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Sept. 3, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:47
September 3, 2009, Thursday, Hour #2
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Yes, America's Anchorman is away, and this is your undocumented anchor man, Mark Stein sitting in.
An overseas contingency operation that snuck across the border despite Janet Napolitano.
Waldory Williams will be here tomorrow and Rush returns next week.
At the end of the first hour, Kevin was talking about Kevin from Columbus, Ohio, said uh that this is the greatest country in the world, so that if we do a government health care system, it'll be the greatest government health care system ever known to man.
Um I think he's missing the point there.
Uh I believe this is the greatest country in the world, and I believe in American exceptionalism.
But why is America exceptional?
It's exceptional because as uh Tocville uh says somewhere two hundred years ago, uh, that the difference between the people he observed back in Europe and an American is that an Amer when an American has a problem, he doesn't wait for the state uh to do something about it.
He solves it for himself, he fixes it him himself.
The this is a great country, the greatest country, because the government doesn't do it, because you do it.
Uh and because uh you do it, uh we have a self-reliant citizenry that is more commercially dynamic, more culturally dynamic, uh, that has become the the sole superpower on the face of the earth, simply because it's not a statist uh uh morass in the in the way so many other uh uh countries are.
Uh when the government does do it, it's just as lousy as when any government does it.
Uh in fact it's even worse because it's so un American.
Uh I mean, if I want to ride on a government railway system, I'd rather ride French railways than Amtrak, because at least uh in France, uh when the government does it, that's like the core activity, so they're better at it.
When the government does it here, it's worse than other government systems.
When the government does it here, you get Amtrak, or you get those lousy VA hospitals that uh that are such a disgrace uh to America's veterans, and which are apparently going to be the model now for all hospitals under under this new system.
This is not a uh society uh where the government intrudes into spheres of activities that are best left uh to the individual.
Uh and so if Kevin really does believe this is the greatest country in the world, then he should understand exactly why.
Uh it's the greatest country in the world.
I mentioned earlier this uh this Whole Foods boycott.
I don't know whether you've been uh following this, but the CEO of Whole Foods, he um I didn't really I'm not up to speed on Whole Foods, because they don't have any in the entire state of New Hampshire.
Uh and I'm not sure they have any in any of the the the uh in Maine or Vermont either, which are the two states that border me.
So that's like uh it's it's a Whole Foods free zone there.
So I'm not that's why I always like uh coming down to New York to uh do the Rush show, because I can uh tank up on uh arugula and these other exotic things that I can't get by.
If you drive I don't know if you've ever driven north out of Boston on uh uh on I uh ninety-three, but they got a big sign uh just before you get to New Hampshire saying last arugula before the border.
So it's not it's not something I'm familiar with.
Uh so I've never been in a Whole Foods.
Uh but uh apparently H.R. um uh just uh flaunting his credentials.
I believe he actually he's been in uh he's been he's I think he said he bought a cumquat or something in a Whole Foods.
So uh he knows he knows he's familiar with the whole Whole Foods, the whole Whole Foods Ambiance.
Anyway, this the the CEO of Whole Foods wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal opposing uh President Obama's health care reform ideas, not in any crazy insane right wing way, but actually in a sort of rather practical sense, talking about his own experience uh with his emplo employees.
And immediately the left went bananas, uh organic bananas, and decided they were gonna boycott uh Whole Foods.
So like the whole uh the LA Times has got a piece today by Meghan Dorn uh uh say uh going on about the Prius driving gay marriage supporting organic crazed liberals boycotting Whole Foods.
I mentioned it at the beginning of the the show that the the Whole Foods uh crowd, the uh your whole move on dot org, your daily cost have said, we're out of here, we're going to Lard But Bur Burger, we're gonna chow down there, and to hell with Whole Foods.
Uh and uh the Conservatives, the nationwide Tea Party Coalition has now kicked off what they call a bycot in Dallas and St. Louis, where they're asking consumers, they're asking all us knuckle dragging conservatives who've never been in a whole we wouldn't know a cumquad if it fell on our head.
And what it were what is a cumquad, actually, animal, mineral, or vegetable HR.
You were pretending to be Mr. Sophisticate.
Oh, right, right.
A small fruit.
Yeah, there's lots of those in Whole Foods.
Anyway, we uh So we've established what a cumquat is now.
Anyway, the the uh the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition is organizing what they call a bycot, a bycot for cumquats, where you uh in Dallas and St. Louis to show your support for this guy, uh he's in big trouble, his lefty pals, he he's done it's the same thing has happened to Hillary when she stuck in the game against Obama.
It's the same thing that happened to Geraldine Ferraro when she questioned Obama's credentials.
The left turns on its own with a a a terrific ferocity, and so they're they're now saying, I don't care, I like the Chilean sea bass on papillot, but I don't I'm not getting it at Whole Foods, I'm out of there, uh and uh they don't want to know.
Uh and uh as uh somebody wrote on a conservative blog, if the brainwashed hemp smoking zombies of the left stop shopping there, we conservatives can fill that market whole.
And uh a left wing blogger responded once you conservatives walk into the place and don't see twinkies, you'll waddle on out.
So we 300 pounds, we 300 pound conservatives sated on Twinkies are now clogging up the aisles at Whole Foods, looking looking for where the Twinkie section is and just finding these little small fruits everywhere you look.
Small fruits.
So it's like 300 pound uh conservatives uh chowing down on Twinkies and small fruits clogging up the aisle at uh at uh at Whole Foods.
Um but the the lesson here, the lesson here is uh uh is very interesting.
Because what they object to about the CEO of Whole Foods is that he's found a free market solution uh to health care.
In other words, he doesn't need, he doesn't really need Obama to impose a a uh health care plan for three hundred million people from Maine to Hawaii, because just leaving it to him and uh he's worked out what's good for him and good for his employees.
And the left loaths that.
The left likes the one-size-fits-all uh solution that applies across the fruited plane.
The the cumquatted plane, would that be is that what the the uh they like the one-size-fits-all solution across the uh cumquated plane.
Uh and that is that is why they cannot tolerate uh dissent uh like this from the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey.
Uh and and I think that's actually what we need here.
We don't need a centralized system.
We need a thousand flowers to bloom.
Uh we need health care system that is uh restored as close as possible to market conditions.
Uh for that you don't you the the key thing to to doing that uh would be ending would be enabling portability across state lines.
It's ridiculous that uh that that there should be more restrictions on taking your health care uh from one place to another than there is in uh importing some other some entirely peripheral product in your life uh from Bangladesh or from China.
Uh so I think I think that uh that simply because he proposed uh he's not a right wing guy, he's not a conservative guy, I doubt he's ever voted Republican in his life, uh but he is he has uh come up with a situation that works for him and his company without any government interference, and the left can't stand it.
The left can't stand it.
Uh and when I say, by the way, a one-size-fits-all solution, that doesn't mean that our rulers are going to be uh are going to be enjoying the same kind of health care that you get once uh the government health care system's in place.
It'll be like it is in uh Cuba uh or in Canada or anywhere else where if you were like a big shot cabinet minister, uh you'll be able to access a higher level of health care faster uh than just uh than just Joe Schmoe in the street.
And if you and if you want to get a good idea of uh uh of how that's gonna work, uh then you should uh look at this situation with Charlie Wrangell.
He's the guy who basically presides over the tax code in Congress.
Uh And as you know, he's run into certain difficulties with uh with uh his own personal tax situation.
He had a vacation home in the Dominican Republic that he was renting out and he accidentally forgot to declare tons of income on it.
Uh but apparently his forgetfulness is uh contagious, the New York Post reports uh because uh among a two of his top aides are among a dozen highly paid staffers on the powerful tax writing ways and means committee, uh who have filed a flurry of amendments correcting their financial disclosure statements since two thousand of two.
Since two thousand and two, that's seven years ago.
Jim Cappell, the chief of staff for Charlie Wrangle's personal office, failed to file any such statements for six years.
On the afternoon of July 14th, he filed five years worth of delinquent reports.
Now these are the fellows who write tax policy in the United States.
They the people who write a tax policy preside over the tax code.
They don't observe it.
They do not observe it.
Charlie Wrangell announced uh whatever it was the other day that he wants to crack down on tax cheats.
Why doesn't he start with himself?
Uh essentially the IRS is is give giving him a pass on failure to uh report uh something like 150,000 in rental income on uh not this isn't on his Dominican Republic uh rental property, but on a couple of other properties he's got in the District of Columbia that he somehow uh uh a l a lifetime in public service has somehow enabled this guy to own properties in multiple jurisdictions uh uh across the Western Hemisphere.
Uh and when you I guess when you own that many properties and you're doing the turbo tax thing where it says uh do you own any other properties, check yes or no.
Uh I guess it's easy to forget if you own, you know, three, five, seven, nine uh tax uh different properties here, there, you know, in Washington, DC, the Dominican Republic.
Who knows uh whether you own is it seven, eight, nine, what's it up to now?
Isn't it easier just to check no, I don't own any vacation properties, no rental properties, and just get that whole thing out of the way.
So essentially Charlie Wrangell reserves the right to crack down on you if you were to answer that question uncorrectly when you're doing the turbo tax thing in April.
Uh, but he doesn't feel any obligation, and nor does the IRS, in fact, feel any obligation to punish him uh for failing to answer that question uh himself.
And this is this is what uh we would be heading for towards in health care too.
We would be having a two-tier system in which our rulers uh impose uh regulations and rules on us that they themselves do not follow.
This Charlie Wrangell thing is significant uh in the way that the Timothy Geitner thing was significant.
The Timothy Geitner thing, uh his excuse was basically, look, it's all too complicated.
Well, how who can follow this?
And so they said, Yeah, that sounds plausible.
We'll make you Treasury Secretary.
Uh now, uh if if it is all too if it is all too complicated, which I happen to think it is, the answer to s to that is to say, no, don't just give a pass to the Treasury Secretary, give a pass to all of us by simplifying the tax code.
If Charlie Wrangell is as virtuous as and is and his chief of staff and his other aides, none of whom can apparently fill in a tax return as reliably uh as a uh as a waitress who has a part-time cleaning job on the side, uh why the answer there is to is to uh say the Charlie Wrangell approach to taxation should apply to all of us.
If Charlie Wrangell doesn't think any of his multiple rental properties are any business of the federal government, we should all get that.
We should all uh be given that privilege.
But we're embarking on a very dangerous taking very dangerous steps here uh towards a world in which a privileged lifetime ruling class and it is worth asking, by the way, how a guy like Charlie Wrangell on a congressman's salary manages to accumulate quite so many quite uh as as many properties uh as it slipped his mind how he acquired most properties.
And uh it's i it's amazing what a lifetime You know, uh at the time of his overthrow, Saddam Hussein uh was, I think, the fourth wealthiest man on the planet.
This is a guy who's been in public service in Iraq since nineteen sixty two or whatever it was.
And it's impressive to me uh that uh uh evidently being Charlie Wrangle at a congressman in New York is almost as lucrative.
A lifetime in public service in New York is almost as lucrative as a lifetime of public service in Iraq.
I think that's very impressive.
But the point is we should all get the Timothy Geitner Charlie Wrangle thing.
If we take their stories at face value, as the IRS apparently is doing, that these are all innocent mistakes, then the lesson from that uh is that we should all be entitled to the Geitner Wrangell Pass.
The alternative is a world in which there the there is one set of rules for the rulers, and the rest of the time they impose ever greater restrictions, ever greater penalties, ever greater regulations on us their subjects.
And at that point, the whole 1776 thing is a waste of time, because you might as well go back to King George the Third and the window tax and all the rest of it.
It wasn't as onerous as what Charlie Wrangle's got in mind for you.
Lots more straight ahead.
1800-282-2882, Mark Stein Info-Rush.
Uh Mark Stein Inforush, uh Walter Williams here tomorrow from the Miami Herald.
From the Miami Herald.
A slice of 7.5 million dollars in federal stimulus money is being offered to help homeless sex offenders and predators living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami to cover rent housing and utilities.
I don't I didn't know they were living there.
Apparently it's like uh sex offender central.
If you're looking, if you're in the greater Miami era and you're looking for a sex offender, they're all under the Julia Tuttle causeway.
I mean, it's great, isn't it?
If you're Julia Tuttle, they name this causeway after you, and it becomes it becomes a home for sex offenders.
Uh as I understand the story, one reason why we need to spend stimulus dollars on housing sex offenders is because everybody's passed these laws now saying you can't have sex offenders within so many yards of a school.
So the the pool of available uh housing uh for sex offenders is um very limited unless they all move in uh to John Edwards' big fancy pad with its like fantastic long driveway.
You need a driveway John Edwards' length to be basically to be that far from a school house anywhere in America.
So we're spending uh we're gonna spend all the federal dollars now to rehouse the sex offenders uh under the ju uh under the ju Julia Tuttle causeway.
Uh going back to this Charlie Wrangle story and all the stuff he hasn't paid taxes, he neglected to disclose a checking account with a Congressional Federal Credit Unit, one with Merrill Lynch, each value between uh a quarter and half a million dollars, tens of thousands of dollars he's earning from dividends, and the money made from the sale of a Harlem uh townhouse.
Uh also the below market rents on four Harlem apartments, four Harlem apartments, he's got two properties in D. Failing to report income from a Florida condominium sale and failing to pay taxes on a home in the Dominican Republic.
He basically, as far as I can tell from his uh turbo tax income tax return, he basically filled out the name and address and then cut to the do you have any any more to disclose question and was then out of here.
We'd all love a tax return like that.
That's like that's like the one-page tax return that all civilized societies should have.
But you but the point I was making is that amazingly, this uh this congressman of modest means has uh not only is uh he's got four apartments in Harlem, he's got a Florida condominium, he's got a home in the Dominican Republic,
he's got two properties in Washington, D.C. Why couldn't, as he uh has somehow become one of the biggest property owners in the land, why couldn't we uh house all the sex offenders under the Julia Tuttle causeway in Miami in Charlie Wrangell's uh rental properties and solve two uh two birds with one stone.
Uh basically it doesn't make any difference to the IRS because whatever they'd be paying him in rent, he wouldn't declare anyhow.
So uh so there would be uh there's nothing there's no it'd it'd be a net wash in terms of uh of terms of the Federal Treasury.
Um but but the it gets absolutely to the heart of what it means uh to be a a free uh citizen in a democratic republic.
The minimum thing you demand of such a republic is that the rulers live by the same laws they impose on the rest of us.
And right now Charlie Wrangle is the poster child uh for a man who uh looks at office uh basically as a giant cash cow uh and and uh as someone who imposes laws on you and me, the little people, uh, but that he does not himself uh have to live by.
And that is fundamentally un-American.
Needless to say, uh he said that criticism of Obama's health care policy is uh racist, and no doubt complaining that he didn't uh declare uh pay taxes on his vacation home in the Dominican Republic and his two properties in Washington, D.C. and his four Harlem apartments and all the rest of it.
No doubt that's also racist too.
1-800-282-2882, Mark Stein Inforush on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Hey, great to be with you.
Uh the terrific Dr. Walter E. Williams returns to the EIB microphone uh tomorrow, and Rush will be back uh all next week.
Let's go to Stephen in Boulder, Colorado.
Stephen, thanks for waiting.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Great to have you with us.
Hey Mark, how are you doing today?
I'm d I'm doing good.
How are you?
Good.
Um I had two high school students, so I was sort of interested in the president's back to school message.
I went to the local uh Boulder Valley superintendent's office to find out about it, and they steered me to the White House.gov website.
Right.
Okay.
On the White House.gov website, there's a section called Classroom Engagement Resources, and it says menu of classroom activities for students to stimulate discussion on the importance of education and students' lives.
There's two versions, one for from K to sixth grade, one from seven to twelve.
Now, what bothered me is the seven to twelve.
Um these high school students are going to be voters in three years.
In the document, which is four pages, there's a section called after the speech.
And it has nine bullet points for a guided discussion.
Not one of the bullet points asks how you're going to improve your grades or how you're going to do better in school, but they do ask silly things like what are the three most important words in the speech rank them.
What are the three most important words in Obama's speech, and you have to put them in order?
Is our children learning, as the pres former president would have said.
So so the so the test here, the test is you name the three most important words in Obama's speech, and you're but it's not that simple.
You just got you've got to break them up in so like if you think the three most important words in his speech are that's all folks, you have to say whether folks is more important than that, uh, or whether all which you did have in number three position has uh m become through in the swimsuit round and actually should be number one.
That's the exercise, is it?
Absolutely.
I mean, this is polling the students.
There's another one.
Suppose President Obama were to give another speech to whom would he speak, why, and what would the President say?
That's advice that's that that's right.
That's a Frank Lunt's focus group.
People but people would pay good money for that.
So what they're basically doing is that by the way, is this for the K six or the 712?
The these are seven twelve.
Right.
This is a seven twelve.
And it's interesting.
The seven twelve is a four-page document where the K six is only two.
Right.
So he's he's now said as you say, these people are gonna be in the voting booths either in the 2010 uh election or 2012.
So he's prepping them now.
He's saying, what are the three what are the three most important words in the speech um which is a toughie, because it's like easy.
Number one hope, number two change.
What's what's Obama's third word?
Who who knows?
Yeah, more no, a government option.
That doesn't play so well.
Uh but uh th the idea is that you have to rank these words and then recommend what Obama should say in his next speech, and then he'll swing by your classroom and say it to you, basic basically.
That is uh that is the most uh uh preposterous thing I've I've uh uh I've I've ever heard.
I mean, you know, I was mentioning uh I mentioned back at the the top of the show that I'd been in these uh schoolhouses in Iraq where they'd just taken down all the big portraits of Saddam that had been in every classroom.
And I remember this was in Ramadi uh at a schoolhouse in Ramadi going in there and uh a little kid showing me his book.
Uh and uh the the school book was uh like full of the personality cult of uh Saddam Hussein.
It was interesting.
He'd done what all like seven-year-old, nine-year-olds, whatever he was done, uh what I did at that age.
He'd done little doodles and scribbles in the margin and defaced, he'd he'd done mustaches uh on uh on people's faces and everything.
The one thing that was undefaced in that book were all the pictures of Saddam uh of Saddam uh Hussein.
Uh a school principal had on his desk a big stack of frames where he'd had to take he'd take he'd done what the debathification thing, he'd uh taken down all the portraits of Saddam, and he had this big pile of empty frames on the desk, stacked up on his desk, and nothing and nothing to put in them.
Uh and uh I was shown a first grade reader in Iraq.
They have uh these fellows who are like uh I guess I don't know, what what were they called here?
Dick and Jane in America, fun with Dick and Jane or whatever it was.
Uh they were called Hassan and Amal in the Iraqi ones.
Uh and they explained the benefits of an Iraqi education and why Iraqi education was important.
And I wrote down this one uh section from it.
It's like, oh, come, Hassan, says Amal.
Let us chant for the homeland and use our pens to write, oh beloved Saddam.
And Hassan replies, I come, Amal.
I come in a hurry to chant, oh Saddam, our courageous.
We are all soldiers defending the borders for you, carrying weapons and marching to success.
Now I'm sure there were a few misgivings when they said uh Saddam Hussein originally proposed, well, look, I it's not it's not going to be a partisan thing.
I'm just gonna generally encourage the kids to get fired up about education.
But where it ends in the conflation of the state and the leader, uh, I think is just entirely improper in in a in a civilized, advanced society.
There have been forty-four presidents of the United States.
Uh this is the first one who who feels the need to insert himself into grade school classrooms uh and then invite children to pick the three most important words from his um words from his speeches.
This is there is simply uh there is simply no need for this.
There's the idea that this is educative value, uh that somehow the the deadbeat at the back, the leader of the pack who's lying there at the back of the class sprawled there in his Marlon Brando leather jacket uh singing uh he's proud to be a juvenile delinquent, uh, is suddenly going to be inspired by being invited to pick his three favorite words in the president's speech is completely preposterous.
We should be teaching we should be teaching our children history, we should be teaching them languages, we should be teaching them science, we should not be teaching them to deconstruct President Obama's speech.
What's the point?
He'll be giving another one twenty minutes later.
That's all he does.
That's all he does.
He doesn't need why don't why doesn't he ask the kids if he's gonna insert himself into every grade school classroom?
Why doesn't he ask the kids, hey, hey kids, what would you like me to do apart from give speeches?
Uh why doesn't he try that?
Uh what what what could I do?
What speech would you like me not to give?
What speech have you heard all before?
What what words have you heard in every single Obama speech since I first appeared on the national scene?
How many times do you think I should use the word hope in my next speech?
These are all these would all be lessons of enormous educative value.
This is what we should be teaching uh our school children.
Uh the what we have here is something uh that is not obviously I'm not saying I'm not comparing President Obama to Saddam Hussein, but I am saying uh that the cult of personality at grade school level is a phenomenon of non-functioning, non-democratic, non-free societies, and it should have no place here.
Look, I don't mind I got nothing against the uh the I don't mind if you go uh when I cross the when I sneak in uh to the country illegally to do the Rush Limbaugh show, I come across the border post at Derby Line Vermont.
And they got a big picture in there of President Obama and a big picture of Vice President Biden.
Uh and every time I see that picture of Vice President Biden on the wall, I can't I'm oftentimes I'm laughing so much, I uh I I I'm basically at risk of being carded off to Gitmo for disrespect to the Vice President.
But I don't really mind if you gotta have uh the cult of personality, stick the picture of the president and the vice president at the border posts as you come into the country, and that's it.
That's it.
It shouldn't be like Jordan, it shouldn't be like Iraq, uh it shouldn't be like third world basket cases, uh, where the president inserts himself into into grade school education.
Uh and the idea that somehow it has educational value asking children to pick their favorite words, the three most important words and rank them in order of uh uh uh uh in an Obama speech is preposterous.
As I said, the only words that matter are that's all folks.
One, that's two, all three folks.
And I would encourage every grade school child in America to enter that as the answer for question.
It'll destroy your life, they'll fail you, you'll be expelled, you'll you'll wind up sleeping under a bridge with those sex offenders in Miami.
It'll ruin your life.
But you will have stood up for yourself and say I will not be propagandized uh by this uh by by this thin, boring celebrity president who isn't interesting enough to give a hundred and eleven speeches every uh on health care every twenty minutes.
Uh do it, do it for America.
Do it for yourself, and even if you end up under the Julia Tuttle causeway in Miami, you'll feel better about yourself.
Mark Stein, Infrarush on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Uh Mark Stein in for Rush on the Rush Limbo Show live, live from under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami.
Let us go to uh Chad in uh in Franklin, Tennessee.
Chad has been uh hanging on uh a long time.
He's a hanging Chad.
He's a hanging Chad.
Thanks for waiting, Chad, and uh great to have you with us on the Rush Limbaugh show.
No no problem.
Got enough time to find unfightly here while I was on the phone.
So anyway, here we go.
Um I have been um I I've been on in healthcare industry for a couple of years.
Um you know, I'm not intimately and not an expert at at at everything, but did work c closely with patient accounting and and whatnot.
And one of the one of the things that I've got uh an issue with um i i with republic with with the Republican leadership at this point is they have an opportunity to drive a nail in the coffin of all health care debate from here on until way into the future.
And uh they're they're doing not a whole they're not doing a whole lot other than just you know, nodding their head to the uh with the folks that you know really don't want government health care.
So that that's that that's doing nothing but rein you know, kind of reinstilling the uh you know the base that does not want health care, but it's not saying a whole lot to the people who are on the Well well, wait a minute, wait wait a minute, Chad.
I think that is one reason why uh Obama is in such trouble.
Uh b because uh I think Laura Ingram said this on Fox uh news last last night that she said, uh look, the uh the Republican Party doesn't have a leader at the moment and it's doing better than it's done in years.
Uh uh what is what has been successful on the health care front is that the usual trimmers and accommodationists, uh your John your John McCain's uh and all the rest of them, uh have and your Lindsey Graham's and all the rest of them, they have not driven this debate.
The dri the the debate has been driven by differences on the democratic side on on the one hand and by the Tea Party uh movement and the grassroots and the town halls and all the rest of it uh on the other.
Now, uh are you suggesting that uh at some point the mainstream Republican accommodationists will get into this thing and then suddenly we'll have one of those reach across the aisle moments where they decide to basically uh give uh give President Obama two-thirds of what he wants.
Uh potentially.
I mean, basically you you've got you already have the um uh the makings of the Democrats rolling back some of the the more um uh uh some of the larger pieces of the puzzle that that a lot of people don't like.
And the the portion the the problem is it's it's no matter what will happen if if health if their version, any version of their health care reform is is passed, it's it's simply a foot in the door.
So what what has to happen in my opinion Is once the Democrats come up with a you know, okay, here's here's a less harmful bill that that we might be able to shove through a little more easily, what the Republicans need to do at this point is uh identify what the what the issues are with health care that's driving the costs up.
That you know, again, with my experience in in the patient accounting thing uh business, and and I'll relate it to the the the cash for clunkers piece, you know, you've got a um you've got a program that people you know bought into but the uh and and people wanted to take part of, but now what you've left with is thousands of dealers stuck with with huge bills of of of um these credits.
Well what just just go back to health care for a minute then.
When you say what what is driving costs?
I mean to my to my mind, what is driving costs?
There's certain there's certain issues here.
You have certain parties involved in health care that uh by their nature add to their costs.
So uh, for example, you have government, you have insurers, and you have uh lawyers in terms of medical malpractice suits.
Now, if if uh if it was uh uh otherwise a straight commercial transaction, like going and buying half a pound of tomatoes uh at the grocery store, uh you where those factors do not come into play, that would that would make it significantly cheaper.
But in other words, it i it's uh it's it's the the cost, the the cost uh element in this is not driven by the cost of mending your broken leg or or sewing on this guy's finger over in Los Angeles.
The cost is driven by these uh additional players who insert themselves into health care.
But to to some extent, but again, the point is that you've got your there's there's two big issues that that need to be addressed in my in my opinion.
You've got um well when somebody does go and get their finger sewn on, you know, maybe that costs five thousand dollars.
I don't know.
I don't think it costs five thousand dollars to sew a finger on, by the way.
But we don't know because there's no market.
You can't put a market price on finger sewing in the United States.
Let's say that it did cost five thousand because you're you're over in uh in one of the northeastern states uh that can't control anything.
But so you've got you've got an issue that you could get a finger sewed on in New Hampshire for less than five thousand dollars.
I'm not gonna demonstrate it now, but I'm I uh uh maybe ten minutes before the end of the show.
But uh but uh you can get a finger sewn on uh for less than five thousand dollars.
But but uh let's take let's leave that aside because as you say, there's no basically no market price uh on what it costs to get a finger done.
So so carry on.
Whatever it does cost, effectively whoever whoever uh the patient is is m more than likely not going to have the cash, which is on them, which is one of the major issues, not going to have the the cash on hand to pay for that.
Uh, yes, but when you go when you go to buy a car, when you go to buy a car for twenty thousand dollars, most people don't walk into the showroom with twenty thousand dollars.
We find a way to when you buy a home for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, most people they they don't they don't walk in uh to the real estate office and write out a ch a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
There are throughout uh life, uh there are big ticket purchases.
And by the way, that's I'm not even talking about homes and cars now, but if you stand behind someone at Radio Shack and watch them buy some uh you know fancy little radio or whatever, uh th they they will be doing that on an instalment plan.
The idea that simply because uh these are large sums of money to produce in uh in ten dollar bills out of your pocket uh at the point of sale is a reason to get the government involved in them.
I I don't think I don't think is correct.
But but but but but let's take uh let's take Chad's broader point, by the way.
Why why is it a good idea for the Republic that the Republican Party hasn't shown leadership on this?
It's precisely because there are differences of opinion.
There are all these wealthy people earning over 75,000 who don't want to be insured.
There are all these young people who don't want to be insured.
So the Republican Party does it would not benefit the Republican Party to become the party of the insurance system, because there are all kinds of people out of this country uh over this country who, as a matter of free choice, opt out of the insurance system.
Uh and we we should say, let as uh as I said earlier, let a thousand flowers bloom.
Let people devise the health care system uh and the health care Provision that's right for them.
And there will be multiple types and they will vary greatly between Florida and Alaska.
But that's what's great about America.
It's a federal nation with different jurisdictions that do things differently.
One size fits all will not work.
Mark Stein Inforush, more straight ahead.
By the way, I mentioned that $150,000 in undeclared rental income.
That actually wasn't Charlie Wrangle himself.
That was George Daly, who is Charlie Wrangle's legal counsel.
So obviously, legal counsel for the Ways and Mains Committee wouldn't know anything about paying taxes.
You can't tell the non-taxpayers without a scorecard, folks.
Mark Stein Inforush on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Walter Williams will be here tomorrow, and Rush returns next week.
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