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June 22, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:52
June 22, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And greetings once again to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
I am Rush Limbaugh, the reason God created radio in the first place, here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
But remember, my friends, as long as I'm here, it doesn't matter where here is.
We are in Hollywood.
Actually, we're not in Hollywood.
It's close enough, though.
We are in Los Angeles, and this is the fastest week in media, as you know.
And here we are already at Wednesday.
Time is really flying.
I know a number of you are just dying to know, did I break ADA yesterday when I went out and played Bill Arrogan?
No.
What did I at 80 at 85?
I had 84, whatever.
84, one of those two.
I forget which it was.
No, I'm not playing as much as Obama is.
To play as much as Obama is, I'd have to play for three straight weeks every day.
He's playing every weekend this year so far.
But anyway, having a wonderful, it was one week ago today that we launched 2FIT, 2, TWO, If By Two.
One week ago today, history was made on this program.
Yesterday.
Yesterday, one of the greatest programs in the history of the program.
Yesterday, I've got so many, and I want to thank all of you for the nice thoughts that you expressed in your emails.
Those Reagan soundbites, I went out to the golf course yesterday, and I got out there an hour after the program ended, and I'm running around.
I met R.J. Wagner yesterday, Robert Wagner.
It turns out Robert Wagner is a friend of a friend of mine in Palm Beach, the noted thriller author Ted Bell.
And I didn't know that R.J., that's how he introduced himself, folks, so don't get on me.
He says, R.J. Wagner, you know, a great actor.
But all these people were going on and on and on about the Reagan soundbites yesterday.
It was just wonderful because we hear all these people telling us what Reagan was and who Reagan was and how Reagan did things.
And most of the time, people with their stories are not correct.
They get this incorrect view of Reagan.
And those bites yesterday of Reagan going after Jimmy Carter at the Statue of Liberty in 1980, people were shocked, pleasantly surprised, let's put it that way.
Even people old enough to have remembered Reagan and have been actively involved.
1980, 30 years ago, to me, all that seems like yesterday.
The 80s really does seem like yesterday to me.
Sacramento, I moved there in 1984.
Seems like yesterday, honestly.
But it's still a long time ago.
And even though I remember all of these things about Reagan, because I was, of course, in a passion, a lot of people have forgotten, obviously, and they hear the way Reagan went after these people, and they contrast it to what they hear Republicans suggesting is the right way to do it today.
And then they are led, as we did yesterday, into an analysis of, okay, who's winning and losing elections and how are they doing it?
And it becomes abundantly clear that for all this talk about remaining true to the ideals of Reagan, the Republican Party has forgotten how to do it.
So it was a lot of fun yesterday.
The Huntsman announcement provided a lot of fodder, and it continues to bleed into today.
We got Obama with a speech tonight from the Oval Orifice on Afghanistan.
Yeah.
And speaking of foreign policy, the news from foreign sources continues to embarrass domestic state control media.
This is the French news agency.
Tell me if you've heard anything about this.
Italy.
Italy called for a suspension of hostilities in Libya today in the latest sign of dissent within NATO as the civilian death toll mounts and Muammar Gaddafi shows no signs of quitting.
Now, who does this guy think he is?
Obama told him to go.
Obama said he's going to be gone in a few days.
Told him to go.
And Gaddafi is still hanging around.
And the Italians are saying, this is stupid.
We're not gaining any ground.
There's nothing happening here.
A civilian death toll is rising.
Gaddafi's hanging in.
The Italian foreign minister Franco Fartini told a parliamentary committee meeting, we have seen the effects of the crisis and therefore also of NATO action, not only in eastern and southwestern regions, but also in Tripoli.
I believe an immediate humanitarian suspension of hostilities is required in order to create effective humanitarian corridors.
I think the most urgent dramatic point.
I think it's legitimate to request ever more detailed information on the results, the dramatic errors that hit civilians, which is clearly not an objective of the NATO mission.
Well, imagine, folks, the liberals running NATO, the liberals running the U.S. military, demanding, as they always do, these surgical strikes when they're not in power, demanding it.
No civilian injuries or deaths ever occur.
And it's happening in droves.
And now NATO, Italy, wants to pull out.
So nothing seems to be happening anywhere.
Nothing right seems to be happening anywhere.
President Obama's health care law.
You heard this?
Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free health insurance meant for the poor.
A twist that government number crunchers say that they discovered only after the bill was signed.
Oh, really?
We're talking about up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of this anomaly.
And that's because in a major change, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility.
Might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps.
And they're trying to tell us this was an accident.
They're trying to tell us this was an anomaly.
They're trying to say, ah, gosh, you know what?
We missed this.
We didn't know that this was in the bill before it was signed.
But they had, it's exactly right.
Somebody had to write it in there.
Now, one of the people who gets credit for writing the actual pen to paper was Weiner.
Anthony Weiner either took it or was given it, or a combination of both, credit for writing Obamacare.
Somebody had to write it in there.
Remember Pelosi said, we got to pass this to find out what's in it.
Well, that's happening.
And you know that there's going to be far more.
There will be many more discoveries like this.
3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of this anomaly.
Now, let me ask you a question.
3 million middle-class people will get nearly free health insurance meant for the poor.
Who is paying for that?
Other members of the middle class and people in the upper middle class and the wealthy.
That's who will be paying for this.
Anybody want to take any bets on the recipients saying, no, no, I don't deserve this.
I don't qualify.
Any bets on people turning this down?
Don't think so.
I think the recipients will gladly accept the mistake.
Because this is what they thought it was going to be in the first place.
This is what they thought it was going to be, free health care.
This is not an accident.
This is how the left continues to massage people and get them dependent on government and expecting the government to do this kind of thing for them.
And we only hear about it now after the bill is signed into law.
And this line here, this is an AP story.
It might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps.
They do, don't they?
Folks, if we have 54 million Medicare recipients, or food stamp, I guarantee you, some middle-class people.
Well, you know there are.
You may be one for crying out loud.
And if you're not a middle-class person on food stamps, I'm sure you've seen one or a number of them at the market when you go in there.
Richard Foster, the Medicare chief actuary, says the situation keeps him up at night.
I don't generally comment on the pros or cons of policy, said the Medicare chief actuary, but this just doesn't make sense.
He said during a question and answer session at a recent professional society meeting.
This is a situation that gets no attention at all, he said.
And even now, as I raise the issue with various policymakers, people are not rushing to say we need to do something about it.
Of course, they're not.
They don't intend to do anything about it.
This is buying votes 101.
Interesting how this news happens to hit the outset of an election season where a Democrat incumbent's in trouble.
All of a sudden, now we find out, well, Shose Am, 3 million middle-class people are going to get free health care.
Yeah.
Wow.
What a shocker.
It is the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, one network under God, and not afraid to say it.
Happy to have you along, folks.
A telephone number, if you want to join us, 800-282-2882.
Well, we'll get to the phone calls pretty quickly.
The White House is defending this 3 million additional freebies on Medicare or Medicaid.
They're defending it.
It got no real attention when Obamacare was rammed to the Senate.
It's not a loophole.
It's just another well-meaning effort from the left.
The equivalent of food stamps to the middle class, well-intentioned.
See, don't judge the results of us on the left.
Don't judge us.
No, no, no.
You're supposed to examine our big hearts.
You're supposed to take note of our good intentions.
There's a story in USA Today that asks the question: is Social Security a Ponzi scheme?
Now, of course, it is.
Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.
It is a Madoff-type Ponzi scheme.
But you know what?
In USA Today, state control media, they say, no, no, no.
Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme because our intentions were honorable.
We really intended for Social Security to work out really well.
So it can't possibly be a Ponzi scheme because we intended it to be real.
So the left, the Democrats, can do anything.
They can employ strategy and policy, which is destructive, and be excused for it on the basis that they had good intentions.
And by the way, that's how they skate on virtually every bit of destructive policy, which is every policy they have.
There's not one that works as designed.
Now, this morning, I mean, this is it just keeps getting worse.
The news, I feel like I'm piling on.
The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office today, just this morning, mere moments ago, released its updated long-term budget projections.
And it's worse than anybody thought.
In last year's, the document's called Outlook, the CBO projection document.
In last year's document, the Congressional Budget Office projected that national debt would be 91% of GDP in 2021.
Can you even get your arms around that?
Our national debt, last year, they projected to be 91% of GDP.
Now they say it's going to be 101%.
They were wrong by 10%.
GDP, our national debt will be 101% of gross domestic product in 2021.
That is 10 years from now.
In other words, let me put it this, in 10 years, our national debt will be larger than our economy.
That's what that means.
When we say that the national debt is 101% of GDP, that means that the national debt is larger than the economy.
But they're not through.
By 2030, the CBO projects national debt will be 150% of GDP, or in other words, one and a half times larger than the economy in total.
And by the year 2037, 200% of GDP.
The national debt, if nothing changes, if we stay on this course, if nothing changes by 2037, the amount of debt that we owe will be larger, twice as large as our economy.
And of course, the assumption is that it'll continue to grow and grow after this.
Of course, there's no reason it's going to stop.
There's not a single policy in place to reverse this.
And certainly no policy being offered, articulated, supported by the regime that does anything other than speed this up and expand it.
I know what you're saying.
Okay, what can we do?
Folks, it's not complicated.
The answer, it's very difficult to implement.
You've got to reform entitlements.
You've got to get rid of Obamacare.
You have to.
You cannot.
Obamacare cannot be fully implemented.
One of the largest contributing factors to these stats I just gave you is Obamacare.
And it just frosts me because they sold us this bill of goods on the notion it was going to lower the deficit, it was going to lower national debt, it was going to lower premiums, it was going to expand coverage.
I mean, it was a lie after lie after lie after lie, and the media promulgated it knowing full well they were lying on behalf of the regime.
And to the point now that if this monstrosity is not repealed and not defunded, I don't know how to illustrate life in a country where the debt is twice the size of the economy or even equal to it.
And I'll tell you this: we have a number of elected officials who have participated in writing laws, voting for laws, passing laws that have made this possible, who aren't going to be alive in 2021.
They're not going to be alive in 2037.
And a couple of them have even gone on record and say, oh, yeah, I voted for Obamacare.
I'm not going to be alive then.
It won't matter to me.
It'll help my party now, and it'll get my vote now.
They'll get votes for me now.
But I'm not going to be alive.
You've got the national debt equal to your economy.
You're getting to the point where, folks, we are already at the point where it is impossible to pay the debt back.
The focus now is servicing it.
If you can't even do that, there's no literally everything will be the governments.
They will have dibs on every dollar there is.
And probably in 2021, they'll still be blaming George W. Bush for it.
Now, Greece, and you see Greece is falling apart.
Spain, you've seen the near riots that are taking place.
Greece's GDP to debt is 125%, meaning that the total debt of Greece is 1.25% or one and a quarter larger than their economy.
And look at the problem they're having.
We're on the way to two, the debt being twice as large as our economy.
And we're going to have similar kinds of problems.
Then they and the European Union are realizing they can't sustain this.
They're going backwards.
They're trying to reduce the size of their governments and so forth.
That's why the people are rioting and so forth.
But this is a grim.
And then the Federal Reserve.
The Fed hoped that three years of printing money and giving it away would have stimulated the economy.
And guess what?
It's falling short of promise.
Those details are coming up after this break.
It's a shame there's no DittoCam here, folks.
We're in Los Angeles.
We're in Hollywood all week.
And there's no Ditto Cam here.
It'd be funny for you to watch because everything that's on the left back is Heather Command is on the right here.
And everything that's on the right there is on the left here.
So normally I hit the cough button or the mute switch with my left hand and I still do that, except there's nothing there.
Then I have to realize, no, it's on my right.
I go over here and there's three different buttons that could be.
Which was actually two different mute buttons.
Have to turn the microphone on.
I ought to be getting union scale for this.
I'm doing the job that union people normally have to do.
But that's the way it is.
Now, this business here about the Fed and their three-year rescue plan every day, and of course, you don't need the news stories to confirm the results.
You need only to understand liberalism.
And when they announce a plan to grow the economy, you know it isn't going to work.
When they announce a plan to create jobs, you know it's not going to work.
That ought to happen.
It works.
Or liberalism fails every time it's tried.
It ought have been relegated to the ash heap of the world years ago.
But you see, good intentions.
Ah, yes, the big hearts.
All of that compassion the left has.
That saves them.
USA Today, a story by Matt Krantz.
Social Security.
Somebody sent him a question.
It's one of these QA pieces.
Some reader of USA Today, a typical idiot, writes in with a question of the day, and they assign some reporter to answer it.
And the question of the day from the assigned idiot of the day is Social Security an investment Ponzi scheme.
So they assign Matt Krantz to answer it.
Matt says, well, there's just one thing that's worse than having a large chunk of money taken out of your paycheck, and that's taking a chance that you won't get it back.
Workers who see Social Security deductions taken from their paychecks every pay period can't help but wonder if they'll ever see the money again.
That's especially true with young workers whose contributions are being used to pay benefits for the swelling ranks of baby boomers who are reaching retirement age now or who have already retired.
Making things even more troubling is the amount investors need to save in order to retire is only increasing even as incomes are flat or even down.
It goes on and on to explain the program and why people are anxious about it.
And then he finally gets to the middle of the next page, the answer.
Social security is not a Ponzi scheme because it wasn't an intentional fraud.
This is Jack Coffey who says this, a professor of law and a securities law expert at Columbia Law School.
Social Security, not a Ponzi scheme because it wasn't an intentional fraud.
In fact, the system has worked as expected since its creation in the 30s.
What's happening now is that, like many corporate pension plans, Social Security is running the risk of being underfunded as obligations grow faster than contributions.
Well, how does that then differ from a Ponzi scheme?
It pays out more than it has coming in.
Doesn't matter when that happens.
You know, Madoff lived and died of this for a long, long time.
Finally, he couldn't, when the market tumbled and he couldn't give people the money when they wanted out of the market, it was up.
It was over.
The only, yeah, this dynamic's been going a long time.
The only difference is the government's not going to put itself out of business nor put itself in jail like it did Madoff.
The government will continue its Ponzi scheme.
But you see, it's not a Ponzi scheme because they had good intentions.
And the same thing here with the Federal Reserve.
They had wonderful intentions, bailing out all these entities.
This is a New York Times story, Fed's three-year rescue plan falling short of promise.
Well, we knew it was going to fall short of promise because it was a bunch of liberal ideas.
The Federal Reserve hoped that it's imagine this, the Federal Reserve, home of financial wizards, home of financial experts, the best and the brightest, home of tax cheats.
That's where Little Timmy worked.
He was at the Fed until he was discovered by Obama.
I think Obama discovered him in one of the Lord of the Rings movies that I need to get this guy for my administration.
So he went out and found Little Timmy and put him in charge of TARP.
And then it was learned that Little Timmy was cheating on his taxes.
The regime said, doesn't matter.
There's only one guy in America that can possibly understand what needs to be understood and help us through this mess that is TARP, and that's Tim Geithner.
The only person in America could possibly figure it out, the only person in America who could navigate the treacherous waters here is Tim Geithner.
So he goes from the Federal Reserve to the Treasury Secretary post.
The Fed, of all these experts, the best and the brightest, and they are hoping.
They are hoping.
New York Times, the Federal Reserve hoped.
That's like saying NASA hopes the shuttle achieves orbit.
Well, naturally, hopes, but you're doing it on a little bit more solid ground than hoping.
When you launch the shuttle, there is a full expectation it'll reach orbit because it's done it a number of times before.
The science has been tested and it works.
But here, we are trying something that never has worked and we're doubling and tripling down on it, hoping that that's why it hasn't, or we just haven't spent enough.
Hoping the best and brightest in our country are engaging in policies and then hoping it works out.
The Federal Reserve hoped that its three-year-old economic rescue campaign would reach a climax at the end of June.
It hoped that consumers and businesses by now would be spending more.
Does this make you feel confident?
The best and brightest, the people that told us they had the answers were hoping for a climax at the end of June.
The closest they got, I guess, was Weiner.
And then next, they're hoping that you would start spending more along with businesses.
And then after you did that, they could start doing less and less.
That's what the New York Times says.
But of course, none of this is happening.
Despite all the hope, despite all the great intentions and wonderful wizardry of intelligence, it isn't happening.
And the New York Times, well, that peak now looks like a long plateau.
The Fed still is expected to announce today that it will halt the expansion of its aid programs at the end of June, as scheduled, when it completes the purchase of $600 billion in Treasury securities.
But growth is sputtering.
Economists now expect the Fed will leave its $2 trillion of bandages, props, and crutches untouched until next year.
What does that even mean?
What does this mean?
How is the Fed leaving $2 trillion untouched?
I don't even know what it means.
The pace of economic expansion has expectedly and repeatedly, no, not expectedly, has repeatedly fallen short of the Fed's predictions.
Guess the hopes didn't pan out.
And the central bank is expected to lower its eyes once again when it releases a new forecast after a two-day meeting of its policy board.
Lower its eyes?
What, are they embarrassed?
They ought to be.
You know why it didn't work?
New York Times says there had a Japanese earthquake.
That's why the $2 trillion in bailouts didn't work.
Quantitative easing, one quantitative easing, holding it right here, my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
That's why it didn't work.
The Japanese earthquake.
So what we have here, I'm not going to spend any more time on the whole piece, but you have a vaguely written New York Times article.
They do say that the Fed's bailout of the stock market has not increased spending.
And that there was a bailout of the stock market.
The stock market, and it was an indirect way.
We've talked about this before.
The Fed printed money called quantitative easing.
They distributed that money in such a way as securities were bought, shares of stock.
This built up the stock market, grew the stock market while nothing else in the economy was working.
Yeah, it kept the illusion here that there was at least something growing in the economy.
And it was hoped that that illusion would transfer into spending.
Increased spending by consumers and other businesses.
Oh, look at the stock market.
Oh, okay, I guess there's a recovery going.
We can go out and spend.
Didn't happen.
Consumers are not consuming out there.
And so now after $2 trillion of this, propping up the stock market, they're blaming the Japanese earthquake.
There's also, it's kind of weird, too, there's no mention in this story of what this bailout cost the taxpayers in actual dollars or in the devaluation of the dollar because of printing more money.
But this has been a debacle.
$2 trillion of printing money and deploying it strategically and then hoping.
And what's laughable is the left says, well, we just haven't spent enough yet.
The Paul Krugman wing.
We just haven't spent enough yet.
Just stick with this a while.
Keynes will eventually be proven correct.
But I think the story is a little bit amazing in that the Times is admitting all of this has been a bit of a failure, a boondoggle.
So, and also, if you read this, it doesn't sound like there's going to be a QE3, which is good, but I'm not sure of that.
It sounds like, doesn't sound like there's going to be a QE3, which means the Fed is going to admit here that they're out of arrows, that they've got no more ammo to throw at this in the form of spending.
I hope that's what it means, but don't hold your breath.
Let's get some phone calls.
We got some audio soundbites.
The president's big speech tonight on Afghanistan.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
He's got an example he could emulate, Iraq, going the exact opposite way.
Some people are beginning to ask themselves poignant questions about this.
We'll get to all that and much more as well, right here on the EIB network when we get right back.
El Rushbo, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling Maha Rushi, political strategist for the nation, political strategist for the world.
Audio soundbite time.
I want to go back to September 29, 2009 on this program.
I was hosting a program that day.
We would not go back for a soundbite when I wasn't hosting, so you know.
September 29, 2009, I had this exchange with a caller, Bob from Chicago, about the war in Afghanistan.
I was just wondering, Rush, if you were president, what would you be doing right now in Afghanistan?
What do you think we should be doing?
Do you think we should be doing more anti-insurgency or anti-terrorism, more or less troops, different troops, that sort of thing?
Well, I'm not a commanding officer.
I would listen to those who are.
It's very simple.
We win, they lose.
I'd listen to what the generals say.
But the bottom line is, what would I do in Afghanistan?
I'd win.
Yeah, we win, they lose.
And by the way, I didn't really invent that.
I stole that.
That's something I heard from Ronaldus Magnus in talking about the Soviets and the communists.
We win, they lose.
But really, it shouldn't be anything that anybody should have to steal.
Okay, Steelers playing the Buffalo Bills this week.
You're a Steelers fan.
What's the objective?
We win, they lose.
Okay, we're going into Afghanistan to get the bad guys.
What's the objective?
We win, they lose.
But for guys like Obama and the left, no, no, no, no.
Far more nuanced than just who wins.
Don't bore us with that kind of simplicity.
In fact, here's Obama, July 23rd, 2009, on Nightline.
The host Terry Moran.
They're having a discussion about the war in Afghanistan.
Terry Moran says, define victory for me in Afghanistan.
And then he actually said, Terry Moran said, maybe victory isn't the right word.
Maybe victory isn't.
But anyway, Mr. President, would you define it for me?
I'm always worried about using the word victory because it evokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.
I remember playing this soundbite when it actually happened, and I was stunned on two levels.
A, Emperor Hirohito did not come down and sign a surrender.
Emperor Hirohito didn't.
You let George Bush say something like this.
All bets are off.
They're going to send the guys in a little yellow bus in the white coats and have him taken off to some little insignia.
Obama 57 states, Emperor Hirohito.
You know, I'm worried about using the word victory.
It evokes this notion of the emperor.
What he's saying is, and it embarrassed me.
I felt so embarrassed for the losers.
This poor little Japanese guy, they drag him up to the USS Missouri.
I'm not saying Obama knows it was the USS Missouri.
He just knows that Emperor Hirohito came down there, wherever it was.
But it just made him nervous.
I don't like this whole concept of victory.
December 1st, 2009, at West Point, New York, United States Military Academy, Barack Obama, and laying out his Afghanistan goals.
Our overarching goal remains the same, to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.
We must deny Al-Qaeda a safe haven.
We must reverse the Taliban's momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government.
And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future.
Now, he's going to give a speech tonight in which he's going to say that a lot of that stuff's happened.
And that's why we can begin an immediate drawdown of 10,000 troops.
Now, it's up in the air.
I mean, is he really going to say tonight that all of this has been accomplished?
And so we can begin this drawdown?
No, no.
You know, what's really bottom-lining this is he got bin Laden.
That's all that matters.
We got a piece by Mort Vuckerman, who is the publisher of the New York Daily News and U.S. News and World Report.
Why the jobs situation is worse than it looks.
Finally, somebody's stepping up with an honest appraisal of that.
And Fred Gray, or not Fred Gray, Bill Gray, the hurricane predictor, is ticked off that people are mixing global warming in with hurricane predictions.
We got a lot to do today.
Your phone calls as well.
Sit tight.
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