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Nov. 30, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:35
November 30, 2010, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Yeah, I'm gonna get to that.
I can't do everything in the uh in two hours, uh snertly.
Yeah, jobless aid.
A jobless aid loss could choke economic growth.
You heard right, folks.
If we don't extend unemployment benefits, there might not be Christmas.
Because there might not be a country.
I have it here on good authority from the Associated Press.
And details are coming up.
Great to have you, Rush Linball, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, 800 28282, the email address L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
Obama has uh has appointed the Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner and the budget director Jack Lew to work with Congressional Republicans and Democrats to come up with a deal on taxes in the next couple of days.
Now there's the sissy right there.
There's Assange.
Look at that.
Look at that picture of him there on Fox.
Little twerp.
How's that?
Is that better?
Well, we're differing the names, little variety uh in there.
They say here unemployment benefits are the best way to Joe Grobb grow jobs.
That's what Nancy Pelosi's point was.
Yeah, because that creates economic activity.
Well, that's what I said.
This stop working and everybody live on benefits and then get out of the way for uh for economic growth.
Anyway, Obama has appointed Tim Geitner and the budget director, Jack Lew, to work with Congressional Republicans and Democrats to come up with a new deal on taxes in the next couple of days.
Now imagine having the nation's taxes in the hands of a guy who couldn't even figure out turbo tax.
That's our Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner, the tax cheat.
And that little twerp, I mean, there's another one, and he's he's in charge now of dealing with the Republicans and Democrats on the Bush tax cut uh extension controversy.
Let's go to the audio sound bites.
I uh told you about this.
After the meeting with Obama in Washington, Congressional Republican leaders spoke about the meeting.
Here's Eric Cantor.
I was pleased on a number of accounts.
Uh first, uh that the president did recognize uh that uh the election meant that the people want to see results out of Washington.
And I think you've heard now a process being put into place that hopefully we can begin to produce in those results first and foremost, take away the uncertainty around the tax hikes uh rates that exist right now.
Secondly, I was uh encouraged by the president's uh remarks regarding uh his uh perhaps not having reached out enough uh to us uh in in the last session, and that this meeting was the beginning of a series uh in which he hoped that we could work together in a different fashion for the benefit of the American people given the problems that we face.
Well, I uh gonna sit here and I'm gonna just I'm I'm gonna zip my cynicism.
You know I'm just gonna zip it.
I'll just I'm just gonna wait.
I'm I just gonna wait for what I know is coming to come.
You all know how you don't need me to analyze this.
So this is no different.
Yeah, it's like a State Department press conference.
I'm gonna look okay.
So the Republicans Obama told a Republicans, yeah, I realize you guys won, and uh, yeah, we're gonna have to work together now, and I'm looking forward to that.
Um and so this is the beginning of a series in which the president hoped that we could work together in a different fashion now.
Um we can compromise.
Okay, here's here's John Boehner.
And uh the the tone here, I guess it's if to say is conciliatory, and uh Boehner, I continued it, I think.
Let's listen uh together.
I agree that uh uh the president did make an important point that Eric mentioned uh that uh they had to spend as much time with us uh reaching out and talking to us and committed to do so.
And as I told the president, I think the spending more time will help us find some common ground.
There's a reason why we have Democrats and Republicans.
Uh we believe in different things about the appropriate role of federal government.
Uh but having said that, uh, the more time that we do spend together, we can't find the common ground because the American people expect us to come here and work on their behalf.
Okay.
Uh the Just trying to remember what the Tea Party people thought they were getting with this win and what they said prior to it that they wanted.
And I just don't remember this.
Now I, you know, I could have been playing golf that day.
I I don't remember the Tea Party saying, damn it, you guys compromise and work together.
They want to see you all get along.
For us.
I apparently been laboring here on a total um misunderstanding.
I thought that the Tea Party wanted Obama stopped.
Here's Obama.
Uh after the meeting.
I appointed my Treasury Secretary, Tim Geitner, and my budget director, Jack Lou, to work with representatives of both parties to break through this log jam.
I've asked the leaders to appoint members to help in this negotiation process.
They agreed to do that.
That process is beginning right away.
And we expect uh to get some answers back over the next couple of days about how we can accomplish our key goal, which is to make sure the economy continues to grow and we are putting people back to work.
Uh and we also want to make sure that we're giving the middle class the peace of mind of knowing that their taxes will not be raised come January 1st.
Yeah, boy, I love all the compromise I'm hearing in there.
Let's just have another committee.
If you want something to die, do it, you know, point a committee.
If you want to bring something to a screeching halt, appoint a committee, and then start talking about negotiations.
He never abandons his talking points.
He never I mean, he has to get it in there.
There ain't gonna be anything other than continued tax cuts for the middle class.
Stays on point with his talking points.
Here's more of Obama.
There are real philosophical differences.
And although the atmosphere in the today's meeting was extremely civil, uh, there's no doubt that those differences are going to remain uh no matter how many meetings we have.
Uh and the truth is there's always going to be uh a political incentive against working together, uh particularly in the current hyperpartisan climate.
There are always those who argue that the best strategy is simply to try to defeat your opposition instead of working with them.
And and frankly, even the notion of bipartisanship itself has gotten caught up in this mentality.
But I think there was recognition today that that's a game that we can't afford.
Oh my god.
I am literally gonna get sick here.
Ha!
Literally gonna puke.
Uh bipartisan.
Who who is the author of all of this lack of bipartisanship?
Whose mentality is it to defeat your opponents?
That's mine.
That's what I have been suggesting.
I'm the hyperpartisan here, I guess.
My strategy has been wipe them out.
And that's what the election meant.
Wipe them out.
They were wiped out.
That wasn't I didn't see civility on the ballot box or on the on the ballot.
Oh, geez.
Okay, that's it.
Look at...
See where this is headed.
See what you...
Well uh no, I'll hold out hope that this is just a bunch of BS Republican sumption that the real stuff's gonna go on.
I we gotta deal with what is.
I mean.
What is my gut say?
Well, my gut can only react to what I heard here, and words are just words.
I I don't um I just uh I what what what part of hell no did the Republicans not understand?
What?
It's just two words, H E L L space and oh.
What is hard to understand about that?
Let's go to this uh last.
I know you can't listen to Rush Limball get things done around here.
That's right.
There's always those who argue the best strategy is simply to defeat your opposition that are working.
Well, that's me.
Frankly, even a notion of bipartisanship itself has gotten caught up in this mentality.
Me.
But I think there was recognition today that that's a game we can't afford.
So I guess Obama thinks that uh the only thing that's significant to happen here is that I got thrown under the bus in the meeting.
Not by name, but nevertheless, I got thrown into the bus.
Everybody's talking about how civil it was and political incentive.
Obama reached out to us.
He's really uh he heard us, uh really wants to uh spend more time helping us uh find common ground.
Uh uh he acknowledged he hasn't spent as much time uh with us reaching out and talking to us and come and comfy better, I would say that we had somehow tuned into the Oprah show.
But I know that that's uh that's not what happened.
Okay, to the phones we go to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Aaron, nice to have you on the phone with us today, sir.
Hello.
Good afternoon, Rush.
I was uh just driving down the road here listening to those comments from uh Eric Cantor and uh John Boehner and I just wanted to pull off the road and kick the proverbial tire here.
We're uh I I can't even believe they had a meeting with this guy.
He's uh he you know, Obama is clearly way off in left field, and I don't know why our our illustrious leaders in uh the republic Republican Party feel that it's necessary to even sit down with the table of this guy.
I you know, it's it we're not gonna get anywhere else.
The reason no no no no no no wait a minute now.
The reason is that they're still the big minority.
This is a lame duck.
The Democrats still run the show.
Sure.
And so they've they've it's it's uh they may have to sit down with him, but uh it it the whole the what I what I heard was here, you know what, he really likes us.
He really likes us.
And he said he'll see us again.
He really likes us.
I thought, is this the epidemic awards of Sally Field somehow come back to be a Republican?
Absolutely, Rush.
And you know, I I sit there and I'm thinking, you know, you know, I think it would be a much more telling uh you know story if we you know, if our Republican leaders and those we elected, you know, those of us Tea Party members, if he if we just put our foot down and said, you know what, we're not gonna even come to the table with these guys because they are completely off the racker.
Well, again, they want to get this done.
They've got to get this done before, you know, the the um uh the the tax cuts expire December 31st.
This is not something they can put off until January.
No, this is true.
So, you know, they then they've got to get Obama to go along with this.
And they've obviously concluded the best way to do it is with honey.
And and what you want is for them, if they have a meeting, to remind, look, pal, uh we won.
That's what you told us two years ago.
We won.
It's looking even worse for you in 2012.
The American people want these tax rates extended.
Now we don't know that that didn't happen in the meeting.
All we know is the way it's being characterized by these guys afterwards.
So we've got to wait.
We don't really know what happened in there.
We only know what they're what they're saying now.
And they're saying what they're saying is they want the media to love them.
Uh they they want uh uh obviously there to be no appearance of conflict or or partisanship or that for what's that that's their that's their strategy here.
But I mean they can't they can't say screw you, we're not meeting with you.
Either do it or not, because no the that uh okay, fine, you don't want to meet?
Well, these things expire, and I'm gonna get the higher taxes I want on everybody.
And I'd love I'd love to see those tax cuts extended, absolutely, and I'd like to see more tax cuts.
Excuse me, we're not shouldn't be talking tax cuts.
We should be just saying that you know the uh current rate is extended, but I uh you know I'd love to see that extended and cut even further.
You know, we live in Michigan.
I live In Michigan here, and we're struggling uh to say the least, and I, you know, I uh got out there and voted and I want to get rid of these democratic spoilers.
Believe me, uh I know, I know.
If it were for me, you know, I'd go in a meeting Mr. President, two years ago.
I said I hope you'd failed.
Purpose here is to see to it that you do.
Your policies have destroyed the nation's economy.
But that's just me.
See, I don't have to get votes, and I don't care whether the media likes me.
And that's the uh that's that's the difference.
But again, that's that's just me, and I'm you know, I'm serious when I tell you getting votes is a whole different matter than getting listeners.
And politics is uh this is you know why don't you run for this this kind of stuff.
I couldn't do it.
I I just I'm I'm not a diplomat.
I don't want to be a diplomat.
If somebody has holes in their head, I'm gonna tell 'em, instead of saying they got an open mind.
I live in Literalville.
Anyway, I pr I understand what you're talking about, Aaron.
I know a lot of people agree with you.
Eugene in Odessa, Texas.
Hello, sir, and welcome to the EIB network.
Great to have you here.
Hey there, Rush.
Um just to kind of piggyback on what this guy, the previous caller was saying, um, it depresses me to the to the extent that I let it, how much of this country has become an Oprah audience.
And when I say Oprah audience, I mean, have you seen her shows where she gives things away?
I mean, these sissies show up and and they sit there and wait with in in orgasmic anticipation to see what what crumbs dribble off her multiple chins so they can grab 'em.
And they go nuts.
And and a big part of my country feels that way, and it just it it kills me.
I mean, to the point that I let it.
I gotta go on, I understand, but I mean, do you get what I'm saying?
It's just Yeah.
I hear what you're saying.
Everybody's waiting around for the benefits.
Man, you ain't kidding.
I just you know, this listening to Cantor and these guys, I know I've I had that one little point, but why do they keep saying the Bush tax cuts?
I mean, I'm just a little guy running a little business off my kitchen table, literally here in Odessa, Texas, West Texas, and and I know that it's the Obama tax increases.
And these guys can't even say that.
They're sissies.
I said it.
Cancer sis.
I know, I look, I don't know what to tell you.
I I you're you're exactly right.
We're not talking about any tax cuts.
We're talking about tax increases for Christ out loud.
Uh and and why that can be said, I don't know.
We're no it's it's uh this that's the question.
Are we going to maintain current tax rates or are we gonna have a tax increase?
Well, I get it, you know, and then I've I know you got it.
That's why you went and voted uh the way that you did.
Joel in um Glendora, California.
Hi, great to have you on the program.
Thank you, Mr. Limbaugh.
You're a great American patriot.
Thank you very much, sir.
Appreciate that.
Talk to you, sir.
Honor.
You bet.
Um I want to go back to the animal uh situation.
The gentleman called in about uh uh animals and neutering and all that stuff.
You know, when Michael Vick was caught, when time in prison, which I thought was ridiculous, people out here on Talk Radio were calling in, wanted him to see wanted him to get twenty, thirty years.
One lady wanted him to get the death penalty of all things.
You know, when Ray Carruth, you remember Ray Caruth?
Ray Caruth, the wide receiver for the uh Carolina Panthers.
I remember.
Okay.
Had his pregnant girlfriend murdered.
He got twenty years.
Not one person out here, not one, called in on the radio and said he should get the death penalty.
We put way too much, you know.
I don't have the same fanatic love for animals that a lot of people do.
I like animals.
I've had pets, but you know, I don't have that same fanatic explain it to you.
The reason why people have this reaction about Vic is because even pit bulls, people look at the essence of innocence.
You know, the pit bulls weren't bothering anybody until Vic took them over and made them what they are.
And and uh this this want and disregard for innocent, totally innocent life like that's that's I think is it the is part of the uh psychological explanation for it.
But look at you're never gonna you're you're people's ties To their animals deal with it.
Do you ever folks?
Do you ever um look around and see people getting older, and you you don't think it's happening to you, but you see it and everybody else.
It's something that happens, and I it's just it's just weird.
And people sometimes people acting older even when they don't look older.
And I don't feel or like a day older than when I started this program 23 years ago.
That's just weird.
Anyway, here's this um AP story.
If Congress lets unemployment benefits expire this week, the jobless won't be the only ones to feel the pain.
The overall economy would suffer too.
Unemployment benefits help drive the economy.
You know what this is?
This is a fax.
This is a fax.
It's either from Pelosi or from the White House, and AP just ran it.
I think this is a fax from some Democrat, and they're just repeating it.
I have heard all this.
I I have heard this from Pelosi.
She's listen to this.
Unemployment benefits help drive the economy because the jobless tend to spend every dollar they get.
Uh pumping cash into businesses.
A cutoff of aid for millions of people jobless for more than six months could squeeze a fragile economy, analysts say, among the consequences they envision over the next year if the benefits are cut.
Number one, annual economic growth could fall by one half to nearly one percentage point.
Up to one million more people could lose their jobs.
Hundreds of thousands would fall into poverty.
Look for homelessness to rise and food lines to get even longer as we approach Christmas.
If the situation can't be resolved, said Diane Swunk, the chief economist at Messarau Financial.
The money ripples through the economy into supermarkets, gasoline stations, utilities, convenience stores, that allows those businesses to hire more people who in turn spend more money.
No, there's no history to prove that this works.
If it did, we wouldn't have an economic problem.
The answer to this would be everybody just quit their job and go on unemployment.
If unemployment compensation benefits were the way to stimulate economic growth, then why would anybody work?
Look at I know this is easily nuked.
This is not the point.
Point is the AP, this is a fax.
I'm telling you, folks, this is talking points from some Democrat, either in the White House or Nancy Pelosi's office or whatever.
She said this in almost this exact words.
These unemployment extension benefits have got to continue because it propels the economy.
Something like for every dollar of uh unemployment benefits, there's a dollar 39 benefit in spending in the economy.
If you've been unemployed for six months, you've gone through your savings, said Heidi Scherholtz, economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
You have no choice but to spend immediately.
By contrast, money given to higher income families, say through tax cuts, I tell you, I'm I'm my gaskets are not gonna hold today.
They are not gonna hold.
Nobody is given money with a tax cut.
Money does not start in Washington.
It's not there, and then Washington.
Well, it's lame, it's stupid, and it's insulting.
Let me read this whole thing.
By contrast, money given to higher income families, say through tax cuts.
Really, uh people go out and work, let's say somebody earns 100 grand a year, and their taxes take away, let's say 30,000.
They get net 70,000.
And then we get a tax cut.
So the government, according to this idiocy, the government's gonna say, okay, we're gonna be a tax cut.
So we're going to send you 5,000 additional dollars at the end of the year.
We're gonna give you 5,000.
That's not what happens.
What happens is that less money is taken from them from the time they earn it.
Sorry for yelling, I can't help it here.
By contrast, money given to higher income families say through tax cuts tends to deliver less economic benefit because those taxpayers typically save a big chunk.
they don't because the next story is all about how the savings rate stinks.
I mean, the absolute abject ignorance in this story.
Is there one more excerpt that I want to share?
Oh, yes.
For most recipients, the average $300 weekly unemployment check doesn't go very far.
It covers just half of basic household expenses, according to the National Employment Law Project.
The theory is they've got to spend it all.
Okay, but where do they get it?
This is so rudimentary.
My dog would understand this after one lesson.
I wouldn't have to reteach this.
My dog would understand this in one lesson.
Here it is very simply.
American people who are working pay taxes.
That money goes to Washington.
People who don't lose, or who do lose their jobs, get unemployment benefits.
Where does that money come from?
That money comes from people who are still working and from the businesses who hired them and fired them.
So the unemployment check that they get takes away from people already working.
There's not a net addition of dollars added to the economy because people are out of work.
It's just the exact opposite.
All we're talking about here is a transfer of money from people who work, so they end up with less, to people who aren't working, so they have some.
It's a wash.
There's no new money in the economy.
There's no economic growth taking place.
A different group of people are doing the spending, and all the while, everybody is getting poorer.
...
Simple.
But no.
To listen to this stupid story from the embarrassingly AP.
I mean, it's so stupid, I don't know how to explain it to you.
Let me try here on the fly, as AP views the world.
Government is in Washington with a giant stash of money.
Benevolent Democrats decide who will earn what.
And at the end of every month, benevolent Democrats send some people a hundred thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars, five thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars, and the government sends some people two million dollars a year because you realize that no matter what you earn, the government's giving it to you.
That's how you get it.
It's coming from the government.
And then you can get even more if you can convince the government to give you a tax cut.
At that point, somebody like Tim Geithner is gonna get your name on the list.
This person just got a tax cut and guys can say, okay, I'm gonna write them an additional $5,000 check next month.
I'm gonna send it to them.
But then we get to the people who are unemployed, and for some reason, they don't have any money because the government somehow forgot about them.
People are working, they lost their job, and so there they have nothing.
So somebody's gonna send Geitner a note.
Hey, guess what?
Uh Inos Lobodnik here just got fired at Walmart.
Now he's got nothing.
Guys, don't worry, we'll send him some money.
And the money we send in a slobodnik, it's gonna be far more valuable to him because he doesn't have any.
And so he's gonna go spend it all in voila.
We've got massive economic activity.
Well, while we're doing this, we can't send any more money to other people out there because it isn't fair because there are other people that don't have any.
Therefore, the people that we're giving X, we're not gonna give any more to.
But the unemployed, we're gonna give them some.
So we're gonna take from our stash over here, and we're gonna give to these people.
And though therefore we're gonna pump an additional $300 a week per person into the economy from our stash here at the Treasury.
And therefore, we're gonna get economic activity.
The AP doesn't think that's, okay, Mr. Geitner, where does that stash come from?
Well, it's a government stash.
Everybody knows that.
Yeah, but Mr. Geithner, where do you get it?
I mean, you got that pile of money here, and you're giving, for some reason, I don't know, you're giving, you're giving Bill Gates 48.
Well, you're giving Bill Gates, yeah, 48 million dollars a year.
And you're giving uh, you know, somebody else 150,000.
Okay, I don't know why you're doing this, but you're giving all these different amounts of money.
Where's that money coming from, Mr. Geitner?
Well, we print that money.
Oh, is that where it's coming?
That's the money.
Okay, so Bill Gates has his money because he's getting it from you.
Warren Buffett, everything Warren Buffett has it because somebody in the government decided to give it to him all these years.
Well, yeah, that's how it works.
Oh, I'm saying even my dog would understand that's not how it works.
Because that stash of money, none of it exists until somebody earns it.
And that happens by virtue of somebody willing to pay it to somebody for the work that they're doing.
Well, anyway, there you have it.
If we don't extend these benefits, there won't be a Christmas.
And there might not be a country.
This is one of those days I just wish I had not even awakened.
Honest to God, I wish I had.
I have not had one class in economics since Haskruel in the 1960s.
Not one.
And I understand more about this than my own self-education than these wizards at the AP.
I'm still convinced they just repeated, just printed a tab.
A facts from uh Pelosi's office or whatever.
You know, if I if if I didn't have a stronger constitution, I don't get a story like this and say, you know what?
It isn't worth the time.
I've I've made my score, I'm out of here.
I just it just uh I'm an utter failure.
You know, I'm after 23 years, and we still get trash like this in our major number one newswire service.
I I guarantee you whoever wrote this story is an absolute abject ignoramus.
I don't know about you folks.
I don't like being surrounded by stupidity.
I just uh you know, I don't I used to suffer fools pretty well, but I don't anymore.
I just uh well.
I don't know if it well, it is entertaining.
I just gotta I got a note from somebody watching on the ditto cam.
This is hilarious, Rush.
Why?
I'm rolling on a floor laughing myself silly here, watching you explain where libs think money comes from.
Maybe funny to listen to, folks, it is this is just as it's worse than depressing.
We're talking about the country here, and you you put you put this in the same show with these sound bites of Boehner in Canada after meeting with uh with the one.
He loved us.
He really loved us.
God save us.
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Tom and Ridgley, West Virginia.
Welcome to the program.
I got about a minute and a half, sir, but I wanted to get to you.
Thank you, and dittoes.
My point is that compromise and common ground are opposites.
People keep using them as if they're the same thing.
That's a great point.
Compromise means I'm gonna vote for your crummy idea if you'll vote for my crummy idea.
If you get four or five hundred crummy ideas, you put them in a twenty-five hundred-page bill, and we get it to pass, but it's all crummy ideas.
Right.
Common ground is when you have a good idea, and I'm gonna vote for it with no quid pro quo, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, you come up with a good idea, and I'm gonna vote for the Well, but wait a minute.
The point is that common ground is elusive.
Right now, what should be normal circumstances?
There isn't any common ground between Obama and the Republicans.
There's none to be found.
You're absolutely right.
One guy wants to destroy the country as it's founded, the other guys want to preserve it.
Now, where's the common ground there?
There isn't any.
I can't make common ground with compromise.
I know, that's exactly right, because they think it sounds wonderful.
They think it's what people want.
Get along, compromise.
Get along with the right.
Republicans even have it wrong with this idea on earmarks that they're gonna turn everything over to the president.
That isn't what we asked for.
We asked them to stop combining the joint strike fighters and welfare and and well and financial reforms all in the same bill.
Put a single topic in a bill, and if the Congress wants to spend money in a given way, I'm okay with that.
But single topic bill, not everybody's private pet project in there and come up with 700 big ideas that cost us a bunch of money.
I hear you, Tom.
You ought to that's uh that's great.
I'm glad you called.
Thank you.
Thanks very much.
Folks, I have to run here.
We'll be back.
Close it up.
Yeah, everybody thinks I've been too hard on Julian.
Well, some people think I've been too hard on Julian Assange.
Calling him a sissy over and over again.
I could have been harder.
This is what people don't stop to consider.
I could have been much harder.
For example, I could have said that he looks just like Bill Maher.
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