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Feb. 9, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:36
February 9, 2009, Monday, Hour #3
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Time Text
The views expressed by the host on this program make more sense than anything anybody else out there happens to be saying.
The views expressed by the host of this program now documented to be almost always right, 98.9% of the time, Rush Limbaugh, America's real anchorman, the man the president says you should not listen to.
Firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila de Hun chair at the distinguished Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Phone number, if you want to be on the program, is 800-282-2882.
You can also go email, and that's lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
Everybody assumes that the Obama administration's health plan, the health reform, the gigantic national socialization of medicine bill is going to be a standalone to come down the pike.
And everybody's especially thinking now it's been delayed since the puffster pulled himself out of consideration at Health and Human Services for not paying taxes.
That is not true.
Betsy McCoy has read the relevant portions of the stimulus bill.
She's written about it in a commentary at bloomberg.com, which we will link to at rushlimbaugh.com later this afternoon.
By the way, for those of you like the lady that last called who wanted to know where she could go to find out what's in this, we've got a pretty good list from National Review that we posted on the website last week.
We'll put it up again today of all of the pork or the highlights of the pork in this bill.
If you don't want to waste time going to a bunch of different websites, we've some of my good buddies say we've coagulated it here all on one website.
We coagulated it out.
We coagulated it.
You're going to be able to see it all in one place at rushlimbaugh.com.
And I want to go through what Betsy McCoy has discovered.
We had a nurse on the phone mere moments ago.
She wanted to know where she could go to figure out what all's in it, which is why I again remind you of RushLimbaugh.com.
But the stimulus bill, the job creation bill, so improperly named, creates a new bureaucracy called the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology.
Now, this new bureaucracy will monitor newly digitized medical records.
The bill's health rules, there are rules for healthcare coverage in this bill, and they will affect every individual in the United States.
You can consult if you want to go try to find a PDF copy of the bill.
You can find the references here on page 445, 454, and 479.
Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system.
Now, there are arguments back and forth about whether or not this is a good thing.
The opportunity for the loss of privacy is huge here by digitizing and making everybody's health care records computerized, especially having a major federal database where everybody's health records are.
Some people say this is a good thing because it will assist in treatment, particularly in emergencies.
When you go in for an emergency, if they can get your records, let's say you're out of town, say you're vacationing in Alaska hunting moose, and an accident happens up there, you live in New Jersey.
Doctors in Alaska will be able to consult the federal database to find out what your allergies are, what your treatments have been, what mistakes not to make on you.
That's what they used to sell this.
But ask Alex Rodriguez about privacy.
There are 104 names on this list from 2003 of people who tested positive for steroids in a year and was legal.
Only his name gets released of the 104.
The players union was supposed to destroy the list, and they didn't.
They had a reason for it, but they botched their philosophy.
Their theory got confounded.
So somebody who's got it in for Alex Rodriguez released his name to Sports Illustrated, four or five different people.
And so now he's been tarnished with the steroids thing, just as a lot of other players, Barry Bonds and others have.
This notion that privacy can exist, particularly in a politicized Washington, is a bit of a...
I'm doubtful about it, but there's some people who like the idea.
Anyway, this bill computerizes everybody's health records.
Then after everybody's health records are computerized, this new bureaucracy is created, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, and he'll have a whole bureaucracy at his disposal that will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost-effective.
You know, right now, a lot of you get all upset at your insurance company because they say, well, certain things will be covered and others won't.
And you want it to be left up to the doctor.
Try the government being in charge of what the doctor can do, the kind of treatments that can be extended to you.
And I'll tell you who gets creamed in this is the elderly.
The elderly get really shafted in this, and I'll explain why here in just a minute.
Now, the goal of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology is to reduce costs by guiding your doctor's decisions, federal guidelines.
These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Tom Daschell described in his 2008 book, which was entitled Critical, What We Can Do About the Healthcare Crisis.
According to Dashel, doctors have to give up autonomy and learn to operate less like solo practitioners.
Doctors have to join the federal community here in doling out treatment so that it is fair and equitable.
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity, Betsy McCoy writes, goes way too far.
Hospitals and doctors that are not meaningful users of the new system, they don't use it.
They will face penalties.
Meaningful user is not defined in the stimulus bill.
That will be left to the Health and Human Services Secretary, who will be empowered to impose more stringent measures of meaningful use over time.
That's page 511, page 518, page 540, and page 541.
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment?
The vagueness is intentional.
In his book, Dashel proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the tough decisions elected politicians won't make.
The stimulus bill does that and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.
This is described on page 190, 192 of the stimulus bill.
The goal, Daschell's book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they're driving up costs.
He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept hopeless diagnoses to forego experimental treatments, and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the healthcare system.
Now, the page numbers that I'm giving you here refer to the PDF version of HR1EH, the stimulus bill, not Dashel's book, but the actual stimulus bill.
Betsy McCoy just read it and she's reporting what's in it.
So Daschell says we need to become more like Europe.
People need to accept catastrophic diagnosis and forget it.
If you're told it's over, it's over.
We can't start, can't keep spending money on people who want experimental treatments.
We just can't do this.
Now, Dashel says that health care reform will not be pain-free.
Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.
That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
You read that right.
Dashel says senior citizens should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of trying to have them treated.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective.
The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost-effectiveness standard set by the aforementioned federal council.
This is on page 464 of the stimulus bill.
The federal council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Dashel's book.
This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit.
Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, like osteoporosis.
For example, in 2006, a UK health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration, and trouble with their vision, had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye.
It took almost three years of public protest before the board reversed its decision.
If the Obama administration's economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, senior citizens in the United States will face similar rationing.
Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and they sacrifice later.
Let me translate this for you.
You are a seasoned citizen.
You come down with a disease that is not immediately life-threatening.
You go into your doctor.
The doctor consults the federal database to get your health care records.
He then has to consult this new health council board.
They then figure the cost of treating whatever's wrong with you based on the statistics and tell them how long you're going to live.
And if the cost vastly outweighs the number of years you're going to live, they will deny you treatment.
That's what Daschell says.
You just need to become accepting.
Seniors need to become accepting of their condition.
Basically, you need to just go away and die.
We don't have the, and I'll tell you, the architect for this, I mean, she credits Daschle, but who was that governor in Colorado, Robert Lamb of Colorado?
Old people have a duty to die and get out of the way because they're putting too much pressure on the health care system.
Younger people, they'll get the treatment because it'll be more cost-effective.
The statistics say that they'll live longer.
Now, the reason that I'm harping on this, we got the call from the nurse, and I wanted to tell her what was in this bill reflected.
This is in the stimulus bill.
This is national health care, essentially.
It is in the stimulus bill.
Everybody, they snuck it in.
Dashel advised Obama, stick it in here because the way the Clintons tried it failed.
They went big.
They went all in.
It allowed for people to oppose it, tear it apart.
Do it stealthily.
Do it where nobody knows it's happening, like the amnesty bill was tried.
There are so many things like this in the stimulus bill that have nothing to do with stimulus, but have everything to do with advancing the liberal agenda and strengthening and repairing the Democrat Party.
Now, the Democrats, every campaign cycle, love to run around and accuse the Republicans of wanting to deny senior citizens Social Security, maybe kick them out of their houses or what have you.
It is the Democrat Party which is essentially in the stimulus bill, setting up procedures whereby the older you are, the more likely you are to have treatment denied simply because it isn't going to be worth the money.
Now, this is what happens when you throw yourself open to the prospects of other people paying for what you need.
Now, I know in healthcare, it's practically impossible not to do that.
And it's a shame it has gotten to this point because it imprisons people.
But here's the very party that throws around these accusations about Republicans wanting to deny senior citizens their Social Security or cut their benefits or whatever, basically telling them, get out of the way and die.
And the page numbers are cited.
If you want to read this in the stimulus bill itself, this is a job creation stimulus bill that announces this kind of stuff.
A national healthcare czar with a whole bureaucracy, the computerization of all health care records, the federal government in charge of what doctors can do to treat people using guidelines, and there are federal penalties for doctors who do not follow the guidelines.
These things are not specified yet.
That's going to be left up to the bureaucrats in charge of this new department to come up with.
But it's crucial that people understand this.
And even if this is new information to a lot of you, there's so many things like this that have nothing to do with creating jobs, nothing whatsoever to do with reviving the economy, that are laced throughout this debacle.
And it is why calls in opposition in Washington are at 100s to 1 against this, all over the place.
And that's why the Bamster is out there hustling it this week.
That's why the Bamster is out there doing these town meetings and trying to get the public that he can swerve to support this to do so because it's in trouble.
And the Republicans, again, are faced with a golden opportunity here.
They too can read what Betsy McCoy, or better yet, they can read the legislation themselves.
They're the ones voting on it.
And they can see what's in here.
And they can hold it up and say, this is not stimulus.
It has nothing to do with jobs.
This is just the exact opposite.
This is liberalism.
This is government expansion uncontrolled right here in a stimulus.
You are being hoodwinked.
You are being fooled.
Once again, they're presented with an opportunity.
I got to take a timeout here, folks, because they're running a little long in this segment.
Be back right after this.
I was just reminded that I need to tell you how something ended up.
Just reminded in an email.
Remember the Friday before the Super Bowl, my last day here before going on the vacation, which was not a surprise, which is long scheduled.
We had a call from Pensacola, a woman named Carol.
Remember that?
And Carol wanted to talk.
She's from Pittsburgh.
She's had a tough year.
This is close to my age, mid-50s.
She hasn't worked in a year.
She had to leave Pittsburgh and move to Pensacola to be with one of her children for a time because times are tough.
And she'd never seen the Steelers play.
I think she said he'd never seen the Steelers play.
And I asked her, well, are you just going to Super Bowl?
I mean, it's just right down the road from Pensacola.
Oh, no, no, no, I can't go.
And I had Catherine was in Tampa and had an open channel here on an I.M.
And so, oh, we can get her a couple tickets.
And we can get her a hotel room.
And we left the program that day saying, okay, you hang on, Carol, we'll call you back and we'll get this all set up.
And I wanted to tell you that it all worked out.
She got her two tickets.
They were in the end zone, the upper level of the end zone.
It turned out to be in the Steelers end zone, the one that painted with the Steelers.
She saw a lot of action down there.
And a hotel room.
And the airplane fly.
I think they drove down and back, but they got everything.
And she was just, remember on the air, she was crying.
She's ecstatic.
And she got to see her Steelers win in one of the greatest Super Bowls ever.
So it all worked out.
I had a bunch of business associates over there for the weekend in one of the sky boxes, and I flew over for dinner with them on Friday night because I was not going to be able to go to the game on Sunday.
I had my own little bash here.
But they went out.
Carol and her son showed up, and they went out to dinner with our sponsors that were in Tampa for the weekend.
It just had a greatest time.
It was very, very cool, and it worked out just could not have gone any better for him.
Everybody involved in it made it happen well.
It was an extremely happy moment for her and her son, who works for the Department of Defense up in Pensacola, to be part of.
So I wanted to tell you it all worked out even better than anybody dreamed.
This is Vicksborough, North Carolina.
Chuck, you're next on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hey, Mega Dittos, Rush.
Thank you, sir.
Have you do me a favor?
My brother just turned 70 today.
He lives up in Cuba, New York.
Can you say happy birthday to him, Mike?
Happy birthday, Mike.
Great to have you on the program today.
He's a longtime listener.
Appreciate it.
The reason I called Rush is it seems to me that Arlen Spector called you and asked for your support when he was running for the Senate this last time.
Yeah, I think he called.
Called for your help or something.
No, he had a book out, and I wanted to talk to you about a book.
Yeah, well, he has been wavering on this stimulus plan, and it really bothers me.
He and those two senators from Maine there, the two ladies, Snow and.
Yeah, I mean, does this really surprise you?
Well, it doesn't surprise me, but I don't know.
This is McCain-ish.
Yeah.
You know, all this reaching across the aisle and all this other stuff.
Except McCain's on the right side of this.
McCain's kicking butt on this.
Yeah.
But, I mean, look at, I went blue in the face.
You know, when everybody was counting up the Senate votes on election night, are they going to get 60?
Are they going to get it?
It won't matter.
They got Olympia Snow and Susan Collins.
There's two or three Republican rhinos in there, Republican moderates that'll join the Democrats on things.
Look, they're going to do in the Senate, they're going to do their test vote on this tomorrow to see if they can get cloture.
Cloture's been filed.
They'll probably get it.
Senator Specter and Susan Collins and what's her name, Olivia Snowball, go for it.
Where the rubber is going to meet the road is in the conference report when the House and Senate get together and try to reconcile the two bills because they're different.
And that's where the fireworks are going to happen.
And then the final vote in both houses will be taken on this on a singular bill that they negotiate the differences out of in the conference committee.
And I think that's where the pressure needs to be brought.
This can't be stopped.
Folks, it cannot be stopped, but it can be slowed down and done much better than this.
Back to the audio soundbites, ladies and gentlemen, Joe Biden.
February 6th, I should say.
He was in Williamsburg, Virginia.
This is where the Obamaoids, the Bamster and his boys, went down there to give the Democrats a big pep talk down there, and they had Biden do this.
And it was the House Democrat Issues Conference.
And here's Biden with typical Joe Biden inspiration.
If we do everything right, we do it with absolute certainty, we stand up there and we make really tough decisions, there's still a 30% chance we're going to get it wrong.
Well, that's a great way to inspire everybody.
Here's Obama out there selling the whole debacle today under false pretenses.
And here's old Joe Bahey.
Chuck, stand up.
Let him see you.
Oh, love you, God.
Well, gee, stand up for Chuck.
You asked a guy in a wheelchair to stand up in Columbia, Missouri.
So now he's out there saying, well, if we did everything right, we make every tough decision.
We do it all right.
there's still a 30% chance we're going to get it wrong.
Follow me, boys.
We're heading down.
We're going to see General Custer here.
And if we do everything right, we're still going to get it 30% wrong.
So then on the same night, CNN Situation Room, Will Blitzer was talking to David Axelrod, one of Obama's big advisors, says, you know what Biden said, David, that's not very encouraging.
A one out of three chance, even if you get everything you want, the president gets everything he wants, it's still going to be wrong.
Well, I don't know.
I don't know exactly about what that math was, but I know this, that there's 100% chance we're going to get it wrong unless we pass a very substantial economic recovery package now.
I mean, they're trying to cover this guy's tracks as fast.
I don't know exactly what the math was, but I know there's a 100% chance we're going to get it wrong unless we pass a very substantial economic recovery package now.
I don't want to use the word criminal since this is politics, and how do you tell the difference in normal politics and criminality?
But what's being done in the name of economic stimulus and jobs here is one of the biggest frauds perpetrated on the American people.
It is entirely fraudulent here, the way they're selling what this is.
It is not what it is.
It is not going to create jobs.
It's not going to start funneling money into Elkhart, Indiana.
How about that woman?
We played the sound by a woman.
Well, when the money gets to Elkhart, I mean, is it going to get straight here?
Is it going to go somewhere else for?
I don't even believe that's a real question.
I think that's a focus grouped question that they pick somebody in the audience to ask the question.
I mean, who thinks this way?
Well, I take it back.
Now that I think about it, a lot of Obama voters might think that way.
Where are my money?
Where is my money?
How about all these people?
Obama's going to pay for their gas, pay for their car.
Wonder how many people's jalapies are sitting on the side of the road waiting for Obama to fill it up.
So I guess it's true that people could ask a question like that.
It's just fraudulent here.
Dingy Harry also Friday night during a Q ⁇ A on Capitol Hill in a hallway, unidentified reporter says to Dingy Harry, are you confident the size of this package still big enough to do what it's supposed to do?
It's approaching a trillion dollars.
It's a piece of legislation that is job-creating.
Did we get everything we wanted?
No, we didn't.
But remember, as Senator Bacchus said, there are no cuts.
No one lost anything.
Everything in here is new money.
So I am very, very happy with what we have.
It's a product, as Senator Murray said, that we should be proud of, and we are proud of it.
Yeah, a trillion bucks.
And then we're going to have another trillion piled on in TARP 2 tomorrow.
And we're going to be at $2 trillion in stimulus.
It's not stimulus.
The TARP 2 is going to go to the banks for whatever the hell they're going to do with it that they haven't done with the first $700 billion.
And then we have the so-called stimulus bill.
We're to the point now that the Chinese are not even buying the debt.
They're not even buying the Treasuries to support this.
We are printing the money.
And at some point, inflation is going to rear its head, and that's when all hell is going to break loose.
I don't know how that doesn't happen.
I hope it doesn't.
It'll be the first time that you start printing money like this.
Too much money chasing too few goods.
I just don't know how you don't get inflation.
And inflation is what gave us the misery index back in the 1970s.
Chuck Schumer, trillion dollars of pork.
It's a small little thing to Chuck Schumer, CNN State of the Union.
On Sunday, John King said, look, is it better than the House bill and the key test, creating jobs as soon as possible?
Or is it a lesser bill, but one you had to agree to simply to get the votes in the Senate?
The most important thing is that we are not going to let small differences stand in the way of passing this very strong bill, which the American economy desperately needs.
To quibble over small little things and let the bill go down would be a huge mistake for the American people, given the state of our economy and the need for a real shot in the arm.
And once again, this is entirely disingenuous.
Little things like national health care.
Little things like national health care with features including a new health czar, a new bureaucracy, and means testing of treatment for the elderly.
By means testing, if the treatment costs more than you're likely to live and therefore the cost is deemed a waste, then you die.
You don't get the money.
You don't get the treatment.
The federal government will be in charge of this, and that is in the stimulus bill.
We'll link to the sources on this, citing the specific page numbers in the stimulus bill for you to consult.
Barney Frank yesterday on television, Meet the Depressed.
David Gregory said, you've got the top CEOs coming down from the U.S. banks to be interrogated by you.
They're going to be in front of your committee on Wednesday.
What do you want to ask them?
The first time I'm going to ask them is this.
What is it that you do because you get a bonus that you wouldn't otherwise do?
I want to know, like, if they didn't get a bonus, would they knock off early on Wednesday?
The problem with compensation is not just that it's large, but it gives a perverse incentive.
They pay themselves in ways that say this.
If I take a risk and it pays off, I get extra money.
But if I take a risk and it loses money, I break even.
Heads I win, tails I break even is going to encourage me to people to flip too many coins.
And one of the things we have to do is that.
Now, this dovetails with Obama.
And of all the things that were said last week, one of the scariest things to me last week was his cap of $500,000 a year on CEO pay if they are accepting federal money.
The real problem here with CEO pay is that shareholders and the board of directors not exercising their proper oversight and watching this.
But you don't want the government doing this.
I make no apologies, and I have no brief for these corporate executives.
But this is about nothing more than expanding government.
I don't care what Barack Obama thinks of private sector salaries.
It's none of his business, even if he is president of the United States.
It's none of Barney Frank's business what the private sector salaries and bonus situation is.
It's not their business until they start doling out money and these idiot guys on Wall Street and the banks start accepting it and then they become prisoners.
And what really frosts me is these guys taking the money.
They take the money and then they're tied.
They are lassoed to the federal government and they've got to let Obama run their business and they've got to let Barney Frank call them up there and grill them.
When, as I've said over and over again, it ought to be Barney Frank and Chris Dodd et al. who are facing the questions and being made to explain their roles in the collapse of the subprime mortgage industry and the housing bubble and the like.
It's just one small step from them dictating CEO salary to them dictating everybody else's based on what Obama thinks is right and based on what Obama thinks is wrong or Barney Frank or Chris Dodd or any of these other people.
On the subject of Tom Dashell's taxes, Barney Frank actually had something interesting to say.
The question from David Gregory was, you got the president out there castigating Wall Street.
You brought up the issue of compensation.
You brought up the issue of compensation very strongly.
And yet this kind of thing happens in Washington with Democrats not paying their taxes.
Well, you change it by the voters being tougher.
Frankie, I think that part of the problem is the voters.
You know, nobody in the Senate, well, a couple in the Senate, but nobody in the House parachuting in.
And the voters have to be tougher.
I don't think they hold this to a high enough standard.
He's got a point.
He's got a point.
The voters don't hold him to a high enough standard.
However, however, that is one of the biggest cop-outs.
Well, hey, you know, as long as we can get away with it, we're going to get away with it.
If our voters aren't going to send us out of here, if the voters aren't going to punish us, so why should we?
Why should we hold fast here?
If we were, they're not afraid of you.
Folks, they're not afraid of you.
They have forgotten how the House Bank caused half the place to be thrown out back in 1990.
What was that, 1990?
And the House Post Office and so forth.
By the way, one of the sponsors, ladies and gentlemen, was our guest at the Super Bowl, is a brand new sponsor here called BG Products.
And I don't know if you've ever heard of BG Products.
They have excellent distribution all over the country, but it's not something that you go into the store and buy.
Now, I know a lot of people are holding on to their cars these days because of the economic circumstance that a lot of people are in.
It makes no sense to go out and buy a new one, just hold on to the one that you have.
If that's you, you need to know something.
Lubrication failure is the main cause of engine failure.
Oil changes, simple oil changes is all you really keeping the lubrication in that engine lubricated will extend the life of your car and the engine far beyond what you would even believe.
However, there is a treatment that you can add to an oil change that's made by BG Products, and it helps prevent engine failure.
BG Products keeps vehicles running worry-free.
Now, BG products are available at a lot of automotive dealerships and automotive service centers nationwide.
And unless you ask for it, they're probably not going to put it in there.
It might.
In some cases, it is part of the standard treatment of an oil change and an engine lubrication treatment.
But you get the best oil change possible by servicing your vehicle at a location that uses BG products.
And they have a free lifetime protection plan for your engine.
I mean, that's how much they trust the product.
Lifetime protection plan, guarantee for your engine from the moment you start using BG products.
They've got a website where you can find out the nearest automotive service center to you that uses BG products.
It's bgfindashop.com.
bgfindashop.com.
And they stand by the product.
We've tested it.
We test all of our products before we become, they become advertisers on the program.
And it's, you, in fact, you, if your car is getting close to 75,000 miles, that's when, 36,000 to 75,000 miles is when you want to start adding, actually from the moment you get the car, but if you're between 36 and 75,000 miles and you're planning on holding on to that baby because the economic crisis and you don't know when Obama's going to buy you a new car.
The best thing you can do to make sure that baby runs is use BG products every time you change your oil.
Back after this.
Now, folks, if you've decided to get rid of your car and go out and get a new one, don't forget General Motors has maintained its sponsorship with us here on the EIB network with funds allocated to our show prior to the bailout.
This we have confirmed, funds allocated to this show prior to the bailout.
We are not taking federal money rooted through General Motors for the next advertising flight.
They're still pushing their cars.
They're going to spend a billion dollars of stimulus money to ramp up their Brazil production facilities because they're kicking butt down there.
They're doing exceedingly well, so they are going to put a billion dollars down there.
Now, as you know, Dawn drives a General Motors car.
She drives a Buick Enclave.
And we've done surveys.
We've done tests.
It's quieter than an 09 Lexus RX 350.
I have done the testing.
I have a cochlear implant.
I'm very sensitive to noise.
The Buick Enclave is quieter.
Buick Pontiac GMC, great financing, by the way, or cashback deals on a lot of cars during the Buick Pontiac GMC President's Day sale, which is going on now through March the 2nd.
So, you got to hear this.
I told you earlier Obama was cracking up when he was addressing the Democrats.
We have two sound bites.
And we had this post from the Weekly Standard saying he's, it doesn't sound right here.
Don't come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis.
Stop tape.
That's an attack at me and my bipartisan stimulus plan, which was tax cuts, corporate tax rate cut in half, capital gains, tax cuts, actually capital gains suspended for a whole year.
Obama coming right at me because I'm the one that proposed this bipartisan.
They think that Reaganomics gave us the problem that we are in.
It didn't.
It was the Community Redevelopment Act.
It was the subprime mortgage business that led to all of this and the housing bubble that ensued and all of that was derived and put up by Democrats in Congress.
We are not going to get relief by turning back to the very same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin.
It did not.
Can't embrace the losing formula that says only tax cuts will work for every problem we face, that ignores critical challenges like our addiction to foreign oil or the soaring costs of health care or falling schools and crumbling bridges and rolling levies.
I don't care whether you're driving a hybrid or an SUV.
If you're headed for a cliff, you've got to change direction.
That's what the American people called for in November, and that's what we intend to deliver.
And so they believe that Reaganomics, Bushanomics, created the mess that we are in, that they had nothing to do with it.
It's just the exact opposite.
And the direction they're taking this country, the road, it is a fork.
We are on a road with a fork in it.
We can take the fork to the Moscow of the 1970s, or we can take the fork to China.
That's the road to recovery Barack Obama is offering.
We might want to try the road south to Cuba, but the only thing to make that worthwhile are cigars.
I didn't forget it.
I just didn't.
I didn't deem it a priority today.
I'll answer the guy's letter.
The guy used to work for Bob Michael, the Republican, who wants to know what I would do to save the party that nobody can do.
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