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April 27, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:35
April 27, 2009, Monday, Hour #3
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A man, a legend, a way of life.
I am Rush Lindbaugh, America's real anchorman, America's truth detector, and the doctor of democracy.
All combined to one harmless, lovable little fuzzball.
Full hour of broadcast excellence straight ahead.
If you are just joining us, we've had two calls so far from this program, 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, makingaHome 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, making homeaffordable.gov.
And the next thing they knew, they were solicited by law firms who in one case wanted $2,000, 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 announce 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 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 bucks.
This 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 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, I have a story here coming up, and it's in the Washington Post about this happening to small business people.
Their tax bite just skyrocketing.
But at any rate, let's go listen to Obama.
We have two soundbites here where he announced the Loan Shark website.
There are 7 to 9 million people across the country who right now could be taking advantage of lower mortgage rates.
We estimate that the average family can get anywhere from $1,600 to $2,000 a year in savings by taking advantage of these various mortgage programs that have been put in place.
You can go to makinghomeaffordable.gov, makinghomeaffordable.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 for one of these mortgage refinancings.
Now, we do have to, there's one thing 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, look, I'm saying this just to cover a possibility, but if you have, if you're the government, you start a website called makinghomeaffordable.gov, and there's somebody acting fast out there, and they say they're going to have a website, makinghomesaffordable.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 this we don't know because by now, I mean, if there was some shark that tried a website very close to makinghomeaffordable.gov, like makinghomesaffordable.gov, I'm sure it's been shut down by now.
White House would have learned about it.
We think, I don't know.
But I'm just mentioning this as a possibility.
All I know is that several 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.
But anyway, leaving aside that as a possibility, let's just assume these people actually got hold of the Obama website, the Loan Shark website, makinghomeaffordable.gov, and they plugged in all the information and somebody was going to 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 they help you with your refinancing, it's probably a scam.
So take advantage of makinghomeaffordable.gov, and that will allow you to figure out exactly how to proceed on this in a way that's making you money, saving you money, as opposed to costing you money.
Now, here 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 is asking you for money up front before they help you with your 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 the two cases that we heard about from these two callers, nobody asked for money up front.
They lied.
The one guy never sent in his $2,700.
The guy from Cleveland was told, we're not going to 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, 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 ain't not going to put up with this.
Obama's going to fix this.
This is not what he was.
Yeah.
And you know how he's going to do it?
Appoint another czar.
Appoint a czar to investigate makinghomeaffordable.gov, which is essentially what, if our two calls today are accurate, you're going to be investigating Shylock law firms.
Now, he's going to need an investigator for this.
He's going to need a new czar to head up.
Now, note, conducting the investigation, looking into what went wrong, is not going to get poor old Fred in Cleveland his mortgage reduced.
None of the steps to find out how this atrocity is happening will fix the problem just to 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.
Had a little problem there with the wife during the campaign.
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 makinghomeaffordable.gov.
What do you think about that?
All right, so if you go to makinghomeaffordable.gov to refinance your mortgage, it says there that your mortgage has to be owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or 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 it's only 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 to 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 who are having so much trouble in their mortgage.
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 up on PMS NBC.
It was on Henry Mitchell.
Anything else on anything on the 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 graphic 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 Opt.
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, El Rushbo, 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 100?
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.
I thought that's so unfortunate, poor Obama.
Torture and the swine flu are standing in the way of Obama getting out the great messages, 1st 100 days of achievement and accomplishment.
Try this headline.
This is a Boston Globe.
I saw this today.
I just laughed.
Eric Holder tours historic torture site in London.
Yes, I'm incredulous because about 5 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 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 fare 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.
600 years ago, he went to the Tower of London 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 the 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 at the Tower.
I've been there.
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.
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 on 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.
Back to the phones, Topeka, Kansas.
This is Debbie.
Debbie, nice to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hello.
How are you?
Fine.
I'm calling in.
I saw the report that Barack Obama is 72% of the people strongly approve of him, you know, the first 100 days 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 couldn't believe it.
I just, you know, I went to one of the tea parties.
25% of the people there were Democrat that were disapproving of the way things were going.
So I've 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 is less than 60%.
And the funniest thing that he got the highest approval rating on was the situation in Iraq.
71% of the people approved.
No, but I believe some of this because even Rasmussen today has a poll out.
I forget the number.
Well over 50% Deb of the American people believe in the private sector, not big government.
But he's got high approval numbers.
And what people are saying, they love him personally.
People like him personally.
They really don't like his policies much.
But it's to 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.
It's not even 100 days yet.
It's very hard to make him accountable.
But that's the challenge that we all, 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 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, how do you think he's doing as president?
Oh, I love the guy.
Wonderful.
What about his auto policy?
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 bank?
I don't know that we need the government running a show, but what about him?
I love him.
I love the guy.
Look, you have identified why a lot of people are going insane, trying to understand the American people.
It makes me insane because what's really interesting is my whole family basically is Democrat.
Yeah.
I know 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 don't believe this.
And I say that all the time these days.
Fox News is running a business alert, quoting the press secretary Robert Gibbs, the Robert Gibbs and party administration, right?
Robert Gibbs, quote, I gave the administration a B-plus for our first 100 days.
That's a news alert.
When somebody in the administration, the PR guy, the propaganda minister, gives the administration a B-plus, the only news is he didn't give them an A-.
Anyway, we're back.
Rush Limbaugh here.
Was it Fred in Cleveland?
Was that his name?
Fred, I want you to listen to this story coming up here in the Washington Post because I mentioned to you, Fred, that When Obama announced the loan shark website for people to go get help refinancing the mortgage, he really didn't have people like you and my, 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.
Anybody 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.
It's got to be a subprime mortgage so that the affordable housing will point for you.
Morning.
Now listen to this.
This ram today in the Washington Post.
Now, this prints out to six pages, which in the newspaper will 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 are actually going to read enough of this to get you the dirt on it.
It's by Lori Montgomery and V. Deion Haynes.
Gail Johnson doesn't think of herself as wealthy.
The former pediatric nurse has spent 20 years building a chain of pre-scruels and after-scruel 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 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 incorporate, you know, you sell widgets and you incorporate, and you pay yourself a salary after all the gross revenue comes in, then you pay your employees, you pay your expenses, 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.
They save it, invest it, or reinvest it in the business.
And this is key to understand why these people are going to 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 3 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 scruples, 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 screws.
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.
And see, this is what they're paying themselves.
I wish more people understood this.
All of you small people, small business people, sub-S's, I know you know this, but you're right here it's being said their income, no, the business income is $425,000.
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, $150,000, but they get taxed on the $425 because they're putting on their personal return.
And if they didn't, if they filed a separate business tax, it'd still be the same thing as Obama's going after both entities, as the story points out.
Now, one of the reasons that 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 has a ceiling on what they deduct.
Your portion is 7.5%.
But if you're self-employed, you 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 Medicare.
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.
It's not taxed as real income.
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 just prohibitive.
It's adding another 4% onto your federal rate.
So if he raises it to $39.6, plus the Medicare is going to be 44% for people who don't, who are sole proprietors, independent contractors who don't organize as a sub-S.
Now, I've gotten distracted.
The point is, the sum they take home in wages, substantially less than the business income, net income of $425,000.
That's the amount they pay themselves.
In a typical year, Dawn, 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, it doesn't say she voted for the guy, but 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.
It'd be very pay.
And these small business people like Fred in Cleveland, you've had a bullseye on your shirt, on your back, ever since this guy got elected.
And the idea that you might get your mortgage refinanced, no, you're not the target for that.
You are the target to have even more money taken away from you.
This guy with 40, 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 in our pockets.
He pays himself something, I don't know what, doesn't say, out of the $455,000.
But he pays personal taxes on the $455,000.
Or there is a deduction he gets from it.
However, so small business, Washington Post has it.
In the first hundred days, we're talking about what great achievements, all the wonderful things Obama's talking.
He's the best president we've ever had.
Oh my gosh, people can't contain themselves.
Small business is braced for tax battle.
The auto business in the tank.
The bank business in the tank.
Everybody's going to hell in a handbasket.
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 that way, even if the pig is from Mexico.
You get pig flu, and 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 how you get it.
You can go ahead and eat all the pork you want.
Just a 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 or not I get the pig flu from eating bacon, pork, chops, hot dogs, or whatever.
Somebody said, What if you kiss the pig?
You know, why would you want to kiss a pig?
Who in the world is kissing pigs in Mexico?
Ah, yes, the same people who lick frogs, but I didn't know there was any hallucinogenic value in kissing a pig.
Sidwell Friends, these little stories, very, very, and again, this is from PMS NBC.
I'm a little shocked and stunned by this.
And this is from their pop culture entertainment reporter, Courtney Hazlett.
When Chelsea Clinton was a student at Sidwell Friends Scrule, the same scruple the Obama girls go to, the Clinton family's involvement with the Scruel'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 in the Sidwell Friends Scruel Dollars for Scholars Benefit.
Charity.
It's an auction.
And some families who remember the Clintons support are disappointed In the Obama's first showing, according to a source with ties to Sidwell friends, 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.
My goodness, couldn't he even give an iPod 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 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's said, we have no comment on this.
I mean, doesn't it sound like there's a messianic complex here?
Like an autographed magazine cover of me might generate a hundred grand?
Rolling Stone to DVD collection at least, iPod or something.
Hey, plays golf during the swine flu crisis.
He's on auction off a round of golf with Obama.
Janice in Westchester, New York.
Great to have you on the program, Janice.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
I want to, I'm calling today to thank you very much for your show and your courage.
You have become my educator.
I was a Democrat, I must admit, for a very long time, and then an independent.
And recently, 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 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 your stance of his agenda and his underlying anger.
And I think you can get that feel from reading his books.
Well, it's all there.
I mean, people who've read his books are not surprised by any of this.
No, they shouldn't be at all.
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 going to 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.
He'll do that when he wants.
He's also going to use Congress.
He's going to slough off some controversial stuff to Congress so it doesn't tie to him.
He's done a couple 180s on torture memo investigations.
He first said, we're not going to look into Bush lawyers.
We're going to move forward.
We're not going to look past.
Then somebody talked to him that night, and the next day said, yeah, we are going to look at.
And it all hell broke loose again.
So on the third announcement in two days, he said he's going to turn it over to Holder.
Right.
And Congress to look into it.
Right.
But I think if they gave him a hard time, he's just going to bypass them.
I mean, they don't realize that, I don't think, at this point, personally, that's my own opinion.
But 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 once the subconscious mind is not.
You're exactly right.
And that's why I am, I'm not a prisoner to my subconscious because I have no emotion.
I am dead reality based in there.
Total 100%.
But you're all right.
That's it, folks.
Another exciting excursion into Broadcast Excellences in the can.
Fini, total la completa over with.
But it's just 21 hours, and we'll be back at it again.
Thanks for being with us.
Look forward to you tomorrow.
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