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Dec. 8, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:12
December 8, 2010, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Liberal Democrats trying to uh prevent a house vote on the tax deal, says Fox News.
PMS NBC says liberals are getting angrier and angrier and may vote to scuttle the whole deal that they don't like using jobless benefits as a bargaining chip.
It simply isn't right.
Lib Democrat on MSNBC right now saying that.
Bargaining chip, using unemployment benefits, an extension.
There's a bargaining chip for tax cuts for the rich.
Why, that just kidding.
So they're the opposition is said to be mounting.
The White House has today emailed reporters that the following Democrats support the deal.
Webb, Representative Rogers, the Rai Ghost, Ed Rendelfast Eddy, and uh and Mayor Fox.
Five Democrats support the deal.
And Obama has emailed their names to the uh to the media.
So I said when the program started today that I would not be surprised if this thing falls apart.
This is this is the old Congress.
This is not with the new people there.
The Democrats still have a massive majority in the House.
And if they if they want to if they want to stop this, they can.
Now Obama touting five Democrats.
I mean, that's impressive, right?
Five Democrats.
Who uh support the deal.
And they're not all in the Senate.
Many of them doesn't matter where they are.
They will not have a vote on it.
Fast Eddie, the mayor of uh or Governor Pennsylvania, he doesn't have a vote on it, for example.
Jim Webb in the Senate uh in the Senate does.
So this thing's trickling along, nothing ever gets done until the deadline anyway.
On something like this.
So it's gonna be a while before we know for certain the political posturing taking place now.
I have a name, and I have a uh what I thought's a brilliant idea here, a retirement program for the unemployed.
Uh we all these other people have pensions after working 10 years, 15 years, 20 years.
Some of their pensions are 80% of what they earn, some are 100%.
They get health care and other benefits added to it.
But look at the unemployed for crying out loud.
And the unemployed, according to Democrats, are one of the greatest economic stimulus that we have.
The unemployed.
That's what Pelosi is saying.
A number of Democrats are saying.
And because, yeah, well, because for every dollar of unemployment benefit, it's like putting two dollars into the economy.
Because the unemployed really spend it.
I mean, they really spend it fast, because they don't have any other money.
And that's as if and if we if we don't continue to fund unemployment benefits, uh, then we're gonna lose 600,000 jobs, which I would think would be good.
The more unemployed, the greater economic stimulus according to these people.
I know that whenever a Democrat makes this point on television, not one TV anchor or personality scratches his or her head and says, would you repeat that to me?
Do you really mean to say that we will lose 600,000 jobs if we stop paying people not to work?
Is that you really saying we stimulate the economy with these unemployment benefit checks?
Do you really is that what I'm hearing you say?
Not one reporter does this.
They just accept it.
Now, if a Republican were saying something like this, I guarantee you, angry of Mitchell, NBC News in Washington, you know, would be boring in trying to understand this.
Now the only thing better, the only thing better than unemployed stimulating the economy would be illegal aliens unemployed.
An unemployed illegal alien, according to Pelosi.
I mean, that that would really stimulate things.
So these people, perpetually unemployed now, and they've said this is the new norm.
This is a new norm.
Nine and a half, ten percent unemployment.
Therefore, we need a pension plan for these people, and I've got the name.
We'll just call it inertial security.
Not to be confused with social security because they've already got that.
But this is a retirement plan, a pension plan for the unemployed.
It's only fair.
It's not their fault they're out of work.
It's society's fault.
They have them reparations too, maybe.
But we'll call it inertial security.
Now, I'm being asked, isn't the deal collapsing okay?
Isn't it a good thing for our side?
In one way, yeah.
In one way.
Because the Democrats are going to be responsible for tax increases on everybody.
Now they're going to blame it on the Republicans.
And Obama would love for the deal to be scuttled.
He doesn't care about the people.
He'd love for the deal to be scuttled so that he could then say, I had a deal.
You heard me in my press company.
We're ready to roll.
And Democrats had to oppose it because the last minute things Republicans put in there.
He wants to blame the Republicans for this.
But I'm not going to be crying any spilt milk if it falls apart.
Or crying over spilt milk.
I'm not my taxes to go up.
I really don't.
But this isn't just personal.
Because if this doesn't get done now, guess when it does.
It's going to get done with the new guys with the cavalry arriving next month, and it will be an even better deal, and then it'll be Obama on the hook for keeping a tax increase for the middle class.
And that he does not want into the election of 2012.
So a lot of posturing going on right now.
Dingy Harry is talking like they've got the votes to pass it.
He's focusing on other things.
They secretly want this.
That's why Dingy, they will, when you send Biden over there to McConnell to get this deal going, you know that the powers that be on both sides want this to happen.
So a lot of this opposition to it, I think, is political posturing.
Barney Frank, some of these, some of these obscure liberal Democrats even know.
They're the ones going on TV now.
And they are posturing for their own reelection.
There are other items in the news before we get back to your phone calls.
Boehner, this from the Washington Examiner, Boehner has appointed Fred Upton to the House Energy Committee.
And a lot of people are not happy about this.
People are saying that Upton's he's had his come to Jesus meeting, and he's uh he's no longer gonna support the light bulb ban in favor of compact fluorescence.
It's gonna be okay.
Uh he's gonna walk back all of his uh pro-environmental talk, his rhetoric.
Uh, another source says that the House Republican Steering Committee has selected Hal Rogers of Kentucky as chairman of the appropriations committee.
Now, the Washington Examiner, this is Mark Tapscott, says these are the two worst picks that House Speaker to be John Boehner could make.
Hal Rogers is an earmark happy old bull, and Upton is a moderate liberal, aka Rhino Republican.
It appears the House Republican leaders still haven't learned that talking the talk but not walking it stopped working in 2006.
A lot of people not happy with these two appointments, folks.
Upton and Hal Rogers.
Hal Rogers is a is an earmark happy guy, and and Upton led the deal, led the whole thing in the House to ban the incandescent light bulb.
Now you know that that's what his instincts are.
We have to believe he's talking back.
Now, the Washington examiner says here's the explanation you're gonna be hearing from those around Boehner for the Republican steering committee's choices on appropriations.
Jerry Lewis of California was term limited.
Next in line was Hal Rogers of Kentucky, who has long experience on the panel in fighting Democrats on spending issues.
There were too many questions regarding Jack Kingston's political management skills.
I don't have any questions about Kingston's management skills.
I like Jack Kingston.
Jack Kingston may as well be a member of the freshman class of 94.
Kingston's a good guy.
But he's political management skills.
We gotta have Hal Rogers in there.
On Upton, oversight of EPA is the primary issue for the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Boehner has more confidence in Upton to carry out such oversight aggressively than would anybody anybody else who was seeking the chairmanship, like Jerry Lewis, Representative Joe Barton of Texas was term limited.
They couldn't couldn't serve anyway.
The Boehner Camp is confident that measures like the Earmark Moratorium already adopted by the Republican caucus and the commitment to seek to reduce federal spending in 2008 levels will suffice to contain any thoughts of a return to the pre-2006 mentality among House Republicans.
Measures like the Earmark Moratorium already adopted and the commitment to seek to reduce federal spending will suffice to contain any thoughts of you mean they're still gonna want to do it?
We put is this an admission that we put people in these committee chairmanships who still want to do things that are wrong, but they're gonna be constrained by new rules that are already in place, so it's okay to put them in there.
In other words, we're not gonna have true believers in there.
We're gonna have rhinos who are only constrained by new rules.
That doesn't sound good to me.
Now, Upton, to be fair, Upton claims he has seen the incandescent light.
And now he is gonna lead the charge to redo or repeal the ban on the incandescent light bulb.
That's what he says he's gonna do.
He's gonna repeal his own legislation.
Even even if Upton recants, can you trust somebody who could be so wrong about such a thing in the first place?
I mean, I I frank, I was stunned that there was a Republican authoring this whole ban on incandescent light bulbs.
So now he's recanted, says he's seen the error of his ways, but still he did it in the first place.
Now he's gonna he's gotta repeal his own legislative legislation he was very, very proud of.
So it says here in the Washington Examiner, Boehner wanted experience.
He trusts Rogers and Upton to get with the right program.
And this is again Washington Examiner.
I've I've not spoken to Congressman Boehner about this.
And I'm I'm gonna reserve final judgment on this until I do.
Not that I distrust the Washington examiner, but I'd like to hear the reasoning myself from them.
And at some point we will.com supposedly misrepresented Eric Cantor on Obamacare.
They originally said that Cantor said we weren't gonna repeal it.
Uh there are two things in there that we like.
They had to run a correction saying, no, Cantor is going to try to repeal it, but in their own bill, they're gonna try to keep those two things.
So there are two things about Obamacare that Cantor says the Republicans like, pre-existing conditions, and uh keeping the kid on the parents' policies up to age twenty six.
All right, time out.
Fast as three hours and meet.
I I can't believe how quickly everything's going by.
But it just means we're all having a good time.
Your phone calls are coming next, right after this.
Yeah, beautifully decorated Christmas tree is a really nice thing to see.
We got all kinds of them outside.
The EIB offices, the streets here are lined with sensationally decorated trees, going Got a brand new tree on Worth Avenue, 40 feet tall.
I went to the lighting, Catherine and I, and it's just we did our tree at home last night.
Well, now, Snerdley, what are you laughing about?
You are distracting me with this.
I haven't said anything funny.
Well, we donated the tree.
Yeah.
Last year we donorated donated decorations.
Of the old tree was.
I didn't mind.
I mean, look at the uh town of Palm Beach, like any other municipal government's got budget problems, and they had an old beat-up tree, and town council said there's other important expenditures than the tree.
Uh for the citizens' community.
So I'll buy one, I'll do it.
It wasn't that bad.
It was fun to do.
Anyway, there beautifully decorated Christmas tree.
We did ours at home last night.
Got the dogs and the cat running around.
Uh inside the office.
We have Santa's workshop mini Christmas tree.
This is from ProFlowers.
I'm looking at a picture of it right now.
Really, well, because they didn't put in my office, it's out in the public areas here.
It's a fragrant tree, comes in a free festive tin, free colorful lights, twelve free wooden ornaments.
It's just 1999 plus shipping.
It is perfect for small spaces for offices, rooms that don't allow for a full-size tree, and it can be planted in your backyard to live on and on and on after each Christmas.
There it is.
Snerdling, holding it up for me, even as we speak.
Well what?
We'll have to show it on the Ditto Cam next time.
Uh but you the lights aren't on because you've got to plug it in.
But we'll figure out how to how to do that.
What would you say it is?
About uh two feet tall in the tent?
It's two feet tall.
It's perfect, and it looks beautiful.
Now the only way they get it, it's called Santa's Workshop Mini Tree, and the only way to get it's called 1800 PRO Flowers and mention my name, Rush, 1800 Pro Flowers.
Or take a look at it at Rush Proflowers.com.
Rush Proflowers.com.
Just log on there.
It's it look at the thing sells out every year.
At 1999, you get a bunch of them for your friends, family, co-workers, before supplies run out.
So call 1-800 PRO flowers or log on to RushProflowers.com to see the Santa's workshop mini Christmas tree.
Scott, Tyler, Texas, thank you for calling, sir.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hey, Rush.
Uh Texas sized gun toting nine mile per gallon Hummer driving dittoes.
I love you, man.
I love the nine mile a gallon Hummer Ditto.
I'll value that number.
Yes.
Uh common sense and twenty years of your training tells me that this tax deal is a setup.
Now now, don't get me wrong.
I think he hates every bit of it.
But knowing three things that Obama is needed to get elected and to get his socialist agenda done.
Is number one, discredit capitalism.
Two, increase the hatred for the rich, and three, continue to blame Bush and the Republicans for everything.
Now this last election and the latest polls on this uh on the Bush tax cut uh show him losing the battle.
I mean, uh the uh we're we're blaming him now.
We're blaming the Democrats.
And he's lost that momentum.
He's got to get it back somehow.
So I see him, and your training's always taught me to look.
They always gotta have an upside.
And the upside for him is to only extend the cuts for two years.
Extend unemployment to three years.
Now you've got fewer people dropping off the end of unemployment, more people people getting on it.
And I can see right in the middle of the election cycle next time around, unemployment rising to twelve to thirteen percent.
The uncertainty about the tax cuts are still there.
Nobody's gonna hire anybody.
And he can come up during the elections and say, see, y'all threw her fit, made me do it.
Bush's tax cut.
But now there is there there is something to this theory.
We took a little while to get there.
But there is something to this.
Stop and look at it this way.
The last thing Obama wants is for this to work.
If it does get implemented.
Now it's not a tax cut.
It's an it's an implementation of the current tax rates.
He's calling it a stimulus, but it's not.
Nothing's going to change.
So he's counting on with more unemployment, benefit compensation, more high unemployment.
He's counting on that.
He's counting on it being made to look like this doesn't work.
The worst thing could happen to him is if it does is it discredits everything he's trying to do.
If it is perceived as a tax cut, and in in one way we could perceive we we could say that because they have been talking about letting these cuts expire, which would be a tax increase.
So if we were facing a tax increase, they don't go up, call it a tax cut.
Actually, nothing will change because of that.
How stimulative will it be?
Two years?
Another point.
Is that enough for businesses to make long-term plans regarding tax policy?
Many people say that it isn't.
So these two extensions of the tax rates and the unemployment benefits guarantee the Democrats can run for the next two years on class warfare.
They guarantee that, at least.
That the rich got an unfair thing here.
Uh and we really shouldn't have been helping them at all.
They got meager assistance for the unemployed.
That's why I'm proposing uh uh a retirement plan for the unemployed called inertial six uh security.
So the unemployment benefits will end in time for Obama to use that as well as class warfare campaign.
This is his inner reverend right calculating things.
Ben Smith and John Harris at Politico have a story today why Obama can't shake Bush.
Tuesday's deal to extend the deep 2001 tax cuts is the latest evidence of the remarkable durability of President George W. Bush's policy legacy, one that constrains and confounds his successor at home and overseas, even after two years in office.
The tax cuts were probably Bush's single most significant domestic accomplishment.
And they became not just a spur for Democrat complaints about growing deficits, but a symbol of, as Barack Obama put it, candidate-wise, that old discredited Republican philosophy.
Give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everybody else.
Obama's promise to reverse the tax cuts reflected a broader belief among Democrats that the Bush years were a bizarre and in essential ways illegitimate aberration, a period of panic and greed, the errors of which Obama would reverse in a series of swift and decisive strokes.
Yet the tax compromise is just the most spectacular and to Democrats infuriating element of a broader trend.
So they at politico have fallen for this.
Now this probably makes Obama smile and then probably makes him mad at the same time.
So the thing they hated most about Bush is tax cuts.
Obama is now said to have to embrace.
And that's got to make people mad.
But Obama's not embracing tax cuts, folks.
I mean, if we could start calling Obama Bush three, I mean, that would really tick him off.
That would have really tick off the left.
I kind of like that.
Or call him Bush 44.
Bush three, Bush 44, something like that.
Call him Bush.
That really ticked the Democrats and make us think, make them think that we think we like what Obama's doing.
But still the point, there aren't any tax cuts here.
Nothing is going to change if this uh deal happens.
It'd be, you know, a little holiday of 2% for one year on the payroll tax, and of course a tax increase on the death tax from z I know, zero to 35%.
Talking like this is great stimulus, but it's Not.
There's no change here.
So for for Obama to be said to be emulating Bush, he would have to cut taxes from here.
I've got a list of all the promises he's made.
Byron York put them together here.
I don't have time to read them all.
It prints out the two full pages.
A bunch of all every promise to roll back the Bush tax cuts.
So he'd broken the promise ten, twelve times.
However, uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is not going to be that stimulative.
What it is, if it happens is he's not going to do any more damage for two years.
We've stopped him doing damage.
But it doesn't mean there's any stimulus here, even though he's calling it one.
Now Obama said that he didn't want to negotiate with Republican hostage takers, but he had to.
Remember, this is the same guy who is still bending over backwards to negotiate with Iran and North Korea, and he has no problem negotiating with them.
But the Republicans are hostage takers, and that mantra has been picked up.
We have a uh montage of this.
Uh and you know, if if if a talk show host says Imam Obama or makes a joke about driving Miss Nancy, it becomes national news.
It's horrible, it's insensitive, it's rotten.
Well, where's the outrage over this?
Uh all these Democrats, elected and media types, referring to Republicans as terrorist hostage takers.
Now they want to hold those middle class tax cuts hostage.
Republicans are holding these middle class tax cuts hostage.
Holding hostage, the unemployment benefits hold that hostage in order to keep tax breaks going.
They're willing to hold tax cuts for middle class families hostage.
Holding the Senate hostage.
Will they hold the middle class hostage?
The GOP is holding key legislation hostage.
We're held hostage over here.
Hold it hostage.
Hold it hostage.
Extension of these taxes have been hailed hostage.
We are being held hostage.
Every one of us, we are hostages being held hostage.
Those initiatives are being held hostage.
Republicans are holding hostage.
Republicans were holding middle class taxes hostage.
You allowed yourself to be held hostage.
Do you negotiate with terrorists?
It's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers.
Unless the hostage gets harmed.
In this case, the hostage was the American people.
And I was not willing to see them get harmed.
You see, this is identical to the press all saying that the addition of Cheney as vice president was gravitas.
It was grubby.
Now it's Republicans are hostage takers, holding everybody hostage.
Yet they get mad at talk show hosts making jokes about driving Miss Nancy or Imam Obama.
So this morning on Scarborough's program, Mr. Joe no label Scarborough.
Uh Tom Brokaw appeared, and Scarborough said, hostage, negotiate with terrorists, you negotiate with terrorists.
What what what what what what is this all about, Mr. Brocoff?
That didn't happen by action.
Obviously, they did a lot of pulling around the country and that word popped up for him.
I think it flies over the head, frankly, of people out there who are getting up every morning trying to pay their bills and find a job and worrying about their mortgage.
I think that's another disconnect, and it happens on both sides.
Didn't have it's not a big deal.
It's flying over the heads of everybody.
Oh, it's uh word just popped up for him and didn't happen by accident.
He tested it and so forth.
Of course.
Of course they tested.
F. Chuck Todd last night on hardball.
Matthew says the fiercest fights are always within your own party.
The toughest shots come from behind you.
Go after your character.
All this talk about manning up being tough and wussing Bill Marr going after him, I think that'd uh that'd be tougher to take than Boehner taking some shots across the aisle at me.
I I could laugh at that.
The White House is pretty happy with this performance today.
I think they feel like as if This was the president showing that he's in charge.
It's his town.
He'll do what he has to do to get some of these things through.
What Chuck is just in the tank.
Chuck, you're gone.
There's no, there's no rehab.
You know what?
You know, I don't know if you've noticed this, but what is hilarious is that Obama blew the metaphor.
He's saying he did negotiate with hostages.
He said he did.
You're not supposed to negotiate with hostages.
But he went out there and he said he did for the good of the American people.
He negotiated with hostages to make sure the American people didn't get harmed.
It's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed.
In this case, in this case, the hostage was the American people.
I was not willing to see him get harmed.
I talked to the hostages or the terrorists, said Obama.
So he even got the whole thing wrong.
Who's next?
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program, sir.
Oh, Maha Russia, you got me wound up tight.
Hey, talk about hostages?
Let me tell you who the hostages are, Rush.
Me, you, our children, and our children's children, who these Democrats are holding hostage with $13 trillion in debt they can't pay.
Amen, bro.
Where's your hostages?
Now I'm a little tired of this demonization of the rich.
You know what?
The rich's money belongs to them.
That's their private property.
If they want to sit on it, that's parade.
That's their paragraph.
Damn right.
It wasn't the rich who promised shovel eddy jobs.
Damn right.
It wasn't the rich who promised green jobs.
Here, here.
It wasn't the rich who promised hopey changey.
You know what?
These people want a job.
Go out and get some of them hopey change jobs.
You don't need unemployment insurance.
Amen.
And let me tell you what I don't believe in, Rush.
And then I'll tell you what I believe in.
What I don't believe in is the communist manifesto.
The second plank calls for a progressive tax.
The third plank of the communist manifesto calls for inheritance tax.
I don't believe in that.
Now let me tell you what I do believe in.
On the Supreme Court of the United States building, it says equal justice under law.
Tax is law.
If you make a dollar or a trillion dollars, you pay 15%.
Because if it's important enough to raise taxes on one single American, it's important enough to raise taxes on every single American.
Here, here.
And you know what?
Just replace when you hear Democrats talk about the rich or uh corporations, just replace those words with the bourgeoisie or capitalist pigs, and you'll know exactly where they're coming from.
Well, you are on a roll.
I wound you up, maybe, but you certainly unwinding here in fine form.
I'm gonna add this that's Burton St. Louis.
Bert, thanks.
Thanks very much for the call.
I want to add something else to this.
He's talking about the rich, it's their private property.
And for the vast majority of them, they earned it.
Now let's, you know, I ask.
Every time there's a revelation of an unfunded pension in a state, or massive indebtedness in any state or federal local bureaucracy.
And I look at how well people have been living, is anything real?
Well, what people who work have earned is real.
I don't care whether they're rich, upper middle class, lower middle class, that's real.
It's all these other people who are getting paid for not working.
I'm not talking about the unemployed.
I'm talking about you work 15 years and get paid for the rest of your life, plus health care and so forth.
That's not real.
And as such, somebody's gonna have to pay it because the person earning it is not earning it.
The person receiving it is not earning it.
Now, what really worries a lot of people with all of this indebtedness, I'll remind you, the Reverend Dax.
10, 15 years ago, before it was known that all these pensions were underfunded, that's where he wanted to go.
To get money to fund the civil rights cause and movement.
Where is the money?
Where is the money?
It's with people who have earned it.
And what a lot of people are afraid of, with this guy and the Democrat Party, is that with this indebtedness, they're never going to be able to pay it all off, but they're going to have to make it look like they're trying.
And they're going to have to do it with real money.
At some point, you can't just do QE2, QE3, print money and so forth.
Where are they going to go to get the money?
They're going to have to go to where people have it.
Who those people are.
Will there be a wealth tax?
Will they institute small to start?
One and a half percent of your wealth.
After you've paid your income taxes, after you paid your capital gains, at the end of all that, we're going to tax you a third or fourth time, one and a half percent on your wealth, their net worth.
Or maybe your gross worth.
And then that won't be enough.
That'll become 2% next year.
Two and a half percent.
Along with Medicare, FICA, Social Security, all of these things.
They don't have the money that they're spending.
The people who do have the money they're spending are those who've earned it.
Now you can say that you're going to deny pensions to the people whose deal is to give get a pension, but there's not the money to pay them.
Where is the money?
And then you put political people asking this question who do they hate having money?
How do we target those people?
Do we do it with tax audits?
Do we use the IRS to separate them from their money?
This is what people are afraid of.
Because they are the only things that are real.
They're the only ones whose money is legit.
They have to be the targets.
In their minds, that's what bothers them.
More and more people are asking, where can I park my money offshore legally?
Meaning, where can I invest it?
Not illegally.
Where can I put it?
That it's gonna keep growing.
I'm gonna be targeted, I'm gonna be taken.
Where can I put it?
It's it's a question that's bouncing around among an increasing number of people.
Hey, we're back, Rush Limboy and the excellence in broadcasting network.
Take a look.
Look at what the Democrats think is the single greatest gift they could give to the American population.
Another year of unemployment compensation benefits.
Democrats do not understand that the rich get their money the same way everybody else gets their money in exchange for doing something useful.
Or do they?
You know, the vast majority of wealth in the U.S. government is in the hands of Democrats, and they know how they got it.
Some inherited it, some married it.
Some earned it.
So it's all just class warfare, envy, stoking hatred, and division among people to get what they want politically.
And that's it.
I'm sorry for the uh brevity of the last two segments, but it all happened because I went long in just one of them.
That's what happens.
I'll try to execute the programming format a little better tomorrow when we'll be back.
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