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Feb. 17, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:03
February 17, 2011, Thursday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Hi, we're back.
It's Rush Limboss, serving humanity simply by showing up.
Great to have you with us on the EIB Network.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address LRushball at EIBnet.com.
Kill a music.
Folks, listen to me.
What's going on in Wisconsin today?
We've now learned people are being bussed in.
We had this earlier.
Protesters from outside the state are being bussed in.
The Democrat National Committee on its website is encouraging protesters.
It is encouraging people to show up.
Obama's website, Organizing for America, BarackObama.com, Fight for Our State Workers, blah, blah.
So what's happened?
We're going to have this portrayed here as a democracy movement, just like this business in Egypt.
It's going to be portrayed as a democracy movement when the fact is, let me tell you what's happening now.
Protesters, the quote-unquote protesters are now in the Wisconsin legislature.
They are in the Senate.
They are shouting down senators inside.
They are trying to stop democracy.
This is not a democratic movement whatsoever.
They are trying to stop democracy.
They're doing everything they can to disrupt legally elected representatives from doing the work of the people.
And Obama and his organizations are encouraging this.
They're probably even behind this.
From the Wisconsin State Journal, the Senate is now under a call for the House.
And we will try to find the members who decided not to come to work today, Ellis said as loud protesters sought to disrupt the session.
Organizing for America has bust a lot of these people in.
That's Obama's union thug website.
Now, I want to go back to this last caller who talked about what people earned in the 50s, back when kids were taught to read, back when kids could write, back when they were taught grammar, back when they were taught the Constitution, back when kids were taught the Declaration of Independence and had no idea what a cucumber was for when brought into a class.
Condoms were not passed out.
There wasn't a whole bunch of sex education encouraging that kind of behavior among immature, irresponsible kids.
That kind of 50s, is that what he was talking about?
That's true.
You could pray in school in the 50s, even for your country.
But we're not talking here about who gets rich in this country because of membership in a union or not.
We're not talking about public employees getting rich from their jobs.
What we're talking about, what this is all about, is the ability of taxpayers to pay public employees more than they themselves earn.
The taxpayers have reached the tipping point.
They're no longer going to pay public employees more than they earn.
They're not going to pay public employees better pension plans and health care plans than they have themselves.
And more importantly, where the cost for benefits will be pushed off to future generations and pile up for them to pay.
Taxpayers understand here.
There's no valor here in being a public sector employee.
There's no valor in being a government worker.
It doesn't mean you're entitled to twice the wage of people that don't work in government.
It doesn't mean that you're entitled to have taxpayers pay for your retirement, for your health care benefits, vacation, pension, and all this.
The tipping point has been reached.
And the reason it's been reached is that public sector union membership is at an all-time high.
200,000 new union workers in the federal government alone since Obama was inaugurated.
And that's because the size of government is at an all-time high.
How about this?
How about we let teachers and cops and firefighters and in the private sector assembly line workers and truckers or whomever opt out of unions by simply saying, I don't want to be a member of a union anymore.
How about that?
How about we let people get out of unions if they want to?
You have closed shops.
You have union shops in some cases where people cannot work unless they are members of a union that they don't want to be members of or don't want to pay dues for because they don't like where those dues go.
There is a reason, ladies and gentlemen, that National Education Association campaign donations go 99% to Democrats, not because they care about employees, 90% of whom don't belong to unions, but because they scratch each other's backs and the taxpayer pays for all of it.
Now, why do people like us who believe that the single most destructive thing happening to this country is liberalism, why, when liberalism is found all over unions, is that somehow hands-off?
When did unions become sacred?
That's another trick.
Don't attack the unions.
They're just working people.
Russia.
They're just the workers.
They're trying to make people.
We don't have workers.
We have entrepreneurs.
We have employees.
We have associates.
I hate that term workers applied to people who are employed in the private sector enterprises of this country.
So the National Education Association.
Don't forget, folks, this is not personal.
I just illustrate.
In the early days of this program, one of the sponsors was the Florida Orange Growers.
The NEA organized a nationwide boycott of orange juice because of it.
Fine.
Fine and dandy.
Well, just don't tell me my hands are tied when it comes time to opposing liberalism wherever it is.
Liberalism, wherever it is, has me in its crosshairs.
It has Fox News in its crosshairs.
And nothing sacred about what we do to anybody.
Why should there be something sacred about what they do?
Why are they hands-off?
If it's liberalism, we think it's a problem.
If it's liberalism, we think that they are leading the way this nation's decline, and they have to be defeated.
Pure and simple, wherever they are.
Be it the NEA, be it the SEIU, it doesn't matter where they are.
So right now you've got Obama and his organization bussing in people to Wisconsin.
You've got them trying to bring democracy to a screeching halt by stopping a vote in the Wisconsin legislature.
Senate Democrats in Wisconsin have fled with their tails between their legs so that they will not have to vote on the governor's budget, and the cops are out trying to round them up.
The taxpayers are paying for all of this.
Taxpayers are paying public sector unions twice on average what the American employee earns.
Pensions, welfare, benefits, the health care, all of that stuff.
Twice.
Wages, salary, you name it.
They're paying for it.
Nobody's paying for their pensions and welfare after they retire.
Now, these people are listening to people talk about reforming a tax code where their mortgage interest will no longer be deductible, where games are going to be played with their 401k contributions.
What's the point of having elections if public sector union bosses decide your quality of life, your tax rates, and all that, which is what's happening here?
You've got outsiders coming into Madison, Wisconsin now.
And this is not a democracy movement.
It is an anti-democracy movement.
All the parasites, all the parasites of government are now coming out of the woodwork, and they're being, and that's exactly what they are, parasites.
And they're being bussed into Wisconsin to try to bring all this to a screeching halt.
Obama wants a Greece and he wants it now.
He wants this turmoil.
He wants this unrest.
He wants this fight.
Tea Party activists, they're going to have to rally at state levels also, just like this.
Quick timeout, my friends.
El Rushball, the EIB network, your phone calls, and all, by the way, four more states, you might like to know this.
Four more states have been granted waivers to implement Obamacare.
Not companies, states.
The regime said yesterday that it had granted broad waivers to four states, allowing health insurance companies to continue offering less generous benefits than they would otherwise be required.
The states are Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee.
So we have waivers to individual companies and waivers for entire states.
So far, encompassing 900 health plans, four states, and counting.
What do we have?
Stripped all the way, we have waivers issued to stop rising costs of a program that's supposed to reduce them.
States and companies cannot afford to stay in business if required to abide by Obamacare.
A piece of legislation we were told would reduce the deficit, would reduce costs.
Four states need waivers.
They got them.
After 2012, Obama wins re-election.
No waivers for anybody.
No deficit reduction.
No reduction in the budget.
Say Sayonara.
Your guiding light, Rushland boss, serving humanity.
Half my brain tied behind my back.
Just to make it fair, one other little factual piece of information.
Before the 1960s, only a small portion of public school teachers were unionized.
Yes, this is in reply to the guy who called from Arlington, Virginia.
Wanted to talk about how great it was in the 50s.
Everybody was unionized.
That's when people could have one job and pay for a house.
Wife didn't work.
Two cars in the garage.
Steaks every night on the grill.
The only problem is before the 1960s, only a small portion of public teachers were unionized.
That began to change.
In 1959, Wisconsin, interestingly, became the first state to pass a collective bargaining law for public employees.
And over the next 20 years, most other states followed suit.
Here's Dan in Albany, New York.
Dan, glad you waited.
And welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Program.
Hi.
Thank you, Mr. Limbaugh, for taking my call.
Pleasure to talk to you.
What I just wanted to say, upstate Albany, where we live here, the profession I chose to go into.
We are non-union.
However, New York State Department of Labor has set certain standards that state, anytime that we go into a city school district, a city hall, anything that has to do with the government, we, by law, have to be paid prevailing wage, which is considerably higher than our hourly rate, even though we are not union.
Which is, when you think about it, if I go into a Walmart or a Target and perform that same job, all I receive is my hourly rate.
But if you go into, say, a school or some other government facility, your rate gets bumped up.
We have to, by law, be paid what the union gets paid.
Well, welcome to the power of unions.
I mean, if you're going to have a union deal, does that make sense?
If they could bring you guys in and undercut what the union people make, there wouldn't be any reason for a union.
But welcome to reality.
That's just how it's going to work.
There's nothing you can do about that.
In fact, given the autocratic nature and controlling nature of unions, it makes total sense.
It's how to keep you out of there.
Or making sure the union guys don't get undercut.
Are you happy about that or not?
I mean, do you like going places and get a higher rate?
Especially in the area, it's very hard in the profession that I'm in to find an employer, a private, a private sector employer who is non-union.
And like I said, we are non-union.
However, even though we are non-union, we have no choice.
The amount that we get paid walking into a prevailing wage job is set by the union.
Yeah, but how do you feel about that?
I mean, that's obviously you're making more money than you otherwise would.
How do you feel about it?
I disagree with it entirely.
I mean, every day I have a choice of whether or not I want to work for a union company or stay in the private sector.
And I've made the decision to stay non-union.
However, New York State, unfortunately, kind of takes that decision away from you.
Interesting.
You know, who pays for it?
The taxpayers of New York pay for it.
Who else is going to pay for it?
There's one way or the other the taxpayers are paying for it.
And one way or the other, the taxpayers are finding out they pay for it.
And one way or the other, taxpayers are going to say, no, we're not anymore.
Ergo, high Wisconsin, high New Jersey.
I appreciate the call.
Dan, thanks very much.
Back to Obamacare for just a second.
Don't forget something else.
These states all know this.
Obamacare mandates massive new increased costs to the states, much higher Medicaid costs.
Remember, that's one of the ways they were able to play a budget game with Obamacare: shift Medicaid expenses to the states.
It's a massive increase in state expense.
Massive increase.
Government employment, federal and state levels.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is why all of this is reaching a tipping point.
You can't support Obamacare and support control over government spending and control over entitlements and control over public sector unions.
It simply isn't possible.
If you support Obamacare, you cannot support control over government spending because Obamacare is all about control over government spending.
If the unions If unions are so great, we've had a bunch of people here call today, a couple people trying to make the case.
Why aren't 90% of those who are not members demanding to be members?
Why is it the other way around?
A point that I made.
If it was so great back in the 50s and 60s, why isn't everybody a member of a union now getting one wage with two cars?
The wife is at home padding around the kitchen waiting for the kids to come home from school.
Why isn't that great picture of Americana reality if it was the unions that made it happen?
This is why Card Check Obama wants to change the rules so the ballot's not secret anymore.
Coerce people into joining unions.
If the unions are so great, why do they need Card Check?
Why do they need coercive elements, techniques to get people to sign up?
Speaking of waivers, haven't we all been given a waiver with Judge Vinson?
He ruled a damn thing vacated, unconstitutional.
We've all been given a waiver from Obamacare.
If you ask me, Joanne in Knoxville, Arkansas, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi.
I have a question for you.
Yes.
Okay.
Do you think that so much volunteerism hurts our economy?
Because people could get paid for doing some of these jobs they volunteer for.
Like what?
Well, as I was driving down the road the other day and I was passing all kinds of dirty semi-trucks because we've had all this snow and all.
Well, sometimes they get school kids, you know, or church groups or something will get their youth groups to go wash dirty trucks as part of, you know, volunteerism.
So people could get paid to do that.
Well, who normally washes the trucks in Knoxville, Arkansas?
I have no clue.
Our little town, it's real little, so I won't say that there's trucks here, but, you know, that was just one thing that came to my mind because I've been involved in volunteer type activities, and that's one of the things that they would do.
Right.
Would you, this is not a trick question.
This is an economics question.
Yes.
When volunteers are working for free, who is being paid?
The people who oversee the volunteers.
Somebody has to go buy the stuff to wash the trucks with.
Who's paying for that stuff?
Well, sometimes the volunteer organizations give their own.
But who's giving them money?
The people who make money.
Okay.
The point is that there's nothing that's happening for free.
It's just some people being coerced into working for free and calling it volunteerism.
Exactly.
There's money behind everything going on.
It's just who's going to end up getting it at the end of the work or the end of the project or what have you.
Right.
And, you know, I think that volunteerism is good in some areas, but I think that so often they are coerced.
School children are coerced.
Well, look at it.
You know, you can look at that another way, too.
You know, I was made to wash the cars, family cars.
I could have looked at it as volunteerism, but I didn't.
I looked at it as a chore that was designed to teach me lessons and so forth.
So there's a number of different ways you can volunteerism is a tricky subject the way you're talking about it.
I wish I had more time, but sadly, I don't.
I got one of those internet things, one of these internet spam things.
You've probably seen it.
None of these things are unique, but this is kind of short and sweet.
If you have seen it, it won't matter.
Won't mind hearing it again.
It's called Suck It Up, America.
Guy sends this out.
You know, the president ordered the cabinet to cut $100 million from the $3.5 trillion federal budget.
A million, not billion here, but it's not going to change that much.
Guy says, I'm so impressed by this sacrifice.
I've decided to do the same thing with my personal budget.
I spend about $2,000 a month on groceries, household expenses, medicine, utilities, all that.
But it's time to get out the budget cutting acts.
Go line by line through my expenses and cut back, just like the president says.
So I'm going to cut my spending at exactly the same ratio.
So after doing the math, it looks like instead of spending $2,000 a month, I'm going to have to cut the number by six cents.
Yep, I'm going to have to get by with $1,999.94 instead of $2,000.
But that's what sacrifice is all about.
I'll just have to do without some things, frankly.
The president and the Republicans think that nobody do the math, even $100 billion out of $3.7 trillion, it's not much.
Start, yeah.
But overall, not much.
More from Wisconsin media.
Law enforcement officials are looking for at least one Democrat senator to bring in for a quorum required for a fiscal measure.
However, River Hills Republican senator Alberta Darling claimed that all the Democrats got on one bus and left the state.
Somebody organized this.
All the Democrats got on one bus and left the state.
All the Senate Democrats got on one bus and left the state to avoid the vote today.
Probably went to bankrupt Illinois.
Who knows where they went?
So there they are, running away from it.
Good.
Absolutely fine.
Way to go, Democrats.
Keep it up.
This is the exact kind of stuff we need people to see you do out in the open.
Sabotage poor losers, govern against the will of the voters.
You go right ahead.
Who's next?
Kathy in Williamsville, New York.
Hello, and welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
You know, I want the average American to listen to me.
I have my most beloved son, and he's sitting over in Afghanistan right now while everybody else here is going about their daily business.
And we have elected officials getting on a bus so they don't have to cast a difficult vote.
We have a president who just submitted a budget that 42 cents on every dollar will be borrowed from a foreign country so that there's nothing left if he does make it back for his children and his future.
We had a congressman here in the 26th district who put his picture topless shirtless on Craigslist.
And then all of this nonsense.
And is this what my son is willing to die for?
Is this what our sons are doing really difficult things to die for?
We've got to rise up.
The average American who disengaged a long time ago because they were disgusted.
We had better get off of our couches.
We had better show up at these Tea Party rallies.
We had better re-engage because there will be nothing left.
Second woman in two days who could fill the job of spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
Well said, Kathy.
And trust me, don't doubt me.
Your passion is shared equally by millions of Americans that you don't know.
You just had them sitting up out of their chairs and applauding.
I'm glad you called.
Thanks very much.
Lou Ann.
It says, Lou Ann leaving Madison, Wisconsin.
Are you on the road out of town?
Is that right?
I am leaving Madison, Wisconsin.
I was there the last couple days, and you cannot believe the stuff going on there.
The papers, unbelievable.
I was, fire's coming out of my ears.
I'm so upset.
For one thing, they're screaming and yelling.
The union people are screaming and yelling that Governor Walker is being toted by the unions of the firemen and the policemen and blah, blah, blah.
And I am just livid because I am like, you know, for several years now, Governor Doyle has just been run by the teacher union in the state.
I mean, he was told what to do.
They would put something before him.
There was no question.
He was just owned by them.
And now the shoe's on the other foot and they are like up in arms.
You know, Governor Walker's campaign was funded by blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, wow, okay, now you guys know how it feels.
Now that's, we sat back for several years and watched the teachers union just control Doyle completely.
And they're just livid.
They're livid.
They don't know what to do.
And I hope those senators that got on the bus, I wish they would stay there.
And do you know that the teachers have not taught in Madison for two days?
And, you know, their slogan, what, a few years ago was kids first?
I say, baloney.
It's not kids first.
It's never been kids first.
It's their own, you know, power and their own money.
That's all they care about.
Let me ask you this, Lou Ann.
Are the schools open for school breakfast and school lunch, even though the teachers are not there?
No.
No.
Really?
And I went by one of the high schools, and the kids were picketing, saying, who's thinking about us?
Why aren't teachers thinking about it?
Are you kidding?
The kids are picketing.
Who's thinking about us?
Absolutely.
They know they're going to be having to make it up and they don't want to be making it up in June.
And so they're like, hey, what about us?
We want to be in school being taught.
We need to get our hours in for the year and these stupid teachers who are like, wait a minute, no, no.
I have to step in.
Somebody's got to get hold of these kids.
You got a day off from school.
Take it.
Well, they're pretty livid.
I think after a couple days, they're like, no, we want to be back in school.
And will somebody teach us?
That's not normal.
That's not normal.
Snow Day, teachers, strike, whatever.
Take it.
Don't join a picking line.
Well, I don't mind.
What about us?
That's probably because there's no food being served.
What about that?
The school districts care so little about the kids.
Even when the teachers are gone, there's no school breakfast or school lunch.
As far as I know, the schools are shut.
Where are these kids eating?
I mean, for crying out loud, now we're going to have kids starvation added to all the other indignities.
They don't care about the kids.
I mean, let's face it, they have not cared about the kids in a long time.
Obviously not.
The teachers are letting kids starve in Madison, Wisconsin.
Well, I'm telling you, and the paper was just a joke.
I was reading it this morning, and I thought, I can't even stand reading this.
It's so biased.
It's not reporting at all.
And it's just incredible.
And I mean, for those of us who, you know, fought and fought and fought to get Walker, Governor Walker in, and he's now doing exactly what we hired him to do.
And people are just, and, you know, I mean, let's look at it.
Like I've said to many people the last couple of days, if our budget in our family is tight and we've had to say to our kids, guess what?
We're not going on a vacation this year.
No, you can't have that.
I don't care if you pick it outside my house.
Pick it all you want.
But this is the way it is.
This is our budget.
And this is the way we're going to get our households back in order.
I'll tell you what.
So I'm telling you, I hope Governor Walker just holds his ground.
I don't care how many thousands of people, 20,000 people outside the Capitol, who cares?
Yeah, I do too.
I do hope he holds firm there.
No question.
I'm still struck by the fact they're starving the kids in Madison.
You know, all we heard about was Republican school lunch cuts back in 1995, and here they've closed the schools to school breakfast and school lunch, and the kids are outside protesting.
What about us?
Can we come back to school and be taught by somebody?
I say, get rid of all of them.
If you want to go pick it at the, guess what?
Your job's not going to be there when you show up on Monday.
That's what I say.
You know, someone's going to, because there's a lot of people that would love to have a job.
Well, somebody needs to tell the people of Wisconsin elections have consequences.
And these are them, and they're supposed to.
I loved your comments about the union.
I have three children, and both my husband and I have encouraged our children not to go into teaching because you would probably have to pay union dues if you work at a public school.
What did you like about what I said about unions?
Because I said a lot about, what did you like about what I said?
I love that you said people should have an option.
It's unbelievable that they do not have an option to pay for this.
I mean, when you see what the Wisconsin Teachers Union, you know, what their money goes to, I would, there's no way I could.
There's no way in my right mind I could be a teacher and say that that money is going towards that.
No way.
And so we've encouraged our children, no, don't go into teaching.
Just don't do it.
I mean, teaching is a great profession in the right setting, and you're forming young minds.
That's wonderful.
But it is so powerful in this state that it's unbelievable.
I mean, you do not have a say.
You do not have a say.
Luann, thank you very much for calling.
Thanks.
Thank you.
You did a great job.
By the way, we have reports, ladies and gentlemen, email here.
That bus taking the Democrat senators away from Madison out of state was a little yellow bus.
Yeah, why is it a little yellow bus that they crammed all these state Democrat senators into?
No, I think, no, they were not looking out the windows.
They didn't want to be recognized.
That's why they put them in a little yellow bus.
Harder to see.
And I'm thinking, why don't you have the National Guard standing by?
Why not send them in and teach?
They'd be just as good as your standard ordinary teachers.
National Guard.
Well, yeah.
I'm sitting here in stunned disbelief at the lack of compassion on the part of the union people in Wisconsin to shut down the schools.
I mean, at least keep them open for the traditional school breakfast and school lunch.
These kids are starving.
We all know their parents don't know what to do to feed them.
And we know their parents don't have the money to feed them.
That's why we have all these school lunch programs.
You know who that's really going to tick off is Michelle Obama.
This is not what are they probably gone off to some fast food joint today to eat instead of the nutritious spaghetti o's and stuff that they get at school.
It's a bad situation out there, folks.
Jerry, in Appleton, Wisconsin, this is where visiting NFL teams stay when they go in to play the Packers.
Hello, sir.
Great to have you on the program.
You bet.
Excuse me.
If you and I or I left our jobs like the senators did, what would happen to us?
We would get fired.
Well, nothing would happen to me, but no, I know, but I would.
But most of us would.
Now, I suggest that we fire every one of them or recall every one of them.
They don't want to work.
They were hired and voted to work for us.
And they're leaving and they're not working for us.
I know.
By the way, folks, it's not, what's the word?
It's not incorrect to say they work for us, that we hire them, that we do elect them.
They are independent thinkers and so forth, but they walk off the job this way.
They refuse to do the job in the midst of what's being called a pro-democracy movement.
They are sabotaging democracy.
They are running away from democracy.
They're running away from a vote they know that they're going to lose.
Texas Democrats did this.
Texas did, I forget what the, it might have been a budget as well.
A budget dispute, but they ran away and they went to a different state.
They were caught.
They sent the state troopers after them in Texas.
And last I looked, I don't think the Democrats have reclaimed power in that state since that happened.
That's a great point.
What happens if you walk off your job at a crucial moment like this?
What happens?
Nothing good.
That's for sure.
I'm glad you called, Jerry.
I appreciate it very much.
Why not?
I mean, it's a moot point.
Why not send the National Guard in to replace the Democrat senators?
I mean, that's what the National Guard's for.
The media is trying to tell everybody National Guard was called out by Governor Walker here to beat heads of the protesters.
That's what they're saying.
K-State's got out a hand and National Guard dares to beat the protesters upside the head.
No way.
They are there to make sure that jobs and everything functions normally if the protests interrupt normal progression of events taking place of events.
That's why they're there.
So let them go in and vote.
It's a moot point, I know.
Just an illustration.
I stand corrected.
It's not the little yellow bus.
I always thought it was the little yellow bus.
It's the short bus.
The Democrat senators from Wisconsin piled into a short bus and were driven away from the state capitol in Wisconsin in a cowardly act of refusing to vote on the governor's budget.
The protests there continue.
We will be back tomorrow on Open Line Friday, one of many favorite days of the week.
See you then, folks.
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