fallout from that. | |
| Uh the media are not happy, the media are not happy. | |
| You may have noticed that they've turned their coverage down just a notch from abject sycophantic prostration mode down to uh doting moonstruck bobby soxer mode. | |
| Uh so that's a sign that things he could be in some difficulty here. | |
| Uh Chris Matthews leg tingle uh apparently isn't what it used to be. | |
| He uh he may be going to see the specialist for Tingle Dysfunction. | |
| So it hasn't been an easy two weeks uh for President uh uh uh Obama. | |
| So we'll be uh we'll be looking into into that later. | |
| Um as you uh as you just heard, I live in New Hampshire, flew down to do the show. | |
| Uh very touched. | |
| Uh I arrived at the airport and found that uh Tom Daschell had sent his limo and driver to meet me. | |
| Uh but don't worry, it means that he can then claim me as a dependent, so it should be uh tax neutral as far as he's concerned. | |
| Um the bad news is that uh the Senator Daschall is having to uh pay all the back taxes on his limo and driver. | |
| Uh the good news is that he's now eligible for the Obama administration's new tax credit for environmentally responsible multi-occupancy vehicle use. | |
| Uh uh, you know, I really think this is a uh a teaching moment for America. | |
| I mean, uh Tom Daschell's driver. | |
| When you think about it, think about it like this. | |
| Tom Daschell's driver has to be at the same place that Tom Daschell does every morning. | |
| So why not Carpool? | |
| It makes perfect sense from their point of view. | |
| Uh this is the kind of responsible green driving, you know, we want to encourage uh all Americans uh to adopt. | |
| And unfortunately, unfortunately, I see that the New York Times. | |
| The New York Times this morning uh has called on Senator Dashell to withdraw his nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services, uh, presumably on the grounds that his accounts are uh almost as big a mess as theirs. | |
| Uh quote, we believe that Mr. Daschall ought to step aside and let the president choose a less blemished successor. | |
| Uh unquote. | |
| It's a very strong editorial headlined uh The Travails of Tom Daschell. | |
| That's uh travels, by the way, not travels. | |
| The travels of Tom Daschell. | |
| Uh, no problem. | |
| He's got a car, driver, use of a private jet, everything's taken care of. | |
| But it's the travails of Tom Daschall that are bothering the times. | |
| Uh, you know, the New York Times accepts that the driving is a legitimate business expense. | |
| Uh Pinch Saltzberger, uh, the guy who runs the New York Times has been driving his business over the cliff for years now, but he doesn't need a chauffeur to do it. | |
| Uh so anyway, Senator Dashel uh has said that the reason he didn't declare that he'd been provided with a limo and driver by Leo Hindery, uh a wealthy Democratic Party donor. | |
| Uh actually the first time I saw that name, I read it as Leona Helmsley, but apparently it's Leo Hindery. | |
| Anyway, uh Dashell says the reason he didn't uh declare that he'd been provided with a limo and a driver by uh Leo Hindry, Leona Helmsley, whoever, is that he'd, quote, uh grown used to having a car and driver as Senate majority leader, unquote. | |
| Never occurred to him that there were people out there who didn't have a car and driver. | |
| Uh, you know, when he when he was big driven around, he must occasionally have glanced out the window and uh uh seen these uh uh fellows, these cars, you know, uh with just one guy in them, a guy behind the front wheel and no one in the back. | |
| And it never occurred to Tom to wonder why. | |
| I mean, he presumably they were just chauffeurs en route to pick up the big guy and uh and chauffeur him to something. | |
| Uh, you know, perhaps back in the old days when he was just a humble senator from uh South Dakota, he heard from his constituents about the long lines uh when you went to the Department of Motor Vehicles, uh and uh he assumed that these lines were just the chauffeurs of DMV clerks lining up to drive them home at the end of a hard shift. | |
| You know, if if instead of when you look at the uh the Tom Daschell uh limousine liberal driving uh uh mess that he's gotten into. | |
| You know, if instead of being the towering genius, indispensable to solving America's health care crisis, uh Tom Daschall were a French philosopher, he might have found himself pondering the conundrum. | |
| But if everybody has a driver, who is my driver's driver? | |
| Ever thought about that? | |
| It's like the old uh old novelty song, Who takes care of the caretaker's daughter while the caretaker's busy taking care? | |
| Who drives the car for Tom Daschall's driver when Tom Driver's not busy Tom's driver isn't busy driving Tom? | |
| I mean, this is one of the qu the questions that Tom Daschell never asked himself all these years until suddenly he finds himself uh having to uh enter, re-enter public service, do the decent thing, and save American health care, and suddenly people are hurling all these questions uh at him. | |
| Now, some people are saying, look, well, look, Tom Daschell, he isn't he isn't Tom isn't isn't actually indispensable to to solving the health care crisis. | |
| He's not like this treasury secretary guy who didn't pay his taxes, but we all confirmed him uh because he's apparently the only fellow on the planet who can avert total economic uh Armageddon. | |
| Tom is apparently not quite that totally indispensable. | |
| Uh, you know, a lot of critics say, well, you know, Tom Daschell doesn't really know that much about health care. | |
| I mean, he's earned a quarter million bucks from giving speeches to health industry lobby groups, uh, but that's about it. | |
| And um, you know, let's let's stop right there. | |
| Is this a great country or what? | |
| There are people will out there willing to pay six-figure sums to hear a speech by Tom Daschell. | |
| And they say there's a recession on? | |
| I don't think so. | |
| There's no other society in human history, human history has ever expressed the slightest desire to pay a six-figure sum for a speech by Tom Daschell. | |
| God bless him. | |
| This this is there is nothing that America can't do if it puts its mind to it. | |
| Um but aside from cleaning up big time on the health care public speaking circuit, is Tom so uniquely qualified, so uniquely expert on health issues, that there's no one else out there qualified to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. | |
| You know, uh and and there are people are making this argument now. | |
| It's I think it's mean-spirited, I think it's partisan. | |
| I deeply regret the New York Times introducing politics into what ought to be a bipartisan confirmation process. | |
| Uh, you know, okay, so maybe Tom Dashell doesn't know a lot about uh uh health. | |
| But when it comes to um, you know, human services, uh uh very few humans have enjoyed quite so many services, and almost all of them tax-free. | |
| It's amazing. | |
| So I think he is entirely qualified for the job. | |
| Well, we talk about this tax stuff uh a little later. | |
| Uh because uh because Republicans and conservatives need to think about what's the end game in all this. | |
| What is uh the end game? | |
| You know, what do You want what do you want things to look like when we've all had finished having fun uh with uh a cabinet of people who don't pay their taxes. | |
| Uh on the other hand, uh the um the uh Obama team is getting a little lighter. | |
| Uh breaking news uh by the way, uh Nancy Killifer. | |
| Uh this is from the Associated Press this very morning. | |
| Nancy Killifer, who failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help has withdrawn her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government. | |
| The White House said Tuesday. | |
| I love this term, by the way. | |
| The uh the chief performance officer for the federal government. | |
| Uh but apparently her own uh performance hasn't been good enough, so she's out. | |
| Uh she's withdrawn uh over these tax problems. | |
| What I found interesting about this, though, uh is uh is that uh the the tax problems she's withdrawing over. | |
| When her selection was announced by Obama on January the seventh, the Associated Press disclosed that in 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a $9469 tax lien on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. | |
| $946.69. | |
| Uh is this why she's been forced to withdraw? | |
| She's just some nickel and dime Joe the plumber size tax lien gal who simply has no credibility when you're sitting around the table with the big time players like Tom Dashell. | |
| Uh it's a it's a tragedy for her. | |
| The oddest thing, the oddest thing in this story, by the way, about why she's withdrawn. | |
| This is America today, folks. | |
| She didn't pay the employment taxes on two nannies. | |
| And you think to yourself, wow, two nannies. | |
| Is she like that uh that gal over in uh uh over in California who's uh j had the had the six kids and just then had the in vitro treatment and has just given birth to another eight kids? | |
| Is that why she's got two nannies? | |
| No. | |
| She's got a teenage boy and a teenage girl. | |
| And she's got two daddies. | |
| This is exactly I mean, I'm you know, when people talk about the daddy state, this is what it actually boils down to in reality. | |
| The chief performance officer for the federal government has two daddies for a teenage boy and a teenage girl, you know. | |
| So she's gone retired to private life now, gone back to uh oversee the chief performance uh in our own household. | |
| Uh we'll be we'll be talking about that. | |
| Well all lots of excitement uh today. | |
| Um, you know, uh as I said, I'm from New Hampshire. | |
| New Hampshire is in the news this morning. | |
| Doesn't often happen between primaries. | |
| Uh but my Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, has agreed to serve as the new administration's commerce secretary. | |
| As you know, uh President Um Obama wanted a bipartisan cabinet uh composed of senators who don't pay their taxes and senators who do. | |
| So he's tapped uh uh Judd Gregg to succeed uh well, you know, whoever it was who's been doing the job of Commerce Secretary these last few decades. | |
| I can't personally see uh myself why a uh a big-time senior senator uh would want to give all that up to become Commerce Secretary. | |
| It's a bit like uh Rush announcing he's uh given up this show to play soft and easy favorites on the uh top-rated Moonlight Matinee show every other Tuesday between uh two and four AM in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. | |
| I mean, I wish Senator Greg Well, but it doesn't seem like uh uh much of a promotion to me and more of a bleak comment on Republican electoral prospects in 2010. | |
| But we will get into all that uh straight ahead on the uh full three hours, the most stimulating package in radio. | |
| Mark Stein sitting in for Rush on the EIB network, one-eight hundred-282-2882. | |
| Mark Stein in for Rush on the EIB network. | |
| I'll be uh with you uh today and uh tomorrow. | |
| And then uh Mark Belling, as I said, uh as we uh wrap up an all-mark uh week here at the EIB network. | |
| Uh Rush will be back uh when uh when will when will well after we run out of marks uh rush Russia's gonna be uh Russia's gonna be back. | |
| Now this uh this business with um uh you know the Tom Dashell and the taxes and all the the rest of it. | |
| The question is, how is this gonna impact uh just regular uh Democratic voters? | |
| The ones who voted for all this hope and change, uh, you know. | |
| And there is and there is a change. | |
| Change is in the air. | |
| Uh if you go back to early January, the uh the the the tail end of the Bush era, uh when they said uh how many people think that America is moving in the right direction? | |
| Only thirteen percent thought America was moving in the right uh direction. | |
| Now it's up. | |
| After two weeks of hope and change, it's up to seventeen percent. | |
| Seventeen percent of people in Obama's America think we're moving in the right direction. | |
| Only eighty percent of Americans are unhappy with the way things are going. | |
| We will soon be back up uh to suicidal levels of contentment. | |
| Uh so that's that's the good news. | |
| Uh the question is, you know, uh w w how do regular Democrats think of this tax thing? | |
| Uh you know, H. R and I were were talking before the show, and he was saying about some of his liberal friends uh had expressed uh concern, concern about this. | |
| And it's not like it's not like the sex business uh with Clinton. | |
| You know, on the whole, if you're gonna get in trouble if you're a Democrat, it's better to get in trouble over sex uh than taxes. | |
| Because the sex thing, uh guys you my liberal friends used to say to me, you can't know what it's like. | |
| You can't know what it's like to be president of the United States. | |
| You're the most powerful man in the world. | |
| Uh women are throwing themselves at you. | |
| It's not just interns, it's secretaries, it's movie stars, it's supermodels. | |
| Every woman in the world wants to get into bed with you and enjoy the pleasures of your body. | |
| And I never quite I never quite believed this uh over Bill Bill Clinton. | |
| But you know, this is what like the Democrats were saying. | |
| They're saying this is it, you're the president. | |
| Women are throwing themselves at you. | |
| Remember what they used to say? | |
| Everybody does it. | |
| And by everybody, they didn't mean just you, you uh you little nickel and dime loser guy. | |
| You uh you don't ha uh understand what this problem is. | |
| You cannot comprehend the scale of this problem. | |
| But you know, Bill Clinton did it, and JFK did it, and Ike did it, and Grover Cleveland did it, and Chester Arthur did it, because if you're the most powerful man in the world, you cannot know what it's like to have women throwing themselves at you. | |
| We will never know what it's like to be confronted by that situation, to to feel what it's like to be in in in that crisis uh where you're just sitting there, you're uh on the phone to Yasser Arafat, uh trying to uh bring peace to the Middle East, and uh some curvacious intern comes in offering you pizza and her body. | |
| You how uh what is the likelihood that you're ever going to be in that situation? | |
| So that's what worked for Bill Clinton ten years ago. | |
| The question question now is we all know what it's like to be in the tax situation. | |
| We're all we're all, you know, this is tax season in America. | |
| Well, what they call and actually that's part of the problem that there is a quote, so-called tax season, unquote. | |
| In genuine free societies, tax would not command a season. | |
| But this is the time of year when we're all thinking about, oh, you know, I've got to find the receipt for this, and I got the get the 1099 for that, because I've got to file my taxes in a couple of weeks. | |
| Uh unless you're uh uh being under consideration uh for a position uh in the cabinet of the United States, then, you know, the tax thing isn't a big deal. | |
| Tax thing isn't a problem. | |
| If you want to run the IRS, you don't have to pay the IRS. | |
| That's a completely different uh scale of things. | |
| And I think this is uh this uh is actually causing serious problems uh for the democratic uh democratic voter base, because it isn't like uh the sex scandal. | |
| Very few people uh have enjoyed the opportunities on quite such an industrial scale as uh Bill Clinton did in the 1990s. | |
| But all of us know what it's like uh to have to pay uh taxes uh and to be uh to be in the situation where we got to uh think about whether this is a deductible, uh whether this is uh a taxable benefit and all the rest of it. | |
| That's what every uh uh some some uh salesman earning very little amount of money, driving around the Midwest. | |
| He has to account uh for the difference between business use of his vehicle and personal use of his vehicle. | |
| But if you're Tom Dashel, if you're Tom Dashell, uh you don't have to worry about that. | |
| Uh you may remember uh what was it, six or seven years ago now? | |
| Uh the the anthrax thing, just after nine-11, the anthrax thing. | |
| And there was a report in the papers uh that said sixty-three members of Tom Dashell's staff had come down with anthrax poisoning. | |
| Uh and I was shocked by this. | |
| I wasn't shocked that sixty-three of them had come down uh with uh anthrax poisoning. | |
| I was shocked that Tom Dashell had sixty-three staffers. | |
| I mean, this is not the citizen legislator uh of the Republican ideal. | |
| This is not uh the way the United States was uh was set up. | |
| Uh uh the idea that these guys would be swanning around in perpetuity with these kind of uh uh gulf Amer sized uh retinues. | |
| You get used to that. | |
| You get used to that. | |
| Uh And and what the Tom Dashell uh situation illustrates is the difference between a permanent uh political elite uh oblivious even to things like getting turfed out by your own voters in South Dakota uh and a genuine republic of citizen legislators and that's why it's resonating uh with the American public. | |
| Uh this is a big thing uh for Democratic voters and we'll be talking about that straight ahead on the Rush Limbaugh show. | |
| Hey Mark Stein in for Rush on the EIB network. | |
| Uh don't you may remember President Obama signed an executive order closing Club Gitmo eventually uh in full compliance with his campaign promise uh to set up a commission to look into the possibility of perhaps one day closing it eventually. | |
| So rather than uh whine and cry and fly in his private jet uh all the way to Washington to beg for a bailout because of uh what they've done to clobber his thriving merchandise business, El Rushbow did what capitalists do. | |
| He adapted. | |
| So if you go to the EIB store now you'll find on sale a 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 uh labels water and board uh to in uh identify the pool and the diving board. | |
| So uh it's a Club Gitmo when America was safe T shirt with the attractive water board uh logo and those shirts are available now for purchase at the EIB store at Rushlimbore.com uh where you'll find not just the Club Gitmo merchandise but also uh all the other uh uh great stuff from Rush including uh uh today's uh stack of stuff. | |
| Uh in the meantime we're talking about um these tax problems uh that some of uh President Obama's uh cabinet uh choices have run into and also the uh the new pick of uh Senator Gregg, my senator Judd Gregg from uh Republican of New Hampshire to be the commerce Secretary in his impeccably bipartisan administration. | |
| Bob is on the line from uh Inverness, Illinois and Bob uh you want to you want to talk about amazingly you want to talk about the Judd Gregg pick. | |
| It's it's lighting up the this is on this is a first for Judd Gregg. | |
| I mean no no no disrespect he's been a great governor uh of New Hampshire terrific uh Senator but he's never he's never uh not the kind of guy you think to uh light up America the way he has but Bob when I heard you report that he accepted I'm I'm screaming in the kitchen. | |
| Doesn't anybody we're the silent uh GOP these days. | |
| Uh all Obama is doing is uh uh decimating the GOP senators so that he is going to win the war about the um oh shoot what's the word I want the uh filibuster proof I have my notes here and I have to refer to them. | |
| And I mean and this fellow was reported to be a really staunch conservative and then he's gonna take this job at one point once he's out of the Senate then Obama's gonna call in this automatic letter of resignation and we're gonna lose the Senator in in that numbers process, let alone having to worry about Al Franken. | |
| Well well well well hang hang hang on a minute. | |
| What what's what's happening is uh is this gu Governor Lynch, who is a Democratic governor of New Hampshire, because sadly a once reliable the last uh uh uh uh red state in the Northeast has alas been trending sadly blue. | |
| Uh blue Hampshire as it's becoming and uh obviously Judd Gregg was concerned that uh the Democratic governor would put a Democrat in there to replace uh him. | |
| What what he's done in fact is put in a uh a former staffer for Judd Gregg, uh Bonnie Newman, who is what they call a centrist Republican which and if if you're already getting sort of alarm bells at that and thinking she might be over there in the Olympia snow Susan Collins mold, uh you might not be might not be wrong about that. | |
| But the seat is actually going to stay uh Republican at least for the next couple of years until the election in uh in twenty ten. | |
| Does that does that reassure you Barb? | |
| No, unless there's a p this thing is etched in stone. | |
| I mean we live in Illinois here and we've had this embarrassing debacle with the Obama seat uh and it's uh it just seems to me that it's happening all over. | |
| And I just just wonder where this wh why the GLP is so darn silent about this Michael. | |
| Uh you know uh New Hampshire in its even in its pitiful trending Democrat state is not quite in the state of Ill Illinois. | |
| And it is true that yeah your uh you know senatorial nomination process with uh Governor Blago uh using the F-word every uh uh six or eight seconds uh is uh is in fact um you know uh not what goes on in New Hampshire. | |
| By the way, actually I just want to say one thing about that blago guy uh who's been impeached and and been kicked out of office now. | |
| All his Democratic pals, by the way, turned against him. | |
| When when they decided he was going to be the designated full guy they threw him overboard. | |
| That's it. | |
| The whole thing is to say uh you know is so that when there are news reports about this, he's no longer Blogoyovich the Democratic governor of Illinois. | |
| He's just some ex-hasbeen governor and by implication an ex-hasbeen uh Democrat. | |
| But you know he was uh the only thing as far as I can see is that uh Blagoyevitch uh was rather crasser and cruder about it uh about the whole pay to play nature of democratic machine politics uh than uh than than than uh Jesse Jackson and Obama and the rest of those Chicago machine polls are uh that was his only mistake he was too upfront about it. | |
| He we we uh you you gotta be subtler about it. | |
| I mean if you think about these c this cabinet is a pay to play thing isn't it? | |
| It's like how much how much in back taxes are you willing to pay to be in the Obama uh cabinet? | |
| You know I mean I could be I could uh say well you know Obama he's uh reaching across the aisle and he's offered me the post of uh deputy uh assistant associate deputy assistant uh secretary of uh the Department of the Interior but you know I couldn't afford the settlement in two point six million dollars of back taxes. | |
| You know uh uh that it essentially is a pay for pay model. | |
| Uh when you look at the checks that Dashell and uh uh Geitner uh right writing to be in the Obama cabinet uh you know that that's that's a pay for play model in a sense how much are you willing to pay? | |
| You know they would never have paid this thing do you think Tom Dash will discover his uh discovered his driver uh and car and driver problem if it weren't for this he's essentially paying he's he's he's paying his taxes for the privilege of being in the Obama cabinet. | |
| Now most of us pay our taxes because we you know when we get to the end of our driveway it'd be nice if there was uh a road for us to drive on and when when when we drop our kids off at school we'd like there to be a school uh down there for for us to drop the kids off. | |
| And Tom Dash's got no interest in that he doesn't want to pay money for roads and uh military defense and national security and all that nonsense. | |
| You know that's for the little people to pay. | |
| That's for you schmucks out there. | |
| But he uh but you know to pay money pay money to be uh you know 143 when you look at what uh Blago was uh uh wanting to auction off that Senate seat for you know getting a hundred and forty uh paying a hundred and forty thousand dollars to be uh a cabinet secretary that's not such a bad deal is it you know uh that's simply the newest form for pay for play. | |
| So so Bob thank you for your point. | |
| Uh you know New Hampshire is trending Democrat and I uh I regret that but uh we've got a ways to go ha ha even with a Democratic governor before we're in the in the deporched and decadent state of uh uh uh of the uh uh of Illinois. | |
| Uh you know there is a deal of ruin uh in a nation uh and it will take New Hampshire quite a deal of ruin to get to the same ruined state as Illinois at Michigan and some of those uh some of those other ones. | |
| By the way, actually in fairness to Governor Lynch, he is a uh uh he is a Democrat, that's certainly the case but uh you know a New Hampshire Democrat is still uh well to the right of uh the average Massachusetts Republican. | |
| So these are comparative uh distinctions. | |
| Uh let's uh let's take a quick call from Pam in Duncan, Oklahoma. | |
| Pam is uh on the EIB network. | |
| Pam, you're on the Rush Limbaugh show. | |
| Good to talk with you. | |
| Oh thank you. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | |
| I appreciate it. | |
| I've been joining your show. | |
| Thanks. | |
| And you I'm sorry. | |
| You wanted to talk about Tom Daschall. | |
| Yes, yes. | |
| I was listening to you and um thinking about and it it dawned on me I was thinking about Geithner um being the the uh head of the IRS and not paying his taxes and then um what occurred to me is you were talking about Dashell is wasn't it uh Medicare or Medicaid taxes that he didn't pay on his driver? | |
| Um that is right. | |
| He didn't pay the whatever it is, the two point nine percent Medicare payment. | |
| I'm not sure whether it was on the driver or on the limousine. | |
| The tac the American tax code is now so complicated. | |
| I'm not sure that if you receive a limousine as a limousine service as a taxable benefit, you may be obligated to pay Medicare costs associated with that limousine. | |
| Is that how it works, H.R.? | |
| He's he's throwing his hand. | |
| You know, if you think about it, it makes sense. | |
| You may have a limousine service and you know, your limousine. | |
| There may be some like little Dickensian urchin crossing the street on his crutch, some some seven-year-old chimney sweep from the lower east side that uh that that that the Dashel limousine happens to glance against as he's being whisked off to one of these uh hundred thousand dollar health care speeches. | |
| And you would want in that situation, you would want in that situation, uh, for him to have paid his share of the Medicare benefit, so that poor little Dickensian urchin chimney sweep from the Lower East Side with his crutch can be taken to the welfare hospital on where where is it? | |
| They still have the welfare hospital of Rikers Island in New York? | |
| Wherever to the, you know, wherever it is, the poor house, the uh where wherever these people go, uh, you know, uh they who who knows. | |
| It's can't be Tom Daschell's problem. | |
| Just cause he he he he he his limousine glances, strikes the urchin, knocks the crutch out from under him. | |
| You want him to have paid the Medicare taxes uh so that that urchin can be treated at the uh unfortunate public welfare hospital he's going to be uh taken to uh while Tom just sails on to give his uh you know indispensable speech on health care reform. | |
| So, you know, clearly um there are issues to talk about here for Tom Dashell at taxes, and we'll be pursuing them straight ahead here on the Rush Limbaugh Show on the EIB network. | |
| Hey, Mark Stein in for us uh behind the golden EIB microphone on the Rush Limbaugh Show. | |
| Uh we've been talking about Tom Tom Daschell, Tom Dashell. | |
| Uh I love the way uh Tom Dash, we haven't heard from him since two thousand and four. | |
| He's apparently made uh he's been making what is it, five million dollars a year? | |
| Amazing. | |
| Uh he he was getting eighty-three thousand dollars for consulting a month. | |
| Eighty-three thousand dollars a month for quote consulting. | |
| I don't know what he when people tell you they're uh you know a consultant, uh it's never kind of clear what they do. | |
| What uh what they do you no one likes to say, well, what is it you actually consult on? | |
| But anyway, Tom Dashell was getting eighty-three thousand dollars a month for consulting. | |
| And uh, you know, one month of that he he accidentally forgot to uh declare to the IRS. | |
| Because like if you're getting eighty-three thousand a month just for consulting, I mean that isn't even what you do. | |
| I mean, whatever it is Tom Dashell does. | |
| The consulting is just a little bit of light consulting he does. | |
| It's just the kind of icing on the Tom Daschell income cake. | |
| Uh so you can understand why, you know, you get this check for eighty-three thousand dollars. | |
| I don't know, maybe it's not a big deal to him. | |
| Maybe it took him a while to uh, you know, stick it in the bank. | |
| It was uh it fell slipped down behind the back of the sofa, didn't pay it in for a few months, whatever. | |
| You know, it's easy to just kind of uh you know, let that slide and uh and he so he wound up not declaring it to the RS. | |
| Then the what tone should Republicans adopt? | |
| You know, I used to love the way when Tom Dasher was in the Senate, he he always had that kind of funereal undertaker uh mode about him. | |
| He always had uh concerns. | |
| Uh he had grave concerns, he had questions. | |
| Do you remember the run up to the Iraq War? | |
| He didn't actually come out and oppose it. | |
| He just would stand there and doing that uh sort of uh undertaker act of his saying, oh, he was sorrowful, he looked sorrowful, he had concerns. | |
| Some of his concerns were grave concerns, some of them didn't quite yet rise to the level of grave concerns, but if Republicans didn't address them, then they these minor concerns could soon become grave concerns, and then where would we be? | |
| Uh and that is why um and he also had questions. | |
| He kept saying every time the pres but the president kept answering his questions. | |
| He actually didn't have any questions. | |
| He had three questions. | |
| And he'd asked them about a year and a half before we Actually, went to war with Iraq. | |
| But for the next eighteen months, he kept saying that he he still had questions. | |
| And then the president would go out and say something about Iraq, and then he said, but he still had questions, and he still had these grave concerns. | |
| In fact, some of his questions were quite grave. | |
| So I think Republicans should adopt that approach uh to the to the Tom Dashell, the more in sorrow than in anger thing. | |
| You know, they're all pals with Tom. | |
| They're senators too. | |
| They've got sixty, a hundred, whatever it is now, three hundred staffers uh all riding around with them with cars and drivers. | |
| Uh and uh, you know, obviously they sympathize. | |
| I mean, what I find odd is, you know, uh is Tom was getting uh eighty-three thousand dollars a month for consulting, for consulting. | |
| And uh it's clear, you know, that the consulting industry is absolutely essential to America. | |
| And yet I've been through that stimulus package. | |
| There's nothing in there about stimulating the consulting industry. | |
| There is nothing for the consulting industry in there. | |
| Uh I think I think uh that that uh there should be at least uh, you know, what uh what would it not a trillion dollar stimulus, but let's say a half trillion dollar stimulus for the consulting industry. | |
| I would like to see people consulting on the stimulus. | |
| Uh, you know, uh this is really what America could uh you know, uh Obama has promised to uh create four million new jobs. | |
| And I think I think if we just said had four million new consultants consulting him about the four million new jobs he ought to create, that in itself would be enough uh to get the American uh economy jump started, uh, as easily jump started in the morning uh as uh Tom Dashell's limousine is. | |
| Uh, this is this is uh what we need. | |
| This is what we need uh to get the uh uh uh American uh economy uh growing. | |
| Uh let's go to Mel in Lynchburg, Virginia. | |
| Mel, you're on the EIB network uh with Mark Stein Inforush. | |
| Good to talk with you, Mel. | |
| Thank you, Mark. | |
| Um I have a different uh take on the tone the GLP should should t should take. | |
| Uh the tax chief in the Democrat Party, and we got Dashell, and we got Geitner and we got Wrangle, and I don't know who else we got. | |
| We've got a list. | |
| Yeah. | |
| But they they all say that, you know, I I didn't know, I made a mistake, uh, you know, all that. | |
| Well, I I think, you know, we if we take them at face value, which is debatable, but if we do take them at face value, to me that means they are stupid and incompetent. | |
| So we you either got a crook or we got an incompetent, and therefore they're still out. | |
| Yeah, you have a uh you have a very good uh point there about taking them at ta face value. | |
| What does it say about the American tax code when the Treasury Secretary claims it's all way too complicated over his head? | |
| Here's a guy who can afford the best ever advisors, uh, and he still can't uh uh figure out how to pay his taxes uh uh properly. | |
| So you're right, we should take him at face value, and uh what's the lesson we draw from that? | |
| It's that uh this tax code is an abomination in a free society. | |
| It's an abomination. | |
| And uh I don't really care. | |
| I mean, I think Tom Daschell, incidentally, uh breaking news, by the way, Tom Dashell has just withdrawn uh his nomination as health and uh human services uh secretary. | |
| Uh so unfortunately when we're not uh I don't know whether he did it because of me. | |
| No, I'd say uh what a what a what a spoil sport. | |
| I was uh I was planning on uh riffing on Tom's limousine for the rest of the week. | |
| The guy's got it. | |
| You know, scandals aren't what they Well scandals just aren't what they used to be. | |
| You know, if this this is why Tom Dashell shouldn't be Health and Human Services Secretary. | |
| What a wimp! | |
| You know, if this was Clinton, if this was Clinton, he'd be saying, I need to get back to work for the American people. | |
| This is a distraction. | |
| He Tom Dashell didn't even use the distraction line. | |
| He's just withdrawn. | |
| He's flounced out, he flounced out at such short notice. | |
| His driver was still in the men's room and had to hurry up and zip up and get out there to be waiting in the car with his cap on to drive him off to give uh whatever speech he's gonna give. | |
| Tom Dashell has withdrawn as health and humans. | |
| We're not gonna have Tom Daschell to kick around anymore. | |
| We're not gonna have Tom Dashell's driver to kick around anymore. | |
| This is this is a tragedy. | |
| This is a tragedy. | |
| I've got uh I'm uh I'm out of material now for the rest of the show. | |
| It's okay. | |
| This is uh Mark Stein on uh the EIB network, sitting in for rush on the Rush Limbore show more straight ahead. | |
| Mark Stein in for rush, breaking news, as you just heard, Tom Dashell has withdrawn his nomination. | |
| Uh other breaking news I just happened to see. | |
| Zimbabwe uh has removed twelve zeros from its currency. | |
| Uh Zimbabwe is the highest rate of inflation in the world. | |
| It's removed twelve zeros from its currency. | |
| I don't know about you, but I think that is what we need to do to the stimulus package. |
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