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April 27, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:33
April 27, 2009, Monday, Hour #3
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A man, a legend, a way of life.
I am Rush Limbaugh, America's real anchor man, America's truth detector, and the doctor of democracy.
All combined in one harmless, lovable little fuzzball.
Full hour of broadcast excellence straight ahead.
If you are just joining us, we've had uh two calls so far from this program, uh on this program today, two calls so far today from people who were having trouble paying their mortgages.
These were not subprime mortgages, these were people had standard mortgage business owners.
In both cases, they went to the website that Barack Obama set up uh making a home affordable.gov.
It turns out that these two people have reported to us on the program today that what happened was they filled out all the forms that was necessary on the answerable questions at the website, make home making home affordable.gov, and the next thing they knew,
they were solicited by law firms who in one case wanted $2,000, uh another instance wanted $2,700 to call your mortgage company and try to renegotiate your mortgage.
Most of these people, both these people that called, thought they were just going to be talking to some government agency, some bureaucracy, and because they'd heard Obama announced this, they knew all about it.
So what they thought was going to happen was that the government was going to call the mortgage lender, and on behalf of them, because Obama had promised this, they get a better mortgage and lower their monthly payment.
Instead, they were solicited by law firms.
In one case, the guy accepted the offer of help after giving the law firm his profile, and the law firm said we're only going to charge you 50% up front and the other 50 after we get it done.
But after we see your profile, if we can't help you, we won't charge you at all.
They told him they could help him.
He sent in the thousand books, is Fred from Cleveland.
And after that, they told him they couldn't help him, and he's out 1,000.
So what we have done here, we've gone back to April 9th to our archives.
And this is the press conference where President Obama announced his loan shark website.
And at the time, this is what's sad about this.
I warned people about this.
This idea that somebody can reduce your mortgage for and you, and by the way, I mentioned this to Fred Cleveland.
He said, Well, I saw him doing it for the subprime people.
Subprime people are a different category.
You know, poor old Fred, he's a small businessman.
Fred, you are the guy with a target on your back.
You are the guy that's going to be paying more taxes because of your small business.
In fact, there's a I I have a story here coming up, uh, and it's it's in the Washington Post about this happening to small business people.
Their tax bite just skyrocketing.
But anyway, let's go listen to Obama.
We have two sound bites here where he announced the Loan Shark website.
There are seven to nine million people across the country who right now could be taking advantage of lower mortgage rates.
We estimate that uh the average family can get anywhere from sixteen hundred to two thousand dollars a year in savings by taking advantage of uh these uh various mortgage programs that have been put in place.
You can go to making home affordable.gov, making home affordable.gov, and the way the website is designed, you can plug in your information and immediately find out whether or not you are potentially eligible uh for one of these uh one of these uh mortgage refinancings.
Now we do have to, there's one thing that that I probably in order to be safe here should mention.
We have to allow for the possibility that the two people we've had today got hold of A trick website.
Now, I just look at I'm saying this just to just just to uh cover a possibility.
But if you have, if you're the government, you start a website called making home affordable.gov, and there's somebody acting fast out there, and they say they're gonna have a website making homes affordable.gov.
If the White House doesn't think to buy up all the similar sounding domain names, and if people go out there and buy up some fake, but very close to the original web addresses, then these two guys that called us could very easily have gotten hold of sharks.
And we this we we don't know because by now, I mean, if if there's a if if there was a some shark that tried uh uh a website very close to making home affordable.gov, like making homes affordable.gov.
I'm sure it's been shut down by now.
White House would have learned about it.
But we think, I don't know.
But I'm just mentioning this as a possibility.
All I know is that we uh we weveral website names we have purchased here at the EIB network just to keep them out of other people's hands, and we buy up all the derivatives and all the possible close websites just to keep that kind of thing down.
So, but anyway, that leaving aside that as a possibility, let's just assume these people actually got hold of the Obama website, the website, Web Shark uh uh loan shark website, making home affordable.gov, and they plugged in all the information, and somebody was gonna tell them whether or not they could be helped.
They end up getting solicited by a law firm.
Here's the second soundbite.
I just want everybody who's watching today to know that if somebody's asking you for money up front before uh they help you with your refinancing, it's probably a scam.
So take advantage of uh making home affordable.gov, and that will allow you to figure out exactly how to proceed on this in a way that is uh uh making you money, saving you money as opposed to costing you money.
Now, here he he he pretends to warn people about scam artists when in fact his very own website may end up being a place for scam artists, but this is not very reassuring when he says if somebody's asking you for money up front before they help you with your refin free financing, it's probably a scam.
Not it is a scam, it's probably a scam.
What does that mean?
Probably a scam.
In uh the two cases that two that we heard about from these two callers, nobody asked for money up front.
They lied.
The one guy never sent in his 2700, the guy from Cleveland was told we're not gonna charge you anything until we determine whether we can help you.
They then said we can help you after he'd filled out the paperwork, and that's when after that they kept the grand and told him that they couldn't help him.
Okay, so let's further assume uh, ladies and gentlemen, that this is widespread.
I mean, we've had two calls today.
This could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Now you might be thinking, well, when Obama finds out about this, he's not gonna put up with this.
Obama's gonna fix this.
This is not what he was.
Yeah.
And you know how he's gonna do it?
Appoint another czar.
Appoint a czar to investigate making home affordable.gov, which is essentially what?
If our two calls today are accurate, you're gonna be investigating Shylock law firms.
Now, he's gonna need an investigator for this.
He's gonna need a new czar to head up.
Now, note, conducting the investigation, looking into what went wrong is not gonna get poor old Fred in Cleveland is mortgage reduced.
None of the steps to find out how this atrocity is happening will fix the problem.
Just to make make it look like the problem's being addressed.
But I've got the perfect czar, somebody to investigate Shyster law firms, John Edwards.
He's out of work.
The poverty thing didn't work at the university.
Uh had a little problem there with the wife uh during the uh during the campaign, uh Desperately wants to be involved in the administration.
This is a perfect thing for John Edwards to be assigned the new czar to overlook corruption at making home affordable.gov.
What do you think about that?
All right, so if you if you go to making home affordable.gov to refinance your mortgage.
It says there that your mortgage has to be owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mayor Freddie Mac.
And if you're not, you're out of luck.
If you want a modification, and you're not part of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, it's a longer process, and depending on how you answer the questionnaire, the website says you may be eligible.
So we're going to try to batten this down and figure out what this is.
Because if this is if you're really the government website that is selling lists to law firms who are soliciting people.
It wouldn't surprise me.
It would not surprise me.
And it also wouldn't surprise me to learn that hardly anybody is succeeding in getting their mortgage refinanced this way.
Because so much of what this administration does is pure PR for perception only.
Seven to nine people, seven or nine million people, that's what Obama said who might be eligible for this.
That's nothing.
That's nothing, but 300 million Americans hear it.
Or 200.
Leave the infants out.
200 million Americans.
Oh, he can't sound like he's helping people are having so much trouble in their market.
That's a wonderful man.
Wonderful president.
He's so wonderful, right?
But lawyers are his buddies.
Lawyers and union people.
Big money to Obama.
I just saw the most amazing Chiron graphic upon PMS NBC.
It was on uh Enrior Mitchell.
Anything on show.
And it's so unfortunate, folks.
It's just so unfortunate.
Do you know that torture and the swine flu are taking away from the White House message leading up to the 100 days and achievements?
No, it's what their graphics said.
This was a discussion they were having.
I couldn't, of course, listen, I was working.
But I'm looking, they're talking to Steve McMahon, who's a Democrat consultant.
And the graphic said torture swine flu.
Taking away from White House message leading up to 100 days.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is the exact op.
Who's putting the torture news out there?
Who is making a big deal out of the swine pig flu pandemic?
They want this.
I'm sorry to shout here, folks, but sometimes even I, L. Rushbow get a little frustrated here.
They totally control the news cycle.
They have the biggest sycophants in the media ever, and the largest number of them.
The reason that the swine flu and the torture garbage is out there is to cover up the mess that is the United States of America right now.
You think it's a good 100-day headline to hear General Motors laying off 21,000 more people and cutting and eliminating a Pontiac brand?
Do you think any you think it's good news to announce how many people on food stamps?
Good news, how many people are unemployed?
Is that good news in context of first hundred?
Hell no.
So you put the torture stuff out there and you put the pig flu stuff out there and you bottle up the media with it, and then you run the sob story.
Oh, I thought I'm gonna poor Obama.
Torture and the swine flu are standing in the way of Obama getting out the great message of the first hundred days of achievements and accomplishment.
Try this headline.
This is a Boston Globe.
I I saw this today.
I just I just laughed.
Eric Holder tours historic torture site in London.
Yes, I'm incredulous because about five million people do.
It's called the Tower of London.
And every British tourist goes by there.
Yeah, it's where Anne Boleyn was beheaded.
And they did have jails in there, but the Eric Holder went.
Now, this is so idiotic.
The Attorney General and his staff took a tour of the Tower of London, home of the bloody tower, and also the site where Guy Fawkes was put on the rack in 1605 to name those plotting with him to blow up Parliament.
The Tower Visit is a standard fair for tourists, but one loaded with extra meaning for Eric Holder, who listened quietly to tales of torture, execution, and palace intrigue.
Yeah, well, I'm sure the media was in tow here.
And what did he do?
He went to the Tower, which operated 500 years ago.
Six hundred years ago.
He went to the Tower of Wonder to learn about torture.
Because the Bush administration tortured so much.
And they tortured so many.
And they tortured so brutally.
That Eric Holder.
Mound and determined to protect their reputation and the image of the United States of America is on a torture tour.
To learn from the rest of the world what is no longer tolerated.
If you go to the Tower of London, you'll also see the Crown Jewels.
You'll see a whole bunch of stuff.
The Tower.
I've been there.
And I I will I will tell you for a fact, Eric Holder did not go to the Tower of London to learn anything about torture.
It had nothing to do with whatever this administration's position on torture is going to be.
It is he had a bunch of sop sap media with him eating it all up, and the image in the PR is.
Boy, Obama really cares about torture.
We care so much, we're researching it.
We'll find out some of the most dreaded instances of torture around the world so that we don't duplicate them.
So basically, Eric Holder, the attorney general, a couple of people in his staff get a little vacation to London to visit a tourist site, and it gets reported as he's on a mission to make sure there's no more torture out there.
Uh back to the phones, Topeka, Kansas.
This is uh Debbie.
Debbie, nice to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hello, how are you?
Fine.
I I'm calling in.
I I saw the report that Barack Obama is 72% of the people strongly approve of him.
You know, the first 100 days and from ABC News.
And what I got a hold of was the PDF file that has all of the questions they asked him, because I I couldn't believe it.
I I just, you know, I went to one of the tea parties.
Twenty-five percent of the people there were Democrat that were disapproving of the way things were going.
So I got a copy of this report from ABC News, and it's what the reporting is so misleading.
You know, if you add up, if you take a look at the numbers and you add them up, the approval rating of his programs are is less than sixty percent.
And the funniest thing was he got the highest approval rating on was the situation in Iraq.
Seventy-one percent of the people approved.
No, but this this I believe some of this because even Rasmussen today has a poll out, I forget the number, but over fifth well over fifty percent, Deb, of the American people believe in the private sector, not big government.
But he's got high approval numbers.
And the the what what people are saying, they love him personally.
People like him personally, they really don't like his policies much, but it's the like him personally that's getting him through everything.
Like him personally allows people to say, well, he doesn't really know about all this stuff that's going on.
Administrations are very big and it's it's it's not even a hundred days yet.
It's it's very hard to make him accountable.
But that's the ch that's the challenge that we all the the task that we have is to attach ownership of all this stuff to Barack Obama.
Well, when they ask the specific questions, only 51% of the people approve of the federal the federal budget deficit.
When you ask about the situation with the U.S. automakers, only 41%.
So when you take a look at what they ask, his approval ratings for specific items are actually pretty low.
On policy.
But if they the the how do you think he's doing his president?
Oh, I love the guy.
Wonderful.
What about his autopolic?
Eh, I don't like that.
But I love the guy.
He's so smart.
He's so elegant, he's so elegant.
What about his plan to save the band?
I don't know that we need the government running a show, but what about him?
I love him.
Look at you have identified why a lot of people are going insane, trying to understand the American people.
It makes me insane because it's I don't I don't and what's so interesting is my whole family basically is Democrat.
Yeah.
I don't see, but I know that that makes that makes it worse.
We're just going to have to work harder on tying all this stuff personally in an accountability responsibility way to the Messiah.
I I don't believe this.
I say that all the time these days.
Fox News is running a business alert, quoting the press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the Robert Gibbs of Party Administration, right?
Robert Gibbs, quote, I gave the administration a B plus for our first hundred days.
That's a news alert.
When somebody in the administration, the PR guy, a propaganda minister, gives the administration a B plus.
The only news is he didn't give them an A-minus.
Anyway, we're back.
Uh Rush Limbaugh here.
Fred in Cliff was it Fred in Cleveland?
Was that his name?
Fred, I want you to listen to the story coming up here in the Washington Post, as I mentioned to you, Fred, that uh, you know, when when Obama announced a loan shark website for people to go get help refinancing the mortgage, you really didn't have people like you and mine.
You're small business.
You're not looking to help small business people, Fred.
You have a bullseye on your back, is what you need to understand.
Anyone in small business, or for that matter, in corporate America, has a bullseye on their back.
You got to have your mortgage owned by Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae.
You've got to be, it's got to be a subprime mortgage.
So that the footage housing wall, point for you.
Now listen to this.
This uh this ran today in the Washington Post.
Now, this prints out to six pages, which in the newspaper probably be a pretty long story, and the interesting stuff is not till later in the story, so I don't know how many people actually are going to read enough of this to get you the dirt on it.
It's by Laurie Montgomery and V. Dion Haynes.
Gail Johnson doesn't think of herself as wealthy.
The former pediatric nurse has spent 20 years building a chain of prescruls and after-screw programs that accommodate sick children so that working parents can keep their jobs.
But like most small business owners, Johnson reports her profit on her personal tax return.
Now, at this point, I need to jump in and explain something here so that what you'll hear in a moment when I continue reading makes sense.
When I have said that a lot of small businesses are organized as subchapter S's and file their taxes on a personal return, this is what I mean.
They don't have a a C corp or a tax return specific to the business.
They just put it on their personal, if they're subchapter S. Now, if you're a subchapter S, let's say that you uh you incorporate, you know, you sell widgets and you incorporate and you you you pay yourself a salary after all the gross revenue comes in, and you pay your employees, you pay your expenses, you pay and you pay yourself.
Every dime of profit does not go to the small business owner.
Sometimes the small business owner will take it, depending on how large it is, but most small businesses churn the profit.
Um they save it, invest it, or reinvest it in the business.
And this is key to understand why these people are gonna get creamed with the upcoming Obama tax increase.
Okay.
Like most small business owners, Johnson reports her profit on her personal tax return in a typical year.
She and her husband make more than $500,000, according to her accountant, a figure that throws them squarely into the ranks of the richest Americans and makes them a prime target for the Obama Administration tax policy.
Since last year's campaign, President Obama's vowed repeatedly not to increase taxes for families earning less than $250,000 a year.
That pledge has left him with just two primary sources of funding for his ambitious agenda, about three million high earning families and the nation's businesses.
Gail Johnson with her company falls into both categories.
If Obama's tax plans, and this is where blah, blah, blah, but I'm skipping three pages here to get to the meat of this.
Gail Johnson declined to say whether she voted for Obama, but she said she ignored his tax plan, didn't pay any attention to it, until her husband, who handles real estate and construction for her scrubs, mentioned it one day.
She said, I've since talked to my accountant, and oh my gosh.
The accountant said that Gail Johnson is unlikely to owe any federal taxes this year due to accounting changes that confer a one-time tax benefit.
But in a typical year, the accountant said that Gail Johnson and her husband earn about $515,000 from various entities related to the Scruals.
They claim around $90,000 in deductions, much of it contributions to charity, reducing their taxable income to around $425,000.
Gail Johnson said that the sum they take home in wages is substantially less.
See, this is the key.
What they're paying themselves.
Ah, this, I wish more people understood this.
All of you small people, small business people sub-S, I know you know this.
But you right here it's being said their income.
No, the business income is $425.
They pay themselves a salary after all of that.
I don't know what it is.
The story that they may be paying themselves $100,000 a year, $150, but they get taxed on the $425 because they're putting on their personal return.
So they c and if if they didn't, if they if they filed a separate business tax, it'd still be the same thing as Obama's going after after both entities, as the story points out.
Now one of the reasons that uh people incorporate into a sub-s, even sole proprietorships, even one-person businesses, is precisely because, and John Edwards did this, remember he took a lot of heat for it, but it was legal.
The Medicare tax like Social Security, FICA as a ceiling on what they deduct.
Your portion is 7.5%.
But if you're self-employed, you play both pay both sides.
So you're paying basically 12 to 13% Social Security up to what, $106,000 a year now.
But Medicare is 2.9 or now 3.9% of every dollar you earn.
So people go sub-S, pay themselves a salary to limit what they pay a medicine.
This was Edwards was doing with his law firm, and then you take at the end of the year a bonus that you call capital gains or some other thing.
So you don't pay any Medicare.
This is common.
People do this.
And this is why the Obama administration is going to make some tax adjustments to eliminate people getting out of the Medicare tax.
It's it's it's just prohibitive.
It's it's adding another 4% onto your federal rate.
So if he raises it to 396 plus the Medicare is going to be 44% for people who don't, who are his sole proprietors, independent contractors who don't organize as a sub-S.
I've gotten distracted.
The point is, they the sum they take home in wages, substantially less than the business income, net income of $425.
That's the amount they pay themselves.
In a typical year, uh Don or Gail Johnson's federal tax bill will be about $120,000.
But starting in 2011, under Obama's plan, his higher marginal rates would add $13,000 a year, capping the value of itemized deductions at 28%, such as charities, would add another $10,000.
So this woman and her husband, small businesses, are looking at a tax increase every year of $23,000.
And she didn't know this When she voted for the guy.
Well, doesn't say she voted for the guy, but why why else deny it?
Or why else not mention it?
Other business owners are also nervous.
Jim Murphy, president of EST Analytical, Fairfield, Ohio, which sells analytical instruments to environmental testing labs and pharmaceuticals, said his company is struggling right now, but if profit returns to pre-recession levels, $455,000 annually, Murphy said that his accountant estimates that his tax bill will double to $120,000 because of Obama's proposals.
And he said Murphy employs 47 people.
He said the misconception is that guys like me take our profits and put it in our pockets.
But the money the company earns in a given year is used to buy additional inventory so we can grow and hire a 50% tax increase would be very painful.
And they're these small business people like Fred and Ohio in Cleveland, you got you've had a bullseye on your on your shirt on your back ever since this guy got elected.
And the idea that that you might get your mortgage refinanced?
No, you're not, you're not the target for that.
You're you you are the target to have even more money taken away from you.
This guy forty now imagine this.
He's got a business of 47 with 47 employees, and his profit, this Murphy guy, his profit was 455,000.
That's not what he pays himself.
He just said it.
The misconception is that guys like me take our profits and put on our pockets.
He pays himself something, I don't know what, doesn't say, out of the 455.
But he pays personal taxes on the 455.
Or that there is a deduction he gets from it.
However, so small business, Washington Post has it.
In the first hundred days we were talking about what great achievements.
All the wonderful things Obama's not best president we've ever had.
Oh my gosh, people can't contain themselves.
Small businesses brace for tax battle, auto business in a tank, the bank business in the tank, everybody's going to hell in a handbasket and pig flu all over.
By the way, you do not get the pig flu eating pork.
So if you're going to have hot dogs, bacon, pork chops, go ahead.
You won't get the pig flu, even if the pig is from Mexico.
You get pig fluid, you get away any other pig, a flu.
Kiss it, touch it, get it on your hands and touch your nose, your mouth, or whatever.
That's that's uh that's how you get it.
You can go ahead and eat all the pork you want.
I've just little health update here from the EIB network.
Back after this.
Somebody actually sends me a note, okay.
I thank you, Rush, because I was concerned whether and I get the pig flu from eating bacon, pork chops, uh, hot dogs or whatever.
Somebody said, What if you kiss the pig?
You know, I'd why would you want to kiss a pig?
Who in the world is kissing pigs?
In Mexico, uh, yes, the same people who lick frogs, but I didn't know there was any hallucinogenic value in kissing a pig.
Sidwell Friends, these these little stories very, very, and again, this is from PMS NBC.
I'm a little shocked and stunned by this.
When uh when uh and this is from their their pop culture entertainment uh reporter, Courtney Hazlitt.
When Chelsea Clinton was a student at Sidwell Friends Scrual, the same screw the Obama girls go to, the Clinton family's involvement with the Scrual's annual benefit brought in big bucks.
In 1996, the Clintons auctioned off a round of golf with President Clinton.
They got nearly six figures for it.
Another year, Chelsea Clinton offered up her babysitting services to the highest bidder.
This past weekend was the Obama's first chance to participate, uh, participate in the Sidwell Friends Scrual Dollars for Scholars Benefit.
Charity.
It's an auction.
And some families who remember the Clinton's support are disappointed in the Obama's first showing, according to a source with ties to Sidwell Friends, the only get this.
The only items up for bid from the Obamas were a signed copy of the Rolling Stone issue featuring the president and a signed copy of the January Vogue magazine that featured the first lady.
couldn't even give an IPO with his speech.
Can you now a charity auction to raise money for the school that their daughters go to, and they give two magazine covers, one of each of them autographed as an auction item.
One of the uh sources who knew about this said there were expectations they might donate something more personal, like the Clintons did.
Lots of people were disappointed.
A spokesperson for the Obama said, we have no comment on this.
A spokesperson for the Obama said, we have no comment on this.
I mean, doesn't it sound like there's a messianic complex here, like an autograph magazine cover of me.
Might generate a hundred grand.
Rolling stone to b yeah, DVD collection at least, uh iPod or something.
Hey, plays golf during the swine fo flu crisis, is an auction off around a golf with Obama.
Uh Janice in uh Westchester, New York.
Great to have you on the program, Janice.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Um, I want to I'm calling today to thank you very much uh for your show and your courage.
Uh you have become my educator.
I was a Democrat, I must admit, for a very long time, and then an independent, and recently um you have educated me a lot and really opened my eyes.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
Really do.
So keep up the good work.
And uh because of your show, I took to reading a lot of books, and I did read Obama's books, and I do agree with you with uh your stance that uh of his agenda and uh his underlying anger, and I think you could you can get that feel from from reading his book.
Well, it's all there.
I mean, people who've read his books are not surprised by any of this.
No, they're they shouldn't be at all.
And um, and I think that who's going to be surprised is Congress, because from reading the book, I feel that eventually I think he's gonna work to even bypass Congress in many instances in getting things done.
That's my opinion, but that's how I feel, and that's what I think there's a pattern of the He'll do that when he wants.
He's also gonna use Congress, he's gonna c he can slough off some controversial stuff to Congress so it doesn't tie to him.
Right.
He's done a couple 180s on torture memo investigations.
He first said we're not gonna look into Bush lawyers, we're not we're not we're gonna move forward, we're not gonna look past.
Then somebody talked to him that night, and the next day said, Oh, we are gonna look at it we're gonna and it all hell broke loose again.
So on a third announcement in two days, he said he's gonna turn it over to Holder.
Right.
And uh and Congress to look into it.
So I think if uh if they give him a hard time, he's just gonna bypass them.
And they they don't realize that, I don't think, at this point, personally, that's my own opinion.
But um I the also your aspect of the emotional is very important because the emotions are in the seat of the subconscious mind, and most people do not understand that when you are soliciting an emotion, you open the subconscious mind, and when once the subconscious mind is.
That's why that's you're exactly right, and that's why I am I I'm I'm not a prisoner to my subconscious, because I have no emotion.
I am dead reality based in there, total a hundred percent.
But you're all right, that's it, folks.
Another exciting excursion into broadcast excellences in the can.
Over with.
But it's uh just twenty-one hours, and we'll be back at it again.
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