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June 29, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
30:21
June 29, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #3
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The views expressed by the host on this program make more sense than anything anybody else out there happens to be saying.
And that's because there's nobody else but me saying it.
I think that's, well, it's because there is no other me.
I know people wish there were, but there isn't.
Great to have you.
What are you frowning about, Snerdly?
Don't tell me, is he dealing with another malcontent in there?
Welcome back, folks.
800-282-2882 is the phone number if you want to be on the program.
Our email address, lrushbow at eibnet.com.
There's a story here, ladies and gentlemen, along the lines of this whole theme that we've had today of Obama hell-bent on raising taxes, dealing with the debt limit, so forth and so on.
It's by somebody named Connor Doherty.
Higher taxes lift state collections.
Now, stick with me on this because there's a concerted effort underway here.
It seems to imply that state and local tax collections rose in the first quarter as an expanding economy and tax increases passed during the recession eased city and state budget woes.
State and local tax revenues grew 4.7% to $321.6 billion the first three months of 2011 compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau.
State revenue grew 9.3% in the quarter, far better showing than that of a local government's where revenue fell a little over half a percent.
That's because the states have cut spending, have cut taxes, and that increases revenue over all.
The cities are lagging behind in that model.
Now, here's what's going on.
The story here is that trying to imply that the economy is recovering and that one reason the states are better is that they raised taxes.
And that is not the case.
Because I've got this companion story, Bob McDonnell, who is the governor of Virginia.
Now, this state by Connor Doherty takes all states as a whole.
And the results of the Republican lead states are kind of messing with the results here because it's the Republican states that are leading the way.
The only way you can say states nationwide are doing better is because the Republican states are included in this.
Democrat-run states are not raising revenue.
They're not increasing their circumstances.
They're not bettering themselves.
I mean, Texas's results alone could account for this story.
But there's no way that New York and California, Michigan, and Illinois are seeing this kind of growth that this guy in this story reports.
So, I mean, there's a full-fledged effort here, folks, to mislead everybody as to why certain states are doing well.
It's because of them raising taxes.
When you factor in the Republican states doing well, they're covering for the poor-performing Democrat states.
Bob McDonald, Governor of Virginia, Wall Street Journal today.
Democrats say otherwise, but Republican governors and their records will be a major asset to the GOP in 2012 in New Jersey.
Governor Christie's monumental achievement this week in passing a bill to reform his state's public employee benefits is a prime example.
As Governor Christie said Friday, underfunded pension and health care obligations are the core problems of government spending in the country.
This is the kind of leadership Americans want right now.
Straight talk about the fiscal mess that we're in and a plan to solve it.
The good news is that Governor Christie is not alone among Republican governors.
When I became governor of Virginia in 2010, we faced two historic budget shortfalls totaling $6 billion.
The proposals to close these shortfalls spammed the philosophical spectrum.
Shortly before leaving Orifice, my predecessor, the I, Tim Kaine, put forward a massive $1.5 billion income tax increase as one of his solutions.
Well, I knew, writes Governor McDonnell, that in an economy struggling to recover, raising taxes was a non-starter.
So we set forth on a different path.
We balanced Virginia's books by reducing state spending to 2006 levels, putting in place a hiring freeze in state government, making conservative revenue estimates, and incentivizing state employees to save taxpayer dollars.
The result was a budget surplus just a few months later, without a tax increase.
And this is happening in every state run by a Republican.
Rick Perry, for example, in Texas.
This is happening out there.
And so this guy, this previous story I read talking about all these states doing well raising taxes is a bunch of bohunk.
Because the states that are raising taxes are harming their states.
It's the high-performing Republican states that are lifting the whole national average when you look at how the states are doing up.
Since February 2010, 67,400 new jobs have been created in Virginia with a Republican governor.
Our unemployment rate has fallen to 6% in Virginia.
Virginia's unemployment rate is more than a full three points below the national average.
A majority of Virginians surveyed now believe the state is headed in the right direction compared to 31% who think the country is moving in the right direction.
The results can and will be duplicated in other states.
This year, 18, new Republican governors took orifice and many confronted budget deficits similar to or worse than what we faced in Virginia last year.
In Ohio, Governor Kasich is on the verge of passing his jobs budget, which would close an $8 billion budget deficit while preserving an income tax cut for all Ohioans.
In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker plans to sign a budget this week and it'll turn a $3.6 billion deficit into a projected $300 million surplus.
In Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder has reformed the state's tax structure, eliminating the anti-competitive Michigan business tax.
In Florida, Governor Rick Scott vetoed a record $615 million from the state budget, enacted a corporate income tax cut, added millions to the state's rainy day fund.
In politics, it's not where you are that matters, it's where you're headed.
My experience in Virginia, along with the similar experiences of leaders like Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and former Michigan Governor John Engler, suggest that the hard choices Republican governors have made this year will pay off at the polls.
Look no further than growing and diverse Texas, a state the Democrats targeted in 2010, where data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that under Governor Rick Perry's leadership, Texas has created more jobs over the last decade than the rest of the states combined, and they don't even have a state income tax.
That's a record of job creation the Obama regime can only dream about.
Next year, Obama will have to campaign on his record trillion-dollar deficit, skyrocketing debt, massive tax increases that have failed to adequately rein in unemployment.
Meanwhile, Republican governors will have delivered balanced budgets without raising taxes, and the entitlement reforms they made will have actually saved jobs.
The low popularity of Democrat governors facing re-election in 2012 tells us quite a bit about how the public regards the policies and work done by the president's party in the state capitals.
Washington Governor Christine Gregois, or Gregory, I don't know how she pronounces.
I've never heard it pronounced, sorry, announced last week that she would not seek re-election after being dogged by dismal approval numbers.
North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue's approval rating bogged down around 30%.
That's not a good sign for the Democrat ticket in the state.
The Obama regime has declared a top priority.
There's a reason that no Republican governor seeking re-elections lost a general election since 2007, while three Democrat governors have fallen in that same period.
It's what I said earlier, folks.
You get a conservative Republican president in the White House and a conservative Republican Congress, and we can start reversing this debacle overnight.
It can happen.
It will not happen if we stay status quo.
If we stay glued to the same failed policies of the socialists, Obama and his fellow Democrats, who are purposely engaging in policies that will end up in one thing, larger and larger government.
More and more power for them.
The states are increasing revenue because they're cutting spending as well as lowering taxes.
How many states have raised taxes?
Illinois.
Look at them.
California desperately wants to, but I mean, they're having trouble resisting themselves, kind of like the movie Dr. Strangelove.
Dr. Strangelove himself just desperately trying to salute Hitler.
Democrats in California just want to raise taxes so bad, but something's stopping them.
And look at Governor Cumo in New York.
You throw out the gay marriage business.
This is a whole other topic, but Governor Kumo's financial, his fiscal policies in New York, they're not like a Republican.
He's not raising taxes.
He's afraid of people running away from the state with continued high taxation.
I know he's got a 57% approval rating among Republicans.
Governor Kumo does, and that's because of fiscal policies.
I mean, the answer's there.
The alternative is clear as a bell.
Anybody can see it who wants to look at it.
Look at it.
There's no question that Governor Kumo wants to run for president.
And because he wants to run for president, he is not going to raise taxes.
Talk about who it is going to be next.
Hillary Schmiller, it's going to be Governor Kumo.
Andrew Kumo is going to be in there.
He's going to be the Kumo to reach the White House.
I mean, in the dream.
So as such, he's not going to sit there and raise taxes.
He is.
It's damn straight.
In order to get elected, in order to run for president, he needs conservative fiscal policies to revive that state of New York.
How else are you going to you think somebody presiding over a failed, just in horrible shape, New York ever going to get elected president?
Ain't going to happen.
How does any Democrat in trouble get to the solution?
They go conservative.
They just do.
Hi, welcome back.
El Rushbo.
Your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, despair, destruction, and even the good times.
Senate Republican leaders yesterday reiterated their opposition to tax increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling.
The minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in his first public comments since his meeting with Obama at the White House on Monday, said that the Democrats' insistence on raising taxes was holding up progress on a deal.
The path forward seems to be blocked by an insistence on raising taxes in the middle of an economic slowdown, McDonnell or McConnell said, pointing out that the Democrats, including Obama, have argued against raising taxes during the lame duck session in December.
Most of us believe the economy is not any better today than it was in December.
We think it's a job-killing step that should not be taken, and Republicans are not interested in going that way, and that's exactly right.
If the economy was such that we couldn't raise taxes last December, certainly isn't any better right now.
So it appears that, Snerdley, you may be right.
Republicans sound like they're going to hang tough in there.
Now, Dingy Harry said Republicans are living in a fantasy world, accused them of wanting to force the country to default in order to fulfill their long-held dream of denying social security checks to seniors.
That's all they've got.
Republicans want to keep Social Security checks away from senior citizens now.
That's all they've got.
This is pathetic.
Republicans are sabotaging the economy.
And now they don't want Social Security recipients to get their checks.
Republicans don't seem to care about the consequences for middle-class Americans, said Dingy Harry.
Dingy Harry, you know, there hardly is a middle class left because of you.
There's a story in the New Republic today, the debt ceiling, why Obama should just ignore it.
It's by Matthew Zeitlin.
He's an intern.
The New Republic has actually published a story by an intern on why Obama should ignore the debt ceiling.
With a Republican-controlled House demanding large cuts in present and future spending in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling, the possibility the federal government will have trouble financing and issuing new debts becoming more frighteningly likely each day.
But given that that's BS, there is a revenue stream called tax collection.
Folks, I just wrote a check for you.
I don't know.
I'm not going to tell you, but let me just tell you.
There is revenue pouring into Washington, D.C. There is tax revenue pouring in there.
There's enough to service the debt.
But barring a timely resolution to the standoff, could President Obama simply ignore the debt ceiling and keep making good on the country's obligations?
As the deadline grows nearer, the question has been popping up on law blogs and other forums.
And according to a number of legal experts with whom I spoke, I'm an intern, the answer surprisingly appears to be yeah.
And it's conservative justices who've played the biggest role in making it possible.
Yeah, yeah.
So according to this intern, conservative justices don't believe that presidents should obey the law or that Congress should control the federal government spending.
So Obama should go, nobody can stop him.
That's why I asked earlier, why even have a debt limit?
If every time you get to it, you have to blow it up.
Why even have one?
Now, this is what's passing now for persuasive journalism, the debt ceiling.
Why Obama should just ignore it?
Because conservative judges say, hey, law doesn't matter.
That's what they want us to believe.
Radio makes Britons happier than TV and the internet.
Over 1,000 people in Great Britain were polled via their smartphones, asked to record what media they were consuming and to rate their mood and energy levels while doing so.
Radio came out on top, beating both TV and the web in the study called Media and the Mood of the Nation.
Respondents recording a 100% lift in happiness and a 300% boost to their energy level when listening to a radio show versus not consuming any type of media at all.
Folks, it may be a UK survey, but I don't doubt for a moment that it's true of you as well.
I mean, I could spend the next five minutes proving it to you.
Well, not proving it, but I could use data accumulated just on this program and compare the way this business operates to, say, an internet business or television, cable, what have you.
There's no doubt that this is true.
Because people who listen to radio are what we call active as opposed to passive.
You see, television provides you the picture, so you don't have to devote all of your being to it.
You can sit there and you can just be a mind-numbed sponge soaking up pictures on TV.
But on radio, there isn't a picture.
The host paints it for you, or you do it yourself.
And that comes from being actively involved and actively involved in something that you connect to makes you feel better, makes you feel happier.
There's no question about it.
It's true.
Radio is one of the greatest things that ever happened.
That's why God invented it.
And me.
Poll numbers continue an alarming trend for Obama.
This is from our buddy Pete Wayner quoting a McClatchy Marist poll.
Only 37% of registered voters approve of Obama's handling of the economy, his lowest ever.
This is McClatchy Marist.
This is not a bunch of flyby-nighters.
By nearly two to one, 61 versus 32% voters disapprove of how Obama's handling the budget deficit.
58% of voters disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy, comprising 60% of Independents, 31% of Democrats, and 91% of Republicans.
And yet he comes out with this mess of a press conference today that is just an utter state of denial.
Utter denial Is where they find themselves putting heat on the tanning bed ban.
New government ban in California, sure to leave teens pale and overprotected.
According to a recent report in the AP, the state of California is considering banning teenagers from tanning beds.
Youth under the age of 14 are already banned from artificially tanning in California.
You believe this?
California, California, home of the Beach Boys.
They are banning tans for youths under 14.
Youths under the age of 14 are already banned from artificially tanning in California.
Youths under the age of 18 must have parental permission.
However, State Senator Ted Liu argues that the mandate's still not strict enough.
Therefore, a ban is being proposed to protect teens from tanning.
The war against tanning beds heated up when the Obama regime made a last-minute decision to tax tanning as part of a new health care law.
The decision, disguised as an attempt to limit tanning and promote a public health, was really just a strategy to help fund a massive expansion of government into the healthcare market.
At any rate, this leads to a list here, folks, at the end of the story of other things banned by governments in America.
You cannot pump your own gas in New Jersey or Oregon.
Now, you knew that, snurdily, because you're from New Jersey.
Well, frankly, I don't care.
You know, I never liked pumping my own gas anyway, so I kind of have to need gas in New Jersey.
I actually don't mind.
I can't remember the last time it happened, but it has once.
You cannot swim without a life vest in the state of Washington.
You cannot swim without a life vest.
Plastic bags are banned in LA County, California.
Soda is banned from being sold in vending machines on city property in San Francisco.
New fast food chains are banned from opening in southern Los Angeles neighborhoods.
The EPA approved and banned a dry cleaning solvent in California.
Federal mandate bans flavored cigarettes.
And a bill in Nevada, if passed, will ban air fresheners and candles from public places.
You believe that?
No candles in public places in Nevada, if the bill passes.
So you're reading a story on Huntsman, by the way.
John Huntsman.
It's actually a story on his dad, John Huntsman Sr., the patriarch, and how you better be nice to my boy or else.
It's one of those kinds of stories.
You don't do right by my boy, then I better be prepared to deal with me.
You've seen these kinds of stories, the old Joe Kennedy stories.
I didn't know, I knew that John Huntsman Sr. was an industrialist and a self-made man.
And so what I did not know, this is fascinating.
What I did not know that one of the largest elements or one of the major contributors to his wealth, you know what this guy invented?
He invented the clamshell container that they put Big Macs in.
His company, it's diversified.
He's a chemical company and a number of other things, but they invented, think all those things that they sell.
Just that alone.
And of course, it's been expanded now to include more than just Big Macs.
I mean, it's every other kind of sandwich in the world that these clamshell containers are used for.
Obama did not pay any attention to generals on Afghanistan.
Is anybody surprised by that?
No.
Petraeus is out admitting it.
George Will, let me find this in the audio soundbite.
George Will, echoing me on John Huntsman.
Let's see.
It was last week.
We were talking.
We had that great juxtaposition of sound bites with Huntsman at the Statue of Liberty.
I am not going to criticize a reputation of mine, but I'm going to be civil.
I want to be like Ronald Reagan.
So on Sunday mornings this week, with the Christiana Monpoor at a roundtable, George Will was asked a question by Christiana Monpour.
What about John Huntsman?
In almost every cycle, there's a Republican who appeals to people who don't really very much like Republicans.
Mr. Huntsman's announcement that he would take the high road had a whiff of moral arrogance about it.
And we will see.
I mean, he said, I'm not going to run down my opponent.
He stood there where Ronald Reagan stood.
And when Ronald Reagan stood there in 1980, he said this about his opponent, Jimmy Carter.
A litany of despair, of broken promises, of sacred trusts abandoned and forgotten.
That's politics.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Well, George Will's right.
That's exactly what Ronald Reagan said.
We had the soundbite.
So George Will's point is that John Huntsman is for voters who don't really like Republicans.
He's a Republican that people who don't like Republicans could vote for.
Mitt Romney, fresh off saying that he thinks human beings are created, created global warming, is now touting his record of working with Democrats.
Romney is out saying that he's the guy who can work with Democrats.
I heard him say this, and I said, are we in a time warp?
What in the world?
Didn't we do that in 2008?
And don't we know how that works out?
I'm the guy that can work with Democrats.
This is not easy for me, El Rushwell.
I know Romney.
I haven't played golf with Romney, but I've had some personal time with Mitt Romney and as a guy, I like him, but I do not understand this.
George W. Bush claimed he could work with Democrats.
He didn't, but that was when he was governor of Texas.
But people don't want Republican primary voters do not want to work with Democrats.
They want to beat them.
But my point is, where's the thinking here?
Romney says he can work with Democrats.
Keep a sharp eye on Rick Perry.
I'm going to tell you, I don't know anything.
I know nothing.
But there's an undercurrent there that, you know, and Michelle Bachman, they are going after her left and right.
Well, you know that Chris Wall, I think she should have accepted his apology.
He said, are you a flake?
He blew it, and he admitted that he blew it, and he apologized for it.
You know, I don't think he should have asked the question in the first place.
He wouldn't ask that of any Democrat, obviously.
But anywho.
St. George, Utah, David, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Good afternoon, Mr. Limbaugh.
I'm a United States Navy retired, and I am a corporate pilot listening to Mr. Obama's speech today.
The guy just does not understand the unintended consequences about bashing corporate planes and corporate jets.
Those guys that own those planes and jets, they support me.
They support the maintenance guys, the fuel people, all the people at the FBOs, a huge industry.
And I just don't understand why this guy just bashes them.
Yeah, that's why he says parasite.
He's a literal parasite.
And there's, you know, in a way, we can't blame the poor SO son of a gun.
He doesn't know.
He just doesn't know.
Well, I'd like to say that.
It's like we're having one of our dogs, poor Wellesley, cutest little sheepdog puppy.
She just, no matter what we do, I'm sitting on the couch and Catherine will come home and the dogs go nuts when Catherine comes home.
And this dog, obviously, I'll have the iPad and I'll be flitting around on the couch and she'll just attack.
She's going to start licking me and do what, and I put my arms up to protect myself.
No, Wellesley, no.
And Catherine says she just doesn't know.
Well, Obama just doesn't know.
He just doesn't know.
He thinks that attacking corporate air travel and corporate air manufacturing happens in a vacuum.
He gets away with criticizing it.
He gets his class envy advantage out of it.
What harm takes place?
If any, it's deserved in his mind.
On the other hand, he is a wrecking crew, a one-man wrecking ball on all this.
And there's a greater sophistication on the part of the American people as to just how big a wrecking ball and parasite this guy and his party are.
That's it, folks.
It's over.
Sadly, it's over.
It's the end of the program today.
But I know.
Even if Obama knew the damage he was doing, he wouldn't care.
And that's really the problem.
It's great to be back with you, folks.
It always is great to be back.
We'll see you here again tomorrow.
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