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Dec. 9, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:49
December 9, 2010, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Everybody's expecting me to be mad today and on edge because these students in the UK are now into violent protests.
Frankly, I would be mad if there weren't other things going on here that have me distracted.
And we'll get to all of this as the program unfolds.
Great to have you, ladies and gentlemen, El Rushbo behind the golden EIB microphone.
Our telephone number, if you want to be on the program, is 800-282-2882, the email address, ilrushbow at EIBnet.com.
Man, oh, man, oh, man.
I leave this program yesterday, and I come back today.
And in the interval, Obama's out there saying that if we don't pass the extension of the Bush tax rates, we face the possibility of a double-dip recession.
Now, first, in order to have a second recession, you have to get out of your first recession, which we're not out of the first recession.
So having a double dip is still a matter of events.
But, folks, there is something going on here.
This just isn't, I mean, Obama has not had a come-to-Jesus meeting or event here.
He has not changed who he is.
There's something else going on.
Now, all of a sudden, this enthusiasm to extend the Bush tax cuts.
And I think I've got this figured out.
The key here is that there is nothing stimulative about them.
And yet Obama is portraying them as stimulative.
Why?
Because he knows it's going to fail to stimulate.
It's not going to stimulate.
This is not a tax cut.
And even if it were, two years is not enough for a tax cut to really indicate economic growth.
It took four years for Reagan's to kick in, three to four years.
We're looking here at just continuing tax rates.
If there's any tax stimulus here, and you tell me how big of one it is, it's the 2% cut in the payroll tax for one year.
Well, I don't, at the end of the day, that's not stimulus either.
Now, we were talking yesterday that the worst thing that could happen for Obama is if this worked.
But maybe not.
If it works, what does he get to say?
He gets to say he crossed the aisle.
He put the country first.
He put aside things.
He worked with the Republicans and it's working out and he's happens to be running for reelection.
If it doesn't work, in other words, if there is no economic stimulus tied to the extension of these tax rates, he can say, you know, I went against my better judgment.
I knew this wouldn't work, but I thought for the sake of working with the other side to give it a try.
Tax cuts don't work.
Supply side doesn't.
I've proved it in two years here.
Supply side doesn't work.
Well, he's taking positions on both sides so that he can say that he wins no matter what happens.
And this business of, you know, Barack Obama does not believe that we're going to have a double dip recession if these tax rates aren't extended.
He was kind of forced into that.
Larry Summers went out and said that, and the regime denied it.
This is just this week.
The regime denied it.
Then they had to double back and agree with him.
But this is not something that they really believe.
You know it as well as I know it.
Obama does not think that extending these tax rates is a stimulus.
He doesn't think that we're going to have a double dip recession if we don't do this.
If he thought that, he wouldn't have done any of the economic policies that he's done.
My guess is he is really hoping this doesn't work.
And he's look at a lot of people think that the economy is going to rebound anyway just because of time.
Recessions don't go on forever.
It's like Barney Frank said yesterday.
Clearly, the 2000, the recession will be.
Clearly, a lot of people think it will simply because it can't go on that long.
And why it can't go on that long, the American people are going to do something at some point.
I mean, they're the ones that drive the economy.
So statistically, you'd have to say, okay, it is going to come back.
And as, you know, economies, good or bad, presidents get the blame, do they not?
Now, while all this is going on, we got some people on our side celebrating the end of the Democrat Party because the leftists out there, the Anthony Wieners and these guys in the House, are just going baddie over this.
They just can't stomach the fact that the rich are not going to be socked.
They're not looking at this strategically.
I have heard some people say that this is all planned to make Obama look like a centrist.
It's too, no, there'd be too many people that have to be brought in on it for Obama to be looked at as a centrist here for this to be a strategy.
But I, you know, I've been saying all week there's, I listened to Obama talk about these tax rates, and I know what I know about them, and there's no meeting of the minds here.
How can it be said, this is all about how the table's been set, how can it be said that the current tax rates that have been in place for 10 years are going to be a stimulus in the next two?
That doesn't make sense logically.
The only thing, but the way the table's been set, people think they're tax cuts.
Why?
Because they were going to go up.
They were going to expire.
But now it's kind of like baseline budgeting.
It's kind of like you go to the, let me give you a better example.
You go in to buy a car.
You tell yourself when you go to the dealership that you're not going to spend anything more than $50,000 on your car.
You go in there and you see a car you fall in love with for $75,000.
But you don't buy it.
You buy the one for $50,000 and you tell your wife you just saved $25,000.
Even though you never intended to spend $75,000, you tell her you just saved $25,000.
Well, this tax business table has been set the same way.
For whatever length of time, the threat has been that these rates will expire and everybody's will go up.
Now, that would happen if nothing was done on January 31st.
But nobody's taxes are going down.
Nobody's income taxes are going down, and nobody has ever contemplated anybody's income taxes going down.
And it is marginal income tax rates that are stimulative, lowering them.
But they aren't going to be lowered.
Yet the table's been set to say tax increases are coming.
But now, since there aren't tax increases coming, we're being told tax cuts are coming.
And then those tax cuts, which are not really tax cuts and therefore will not stimulate the economy, two years from now, Obama will say, well, in the spirit of cooperation, doing what I thought best, I wanted to try the Republicans' idea, but it just hasn't worked.
And this way, they don't have to do revisionist history of the Reagan years to say supply side or whatever doesn't work.
They tell the American people who've lived through these next two years, well, they said tax cuts should stimulate the economy.
Then we clearly see that they haven't.
And then, of course, the Republicans, conservatives have to point out two years from now, well, there weren't any tax cuts.
And then you're into a situation where you have to convince voters after the fact what went on instead of saying what I'm saying to them now before this happens.
The reason economists are saying a payroll tax cut be stimulative is because for one year, it is going to result in people's paychecks being larger.
But it's not a perpetual stimulus because after one year, the tax rate goes back up.
By the same token, two years of the same tax rates, if they haven't been a stimulus up till now, why are they going to all of a sudden become a stimulus?
The fact is not raising them is the thing that needs to be pointed out.
By not raising them, the economy is not going to be harmed any further than it already has been.
If we're not careful, we're going to get caught up in this notion that A, this is a tax cut when it isn't, and B, that it's going to provide stimulus, even though it's just two years.
And I've heard small business people say, two years and more uncertainty after that, that's not enough for me to start making permanent financial decisions.
Obama just seems too eager for this now.
I mean, to come out and say, we have to do this or we'll face a double-dip inflation, a recession.
He could have said that at any time the past two years, and he hasn't.
He doesn't believe that.
So he's positioning himself here to be able to win no matter what happens.
In other words, whatever happens, he's going to have taken a position on it in December of 2008.
He'll always be able to go back to it and say, see, I told you, but I wanted to give it a shot in the interest of fairness, working with the other, whatever, however he wants to characterize why he did what he did.
So up against this, as I say, on television, you see the Democrat Party, the leftists, all the blogs having a giant argument among themselves, saying Obama has sold them out.
And I don't doubt that they feel that way.
Some people on our side looking at that and saying, well, Democrat Party cracking up.
No, it's not.
It isn't.
I got to take a break.
You sit tight.
We'll come back and continue here on the EIB network.
Don't go away.
They got new unemployment numbers out today.
Before we get to that, an interesting stat.
Ladies and gentlemen, statistically, now listen carefully.
Statistically, one-third of people find a job one month after their unemployment benefits run out.
Now, what could be the cause of that?
Why do you think that happens?
Why is it that statistically, one-third of people find a job within 30 days of their unemployment benefits running out?
Scratching your head trying to figure out why that might be the case.
It's because they've lost their benefits.
The only way to keep them up is to find a job.
But still, that's just one-third of them.
White House study group could probably tell us why the other two-thirds are not.
From Reuters, new U.S. claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, and a four-week moving average slipped to a fresh two-year low, reviving hopes that a labor market recovery was underway.
Now, I also have, let's see, AP in here.
Both stories here.
AP, applications for unemployment benefits dropped last week to the second lowest level this year.
Fresh evidence that companies are cutting fewer jobs.
Now, in both stories, Reuters and AP admit that extending the Bush tax rates will boost the economy.
There's collusion going on because that's nobody is saying that.
Nobody is saying that extending the Bush tax rates will boost the economy.
I'm not trying to make too fine a point about this.
What people are saying is that if we let them expire, the economy is going to take a hit because tax rates will go up.
That is being reworked, and now these are being called tax cuts.
My friends, they aren't.
Nobody's income taxes are being cut here.
Therefore, there's no stimulus.
AP ought to be apologizing to us if they really believe this.
If they really believe in both the AP and Reuters say in their stories, extending the Bush tax rates will boost the economy.
Well, that's the first time they've said it, too.
Don't they owe us an apology for lying about the Bush tax cuts for the last 10 years?
Why all of a sudden is extending the Bush tax rates going to boost the economy?
It can only be said in the context of, well, if we don't extend them, the taxes are going up.
That won't help the economy.
So all this is being portrayed, presented as a tax cut when it isn't.
And by the way, that's another thing Obama wants to be able to say.
He was for cutting taxes two years from now, if this works.
These media masters, they may think that the bulk of people have short memories, but not I, and certainly not you.
Less than a week after we learned that the Labor Department and their minions at Reuters and the AP have been blowing smoke about the unemployment numbers for November, they redouble their efforts today.
You know, because these numbers get revised the next week and it never gets reported.
And they always get revised upwards.
So whatever good news is being announced today will not be as good next week, which will not be reported.
We find it and tell you about it, but it isn't reported.
Another story here.
This is from the AP.
You think the occasional cigarette won't hurt?
Even a bit of social smoking, even inhaling somebody else's secondhand smoke, could be enough to block your arteries and trigger a heart attack, says the newest Sturgeon General's report on the killer the nation just can't kick.
May I ask again, why is tobacco legal?
This story says one cigarette can kill you.
Honestly, it's right here.
Surgeon General.
One cigarette can kill you.
These are the same people that control our health care.
They want to determine which procedures we can and can't receive.
Lung cancer is what people usually fear from smoking.
And yeah, that can take years to strike.
But today's report says there's no doubt tobacco smoke begins poisoning immediately as more than 7,000 chemicals in each puff rapidly spread through the body to cause cellular damage in nearly every organ.
There's no doubt.
There's no doubt.
Just like there's no doubt that man-made global warming is going to kill us all.
There's no doubt, right?
Just because the government says, just because the new surgeon general says it, there's no doubt.
Surgeon General is Regina Benjamin.
She said that one puff on that one cigarette could be the one that causes your heart attack.
Well, folks, this is now serious.
This is more serious than ever.
One puff, one cigarette can kill you.
And yet the product remains legal.
And yet is sold without taxes on Indian casinos.
Yet one puff, they say, our government, one puff from one cigarette can kill you.
Even the secondhand smoke from one puff of one cigarette can kill you.
Now, if this is true, they should make a scary movie out of this.
You know, riding in an elevator, somebody pulls out a cigarette, one puff, and they die.
One puff, do a scary movie about this.
People die in droves just taking one puff.
Or somebody sitting next to somebody outside, smoker has to go outside, takes one puff, and somebody standing next to him inhales the secondhand smoke and has a cerebral hemorrhage or a heart attack and dies repeatedly throughout the movie.
How else to convince people of the dire threat cigarettes pose?
And then maybe we can bring smokers up on manslaughter charges.
I know they're paying via taxes the health care for children and so forth, but I mean, one puff of one cigarette can kill a bystander.
Manslaughter.
This is the closest thing to murder I've ever heard, and yet the product remains legal.
I don't want to hear anything more about guns from these people.
The cigarette, one puff, one cigarette, that's more deadly than a gun, folks.
You got it statistically calling the latest job losses astounding is Columbus, Ohio.
Obama said, wait a minute, wait a minute.
This is March in 2009.
And, you know, we're talking about this double-dip recession business.
White House warns tax defeat could trigger new recession.
But I thought we were never going to have one again because when he signed the first stimulus bill, March of 2009, the AP had a story.
Obama calls latest job losses astounding.
Calling the latest job loss is astounding.
Obama said Friday he will not accept a future marked by a recurring cycle of Americans forced out of work due to economic woes.
Said, well, that's not a future that I accept for America.
That's why he signed the stimulus bill that Congress passed last month with minuscule help from Republicans, he said.
And yet we have had continuing unemployment every month since he signed it.
He wasn't going to accept that.
And now if we don't do this, we're going to trigger a new recession.
Raising the direst alarm yet, the Obama regime warned fellow Democrats on Wednesday that if they defeat the tax cut compromise, detested by many liberals, they could jolt the nation back into recession.
Now, that has really ticked them off.
What they're hearing, the far left, the base of the Democrat Party, they're hearing that if we don't make sure these rich keep their tax cuts, we're going to go to double.
And that just don't.
Folks, they hate that.
They just can't believe they elected somebody saying that.
They thought he was one of them.
They thought they were him.
That they all were the ones that they've been waiting for.
And yet, here's Obama telling these people, telling them, he's speaking to them, you guys, you're going to be responsible if you oppose this tax cut for the rich.
That's how they're thinking of it.
If you oppose this, why we're going to go to a double-dip recession?
And they don't understand.
They think higher taxes on the rich, that's the only thing to do.
That raises revenue.
That will fix the deficit.
And that'll punish the rich.
And now the rich don't get punished.
And furthermore, they have to hear that that is going to stimulate the economy.
I cannot, I cannot overemphasize how ticked off they are.
They are livid out there.
Half the MSNBC on-air crew, Anthony Weiner, a bunch of these congresspeople, Barbara Lee from California, livid over this.
She's head of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Obama appealed anew for Congress to get this done.
Insisted that more congressional Democrats would climb aboard as they studied details of the $900 billion a year end measure.
When that number, $900 billion, is a really popular number with everything is going to cost $900 billion.
Healthcare was going to cost $900 billion.
So they have to come in.
Everything has to come in under a trillion dollars because that's what we spilled on the Iraq wall.
And they really ran the Iraq war in the ground as wasteful spending.
So every spending measure has to cost less than a trillion.
If you go back and look, every spending measure, every bill has been really close to costing a trillion, but it hasn't gotten always ends up being more than a trillion.
But what they originally announced.
Because it sounds, you know, $900 billion sounds a lot cheaper than $1 trillion.
Just like saying something costs only 99 cents sounds a lot less than something costs, you know, $100 or $1.
Let's go to the audio soundbites.
This is Obama last night in Washington at the White House.
Oh, wait, take it back.
That's pig for dereparation.
I'm going to get to that later.
Let's start with this.
This morning, in Washington, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at a meeting of the President's Export Council, here is the one.
Every economist that I've talked to or that I've read over the last couple of days acknowledges that this agreement would boost economic growth in the coming years and has the potential to create millions of jobs.
The average American family will start 2011 knowing that there will be more money to pay the bills each month, more money to pay for tuition, more money to raise their children.
But if this framework fails, the reverse is true.
Americans would see it in smaller paychecks.
That would have the effect of fewer jobs.
See?
Right there, folks, you're making my point.
Now, do you believe that all of a sudden a lifetime of belief has just been thrown down the sewer and Obama all of a sudden has now become a true believer, a supply-sider?
Every economist that I've talked to or that I've read over the last couple of days acknowledges that this agreement would boost economic growth in the coming years.
Folks, if he really believes that, this is time for the Republicans to make this a tax cut.
This is time for them to propose an actual marginal income tax rate cut.
Put him on the spot.
He does not believe this.
And furthermore, he's got a ton of economic economists, Democrat economists, who don't believe this.
You know, this goes back to this smoking business.
I read the email during the break.
Why do you keep making a big deal about smoking?
Let me tell you why.
I remember back in the old days when you can smoke in restaurants.
And I remember, so do you.
Do you remember all the dead people you had to climb over when you left who died from your secondhand smoke?
You remember that?
I do, man.
I'd light a cigar and smoke it halfway.
People were dropping like flies in 21.
And now when I left, I had to climb over them to get out of there.
They're dying that fast.
Come on, Rushdock making.
I'm not making a joke.
I'm telling you what your regime is saying.
Now, if you've got a regime that will lie like this, one puff of one cigarette, secondhand cigarette smoke, can cause a bystander to have a heart attack.
If they'll say that, they will say they have no credibility as far as I'm concerned.
Well, they never have had with me.
But for people still holding out hope, I mean, this is no different than some of the scare things they've been saying about global warming.
It's all BS.
These people on the left, I don't care if it's Obama, I don't care who it is, they lie through their teeth.
Mr. Limbaugh, they care about people.
You're the fifth of their.
No, I live in Litteralville.
When a politician says something, I hold them to it.
Mr. Limbaugh, it's silly for you to believe.
You want us to believe that you actually walked over dead people leaving restaurants after you.
I know it's silly, just as it is silly that you want to believe.
I mean, you've got to believe that happened if you're going to believe your regime.
Well, the same thing here with this tax plan.
He doesn't believe any of this.
And I think it's time if they'll lie about something as serious as a stroke or serious as a heart attack, then lying about this tax business, it's nothing.
I mean, this is chump change.
Paul Krugman doesn't think that's going to help the economy, and he is the mother of all Democrat economists.
What is this?
From now on, well, I've always done this, but you can automatically reject now when Obama says every economist I've talked to, every economist I've read, everyone agrees, but no.
First place, that's never happened on anything, but especially now.
Millions of jobs.
Have you heard anybody say that, by the way?
Nobody, not even on our side, nobody is saying that extending these tax rates is going to create millions of jobs.
Remember, it's how the table's been set.
The alternative is these expiring tax increases occur, and that causes pain.
So against that, people are assuming, well, we're not going to raise taxes.
Good.
We're going to have a stimulus.
No.
No, no, no.
It doesn't work that way.
And this just convinces me even more that I'm right here.
And this deal is necessary to stimulate the economy.
You know, if it is ward off double-dip recession, I'm sorry.
And I'm not buying it.
Keep sticking it to the left.
And this is late yesterday morning, Washington White House, after a meeting with the Polish president.
A reporter asked Obama, well, now that you've negotiated with the Republicans, are you willing to negotiate with the Democrats who think you've betrayed them on the tax package?
It is inaccurate to characterize Democrats writ large as feeling, quote-unquote, betrayed.
I think Democrats are looking at this bill, and you've already had a whole bunch of them who said this makes sense.
Well, again, they are feeling betrayed.
The whole White House press corps two days ago felt betrayed.
I've got a story here.
This is from New York, New York Daily News, Andrea Tarantula, whining Democrats on far left are nearly crazy with criticism of Obama's tax cuts compromise.
And they mention Julian Assange here and Rachel Madow and no, that's Bill Morris.
And what's his name?
Anthony Weiner.
But I mean, it goes on to mention a whole bunch of people here that are Charles Wrangel, Pelosi.
54 House Democrats have come out and opposed this thing.
It's largely symbolic.
It won't matter.
But to say that they don't feel betrayed, I mean, he's sticking it to them again.
Because they are feeling betrayed.
And he's basically saying, screw you.
I don't care how you feel.
If you don't help me with this, we're going to have a double-dip recession.
It's clear these people are so blinded by their ideology.
They don't know what he's doing.
Just like global warming, all scientists agree with him on global warming.
Just like all economists agreed with him on the first stimulus.
So whoever is careless with small things, you can trust that they're lying through you on the big stuff as well.
I have a brief timeout when we come back.
We'll get into this business of how Lawrence Summers actually steered the regime into this, got to do this, or we're going to have a double-dip recession bit right after this.
Don't go away.
Okay, we're back.
El Rushbo and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Now, all these years, the past two years and during the campaign, so maybe three years, it is Imam Obama who was the one who wanted to raise taxes on job creators.
So Obama wanted to let these tax rates expire.
He wanted to raise taxes on them for three years.
Said it was necessary.
Now as of yesterday, it's a bad idea.
You know, snurdley, I'm really sorry to put you in a cold shower.
Snurdley was so thrilled.
He came in here today, came in here at 11.30, 11 o'clock.
He was so excited.
He couldn't get away.
The Democrats are falling apart.
This is rush.
I never thought I'd live to see it.
I said, you're really hopped up about this.
Oh, yeah.
You should see the long look on his face as I explain the realities to him since the program began.
He's also swatting himself for not figuring it out on his own because he's totally capable of it.
He got so caught up in the delectable notion that these people are eating each other alive.
And in certain sectors they are.
But it isn't going to last.
And if you just got a drudge here, you know, we gained a whole 17,000 jobs, unrevised, will be changed.
And the economy is showing signs of recovery, says the state control media.
Yeah, yeah, poll.
Most Americans say they're worse off under Obama.
Home values may drop by 1.7 trillion this year.
It ain't going to change.
Nothing's going to change just because the tax rates are going to be extended.
None of that's going to be affected by the tax rates being extended.
And now the drive-bys are all focused on some house out in Encino or Escondido, California, whatever it is.
Where is it out there?
Because there's explosives inside and the winds are up.
And if something happens and a fire gets started, they've got big problems.
I looked at it.
I said, wow, the foreclosure business is really taking a hit here.
But it probably is somebody foreclosed on.
It's planted a bomb in there.
It's not.
What is it?
A terrorist?
What is it?
Yeah.
Oh.
Yeah.
Right.
They've found a lot of explosives in the house.
I'm saying the owner probably put them in there if they foreclosed on, being ticked off.
Well, somebody put them in there.
He's sort of a terrorist.
All right, fine.
There's no...
Snirdley's, it's just some bombs in there.
Rush is not a big deal.
Okay.
Just some bombs in the house.
I've got to wait to blow it up because of fire hazard.
From thehill.com, Pelosi pledges to win changes.
As House Democrats reject tax cut deal, House Democrat caucus just now rejected the tax deal negotiated between the White House and Senate Republicans.
A non-binding vote of the caucus held during a second closed-door meeting, a closed-door meeting, puts tremendous pressure on House leaders to win changes to the proposal.
Well, you know, I hate to tell these House Democrats, but the guy that's going to run this show tomorrow when the real vote happens is Stenny Hoyer.
And he wants the deal.
And Bite Me wants the deal.
This is going to happen.
This is just allowing the Democrat, these kook freaks, to go on record for their own reelection two years from now, saying they opposed it.
Now, here's this AP story.
White House warns tax defeat could trigger a new recession.
Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic advisor, told reporters that if the overall tax package isn't passed soon, it will materially increase the risk the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip recession.
That put the White House in the unusual position of warning its own party's lawmakers they could be to blame for calamitous consequences if they go against the president.
Summers' remarks contrasted with Obama's comments at a news conference Tuesday.
Obama said, we don't have the danger of a double-dip recession.
So, Obama Tuesday, there's no worry here of a double-dip recession.
Summer's the next day.
If we don't pass this thing soon, we risk a double-dip recession.
Today, Obama warns of a double-dip recession.
Where on Tuesday, he said there was no chance of one.
So, somebody's pulling and dragging Obama along here, too.
And they're probably having to explain to him what I've just said.
Hey, stick with us on this.
You win either way.
We got to do it this way.
Otherwise, he would have gotten his ego in the way.
I'm not going to let Larry Summers manipulate me.
He's an idiot.
Harvard fired him.
I graduated.
But they've talked him into it somehow.
All right, that bomb house in Escondido, just another bomb factory owned by a Serbian national, folks, just a Serbian.
I mean, it's no big deal.
Remember, we have to celebrate diversity here.
So Serbian bombs.
It's fine.
It's better than some other people having bombs, right?
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