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April 5, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:53
April 5, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Okay, we're back.
I see that I see that the esteemed leader of the regime is in the White House briefing room here talking about how he and Boehner did identify areas where they could make substantial budget cuts.
Now, Boehner came out of there saying there's no chance of an agreement.
So we're rolling on this, and if Obama has anything interesting, substantive to say, we of course will uh pass it on to you.
There's a headline about this, CBS News.com.
From uh, let's see, this is uh early today.
Look at this headline.
Obama summons Boehner for budget talks.
GOP House leader to White House says Congress fails to reach 2011 funding agreement, may result in government shutdown.
I found the headline to be a little disconcerting.
Oh, is that what he's saying?
Politics and ideology are to blame if there's a shutdown.
Politics and ideology are to blubbe.
Oh, yeah.
See, he's not political, he's not an ideologue.
Yeah, he's uh he's he's Mr. Clean.
He's Mr. Clean.
He's clean and pure as the wind-driven snow.
He's up there just trying to do his business.
All these politicians, all these ideologues are getting in the way of the esteemed leader.
Uh trying to get something done on the budget.
He has no role in this whatsoever.
He's not a politician, and he himself is not an ideologue.
But I thought this headline, Obama summons Boehner for budget talks.
That's that's a little disconcerting.
I didn't realize Obama had that kind of uh power.
I always thought the three branches are co-equal.
Obama summons Boehner.
Like Boehner's sitting over there sucking his thumb and all of a sudden a note goes, hey, you've been summoned.
So Boehner drops everything in a heads up.
Here is, ladies and gentlemen, the ACLU condemning the Gitmo decision, and they threaten Obama.
In a move that undermines civil liberties and the rule of law, the regime today announced that it will prosecute the suspects in the Guantanamo military commission system.
In one of the first acts of his new presidency, Obama called a halt to these military commissions.
A joint Department of Justice and Department of Defense Task Force was then created to conduct careful review of the appropriate forum for trials for accused terrorists held at Club Gitmo.
Attorney General Eric Holder had announced the result of that process in November 2009.
The 9-11 defendants would be prosecuted in federal courts.
The regime delayed in response to political pressure and is now backtracked under pressure from within and outside of Congress.
And uh the let's say the Anthony Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, this is in their press release.
The regime's decision to use the broken and deficient military commission system to prosecute the most important terrorism cases of our time is completely wrong.
There's a reason this system is condemned.
It's rife with constitutional and procedural problems.
It undermines the fundamental American values that have made us a model.
Ah, here we go again with that.
Our fundamental values, somehow.
Our fundamental values around the world, somehow taking a big hit by trying these guys down to Guantanamo.
These cases have already been delayed for years by the Bush administration's legally and morally disastrous decision to subject the 9-11 defendants to torture and indefinite detention.
Cases prosecuted by the Obama regime in the commissions now are sure to be subject to continuous legal challenges and delays, and their outcomes will not be seen as legitimate.
This is not justice Americans deserve better.
That's the ACLU, fit to be tied over the fact the regime is going to conduct the trials in the military commission down in Guantanamo Bay.
They bring up all those delays in the procedures under Bush, and all of them were caused by procedural roadblocks thrown up by the ACLU and their otherwise terrorist sympathizers.
And then they go on to threaten the Obama regime that they'll do the same thing to them.
Cause the same endless delays with challenges.
So that's what the ACLU has said here.
Until these guys are brought to trial in New York, where they can have a free run at ripping this country to shreds, we're going to sue, and we're going to use every legal device at our at our disposal here to delay these trials.
And you have to wonder if uh if if the regime was not aware that this was going to happen.
Let's go to Chris Van Holland.
Here's the he's the point Democrat on the uh on the appropriations committee.
Democrat side.
He was the first guy yesterday who responded to Paul Ryan on Sunday.
On the Sunday shows, Ryan gave us a sneak peek at what his budget proposal was going to be.
They sent Van Holland out there from Maryland.
They sent Van Holland out there to uh offer up the 30-year-old cliches from the Democrat Party playbook about why this budget's dead on arrival.
And he talked about all the tax breaks for the rich, and of course, that we have the story about the crony capitalism with Obama and ATT, 140 million dollars of your taxpayer money given to ATT to fund health care for their early retirees, $97 million to Verizon, $202 million to the United Auto Workers.
So here's Van Holland.
By the way, Obama just said that they have agreed to $33 billion worth of cuts, but the Republicans are pressing for specific cuts.
They'd agree to $73 billion, but some of those cuts Obama's not going to put up with.
He's not going to put up with some of them.
But he wants that number $73 billion of them.
I've agreed to $73 billion, but not some of the things that they want to cut.
Meanwhile, folks, we are only here because the Democrats failed to do a budget in the first place.
As far as I'm concerned, they have no standing in any of this.
They punted.
When it was time constitutionally to do a budget, they voted present.
The adults have to take over and now fund the country with these continuing resolutions.
And as we all know, Boehner is trying to adhere to the uh to the rules.
But Obama doesn't like the specific cuts.
Here's now's Van Holland.
Let's see what he's got to say.
Press conference after Ryan proposed his budget this afternoon.
The Republican plan in the House fails the simple test of balance.
In fact, if you look at the Republican plan, it is simply a recycled, rigid ideology that says we need to provide big tax breaks to the very wealthy and the very powerful at the expense of the rest of the country.
It's dressed up in a lot of nice sounding rhetoric about reform, but in fact it's the same tired old playbook we've seen before.
They preserve and in fact increase tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans.
They keep in place uh tax subsidies to the oil and gas industry and other special corporate interests while they cut education.
They don't cut educ.
Ah you see, it's the same old, same old.
It's the s and and these are uh phantom cuts, anyway.
These are phantom complaints.
We're simply Mr. Van Holland going back to 2008 spending level.
Your budget.
Are you telling us now that your budget was filled with tax cuts for the rich?
Are you telling us that your budget in 2008 kicked old people out of their houses and denied them health care?
Is that what you're telling us, Mr. Van Holland?
Dressed up in a lot of nice sounding rhetoric and reform, same tired playbook tax breaks for the very wealthy.
Don't forget, Mr. Van Holland, you're on you're on thin ice here.
It is your party, crony capitalism, federal dollars in Obamacare to ATT of Arise in the UAW to fund health care if anybody's in bed with these wealthy special corporate interests.
It's Obama.
And it's all of you.
You voted for this health care bill, Van Holland.
You voted for your you've got quote unquote the blood of all this on your hands.
Here's what he accused Ryan of regarding Medicare.
What do they do with Medicare?
They essentially end Medicare as we know it.
They don't reform it, they deform it.
They take away the Medicare guarantee for seniors.
They say you've got to go into the private insurance market.
And by the way, we'll give you a voucher of premium support, whatever you want to call it, that will reduce value over time.
And all the risk of increased costs in the health care system will be borne by the Medicare beneficiary, the seniors.
No, only among those who can afford it.
So now keep in mind, this is what Ryan wants.
He wants them demagoguing it this way.
He said so, snerdily.
I mean, you can sit there and look at me like I don't know what I'm talking about.
He said it.
He wants, he's the look at they're you you see Van Holland in just two sound bites.
Look at everything they're fighting.
What Ryan has done here is flood the zone with so many proposals that that the Democrats are going to sound silly.
They're going to be opposing virtually everything in it.
They are going to become the party and no.
These are the people that punt it.
These are the people voted president.
These are the people that checked out of the entire budget process last fall.
Now Obama just clarified, by the way, he's willing to willing to go to $73 billion.
But now Boehner wants the full 100 billion.
So Obama's they didn't agree to 73.
Obama has said he's willing to go there, but now Boehner wants a hundred billion.
Ladies and gentlemen, we we are seeing history happen before our eyes.
We are watching.
We're watching how democracy really works.
Obama just said that if Boehner and Reed can't work things out, he's going to have them come back to the White House tomorrow.
He's going to summon Boehner again.
He's going to summon Reed up there.
If they can't work this out, he's going to have them keep coming back.
He's the referee, see.
He's clean and pure as the wind-driven snow.
He's got no dog in this hunt.
That's the way he's choosing to play this.
It's like he had nothing to do with health care.
He didn't have his own plan.
That's the way he plays it.
He had nothing to do specifically with any of the elements of the budget or legislative process that have led us to where we are.
Here's more Van Holland.
This is a last bite.
This is the one we've had Pelosi talk about, had Reed talk about it now, Van Holland.
This block grant uh proposal on Medicare.
This has just sent them into a tizzy.
Simply put, turning Medicaid into a block grant program is just code for cutting deeply into supports for seniors in nursing homes, seniors in assisted living facilities, low-income kids, disabled individuals, and the most vulnerable population.
It's a blank check to governors with a license to cut the support for those uh individuals uh in our uh society.
It is certainly not courageous to pick on some of the most vulnerable in our society.
Now, what's wrong with this?
Just intellectually, what's wrong with it?
Right.
Governors want to kill their own people.
Chris Van Holland says the block grant program sending it back to the governor, governors just want to close down these institutions and send people in them out to the streets to die.
Uh low-income kids, disabled individuals, the most vulnerable population.
A blank check to governors to cut support for those individuals.
The governors are going to kill their own people.
You leave it up to the governors, they're going to kill their own people.
He just does not want any of this power divested from Washington.
I know we blocked granted welfare reform, and it worked.
Governors cannot print Money.
Governors have to make things balanced.
Governors have to do things.
They can't sit up there and play games.
Okay, let's I'll tell you what, let's do.
Let's cut.
Let's cut tax dollars for the rich right now.
Let's defund what remains of TARP.
If you want to talk about cutting taxes for the rich, let's get rid of this.
Whatever's not spent for stimulus, get rid of it.
Who'd it go to?
It went to the rich.
It went to unions.
Let's defund what remains of TARP.
Let's return the money to taxpayers.
Let's eliminate general electric special tax deals so it actually pays some income tax.
No more subsidies for millions and billionaires to promote phony green energy proposals.
If you want to talk about defunding the rich, I'm all for it.
Let's stop giving 140 million dollars to ATT, 202 million dollars to United Auto Workers.
In fact, let's stop giving automobile companies to the unions.
You want to defund the rich?
Fine, stop giving tax breaks to GE, your corporate crony buddy.
I gotta take a break.
I'm getting frustrated, ticked off.
Back after this.
Don't go away.
Do-do-do-do.
Mmm.
Needless to point this out, ladies and gentlemen, and nevertheless I shall.
Obama goes out there today, mere moments ago, with an unscheduled impromptu little appearance in the White House briefing room.
And he starts whining and moaning and complaining that people don't want to see all this finger pointing, and they don't want to see a government shutdown.
And Americans don't like seeing these games.
About that, au contraire, I do want to see these games.
I love seeing these games.
These are the games I want to see.
I want to see a lot more of this.
I want to see our side go up there and not bow down and act afraid of this guy.
Now, this guy, Obama.
I've been mentioning all day as I look at the Washington Post poll and their reporting of it.
It seems to me that the press is doing everything he can here to warn the Democrats, you know, be careful on this shutdown because you guys are likely going to get blamed for it this time.
This isn't 1995.
And I'm convinced Obama goes out there and portrays himself as Mr. Clean.
It's a bunch of ideologues and politics causing this problem.
We don't need a government shutdown.
I'm willing to go 73 billion dollars in cuts.
Daner wants a hundred billion.
It's too much.
Some of the specific things, blah, blah.
I think they sent Obama out there because if this shutdown happens, he gets blamed.
I think it's I think it's on the Democrats this time.
That's there's no other reason to go out there and do this today.
There's no reason for Obama to go out and play the games he played today and say what he said.
Don't doubt me on this.
The Washington Post poll 3737 as to who gets blamed, Republicans, Democrats for a government shutdown.
That's that's not good.
I bet they've got internal polling.
It's uh worse that shows them getting blamed.
And why wouldn't they?
I mean, I keep saying this, but when it comes to the budget, these guys don't have any standing anyway.
When it came time to do the budget for the you really we don't have one?
That's why all of these continuing resolutions.
Because the Democrats punted.
There weren't even there weren't any negotiations.
There, there they didn't even present a budget.
Obama did, but they didn't.
Because of an election year.
Obama, again, he just claimed they had an agreement of 73 billion dollars in cuts.
And Boehner is right now saying that they never agreed to $33 billion in cuts.
So here's Obama saying I had 73 billion.
Boehner says we never even agreed on 33 billion.
So we got a difference of 40 billion dollars in what both sides are saying they've agreed to.
That's why I want to see these games.
I want to see the sausage made.
I want to see how this works.
I want to see this played out in the media.
I want to see it raw so that the media don't have a chance to filter it for me.
I'm telling you, Obama going out there is a is a um to me a sign things are not going his way.
They had to send the great orator out there to try to put this back together again.
But just to repeat, you got Van Holland and Pelosi and read the whole Democrat Party with their cliched reaction to the Ryan budget, which is tax cuts for the rich, health care cuts for the sick, all of these people are going to be put out of there on the same old stuff they've been saying for 30 years.
Okay, let's cut taxes for the rich.
You people at media ain't getting this.
You people in media matters.
Start writing.
Let's cut taxes for the rich.
TARP was for the rich.
Rich banker bailouts.
Not all of it has been spent.
Let's defund what remains.
Let's return the money to the taxpayers.
General Electric in bed with the regime, paid no federal income taxes.
Let's eliminate whatever special deal they've got so that they will now pay some federal income tax.
GE's a rich company.
And how about we just eliminate subsidies for millions of dollars for billionaires to promote this phony green energy idea?
Let's get rid of uh ethanol subsidies.
Massive farm corporations.
Let's let's let's get rid of the federal laws that make trial lawyers among the richest people in the country.
Now this block grant business.
It's exactly as I said.
This just gives the power to the governors.
It cuts out federal employees, make up a big percentage of Van Holland's district in Montgomery County, Maryland.
He doesn't want to lose control over that money.
Where's the Democrat Party's 2011 budget, folks?
Where is it?
Where is the Democrat Party's 2012 budget?
They are now two budgets behind.
Where is Obama's deficit commission proposal?
He deep sixed it.
My point is that the Democrat Party is assuming no responsibility for a mess they have made.
As is the usual case.
The simplest way to say this is we are the good guys.
We are the serious ones.
All of us together.
We are the ones trying for the Tea Party on up.
We are the ones trying to solve the problems.
We are the ones trying to fix the mess.
The Democrat Party is MIA.
They make the mess.
Somehow they are excused from ownership.
They didn't do a budget last year.
They haven't done a budget this year.
All they do is complain and whine and moan.
So Obama and the Democrats have not offered a budget for this year.
They've not offered a budget for next year.
They have rejected the deficit commission proposals.
They call everybody else extreme, irresponsible.
They want to cut school lunches.
They claim that we want to starve the elderly.
That all we care about is tax cuts for the rich.
Where are the Democrats?
The Democrats aren't even being talked about in the media or in the polls.
All this is, this is being cast as the evil Republican Party versus the Shining Night Barack Obama.
That's how the media is casting this.
Democrats are not even being talked about by the media.
They're being given a free ride.
They're total spectators.
They create the mess.
We are the good guys in this.
We're the ones trying to clean it all up.
And yet we're the extremists.
We're the racists, sexists, bigots, homophobes, all of this.
They are the gutless Wonders.
The masterminds of destruction.
We have picked up the mop.
We are trying to get the car out of the ditch.
They sit around and cry like a bunch of stuck pigs, whine like a bunch of little children, and you can't really top Obama for chutzpah.
He just said we cannot have a my way or the highway approach to this problem.
This is the same guy who said I won.
Same guy who said I won during the leadership meeting, first one he held after being immaculated in early two thousand nine.
Some Republicans have, well, you might want to try tax cuts to get the economy.
Well, that would be good except for one thing.
I won.
The same guy who didn't even meet with the Republican leadership until a couple of months ago.
Now says we can't have a my way or the highway approach to this problem when that's all we've had since he took office.
Who's next?
John in Ashland, Virginia.
It's great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Hey Rush, how are you doing?
Good.
It's very pitiful that we have to start running for office when we haven't even done the job we were elected to do two years ago.
I thought that the president may have pulled it off and looks like he didn't do it.
I I didn't vote for him, but I wished him well and and I had hoped that he would have done some things that he said he was going to do.
Just 50,000 jobs, that happens every spring, you know.
The you go to the uh fast food places and they have new faces.
You go to the amusement parks, you go to uh the beaches, and you see people from uh Europe over here that can't speak English very well, but they're they've got jobs, and this happens every year.
But these are not jobs that people can support a family on and and make a career of.
This is just like the every spring you see the Robins come to the uh North, and every year we see young kids, my kids getting jobs.
But the real thing that I want to say is that you know, I hope that I live to see the greatest president of this country to be elected because the president can turn this country around to be elected in the next two to six years.
If he can turn this around, we'll probably go down as the greatest president in the country.
Well, that's very nice of you, sir.
But I'm not running.
Well, that won't be you then, but somebody's got to turn it around, Russ.
Somebody's got to turn it around, and and we need somebody to step up and say, I want to be your president for four years and four years only, and you're not going to see me on the campaign trail.
You're not going to see me raising funds for anyone.
You're going to see me very seldomly smiling from ear to ear and waving to you because I'm going to be too busy doing the job of the people, and when I get through, you won't reelect me because all of you are going to be unhappy with me, because all of you are going to have to pay to get us out of this.
Well, if that happened, that person would be re-elected by acclamation.
If if that were actually uh uh possible to happen.
But I get your point.
Uh it comes up now and then that people uh uh would support somebody who just okay.
I'm here for four years.
I'm doing none of the usual stuff.
I'm not doing fundraisers, I'm not going to fix the problems, I'm out of here.
I'm leaving.
People would respond to that.
There's no question.
But the Democrats would destroy the guy.
And the uh and the and the media uh would do you have anybody in mind outside of me now that I've told you it ain't really who who is your fantasy candidate?
Is there anybody you think that could pull off what you just suggested?
I don't know who it is, but there's someone out there that can do it.
They just they just need to step up and say, I'm not going to run for reelection, I'm going to get the job done, and when I get through doing this job, none of you are going to like me.
I'll probably have to go into exile.
Right, but so it's none of the names we know then.
No one has impressed me, but you know, the the uh the Israelis waited waited for Jesus to come for many, many years, so maybe maybe that's who we need.
Uh yeah, you could look at it.
All right, well, look, I'm glad uh I've I'm I'm glad you called it problem.
We've we've we've tried Messiahs, we got one now, and that's not working out well for us.
We've uh we've we we've done the Messiah route, and they're just not cracked up to be all that they are.
I have an interesting story here.
Uh, ladies and gentlemen from the New York Daily News, and it is uh it's from uh March twenty seventh, but it's interesting as it relates to what the Democrats are saying today about the budget.
This is about Governor uh uh Kumo and lawmakers reaching a New York state budget deal.
Governor Andrew Kumo, state lawmaker struck a deal Sunday for an on-time 132.5 billion dollar budget that Mayor Bloomberg promptly slammed as a ripoff to the city.
But the agreement calls for a 2% across the board cut in spending.
It plugs a $10 billion deficit, it does this without any broad tax increases or borrowing.
So Andrew Kumo just agreed to a cross the board cuts in New York's budget and no tax increases.
Does that mean that the elderly are going to go without food in New York?
Does this mean that people are going to get kicked out of their homes?
Does this mean that I mean Governor of New York has across the board cuts two percent?
Now we've heard Chris Van Holland and Pelosi and Reed tell us of the disasters that await us in the Paul Ryan Republican budget.
And here Andrew Kumo has just done his version of their budget in New York.
And I don't hear any Democrats attacking Kumo's budget.
No, I say Kumo because that's how Jesse Jackson pronounces it.
And if I don't, you know pronounce it that way, they'll accuse me making fun of Jesse Jackson by pronouncing it right.
If I pronounce it right, they accuse me making fun of Jesse Jackson.
Now 2%.
I'll run the math here real quick.
A 2% across the board cut of the federal budget.
2% across the board cut of the what would that equal?
What's a 2% cut?
What's our budget?
3 trillion?
3.3 trillion?
What's 2% of 3 point over 10 years?
2%.
Okay, Ryan's gonna the the Ryan budget spends 39 trillion over 10 years, 3.9 a year.
So what's two percent?
I bet that would be six, I don't know what it would.
I have to do the math real quick here.
Once you get past seven zeros, I kind of get lost.
Back to the phones.
Bob in Dallas, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
It's a great privilege.
Uh we're pretty plain spoken here in Texas, and uh there was one unescapable point with the uh Democrats uh uh point about uh how they're the new Republican budget is hurting seniors.
Yeah.
I hope they keep up with that because it's real simple.
Uh Obamacare cut one half of a trillion dollars to seniors.
And if that doesn't if that doesn't hit home, then the Republicans don't have any talking points.
Uh Obama cut one half of a trillion dollars to seniors.
Five hundred billion.
Oh, you the Medicare cuts.
Yeah, the Medicare cuts.
Yeah, except that he really didn't.
They're they're they're added back in.
And see, and they were not only that, they were double counted, but here's the here's the thing on that.
You're absolutely right.
The original Obamacare had a $500 billion cut in Medicare.
Do you remember?
There were a few Democrats like Bernie Sanderson wackos, but did Chris Van Holland go out and talk about the end of the world when he heard that?
No.
Nope.
Republicans didn't either.
Although more of them went out and talked about it, but it just didn't have the lifespan as it would have if a Republican had proposed it, right?
Right.
Nobody read it anyway, so well, we knew that.
No, we were we we're making a big deal out of that here.
We're made we made a big deal out of it twice because they were they were taking it out.
They were they they they proposed $500 billion in Medicare cuts only to bring the cost in under a trillion dollars.
And then they added it back in later.
They double counted it.
I remember talking, well, it was it was an email to a well-known uh liberal commentator who has been vacillating on Obama since the beginning.
And this well-known liberal commentator was just appalled.
Appalled that the Democrat Party would propose any legislation, particularly a health care bill that would cut $500 billion of Medicare.
And I had to assure this liberal commentator, look at this, they're not gonna cut the when this thing all ends up, there aren't going to be $500 billion in Medicare cuts.
It isn't gonna happen.
They just that that's a that's a budget trick here to get the whole cost in under a trillion dollars.
It'll be back in, you wait and see.
And the liberal commentator was relieved.
But there was some concern, but it wasn't it wasn't something that uh occupied uh a lot of attention as it would look here.
Ryan hadn't even proposed that.
And look at the conniption fit that they are that they're having over his uh budget.
Anyway, uh Bob, I appreciate the call.
I really do.
I'm I'm up against it here on on uh time, however.
The constraints of the programming format necessitate me ending this broadcast segment.
You know, folks, all of a sudden, since Obama spoke, none of the news networks are talking about the budget.
That's all they were talking about.
Obama goes out and speaks, and none of them are talking about it.
Suddenly, everything else is much more important.
Now, why is that?
Why did they just drop talking about the budget?
Are they worried Obama's gonna cave?
Or maybe they think he caved too much based on what he said.
Very bizarre, folks, how quickly they have moved off the budget story since it was all they could talk about all day, and then he makes an unexpected appearance and they've dropped it like a hot potato.
We'll find out.
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