Happy to have you along as we kick off a brand new week of broadcast excellence.
Our telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
The New York City Department of Health, ladies and gentlemen, has unveiled a free iPhone app that allows New Yorkers to find free condoms.
It's now a click away.
The City Health Department's unveiling a free iPhone app today, Valentine's Day, that allows New Yorkers to input an address and find five nearby places to grab a free condom.
Yeah, we're trying to reach everybody having sex, said Monica Sweeney, the agency's point person for HIV AIDS prevention and control.
The younger generation uses their iPhone, and we want to make it convenient for them to access condoms.
So, well, of course they need a free condom.
If you can afford an iPhone, it doesn't matter that you can afford an iPhone, everybody needs a free condom.
That's not the question.
Can you find the free somebody to use the condom with?
What good is a free condom if you people in New York City, this is not enough.
If you're going to start giving out condoms, also publish a list of names of free people.
Since Valentine's Day often inspires couples to get frisky, officials said, it was a fitting launch date.
A lot of people's minds turned to matters of the heart on Valentine's Day, and matters of the heart often lead to matters of the body.
So we think a lot of people use condoms that day.
Again, this is Monica Sweeney, the health department official who supports the free iPhone app.
Well, the iPhone app to find free condoms.
And if you have an Android phone, they have an app for you too.
This is not exclusive to iPhone users.
Did you know the city of New York gave away more than 36 million free New York City condoms last year, and they are prepared to hand out as many as people need this year, said Monica Sweeney.
And it's not that they wonder why they're broke.
They wonder why the incidences of STDs and stuff are on the rise.
They maybe see a correlation here between out-of-wedlock birth.
It's like always in high school when they started giving away free condoms.
Why don't you just give them a bedroom, a study hall?
You know, make them reserve bedroom.
If you give them the condom, you're endorsing the activity that goes along with the usage of a condom.
Do you not?
Can I imagine?
Can I imagine the founders advocating for the right to free condoms?
Pursuit of happiness, you never know.
The real question is, did this come up at CPAC?
Did anybody advocate for I knew I knew I was going to get in trouble?
Folks, look at it.
I knew I was going to get in trouble if I endeavored to be critical.
I heard Alan West.
There's a lot of great stuff that happened there.
Don't misunderstand.
Well, you can doubt me all you want, despite my constant admonitions not to doubt me.
I know you're going to.
And I'm just conservatism wins every time it's tried, particularly when we have such obvious opportunities for contrast, what we believe.
We don't need to be reaching out to other people by giving them conservatism light.
You know what the problem is?
I tell you, one of the problems, not all of it, but one of the problems is that some people in the upper reaches of the Republican Party, the marketing types, really don't have the messaging down pet.
For example, this is not to be critical of anybody, but when you rename the repeal health care bill as the repeal, the job-killing, blah, blah, blah, healthcare bill, because people scratch their heads, job-killing.
But if you talk about repealing health care because you're going to lose freedom, it's going to cost you all kinds of money, and you're going to lose control over your future and your destiny, then you've got them.
Then you've got them right in the palm of your hand.
What happens is some people who use incorrect or poor messaging end up thinking it's the policy that's not working that convert people.
So they start monkeying around and changing the policy a little bit because they, well, my gosh, they're not hearing us on this job killing.
I'm just using that as an example.
There are any number of others.
But when our messaging fails, let me just make it as simple as I can.
When our messaging fails, the people in charge of the messaging think, well, it must be the policy that's wrong.
Maybe our policy is too narrow, too restrictive.
And so they start changing the policy, relaxing it, because they think what they have to do is make it more palatable to people when, in fact, it's the messaging that's been wrong, not the policy.
And I think some of that was on display at CPAC.
But Alan West was a humdinger of a closing act.
I mean, he was great.
I know Alan West.
I've talked to him a number of times.
Real deal.
He was superb.
I just of the impression here that we don't need to water down who we are, especially now.
This notion that there are things about conservatism that are off-putting.
We've got to change those things.
We've got to silence those things.
We're going to reach out and broaden our base.
It's not the case at all.
The Democrats tell us what they are really all about.
They lose.
When the Republicans tell them what they're really all about, they win.
Democrats realize this.
The Democrats have no problem faking it.
The Democrats have no problem lying about who they are under cut.
And look at Obama.
Who is he trying to be?
Reagan for crying out loud.
We got more people on the Democrat side trying to be Reagan than our guys are.
Really, it's no more complex than that.
We got Obama out there calling himself the gipper for crying out loud.
People on our side, well, we need to move, move beyond.
That was a different era at a different time.
So forth.
I mean, it's just, to me, it's just, it's about winning and not a whole lot else.
I don't care who likes me or dislikes me in the process.
But then my job really doesn't depend on that.
People in politics may think their job does.
All right, Obama, let's move on here.
Sending Congress $3.73 trillion Budget blueprint that promises $1.1 trillion in deficit savings over the next, how in the world can this be printed?
$1.1 trillion in deficit saving from what baseline for crying out loud.
This is journalistic malpractice.
It's presidential malpractice to talk about $1.1 trillion in savings.
Savings from what?
Let's say that you go buy a car.
You're in the market to buy a car.
And you have budgeted for your new car no more than $50,000.
So you start going around, you start kicking the tires.
You go to various dealerships and you find a car that costs $70,000.
You really, really like it.
But you don't buy it.
You stick with your original budget of $50,000.
And at the end of the day, you tell yourself you saved $20,000.
When in fact, you haven't saved a dime.
You spent $50,000.
Well, that's exactly what this is.
$1.1 trillion in deficit savings over the next 10 years.
That is, there isn't going to be a reduction in the deficit of $1.1 trillion because of this budget.
At the very best, they could say the deficit will not grow by $1.1 trillion because of what we were going to spend that we're not going to spend.
That's even bogus as well.
There are no real savings here.
Here's the next line.
$1.1 trillion deficit savings over the next decade through spending cuts and tax increases, which is a laugh.
There are no real savings if there are tax increases.
The money is still being spent.
The real scandal about the budget shouldn't be the size of the deficit.
It ought to be the size of the budget itself because that's what leads to the deficit.
This is simply irresponsible.
Obama's new budget projects that the deficit for the current year will surge to an all-time high of $1.65 trillion.
Fine.
That's paragraph two.
Paragraph one talks about a $1.1 trillion deficit savings.
And in the next paragraph, we have an acknowledgement that the largest deficit ever is part of the budget.
It's going up.
The budget deficit's going up.
But who is it?
The AP.
Obama wants us to believe we're cutting the budget, the deficit.
That reflects a sizable tax cut agreement reached with Republicans in December.
Oh, that's why I forgot.
You know why the deficit's going to be higher than ever before?
Because of the tax cut deal with the Republicans in December.
What was that tax cut deal with the Republicans in December?
There wasn't a tax cut deal with the Republicans in December.
And the reason is that there wasn't a tax cut deal, period, in December.
All there was in December was an extension of current income tax rates.
Didn't go up, didn't go down.
So how in the world can somebody talk about a deficit going up because of tax cuts when no taxes were cut?
Revenues are going up?
Not in this economy, they're not.
Revenues aren't going up.
They may be objected to be, but they're not going up in this economy.
Their revenues aren't going up.
They might want to say so.
But my point is, how in the world do you even calculate that a non-tax cut is cutting revenues?
Revenues to the Treasury.
Well, we were going to have this big tax increase, Mr. Limbaugh.
You remember that Obama wanted to raise those rates back to 39.5%, and then he agreed with the Republicans to keep them at 35th percent.
So the rates never got up to 39.6%, so you never had that money, yet now you're going to count it as a loss, which is what they're doing.
This is just cockhead.
For 2012, the administration sees the imbalance.
This is the deficit declining to $1.1 trillion, giving the country a record four straight years of $1 trillion plus deficits.
But it's coming down, folks.
We're going to cut the deficit by $1.1 trillion over 10 years.
All four of these $1 trillion-plus deficits will have occurred on Obama's watch.
When Obama introduced his new era of fiscal responsibility in 2009, he promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.
Whatever happened to that?
Senior administration officials say Obama would achieve two-thirds of his projected savings through spending cuts that include a five-year freeze on domestic programs.
The other one-third of the savings would come from tax increases, including limits on tax deductions for high-income taxpayers.
Needless to say, these spending cuts, freezes will never happen, but the tax increases will.
In addition to cutting deficits, Obama's new budget would increase spending in selected areas such as education, infrastructure spending, and research.
I thought we'd already done that, folks.
I'm sorry, but I thought that the pork bill had already spent money on infrastructure and schools, education, research, and development.
These are areas the administration believes spending must be boosted for the country to remain competitive in the global economy.
So we're just going to double down and spend it all again.
Let me ask a question very quickly.
Has anything that Obama said he was going to do or has anything he has done worked?
Is there more economic prosperity today than when he took office?
Are there more jobs in the country today than when he took office?
Is the standard of living increasing or not?
Is there any element of the U.S. consumer economy which is showing a positive direction or result right now?
I said consumer economy.
That's why I left Wall Street out of this.
It's a consumer economy.
Is there one list?
Obama was all about the consumer.
Wall Street was the big enemy.
We've had now two years of promises.
We're into our third.
We got this new budget.
All this magical, wonderful stuff.
Healthcare premiums are supposed to come way down.
Keep your doctor, keep your insurance coverage, your policy.
Is anything better?
Anything.
Did the stimulus bill give us new infrastructure?
Did it repair infrastructure?
Did anything that was said to be a positive result from Obama policy materialize?
Has it eventuated?
Contrary to that, everything's gotten worse.
Everything's gotten worse.
And what is Obama doing in this new budget?
Doubling down on everything that has made it worse.
Increasing, expanding.
How many homes are unoccupied?
What are the number of mortgages underwater?
I said consumer, snerdly.
You can try all you want.
I know the GM guys got bonuses.
They work for the government.
General Motors employees got bonuses and big raises.
Yes, I've got the story.
They work for the government.
Obama Motors owns them.
I'm talking about the country at large.
I'm talking, is the oil business any healthier?
We've still got this drilling moratorium.
We have a health care bill that has been deemed unconstitutional.
It has been vacated.
It's still being implemented.
Is there any area of American economic life that is improved based on what Obama said his policies would do?
Are there more jobs or less?
There are fewer.
Unemployment going up.
In other words, to keep the unemployment rate at 9,9.4%, we're having to play games with the overall number of jobs.
We reduce them on which the unemployment rate's computed.
Nothing is getting better.
And yet here comes a budget that doubles down on the exact policies that have already been tried and failed.
What is going on?
Hey, we're back.
It's Rush Limbaugh.
The EIB network Americans for Tax Reform has looked at the Obama budget.
There are 15 tax increases that you're not hearing about that are in the budget.
They're not telling you about them.
They're not really hidden.
They're there.
But if you don't take the time to find them yourself or have a trusted media figure like me digging in there for you, you'll never hear about them.
I'll tell you about them as the program unfolds.
In the meantime, back to the fawns to Corpus Christi, Texas.
This is.
Is that right, Osama?
Osama from Corpus Christi.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Okay, great to talk to you.
I have a great respect for your professional opinions, despite the fact that I disagree with you a lot, but I still listen to you.
I'm talking to you about the Egypt Revolution, which I hope that you call it revolution, not just uprising.
This is one thing.
The other thing is, I don't understand why, as conservative leaders in our free nation, that you don't stand with the people who seek their freedom.
This really buzzled me.
And I want to understand from you why you don't support the freedom for the Egyptian people.
I never said that I don't support the freedom of the Egyptian people.
I'm just not sure that's what this is ultimately going to lead to.
nor am I convinced yet that that's what this was really all about.
I'm just...
Look, I don't knee-jerk react to anything.
When you've got to...
The result of this is a military leadership at Egypt that traditionally has not led to individual freedom.
I believe second revolutions, you know, this is the first phase.
There's another phase of this to come.
We don't yet know what it is.
I'm just best way to describe myself.
I don't jump on bandwagons.
It's from the British, you know, early in the 50s.
In 1952, they got their independence, but they didn't get the freedom.
Now they were seeking the freedom for 58 years, and finally, they applied, and they did get the first step.
Well, this is for liberty and freedom.
And we, as a free world here, we should support those people.
Regardless of our doubt about the outcome of this, we should support people seeking freedom.
You are conservative.
I am conservative.
Look, I belong to any part of the country.
Wait a second now.
I have, I don't know why you're hitting me.
I have never once anywhere at any time on this program opposed freedom.
What I am is cautious.
The people behind this don't seem to be all that interested in freedom to me.
The Muslim Brotherhood's not about freedom to me.
The Middle East is not a repository of it.
I hope that it would be, but I'm just not a bandwagon jumper yet.
I'm cautious about this.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have Rush Limboy, your guiding light.
A protest leading to Hosni Mubarak's removal is not yet democracy.
Even voting is not democracy.
A one-time vote is not democracy.
As in Hamas in Gaza.
Not democracy.
We all hope that Egyptians enjoy freedom, which they've not had for 5,000 years.
We'll see.
I think the whole world would be great if conservatism triumphed everywhere.
I think if capitalism triumphed everywhere, you have no larger, bigger supporter of that than I. Freedom, conservatism, free markets, market principles.
That's not what we're talking about yet here in Egypt.
A military coup, soft or otherwise, does not mean democracy.
We just have to wait.
Also, look at, I shared with you these pathetic soundbites of the CNN reporter talking to protesters, demonstrators, freedom lovers, whoever they are in Egypt.
And all this reporter cared about is what these people think of Obama.
Well, what does that tell you about the rest of the reporting of all this?
Ladies and gentlemen, you must realize if you don't, and I spent a lot of time on this last week.
People ask, why are you wasting so much time on Egypt?
Russia, it's over.
It's just the people.
I'm talking about it because there was nothing about Egypt on our news.
It was all about how they can build Obama up.
It's all about Obama's re-election.
It's all about trying to remake Obama, rebuild him after this horrible year he had last year, the devastating election results.
This whole Egypt thing was used for purely domestic purposes here.
And all of this talk about all these people, I'm talking about that state-controlled drive-by media, looking at this as an opportunity for democracy in Egypt.
That's not what they saw.
This is not their interest.
This is totally about Obama and how they could use this event to bring him back.
So, quite naturally, I'm going to be suspect, suspicious of all the reporting involved in it.
Pure and simple.
So, if the people who are there for primarily tell us that the whole point here, if we know the whole point of covering the Egyptian uprising was to make Obama look good, then clearly they think the way to do that is to put Obama out in front of a big democracy movement.
So you're going to call it a democracy movement, but we know to be suspicious of everything these people tell us for years and years and years.
The media was just as happy when the Shah of Iran left power.
Just as ecstatic.
And look at the difference now that we have in Iran versus what was under the Shah.
This looks in Egypt suspiciously familiar to how Gamal Abdul Nasser came to power.
So until it all plays out, you, as far as I'm concerned, you don't jump the shark here and claim that it's about something that it may not be about.
Musharraf, yeah, same thing in Pakistan.
Musharraf went, yeah, that was great news.
Great news.
Obama made sure he got rid of Musharraf.
Nick Robertson.
I'm going to have to play those soundbites again for being the third hour.
People missed them in the first hour.
They're just hilarious.
But they put into total perspective what this whole Egyptian uprising has been all about for our media.
I got a couple of snarky emails that I looked at during the break.
You know, Rush, you just, you can't give Obama credit at all, can you?
I mean, he's actually proposed a budget with some cuts in there.
And you just, you are so opposed to Obama, you can't even acknowledge them.
Okay.
Whatever this is, my 22nd or 23rd year.
And all of the previous years count for nothing.
So let me, I mean, there are still people who doubt my interpretation.
So let's go through this and look at his cuts, shall we?
Let's look at Obama's cuts.
Community development block grants would be trimmed by $300 million.
Forget the size here for a second.
I mean, if I wanted to, I could smirk over a $300 million budget cut, but I'm not going to do that.
The Community Development Block Grants, it's a government's program to help low-income people pay their heating bills.
My friends, do you really think this is going to happen?
Do you really believe that budget cuts to people who can't pay their heating bills are actually going to happen?
Do you think even the Republicans are going to vote for that?
Okay, so there's one budget cut that'll never happen.
In a real world, Obama would be tarred and feathered for having no compassion.
And there would be cartoons and pictures of huddled masses outside their homes with no heat freezing to death, with frostbite all over their noses and faces and fingers.
President Barack Obama is just suggesting cutting aid to people who can't afford to heat their homes.
Oh, ho come, $300 million budget cut.
You let George W. Bush try to sneak something like this into one of his budgets?
Okay, so that's one budget cut that won't happen, right?
Well, we agreed on this.
It ain't going to happen.
But let's see what else next year.
Let's see.
Pell Grants.
Yes, we're going to cut Pell Grant.
You know what?
A Pell Grant is a college grant.
It's an educational grant to certain qualifiers for certain educational aid.
$100 billion will be cut over a decade.
That's $10 billion a year from Pell Grants and other higher education programs through belt tightening, the savings used to keep the maximum college financial aid award at $5,550.
This, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the budget's Monday release, though we really believe that once we get down to voting and writing this budget, that education cuts, Pell Grants are going to be cut.
No, we don't believe it, just like we know for a fact that there will be no budget cuts.
No, we're not going to take heating oil money away from the poor.
This is going to happen.
Great Lakes Environmental Restoration Program cut by 25% to save $125 million.
That might happen if nobody hears about it.
The budget will propose $1 billion in cuts in grants for large airports, almost $1 billion in reduced support to states for water treatment plants.
Okay, so Obama has proposed cutting clean water.
He's cutting clean air.
He's cutting safe airports.
He's cutting home heating oil.
He's cutting education.
Is any of this going to happen?
By the time this whole thing gets down to brass tax, we vote on it.
Are any of these budget cuts going to survive this?
Even then, the Republicans won't go along.
They'll see this as a trap.
If they support it, look what the news will be.
Boehner and Tea Party support cutting off heating aid for the poor.
It'll never be mentioned.
It was Obama's idea.
Let's see here.
Other infrastructure programs and savings from consolidating public health programs run by the Centers for Disease Control and various...
Oh, so we're going to cut public health programs, too.
Right.
Okay, so let's add it up here.
We're going to cut home heating aid.
We're going to cut education aids.
We're going to cut environmental aid in the Great Lakes.
We're going to cut airport aid in the age of terrorism, potential security risks, and all that.
And we're going to cut public health programs under the CDC.
Yeah.
Home heating oil, clean water treatments, college grants, just going to sail through Congress.
There you have it.
Obama's tough budget cuts, even when I get the snarky emails, you just can't, you just can't bring yourself to support Obama, can you?
Well, you know as well as I do, folks, these budget cuts are not going to happen.
We'll be back at it.
And chosen for that very reason.
Here's one of our famous EIB flashbacks.
Obama promising to cut the deficit in half today, just as he promised he would do two years ago.
Why should we believe him now?
That, to me, is the intelligent response.
This is Jackie Kalmas of the New York Times, February 22nd, 2009.
This was shortly after the regime was emaculated.
This was barely a month into the regime.
And we're getting close to the stimulus bill, being maybe either had been or was on the verge.
After a string of costly bailout and stimulus measures, President Obama will set a goal this week to cut the annual deficit at least in half by the end of his term.
The reduction would come in large part through Iraq troop withdrawals and higher taxes on the wealth.
What about those Iraq troop withdrawals?
What about closing Club Guitemo?
What about those higher taxes on the wall?
Why, folks, none of it's happened.
His budget today gives us a budget deficit of $1.6 trillion.
Two years after Obama said he was going to cut the deficit in half.
Deficit, $1.6 trillion.
The budget is $3.7 trillion.
The deficit is $1.6 trillion.
In other words, we're going to spend $3.7 trillion.
We don't have, well, we don't have any of it.
But the deficit is $1.6 trillion.
He was going to cut the deficit in half two years ago.
This is my point.
After a string of costly bailout and stimulus measures, Obama will set it February 22nd, 2009.
This is almost to the day.
It's a week short of two weeks to the day.
Cut the annual deficit at least in half by the end of his term.
We've got a long way to go because the deficit's gone up.
Who's next?
Rick in Norfolk, Virginia.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
It's a pleasure speaking with the best political commentator on the scene today.
Thank you very, very much, sir.
I appreciate that.
I really do.
I would just like to make a comment about, I think, one of the main impacts of the Arab upheavals across North Africa, which will result in greatly increased illegal immigration into Europe, as we saw this weekend with 6,000 Tunisians landing in Italy and causing Burl Sconey to issue a state of emergency.
Wait a minute.
Just a second.
I thought this was all about freedom.
Why are people leaving Tunisia for Italy?
Because Tunisians, as all of the other Arabs, see no connection between political rights and the economic basket cases that their countries are in.
Right.
It was a facetious question.
And of course, so Sarkozy last week said multiculturalism has failed.
And Angela Merkel has said multiculturalism has failed.
Well, Merkel said not everybody who wants, doesn't want to stay in Tunisia can come to Europe.
So I think you're going to see increased right-wing parties in Europe do better, anti-immigrant parties.
You're going to have to see some actions by Merkel and Sarkozy on setting up something between Europe and the North African coast because the influx will be so tremendous because with the power vacuum that's going to exist there, the ability to leave both people will be somewhat similar to the Haitian situation after the fall of the Duvalliers in Haiti with us.
Yeah, but isn't one of the Duvaliers back?
Baby Doc, Grandbaby Doc, Big Doc, somebody's back there.
One of the Duvaliers came back for something.
Yeah, he's but that's like 20 years.
What if two questions here for you?
Because you seem to be up to speed on this.
You're describing a scenario which has refugees from the newly liberated Tunisia spreading throughout Europe, in this case, Italy.
If things don't go well in Egypt, we can expect probably refugees from Egypt trying to find elsewhere places to go in Europe and perhaps even here.
Who watching this would be very happy about it?
Well, first of all, whatever entity is the governments in these places would be happy because the refugees would be sending back money from Europe back to the country, so it would be a source of income.
So I don't think whatever entity takes over the legal responsibilities of guarding the ports and so forth and so on would be too against a massive immigration, which would lower the pressure internally in the Arab countries as well as provide some source of income from Europe once they get a job.
Perhaps.
Depends on whether they can get a job.
But despite any of that, picture, if you will, a map.
Draw arrows.
Egypt, Tunisia, and wherever else.
The arrows represent refugees flooding European states.
Who looking at that map would be ecstatic?
Well, it'll eventually create an intensified Islamification of Europe.
So, there might, we could theorize, be Islamists who would look at a map like that and see success.
Definitely.
Over as a result of so-called freedom uprisings in nations from which the refugees are fleeing.
Well, it would be a loss of freedom for Europe in a strange way.
And you couple that with Sarkozy and Merkel saying multiculturalism has failed.
They're going to have to go further than that.
I mean, they have 20,000 UNIFO troops now in Lebanon doing nothing.
They may have to move them somewhere closer to the European mainland.
Yeah, but are they actually going to do that?
Well, Berlusconi appealed to the European Union.
Berlusconi's got his own problems.
You know, this is actually, I'm glad you mentioned Berlusconi.
Do you know who's mad at Berlusconi?
Italian women.
Italian women are on the march against Berlin.
It's about time.
It's about, I mean, seriously, they're marching on Berlusconi as women in this country should have marched on Clinton.
Now, if you're a womanizer or a sexist, you don't understand what I'm saying.
But, I mean, here's a guy who has made objects out of women.
He's objectified them.
He is, you know, they're to be used and tossed aside.
And the female population of Italy is saying, you know, we don't like the impression the world has of our president, the way he treats women, and what it says of Italian women.
So they're doing their own little version of protesting Berlusconi.
Coupled with all of his other problems, I mean, he might think that could be a big one.
Yeah.
By the way, you know that the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, is in Tunisia now to discuss the issue of these Tunisians leaving and going to Europe.
Yeah, what's she telling who?
Well, who knows?
There is some kind of caretaker government there which has.
Yeah, but what's she saying to him?
Well, she's saying you have to stem the flood.
Right.
The fact that she has to go there and say, you have to stem this flood illustrates the futility of it all.
Anyway, I mean, if you're a poor country, the best thing can happen is a bunch of people leave your country.
Best thing in the world that can happen.
By the way, the news accounts say that the European Union representative is in Tunisia to fast-track a trade deal, not to stem the exodus.