Greetings and welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network.
Excellence in broadcasting.
Half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
It's always a thrill and always a delight to have you with us.
Telephone number 800-282-2882 and the email address lrushbaugh at eibnet.com.
Oh yeah, we had our last caller, Norma, making the point that the problem is the Egyptian poor don't have enough money.
We've got to do a better job of distributing the wealth.
Hell with that.
We don't need to do that.
If that's a problem, why doesn't Mumarik just print some money and hand it out out there to Harry Square?
If that's what the problem is, that's what we've done.
Don't smirk at me, Snurgly.
That's what we've done.
What do you get stimulus?
Did we have the money?
Did we have the money to give away to Obama's, but we didn't.
What did we do?
We printed the money.
We printed the money.
No, but the people Obama wanted to get the money got it.
The unions or whoever, wherever he intended that money to go, it went.
This Mubarak is an idiot.
Just start printing money.
I mean, we are the model here.
How he keeps himself in office and become beloved by the same people that Haiti's guts here.
What's so hard about this?
Just print the money.
Or, you know, call up Huzhintao and borrow some for crying out loud.
Offer to make the iPhone cheaper than the JICOMs do.
I don't know.
Rush, why are you being so flippant about this?
Folks, flippant?
I'm taking real-world events and applying the American solution to them.
You got problems with people who have enough money?
You print it.
You give it to them and you call out a stimulus plan.
Tell people this is about getting new jobs.
This is about rebuilding roads and bridges.
This is about rebuilding our infrastructure.
This is about making sure that our country becomes modernized again.
This is about bringing employment down to 8%.
We're going to have a revived economy and we're going to finish this by the time our stimulus is in place.
Employment will be down 8%.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be created.
We did that.
We were told all of that.
We didn't just print trillion dollars for TARP, or for Porculus.
We printed $2 trillion for TARP and whatever else the Fed did.
We're continuing to print money, QE2, to funnel to the stock market.
And it's all for the express purpose of revitalizing our economy.
I don't know what their health care situation is over there, but if Mubarak would have just, you know, come out in favor of universal health care, but it gets coverage, keep your doctor, keep your plan, keep your whatever you have to say to him, get it passed.
You wouldn't have people in the streets.
He's obviously an idiot.
He's got the role model of how to do all this, and he's just totally ignored it.
He sits around waiting for us to give him the money when he can just print it.
Why are we the only ones that print our money?
We don't have any.
And we not only print it for us, we print it for him, a lot of other people too.
Anyway, her call is interesting from the standpoint.
The reason I wanted to query her about, well, where are we going to get the money?
If you have a problem with poverty, what's the solution to it?
And I intended the question as a think piece.
Obviously, I failed with her because she had limited time to respond and she had the Passionate answers that she wanted to say.
But think about it.
If you have a problem with poverty, what is the solution to that?
Okay, creating wealth, but you got to define that.
We have had, in this country, a whole lot of programs to fix poverty.
We've had a great society.
We've had a war on poverty.
We have had any number of welfare programs.
And I would ask you: have we reduced poverty as an expression or as a percentage of our population?
No.
Now, compared to poverty in Egypt, our poverty isn't poverty.
But compared to the standard of living in this country, we do have poverty, but not when compared to poverty in the rest of the world.
So we arguably in this country do far, far better with our underprivileged than many other countries do.
Why is that?
The answer is very simple, folks.
It's what's so frustrating about the election of Obama in the first place.
The answer is the unequal distribution of capitalism around the world.
If you want a prosperous population with robust opportunity, you have to have free markets.
You cannot have a command and control economy.
You cannot have as your standard operating procedure the notion that you are going to transfer from earners to non-earners or from producers to non-producers and create wealth.
That is not creating wealth, it's destroying it, which is all governments can do.
Governments cannot create wealth.
All they can do is destroy it.
And that is happening in this country.
I'm sure it's happened in Egypt.
I don't doubt these people at Tahiri Circle are ticked off because of poverty concerns, standard of living concerns.
But they're not going to have a solution to it with just a new figurehead.
They're not going to have us, if the military ends up running the show or Suleiman, somebody, they're not going to have a significant change in economic circumstances until there is a significant change in economic structure.
And even then, it isn't going to happen overnight.
And we can sit here all day and lament the fact that Mubarak lives in a palace and these people in the protests live on $2 a day.
That's not going to change tomorrow when Mubarak's gone.
It isn't going to change next year after Mubarak's gone.
What has to happen is an accompanying change of structure, free markets.
And even then, with free markets, not everybody is going to be wealthy.
Not everybody is going to be as prosperous as others.
You are still going to have gradations of it, of income and wealth.
You can divvy ours up into five quintiles, which is done for study purposes.
Bottom fifth, second fifth, third, fifth, middle fifth, the top fifth, whatever.
You can divide it into tenths or quarters if you want to, but you're still going to have a disparity.
And the best efforts to make everybody the same always fail.
It's not possible.
Every effort made by command and control structure, economy, government, what have you, to equalize outcomes under the premise of fairness or whatever is a dismal failure.
That primarily is what Egypt is based on.
Any socialist authoritarian country is based on the false premise that everybody's going to be equal.
Everybody's going to be the same.
Everybody's going to be comfortable.
It never works out that way.
It all goes back to why and how did this country in 230 short years outrun, outperform every other civilization in history.
And if the way we structured ourselves, which allowed for our true freedom, intelligence, and ambition to surface and prosper and function unimpeded for the most part.
Most people in the world do not have that basic structure in which to function.
And sadly, many people in the world don't want to take the risk.
They just as soon sacrifice a little freedom, sacrifice a little security for a guaranteed meager wage rather than take the risk, hard work or what have you, depends on how they've been conditioned.
But to sit here and say they live on two bucks a day, we have to have compassion for them, we do.
But you just can't start passing out money to them.
Because when do you stop?
If you start doing that, you're not changing anything.
You are prolonging the problem and actually making it worse.
The true creation of wealth, the true generation of wealth resulting in legitimate economic growth, the expansion of the pie, cannot happen under an authoritarian.
I don't care how well-intentioned.
It cannot happen under a socialistic government.
I don't care how well-intentioned.
I don't care how much compassion is behind it.
I don't care how much good intention is involved.
It is not structurally possible to grow an economic pie.
We, the United States of America, are the textbook lesson in how to do it.
And I'm amazed.
I'm amazed that there has not been, have not been greater attempts to emulate what we do.
We're surrounded by people who want to stamp us out.
We're surrounded by people who want to tamp us down.
Sadly, some of those people now are in positions of power in our own government, which is why there's a Tea Party made up of people who understand that the greatness of America is under assault.
So yeah, it sounds really good.
Oh, yeah, we've got to just, we have to, we have to be fairer as we distribute the wealth.
Well, somebody's got to create it first.
Somebody has to earn it before somebody else can take it and give it to somebody else.
And as long as there is an animosity and a hatred for those who do that creating of wealth, who do the generation, who create and grow the economy, so long as we have people who foster a resentment and hatred for those people, it's going to be very difficult to be constantly successful at doing it.
People don't want to feel like targets.
People doing good things, people playing by the rules, people using their natural talents are sick and tired of being blamed for what other people don't have.
It's not their fault.
It's not Walmart's fault that somebody doesn't have something.
It's not the fault of anybody or company or group of prosperous people that somebody else doesn't.
But the way we've set things up, it's a zero-sum game.
And if there's a bunch of rich people, it means there had to have one time been other rich people that had things stolen from them.
So the socialist communists come along and say, we're going to equalize.
We're going to take these people that took your money in the first place.
We're going to get it back.
But you never get it back because you never had it in the first place.
Because the whole premise that you've been stolen from, robbed, or what have you is flawed.
And it's a message and a premise put forth by shameless politicians who have tried their best to convince people: just vote for me, vote for me, and I'll end your poverty, or I'll end your misery, or I'll end your unhappiness.
And I'll make sure these people stealing from you, these unfair people taking stay.
Stop that.
I'm going to get it back for you.
I'm going to make sure everything's okay.
Never works out, does it?
You end up with Egypt every single time.
So, yeah, it's frustrating to get somebody calling, well, you need to give them some more money.
Transfer more money.
That's the yeah, immediately it is.
But unless they figure out a way to produce it for themselves and make it long-lasting and systematic and institutional, it isn't going to matter a hill of beans.
I got to take a brief time out here, my friends.
We will do that.
We'll come back and continue in mere moments.
Rush Limbaugh at the Whoa.
Wait a minute now.
CNN, Egypt's info ministry, Mubarak is not leaving.
Fox says Egyptian officials say Mubarak's stepping down.
CNN says Mubarak.
I knew snortly.
You know, it's easy for somebody to sit here and say, I told you so, but from the moment this program starts, I would like to go back and see if I made it clear in the first hour of this program, and I'm not convinced this is happening.
Mubarak not leaving.
All these reports.
We don't know now whether that's true or not.
Meanwhile, where's Obama?
He's at a candy store in Wisconsin signing copies of his book.
Does he run around with copies of his book in case people want a signed copy?
Okay, well, we got to constantly keep up with things that are breaking and happening as the program unfolds before your very eyes.
Sit tight.
We'll be right back with more after this.
Well, now we sweeten the pot a little bit.
Reuters with a story that the Muslim Brotherhood is not happy with what's happening here.
The Muslim Brotherhood thinks this is a military coup that's taking place over there.
They don't like that.
They want to run the show, not the military.
And now the Muslim Brotherhood has a spokesman in the Reuters story.
I'm going to read this very quickly if I got this right.
The problem is not with Mubarak as far as the Brotherhood is concerned.
It is with the regime in total.
The problem is not with Mubarak, it is with the regime.
That is Assam Al-Arya of the Brotherhood, which is banned, seen as Egypt's biggest organized opposition group.
I feel worry and anxiety.
This looks like a military coup.
The problem's not with the president, it is with the regime.
Well, now that adds clarity, doesn't it?
CNN still reporting he's not going anywhere.
They're the only ones every all the other networks.
Mumbarik to meet protesters' demands.
Mubarak to step down.
Egyptian officials say Mubarak will leave.
Ubarik will be flogged at dawn.
Mubarak marched to the sea in chains.
Mubarak dead and buried as of noon Saturday.
CNN says he's not going.
Meanwhile, back to the phones.
Toby in Miami.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
It's such an honor to talk to you.
I think the reason the media have it in for Mubarak is because he does recognize Israel, and most Arab countries don't.
And I think they take it as normal and expected that, of course, the Arab street is anti-Israel.
And all these years, they've always talked about all these supposed human rights violations that Israel is going to be.
Wait, wait, wait, hang on.
Wait, wait, wait, just a second.
You're going faster than I can understand.
Are you saying that Mubarak likes Israel and the street doesn't?
Is that what I heard you say?
Right.
I think that's how the media understand it.
I mean, Mubarak doesn't really like Israel, but at least Egypt has been at a cold peace with Israel as opposed to war.
They do have, you know, diplomatic relations.
And I think that the media are assuming that the man in the street in Egypt, like real Muslims, real Arabs, are naturally not going to want to have relations with Israel.
And that's like, to the media, that's normal and expected and right.
And it's somehow anti-democratic that the Egyptian government recognizes Israel.
That's obviously not what the man on the street wants.
Yeah, but what about you?
What do I want?
Yeah, what do you want?
Well, I want Mubarak to stay in office, or if he doesn't, I'd like to see a government in power there that continues to recognize.
You want Mubarak to stay in office because of his relations with Israel, right?
Right, because as Arabs go, he is moderate.
And the fact is we haven't had a war with Egypt in all these years.
All right.
Okay, so we've got a bunch of different reasons here.
Mubarak's got to go because he's too cozy with Israel.
Mubarak's got to go because the mob's hungry and doesn't have enough money.
The Muslim Brotherhood saying, hey, by the way, it ain't just Mubarak, it's this whole stinking regime.
And if you don't get rid of all of them, we ain't going away.
That's what the Muslim Brotherhood's saying.
Yeah, baby.
So we got clarity here.
This gets foggier and foggier.
If I'm reading this right, Egyptian-run state TV is denying that Mubarak's going anywhere.
Egyptian state-run TV is denying that Mubarak will step down.
The Wall Street Journal is also reporting what CNN is reporting, this information minister's denial that Mubarak will step down.
So what do we have here?
We have, ever since this program started at noon, Mubarak's gone.
He's going to make a speech within a half hour to an hour.
He's going to split the scene.
We got tanks and barbed wire fence outside the palace where he's going to make the remarks.
Then he's going to go.
Then we have other, no, he's not leaving.
Foreign ministry says he's not leaving, backed up by CNN in the Wall Street Journal.
And then a Muslim Brotherhood pipes of, hey, wait a minute now.
We got a military coup going on here and we're not happy about that.
And if it ain't going to matter if you just get rid of Mubarak, it's his whole regime that we don't dig.
And if you don't get rid of the whole regime, then we're not happy here.
That would mean Suleiman is not, the VP is not approved by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Now, CNN is quoting an American official which says Egypt Vice President Suleiman will take power.
CNN is reporting that Egypt's information ministry is saying that Mubarak is not leaving.
So somehow I just yeah, it's from CNN.
The Egyptian information minister denies that President Hosni Mubarak is stepping down.
State TV reported.
Well, the crowd has been told by the military guy that your demands are going to be met tonight.
That you're going to get what you want tonight.
And now if all of that's bogus, call me.
Okay, before we get back to this Egypt business, we're talking here about printing money, wasting money, spending money that we don't have.
The Republicans are talking about cutting spending, cutting the budget, finding areas of the budget that are laced with fat, easy to cut.
Get this.
This is from Tom Coburn's website, Senator Oklahoma.
A financial audit of the Department of Health and Human Services reveals concerning findings for fiscal year 2010.
The nonpartisan analysis of an audit conducted by Ernst and Young on the balance sheets of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for FY 2010 was included in HHS's FY 2010 agency financial report dated November 15th last year.
Here are the results of the audit, some of the results of the audit.
Health and human services is not in compliance with federal financial management law.
Nearly $2 billion taxpayer dollars are stuck in limbo as of September 30th, 2010.
The audit identified approximately 102,500 transactions totaling an approximate $1.8 billion that were more than two years old without activity.
Now, what would those be?
Well, you can only guess.
But imagine you're one of these people that gets paid by 100 people.
You get a check here, a check there, a check there, and you put them all in a drawer and you forget half of them.
And a couple of years go by and you still haven't cashed them or deposited them.
Now, you might not be able to relate to that.
What do you mean?
People sending me money, I wouldn't put it in the bank.
I don't know.
I mean, here you're dealing with amounts of money that are so large.
If you're dealing people paying you a million and a half here, a million and a half there, and you get a $10,000 check.
Ah, screw it.
I'll put it in a drawer for a while.
Forget about it.
The point is here that there are 102,500 such transactions out there that have not, people have been written checks that they've not cashed, that they've not done anything with.
$2 billion in limbo.
It must mean that the money wasn't necessary.
If we've spent it, if we've given it out and the people who received it don't need it or what have you, nearly $800 million in the HHS budget could not be explained.
Differing between HHS's records and Treasury Department records, based on our review and discussions with management, we noticed differences of $794 million that could not be explained.
Some processes and procedural manuals have not been updated since the 1980s.
Current health and human services personnel need training to complete their day-to-day responsibilities.
So there are billions of dollars unaccounted for in the HHS budget.
Anybody with a brain, folks, anybody with a brain knows that in a budget of $3 trillion.
$3 trillion, we can't comprehend it.
There's no way we ought to be broke.
$3 trillion.
I tell you, the number of freeloaders, the number of people we have feeding off the taxpayers, the number of institutions we have feeding off the taxpayers, the number of people not doing a damn thing or doing very little.
It's called work and being paid for it.
If a true audit, if a true audit of the entire federal budget were ever done, there'd be a revolution in this country.
I guarantee you what's happening in Egypt would be happening here.
There would be barbarians at the gate if there were an audit of this entire federal budget for the last 10 years alone.
You would be stunned at where money is being spent.
And then to be told we don't have enough for firemen or for cops or not for education or what all these so-called essentials are, you would be blown away when you found out who's getting all this money.
It's akin to when they found out janitors in New York City were making $400,000 a year and own yachts.
60 minutes to the expose.
Bill in Bailey, Michigan.
Hello and welcome to the EIB network.
Great to have you here.
Hi, Russ.
Hi.
What I'm interested in is, first of all, I'm interested in this country.
And what I think is Israel runs this country and along with you.
And also what I think is.
Well, really?
You think Israel runs the country along with me?
Yes.
Okay.
Exactly.
Yeah.
All right.
First of all, Bush went into Iraq and took that country over and upset a balance between Saddam Hussein and Iran.
Right.
And that's why we're having problems with Iran now.
Hmm.
Okay.
Okay.
So Bush goes into Iraq, gets rid of Hussein.
That's why we got problems in Iraq.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know you say Hussein should have been there and all this.
No, I didn't say that.
By the way, no, I'm trying to, I'm not yet disputing.
I'm still trying to comprehend.
I'm trying to understand.
Make sure that I'm hearing what you're saying.
Yeah, what I'm saying is that you're altruistic saying Saddam Hussein shouldn't have been oppressing that country, but I'm thinking about this country, my country, the country I went into service for as I think are I fought for, okay?
Well, why did Israel tell Bush to invade Iraq?
Israel didn't tell Bush to invade Iraq.
What am I missing?
Well, you're missing that we evaded Iraq because Israel didn't want to invade it, okay?
So Israel had to ask us if they didn't want to go and invade Iraq.
They had to ask us to do it, and Bush did.
Well, no, we spend a lot of money.
We spend more money for Israel than any other country in the world, plus technology.
Well, but you just said that Israel, you said that Israel runs this country.
So I'm under that rubric or umbrella.
If we invade Iraq, Israel is responsible.
No, no, no.
I said Israel wants you.
Oh, oh, I'm missing.
I'm this country, you.
I run the country, and Israel runs me.
No, you don't run the country.
Israel wants you.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
And then, second of all, if we would not have done that, we would not have the problems with the have Iran now, okay?
Okay, I'm listening.
If we hadn't invaded Iraq and got rid of Saddam, we would have no problems with Iran.
Well, exactly, yeah.
We wouldn't have the problem.
But what is our problem with Iran?
Iran is actually, you know, they're Shiites, they're Shiites.
Yeah, but what's our problem with them?
The problem is they're, you know, they're going to make bombs, I guess, as far as I know, to nuclear bombs.
Right.
And they're only doing this because we got rid of Saddam in Iraq.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I just want to make sure we're all following.
Right.
Because Saddam Hussein was a balancing factor between Iran and Iraq.
Do you understand that?
So Joe Wilson was right.
What?
Joe Wilson was right.
Joe Wilson has nothing to do.
This is me.
I'm 70 years old.
I know what's happening.
Rumsfeld and Cheney were hobnocking with Saddam Hussein because of the oil.
The oil was supposed to pay for this war.
No, they were not hobnobbing.
No, wait a second.
We did have an allied relationship with Iraq in the early 80s, in the early 80s, during Iran and their eight-year war with Iraq.
Our best and brightest mind said that of these two countries, we would hope that Iraq would prevail in a war between the two.
So we did align with Saddam Hussein in the early days of the.
Well, according to Wolfel and Pearl, the Iraq war was supposed to pay with their oil, with Iraq's oil, to pay for this war.
And it never happened.
Well, plus, they didn't give us our nerve gas back.
I don't care about the nerve gas.
Now, what does this have to do with Egypt?
Is there a bridge?
Yes, there is.
Because they see what happened in Iraq, and they see what happened.
Egypt and all over the Arab countries, they're thinking that we have no power.
That's what this has to do with Egypt.
Okay.
All right.
I'm totally clear on all this.
Except how Israel runs me.
Well, you know, what network are you on?
I'm on the EIB network.
Okay, who runs that?
I do.
You do?
Yes.
All right.
Well, maybe Israel doesn't run you, but this is the Jews on the media business, and so therefore we have to be loyal to the owners of the media?
Yeah, business is business, right?
Oh, I see.
Okay.
No, no, no.
That's not me.
That's other people.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah, that's...
Whatever you say.
No, I'm joking.
I'm telling you, Israel does not have a stake in the EIB network.
Okay, fine.
Air America, it's another story, but not here.
It always happens, we get calls like we've had two or three of them today.
They go to the email inbox and invariably, Rush, why are you taking these calls?
Where are you finding these people?
Why are you wasting our time?
Folks, these are your Democrat voters.
This is the American left.
We're doing a service here in helping you to understand who they are, how they think, what it is that motivates them and inspires them.
They are your countrymen.
Here's Bobby from the New Jersey Turnpike.
You're next on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hello, sir.
Hey, Rush.
What a pleasure to talk to you again.
I'm happy you didn't put me on right after that guy.
My head was still spinning.
Thank you, sir.
But I just wanted to congratulate and thank you for your speech at CPAC in 2009.
I watched it in its entirety again last night, and it was incredible to watch your sense of confidence and your patience in reaffirming what conservatism is and what it should be and what it could mean and how that speech really laid the foundation for what has transpired over the last two years.
You know, I'm glad you reminded me that 2009, it's either the second or third anniversary of that speech, CPAC speech.
That CPAC speech, I mean, that was given within three weeks of two weeks of Obama's immaculation.
That's correct.
And at that time, there wasn't a dry eye in conservatism.
Everybody was in tears, and everybody's heads were hung low, and everybody thought we were destined for the wilderness for generations.
You really couldn't tell that from watching you, though.
I mean, you're...
That's my point.
That's my point.
Everything was tremendous.
Well, thank you very much.
That was a fun day.
That went on for an hour and 20 minutes.
I was supposed to go for 45 minutes.
And during one of the sustained periods of applause, the CPAC people say, look it, can you keep going?
There's another 45 minutes and be fine.
I said, sure.
So we, yeah, we had a room all night.
We have to get out of here till 10 o'clock.
So I'm glad you mentioned.
Maybe we'll make that because this CPAC is their convention's happening.
Now, what prompted you to go back and watch it?
I just, you know, the fact that CPAC was coming on again, and I remember watching that and sort of applauding to myself and my family at home at the time and really sort of getting a charge from it because it was darkest sort of times for everybody that believes like we do.
And it really was the start of how things turn around.
You made a couple of mentions that were kind of interesting knowing how things have unfolded since.
You mentioned, you know, the couple of tea parties that had popped up.
And I guess the guy on CNBC had, Ms. Santelli had mentioned, you know, or had his little rant shortly before your speech, et cetera.
And the healthcare thing hadn't fully unfolded.
And it was interesting to see, you know, in context of history.
And I truly believe that it was a historic speech and tremendously important for our country.
And I'm tremendously happy to be able to be on and thank you for it and congratulate you.
It was a tremendous accomplishment.
Thank you very much.
No teleprompter, of course, as well.
No.
Your first address to the nation.
That's right.
First national address, my first address to the nation without a teleprompter to boot.
Exactly right.
Thank you very much.
You have made my day.
I'd forgotten it till he mentioned it.
I mean, it's not something I think about every day, but it was fun.
It was a, you know, something interesting.
We're driving into town.
You know, Catherine's with me in the back of the car being driven into town, and I had no idea what I was going to talk about.
I never do.
This is why I really don't like doing speeches because I never plan them.
I don't even outline them in my head.
I always wait because I know sometime right before I'm going to start, I'm going to get some inspiration.
Some giant spark is going to be ignited.
And driving into town is when I had the idea.
I looked at Catholic, you realize what this is.
This is my first address to the nation.
And we started laughing about that.
So that's what I used as the foundation for the whole thing.
And that gave me my mindset about what the speech was.
Okay, here's an address.
I'm addressing the nation at this point in time about.
And that's what unlocked the deep, dark secrets of knowledge in my mind as to what I wanted to talk about.
And I'm sweating.
I'm driving into town.
I don't know what I'm going to talk about.
I cannot.
I do not have the ability, talent, or whatever.
I cannot sit here and write a speech that I'm going to give tomorrow night, next weekend, or whatever.
I just can't do it.
When I sit down to write, my brain freezes.
I lose half my knowledge or my ability to recall half my knowledge.
I lose half my vocabulary.
Sit there, the first error I make in the typewriter computer keyboard.
I stop to correct it, train of thought's gone.
So I hope and pray every time I'm supposed to do a speech that I get that spark.
I do.
It's touch and go.
I'll bet you I lose 15 pounds in the one hour before a speech in nervous energy because I don't know what I'm going to talk about.
I'm sitting there waiting for the spark.
And I got that one driving in about 45 minutes before I wish to give it.