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Feb. 26, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:59
February 26, 2009, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, I'd have to say that yesterday's women's summit was a profound success.
You would not believe all the left-wing blogs that were following it yesterday and were live blogging it to their readers.
A huge, overwhelming, phenomenal success.
And of course, that was just phase one.
I mean, the women's summit is an ongoing thing.
We're not going to do it today, obviously, but because we're still waiting on some of the breakout groups to report back.
Greetings, folks.
Great to have you here.
Rush Limbaugh, the fastest week in media.
And we're here behind the golden EIB microphone, telephone number, 800-282-2882, and the email address, ilrushbow at EIBnet.com.
We're going to do a lot of teaching on the program today.
There's several teachable moments about Obama's budget, about tax increases on the so-called rich.
And it's an opportunity for that.
It's just an opportunity here to arm you with more information to get the truth of what is happening right before our very eyes.
And I don't want to use the word dictator here, but you realize that there is no traditional debate going on with any of this legislation.
It probably will be with the budget that he submitted.
But there's no debate.
There are no hearings.
The Republicans are not being included.
They're just ramming this stuff through from top down, White House through Reed and Pelosi, and it's just happening.
And it just gets worse every day.
The amount of expansion of government.
I don't know to say that categorize this as spending resonates with people anymore.
I just don't.
There's some conflicting polling news out there.
For example, I've got this from Rasmussen.
In early October, as the meltdown of the financial industry gained momentum following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Rasmussen Reports national phone survey found that 59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronaldus Magnus that government's not the solution to our problems, that government is the problem.
Since then, since early October, the stock market has fallen roughly 3,000 points.
Millions of jobs have been lost.
Nearly a trillion dollars has been spent so far to bail out the financial industry.
An additional $787 billion government stimulus package has been approved.
And a new president has taken office who has proposed spending billions and billions more.
Despite all of that, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, a new one, shows that the basic views of the American people haven't changed.
59% of voters still agree with Reagan's inaugural address statement that government is not the solution to our problem, that government is the problem.
Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.
Okay, so there's that.
Now, let me ask you people, based on what you're seeing and based on what you're seeing reported in the drive-by media, do you believe that?
If 59% of the people in October oppose big government, then how the hell did the election end up the way it ended up?
Well, no, wait, don't jump too quick on them.
No, there is a answer to that.
There is a huge answer to that.
And we have our, once again, conservative intelligentsia to thank for this.
There wasn't a choice last November between smaller government and big government.
The choice we had was two versions of big government.
We had two versions of the same thing.
We've got to target Hispanics, Republicans and Democrats today.
We've got to target minorities.
Got to target the Walmart this.
All of the people in our midst, the smartest people in the room, said you can't win elections anymore with stale conservatism.
We got to be more like them.
We got to recognize people want big government.
We have to recognize there is a role and people are demanding it.
And if we say that we don't believe in this, we're going to forever lose.
So we gave them our version of big government with the candidacy of McCain and our brilliant cadre of intelligentsia and the conservative media, some of whom now are writing columns warning us of the mistakes and what we must do to fix all this when they themselves were largely responsible for promoting our nominee and our candidate and our message.
David Broder today, writing in the Washington Post, it's kind of funny.
He says, well, we didn't know we were getting such a gambler when we elected Barack Obama.
Who is we, Mr. Broder?
I am stunned at all of the people.
It's not a whole lot of people right now, but it's a number that's growing.
The people who now say, you know, I didn't think this is what this is all about.
All this spending, all of these tax increases, how in the world could you have not?
Do people not understand who liberals are and what they do?
Do people not have the ability to go look at Obama's voting record?
Do people not have the ability?
People check their intellects at the door during the whole campaign, and they saw in Obama something other than reality.
Now they're starting to get a little dose of it.
Oh, wait a second.
Hey, not sure this is what I had in mind.
Blah, Too late now.
Now they all want to come to the table.
You know why we this is this is not we we tried to warn everybody and it just fell on deaf ears.
Okay, so 59% still believe government's problem.
I can see where it might be true even in October because there wasn't a candidate on the ballot that believed in government is the problem and we need to make it smaller and less obtrusive and all that yada yada yada.
Okay, but the number hasn't changed.
The Ras Muscle number hasn't changed from October to today.
Same percentage.
59% still believe government's the problem.
Yet, I saw a survey today on some CBS blog page and they did a scientific survey.
It's not the CBS New York Times poll, but they did a scientific survey of 500 some-odd people.
80% loved the Obama speech.
80% loved it.
Now, let's be honest, there was some stuff in that speech that did sound in terms of social and cultural aspects sounded Reagan-esque.
There certainly was nothing in it Reagan-esque about taxes or spending or any of that.
But then we have to keep in mind that people don't hear what Obama says.
They see him say it.
And they see him say he wants to fix America.
And say, oh, okay, this is cool.
So we find ourselves again here in the midst of a very frustrating point in our lives.
People who normally have high IQs or reasonably high IQs have had IQ bottomies.
They've found a way to remove their IQ from their brain and put it aside and proceed solely and purely on the basis of emotion.
Those of us who proceed solely and entirely on the basis of facts, philosophy, theory, evidence, We are considered, you know, old-fashioned.
Oh, come on, you know, that's old stuff.
That doesn't matter to anybody anymore.
59% still believe government's the problem.
If, I mean, Ras Russell's got a great poll record.
He's got a great track record.
Let's say that it's true.
And let's also, well, Snerdley doesn't believe it's accurate, but let's, just for the sake of the discussion, let's say that it is.
We have conservatives slash Republicans, oftentimes two different entities, attempting here to figure out how to react to all this, how to slow it down, because we know we can't stop it.
See, that's a hard cold reality.
None of this can be stopped, but we can slow it down.
But it's going to take a strategery, and it's going to take onions, metal onions, steel onions.
It's going to take, once you start it, you can't back off of it.
It's going to take a strategic program to take on Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and to suggest, like the Democrats always did during Clinton, this is not what the American people want.
The drive-bys will do counter polls.
The drive-bys will show that this poll is wrong and so forth.
But believe me, there is a base, a sizable base of opposition to all this going on out there, and it's larger than anybody knows because the drive-bys, when they do report on it, they make fun of it.
Today's show today, they tried to once again skewer Rick Santelli.
Matt Wauer tried to skewer Santelli and even insulted his wife.
We have the audio soundbites.
The drumbeat against me as someone who wants Obama to fail personally has been ratcheted up again.
I will deal with this again today because it's fun and it's crucial.
And besides, ladies and gentlemen, I like being right.
And I'm not intimidated by being right when people criticize me for it.
And I don't care what any establishment thinks of what I say.
Believe what I say, and I love saying it when I know it's right.
So I don't even have to defend it.
I'm just going to repeat it again.
I hope, especially with what we've seen now, I hope he fails in implementing all this.
Let me ask you a question.
Two years ago, you think people would have hoped Bernie Madoff would have succeeded.
Yeah, but two years ago, if they knew what he was doing, do you think they would want him to succeed at what he was doing?
Well, hell bells, no way.
Absolutely right.
They would want Madoff to fail.
And they would want Madoff shut down and they want him to get caught, right?
To me, this is a no-brainer.
And some of these people who are saying, you know, they can't say that, are then saying it themselves without using a word.
I am told that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford called me an idiot, not by name.
But he said, anybody who wants Obama to fail is an idiot.
Well, I don't know anybody else who said it.
So I guess he's, I've met him a bunch of times.
It's been very nice.
He's going out of his way to come up and say hello.
But see, politicians have different audiences than I do, and they've got to say things in different ways.
So after he said, well, anybody who wants Obama to fail is an idiot, then went on in his own way to say, gosh, I hope this doesn't work.
But he just had to say, we don't want the president to fail.
Hell, we don't.
We want something to blow up here politically.
We want something not to go right.
We want something to cause this to get.
Folks, this is not just mortgaging the future.
This is a full-fledged attack on capitalism.
This is a reordering and a transformation of the basic free market structure of this country.
We are talking about individual liberty here.
We're talking about freedom that is under assault.
Nobody's got the guts to put it that way.
Nobody's got the guts to talk about it in that way.
Everybody wants to talk about it within the confines of policy.
As though these are just normal proposals and we've got our normal objections and we'll find a way to beat this or stop this.
This is not normal policy what's being proposed here.
This is not FDR.
This is not LBJ.
This is those two guys on steroids.
The objective is even different.
The objective is total 100% personal control and power.
Not just about setting the Democrat Party up forever.
This is about setting up Obama as the most powerful person ever in this country.
And there are, I am convinced, several reasons that have happened in Obama's life that make this quest his own.
That's exactly what is happening here.
The Democrats on Capitol Hill look at this as a great opportunity to get in their old pet projects, the things they've wanted to do, to create as much dependency, expand the government.
And there aren't the votes anywhere to stop it.
A hard cold reality.
All that can be done is to slow it down.
But this fear, and it's a genuine fear that exists in the Republican Party today, even as we speak, there is a genuine, palpable fear of tying any of this to Obama.
There's no fear trying to tie it to Reed.
No fear trying to tie it to Pelosi.
But we don't have anybody with the onions.
There is nobody with the guts to tie this to Obama.
They are afraid.
They see the approval numbers of 60, 70%, whatever they are.
They see universal adoration to love.
They see there's nothing to be gained by being seen in opposition to Obama, but it's okay to be seen in opposition to those two weirdos, Reed and Pelosi.
Well, this is Obama's agenda, folks.
This is Obama's deal.
You cannot, simply cannot, credibly oppose this without tying him to it.
Besides, it's the truth.
It's a fact.
It's Obama's agenda.
Especially now with the release of the budget, the stimulus plan and so forth.
Anyway, we've got to take a brief time out here.
We will be back.
We will continue with much more here on the EIB network right after this.
For the purposes of controlling it, for whatever reasons, because he thinks things are unfair, because his psychology is out of whack.
I don't care.
I'm just telling you that this budget is an assault on freedom, and that's how this budget needs to be viewed.
It's a mistake to look at this within the confines of everyday Washington policy and to take it apart and look at it in the sense of policy.
I have so many conversations with Republicans who love to get into the policy minutiae, the process of all this.
And I get so damn frustrated.
I said, what happened to your philosophy here?
Do you realize when you get into these policy and process debates with these people, you are letting them set the agenda and all you do is reacting to it?
We got to stop reacting to their agenda and have one of our own fearlessly.
What has anybody got to lose?
We can't stop anything.
What does anybody have to lose standing up for the United States of America as we have traditionally known our country to be?
What in the world is there to lose?
Standing up when you're right.
What's there to lose?
Right.
I mean, we criticized, and I didn't get re-elected.
I understand that, but I guarantee you, you've got a better chance of getting re-elected as a person of principle.
It's getting to the point we're going to put politics aside.
It's not even about politics anymore, folks.
This is really not even about politics.
I'm going to have to come up with a way of explaining that so you understand what I mean.
This is not about politics.
It's a political coup, maybe, if you want to look at it that way.
A nonviolent coup.
I want to go back to the early show yesterday.
Joe Biden and the co-host Maggie Rodriguez have this exchange.
The Republican Party came out with their own charismatic, young, dynamic, ethnic spokesperson after the speech and said, we don't buy it.
We're not on board.
Are you taking any of their objections into account?
What I don't understand from Governor Jindell is what would he do?
I mean, in Louisiana, there's 400 people a day losing their jobs.
What's he doing?
What's the answer?
Joe Biden is wrong.
I don't know who's telling this, but Louisiana has added jobs at a time everybody is losing them.
Of course, Rodriguez used to describe Jindal as ethnic.
What's that have to do with anything?
Giving the Republican response, Bobby Jindal pointed out fundamental differences in how Republicans and Democrats see the economy.
And then Biden says, Louisiana, 400 people a day losing their jobs.
What's he doing?
But the claim is wrong.
If you look at the numbers from the Louisiana Workforce Commission in December, Louisiana was the only state in the nation, besides D.C., according to the national press release, that added employment over the month.
Said Patty Grenier with the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
According to her, not only is Louisiana not losing jobs, Louisiana gained 3,700 jobs for the seasonally adjusted employment.
These are numbers you can check out yourself if you go to laworks.net, LouisianaWorks.net.
And there you can find the latest unemployment stats, statistics that appear to directly contradict what Biden said.
Louisiana is adding jobs.
They're not losing jobs, 400 a day, an out-and-out lie, similar to much of the irresponsible rhetoric coming from the entire Obama administration.
The totally harmless, lovable little fuzzball with absolutely zero pomposity in my body.
I can't be, I'm not pompous.
I do not have that mindset.
Utilizing talent on loan from God, 800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program.
James Carville and the Democrat Party cannot forget me.
They can't leave me alone.
They don't want to.
They think that I am the focal point.
I'm the focus point of opposition.
I am the one that the Democrats have to launch on because I, in their minds, am the intellectual and policy leader.
So Carville was on the Situation Room on CNN last night, and the host Wolf Blitzer said we should know that James, sooner rather than later, if all this money being spent will work or not work, because the folks' bottom lines in their pocketbooks are going to be directly affected.
That's exactly right.
There will be less money in the folks' pocketbooks.
Here's what Carville said.
It'd take a while for it to work.
And as I point out, the most influential Republican in the United States today, Mr. Rush Lembaugh, said that he did not want President Obama to succeed.
So at the very top echelon of the Republican Party, he's not being wished well here.
Lends him a hand, and they slap his hand.
I think he'll continue to do that.
But right now, as long as they're taking their orders from Russia, it doesn't seem like there's going to be a lot of cooperation.
There's not going to be any cooperation here, James.
Why do I want this to work?
Why do I want an attack on capitalism to succeed?
Why should any of us want that?
Why should anybody want a fundamental restructuring of the United States of America to succeed?
What is so hard to understand about this?
Let's say that you're a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
They've just come back and scored the touchdown that puts them up four points with 15 seconds to go, and Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals drops back.
You damn well better believe I wanted Warner to fail.
I wanted Warner to screw it up.
I wanted him to fumble.
I wanted him to get tackled on his backside.
The last thing I wanted was Warner to succeed in beating the Steelers.
Now, what is so unusual about this?
When was the last time we ever heard the Democrats say, gosh, I hope Bush succeeds?
You realize what a strawdog this is?
And here come a bunch of cowardly Republicans who know exactly what I said.
They know exactly what I mean.
But because of the historical nature and the aura and the power of the one, oh no, we can't, we can't.
We got to hope he succeeds.
You realize what a hypocrite it makes all of you on our side when you say you hope he succeeds means?
Do you realize how your own voters hear that?
What does Obama succeeding mean?
Somebody tell me.
Some of you on our side, I want to hear from you on the phones if you can't find it within yourself that you hope he fails.
Because you see, Obama failing is a victory for America.
The America I've always known, the America I grew up in.
Obama failing to socialize this country is success for the country.
It's a victory for the country.
Obama failing to confiscate the wealth of the achievers and the producers in this country.
That's success.
That's victory for America.
Now, as I have said, I don't know Obama personally, and I'm sure he's a nice guy, have a beer with or what have you, like Clinton was.
Go out, chase women, have a beer, go to a ball game.
None of that matters to me.
Yeah, he's my president.
But the historical nature of this, I got over that back in the fall.
This is about really serious stuff.
This is not about the simple little game of Democrats win, Republicans lose.
This is about America winning or losing.
And we know this.
Here, Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal today, a radical presidency.
Let me just read you the last paragraph.
Unless the Republican Party can discover a radical message of its own to distinguish it from the president's, the Republican Party should prepare to live under Obama's radicalism for at least a generation.
That's 25 years.
I mean, if you're going to come up with a radical agenda and a radical message to oppose a radical presidency, how can you say you hope he succeeds?
You're going to go out there, you're going to craft a radical agenda to oppose this at the same time, say, oh, well, we want the president to succeed.
Nonsense.
So I'm happy to say this.
I don't understand what's so difficult to say about it.
In every walk of life.
You know, I'll guarantee you, people at Apple hope that people up at Microsoft screw it up.
They hope Microsoft fails with its iPhone imitation or its iPod imitation, whatever, what was it, the Zoom.
They hope it failed.
And they probably worked hard to make it fail with advertising.
What is so difficult about this?
But Rush, Rush, first black president, he's a president of the United States.
Yeah, he is the most radical, leftist, agitating community organizing president we've ever had, too.
And by the way, I am offended when this man equates himself with Abraham Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln properly receives and received the respect and the high honors because Abraham Lincoln walked all over this country making speech after speech after speech, debate, debate, debate, explained.
There was nobody who did not know what Abraham Lincoln was all about.
Abraham Lincoln did not run around and say things like, there will be no earmarks in my budget when there are 9,000 earmarks in the budget.
These endless comparisons to great presidents of the past.
This is an ego trip, folks.
It's dangerous to me.
It's an ego trip and it's a power trip.
So you've got a combination.
And now we throw Reagan in the loop.
We've got a Reagan-esque guy on Tuesday night.
We got Lincoln every day.
We got FDR now and then.
Me a break.
It's time to stop being cowed by all this.
But Rush, but Rush, the people, the people are enamored.
Yeah.
Well, ever heard of information, education?
I mean, there are ways to do this.
How did the American people get to where they are?
Think they arrived there on their own?
At least the majority that voted for Obama?
Did they just happen to evolve into dependency on government?
Liberals and voters?
Did that just evolve?
Or were they persuaded, conjoled, intimidated, or what have you along the way to get them to where they are now?
We all know it's the latter.
Fear is a paralysis.
Being afraid, particularly when you're right, and then being afraid of having to defend yourself when you're right.
Don't defend.
Go on offense.
Realize how easy it would be for me to say, you know what?
I did misspeak.
I want to apologize.
I really don't want the president to fail.
I didn't mean it to sound so caustic.
I couldn't do it.
I couldn't live with myself after the program in which I would have said that because I don't mean it.
But can you imagine how many people might have loved me?
Can you imagine how many people might have, you know, Rush, that was a very mature thing you did.
The answer is, I wouldn't have changed one person's mind about me.
Because the opinions that are held of me, and Republicans need to learn this, the Republicans, the negative opinions held of me have nothing to do with what I say, have nothing to do with where I live, have nothing to do with what I drive, have nothing to do with anything other than I oppose them.
And anybody who opposes them has got to be stopped.
And so a lot of people are afraid to stand up in opposition.
Now, I'll admit, acquiring and holding an audience in the media is different than getting votes in an election and getting re-elected.
For example, I could not get elected to anything, even if I wanted to run.
First commercial, the man who invented the word feminazi.
I mean, I've never had those perspirations.
So I've never had to live a life of paying attention every day to what might happen to me 30 years down the road in terms of public approval or any of that.
So I know they live in a different world and they have to go about and approach things a different way, but my gosh, you can't get more serious than the country.
The way it was founded, what it means, why it succeeds, why it's great, individual liberty, and a steadfast moral code born of a devout religious belief among the founders.
That's what gave us the United States of America.
John Adams even said it, paraphrasing, we wrote a constitution for moral and religious people.
We do not have a mechanism in this document to deal with people who are not religious or moral.
And we're finding that out.
And we see it right in front of us as the left tries to rewrite via their judges the Constitution itself.
They know it doesn't apply to it.
They know it's restrictive.
They know it's restrictive on immorality.
But it's a common moral code that the founding, a common set of moral beliefs.
And it's the essence and the testament in the documents to the source of our essence, our yearning to be free.
We're all created inalienable rights from our creator, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
All three under assault by the left.
Do you realize that if you are having problems in poverty, Planned Parenthoods will open their doors to you?
That was how easy they suck you in.
Once Planned Parenthood gets in there, they can show you all kinds of things about having abortions.
And then life, liberty?
Not with this administration.
You want to tell me that there's liberty when a bank, which didn't need bailout money, was forced to take it, does its second year of sponsorship of a golf tournament in Los Angeles, servicing existing clients, thanking them for being good customers, trying to get new customers, has legislation proposed against them being able to ever do this again by people like Barney Frank and John Kerry.
You want to say liberty is not under assault?
Pursuit of happiness?
Who's happy?
Does Obama make you happy?
So Obama inspires, is Obama, so Obama, when you listen to Obama, do you end up thinking that he wants you to be happy?
In fact, if you're happy, don't people dislike you?
I mean, they resent you.
What are you happy about?
The Democrat Party today, the American left, Obama and everybody on down, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, Declaration of Independence, not for them.
Constitution doesn't fit.
And we're in the midst now of them realizing a dream that they've had for decades, totally turning America upside down.
Do I want that to succeed?
Nope.
I want it to fail.
One more soundbite, ladies and gentlemen, from CNN, the Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer.
Democrat strategist James Carvel and Republican strategerist Tucker Eskew had this exchange.
Republicans care deeply about their country.
Republicans want us to succeed.
He's trying some things that have been proven his failures in the past.
We hope he does a better job.
But the history of this kind of liberal expansionism is not too promising.
But Taka, Rush Limbaugh, the most influential Republican in the country, did say that he did not want this president to succeed.
I can tell you right now, when it comes to fiscal responsibility, we don't really need any help from Mr. Limbaugh or the previous administration.
Whoa, what about bipartisans?
Then what's the big deal?
James, if I say I hope he fails, why do you care?
See, they need a demon, folks.
They need a demon.
The left needs a demon.
I am happy to serve myself, offer myself in that role to the current crop.
Wall Street Journal that I said today is going to be a series of teachable moments.
And this next subject is taxes, Obama's income tax increase.
And I must admit, back in the early days of this program, starting in 1988 through 1990, taxes and what happens when you increase them and decrease them was a fundamental element of the program each day.
And I made the mistake of assuming as we went on that, okay, people have learned that.
I don't need to reteach it.
I mean, you learn something in high school, you learn it, you move on to something else.
But then there's always audience growth and people tuning in who were not there in the early days.
So it's oftentimes wise to go back.
And the Wall Street Journal today is a brilliant, brilliant piece that any of us who understand taxes, trickle-down supply-side, economic growth, understand without reading.
But there's some interesting data in it that I still want to share with you.
Obama has laid out the most ambitious, expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now he has to figure out how to pay for it.
See, that's the first mistake.
He doesn't have to figure out how to pay for it.
If he were worried about paying for it, he wouldn't be doing it.
Folks, I don't mean to sound pompous.
Don't confuse my desperation.
You understand this for pompopathy.
There's no concern in the Obama administration about paying for anything.
They got rid of that fear long ago.
They can print the money.
They can sell some debt to the Chikoms or whoever else.
They don't care about paying for it.
If they cared about paying for it, they wouldn't be doing any of this because we can't pay for it.
That's why there's going to be a fundamental restructuring of our country.
We cannot pay for what's going to be done.
And at some point, the fact that there's no money to pay for what is being done and what's going to happen is going to come out, it's going to be a collapse like you can't believe, dwarfing what this is looking like.
On Tuesday, Obama left the impression all we have to do is end tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.
And we can do that.
We're not going to raise taxes on anybody under $250,000 a year by a single dime.
It's going to be some trick.
Even the most basic inspection of IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends, and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 cannot possibly raise enough revenue to fund Obama's spending proposal.
Consider IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that we have data for.
And the wealthiest 2%, 3.8 million tax filers had adjusTedros incomes above 200,000 in 2006.
They don't break it down at 250.
So about 7% of all returns in 2006 made over 200 grand.
These people paid $522 billion in income tax or 62% of all federal income taxes.
The richest 1%, about 1.5 million filers make over $388,000, paid $408 billion or nearly 40% of all income tax revenue.
Could confiscate all income over $500,000 a year, and you wouldn't even come up with half our budget deficit.
We'll be back in just a second.
More details on that.
Here are the numbers.
You confiscate all taxable income over $500,000.
You could do that one time because who's going to worry about earning all that again?
So $500,000 over that, you confiscate it.
You raise $1.3 trillion in revenue, less than half the 2006 federal budget.
It ain't going to balance anything.
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