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July 13, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:30
July 13, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Views expressed by the host on this program, documented to be almost always right, 99.6% of the time, and nobody's even close to that.
And nobody ever will be.
It's unprecedented and never equaled, although often imitated.
Rushlin bought the Limbo Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number 800 282882, the email address.com.
Boil it down something very simple.
Republicans got to get back and focus on fixing the problem and not trying to fix the blame.
I knew it.
I I just I knew that what was behind Senator McConnell's effort was fear.
They can't, they've not gotten over the budget battle in 1995.
They just haven't gotten over it.
Clinton snorkered them.
Newton a boys thought that they were gonna win that one hands down, and they didn't.
And uh although the Republicans got re-elected after that, so did Clinton, but the Republicans didn't didn't lose the House after it.
It was not nearly the disaster that they think it is to this day, but they just they've never gotten over.
It's like the formative experience in their lives.
Those Republicans that are still in Washington who were there for that budget fight in 1995, and they don't want to um do anything that wreaks of a government shutdown, and a default can be characterized by the Democrats and Obama's a government shutdown, and they think they lose in a government shutdown, so they don't want any uh any part of it.
Now I got a note, I I didn't um I didn't read this, but I got a note saying that the last caller, our last caller who thought the base is going wobbly, meaning you, um, was right that McConnell's plan is exactly what Charles Krauthammer suggested in his last column.
Now, I haven't read that Krauthaber column.
Or as Henry Kissinger once said to me, the Krautemacum.
Henry Kissinger loved a Krauthammer column once.
Yes, I'm talking of the Krautemacum.
I've never forgotten it.
The Krautamakum.
And I didn't read it.
So I don't I don't know what this is, but the note says that Krauthammer said that we need to do to the Democrats what they did to the Ryan Plan.
And whatever that is.
And I guess that's rip it to shreds.
Um, and I guess it's do nothing and make the Democrats come forward with their cuts.
That was apparently what Crowhammer's idea was.
Is make the Democrats put something on the table here.
We go up there, we got all these ideas, they leak what the ideas are.
Obama acts in that arrogant, condescending way.
And uh he says make them that's what this was all about.
And it it it had the effect of throwing in the uh white towel.
And I'm sure McConnell's also ticked off the Senate has not had a budget.
The Senate, the Democrat Senate's not put a budget on the table for over 800 days.
Now, what makes anybody think that they're gonna change?
Why what what possible pressure could anyone bring to make the Democrats in the Senate bring forth a budget?
Nothing.
There's nothing that's gonna make them do that.
Pure and simple.
Okay, from the Atlantic Wire.
This is not some screwball health website.
The old eight glasses of water a day myth always seems suspect to me.
This is Rebecca Greenfield writing.
I don't know.
Every diet for the last 20 years has demanded that you drink at least eight glasses of water a day.
Every damn diet out there requires that you drink eight glasses of water.
And that's a lot of liquid for a day's worth of hydration.
In fact, numerous specialists have spoken out against it now, but some authoritative sources, including the Mayo Clinic, still repeat the guidelines.
Today the debate stops here.
A general practitioner at Boston's Medical Journal argues against consuming that many glasses of water, calling those guidelines thoroughly debunked nonsense.
This general practitioner at Boston Medical Journal says that the legitimate organizations that perpetuate the myth, like hydration for health, have ulterior motives.
No.
Now they tell us.
You mean there's some group of people with an ulterior motive behind drinking eight glasses of water a day?
Well, who could these sneaks be?
They recommend one and a half to two liters a day.
Eight glasses is one point eight nine liters.
Danone, maker of bottled water, among other things, also happens to own the organization Hydration for Health.
A bottled water producer owns hydration for health.
That's like Center for Science in the Public Interest.
So you don't need ladies and gentlemen, that's I don't know if it's some people some people says it hurts you.
Some people say it hurts you.
That in this story is it can be uh harmful.
American Journal of Psychology article believes the recommendation for eight glasses sprouted when the food and nutrition board of the National Research Council recommended approximately a milliliter of water for each calorie of food, which is about sixty-four ounces or eight glasses.
That's that's where the formula got got started.
On the other hand, eight glasses of iced tea could be profoundly helpful.
Same study.
Same research, eight glasses of iced tea, which would be four sixteen-ounce bottles.
And you have everything you need liquid-wise for the day.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress today that a new stimulus program is in the works that will entail additional asset purchases.
The clearest indication yet that the Fed is contemplating another round of printing money.
Once the temporary shocks that have been holding down economic activity pass, we expect to again see the effects of policy accommodation reflected in stronger economic activity and jobs.
What does that mean?
Let me read that again.
Once the temporary shocks that have been holding down economic activity pass, comma, okay.
That fragment, what what are the temporary shocks?
Is that what he means?
High gasoline prices, high food prices, the housing Mars.
Once the temporary shocks that have been holding down economic activity, comma, we expect to again see the effects of policy accommodation.
What's that?
What's policy?
No, no, no, no.
I need it.
What is, in other words, let me put it a different way.
What is accommodation of policy?
It says here, we will see again the effects of policy accommodation reflected in stronger economic activity and job creation.
So what is the effect of accommodation of policy?
That means all of our printing of money is finally going to start having a positive uh impact.
Pretty much what it means?
Okay.
However, given the range of uncertainties about the strength of the recovery and the prospects for inflation over the medium term, the Federal Reserve remains prepared to respond should economic developments indicate that an adjustment in the stance of monetary policy would be appropriate.
Markets reacted immediately to the remarks, sending stocks up sharply in a matter of minutes.
Gold prices continued to surge, so did silver.
Silver was skyrocketed.
I remember when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the market in silver back in the 70s.
Bunker Hunt, the brother of Lamar Hunt, who owned a Chiefs.
Lamar didn't even do it, but Bunker and his brother were trying to corner the silver market.
It got nabbed.
I forget how.
Silver is skyrocketing.
Ron Paul.
At the hearings today where Bernanke showed up.
You know, Ron Paul, by the way, is saying he's not going to run for Congress anymore.
He's all in on the presidential run now.
He's all in.
Not going to run for Congress.
And he hates the Fed and their monetary policy, sort of laying in a Bernanke about gold and everything.
And Bernanke said, Well, you effectively shut up.
Gold isn't money.
Bernanke shot back at the run.
Gold isn't money.
Policy accommodation, by the way.
So I knew what it meant.
I just wanted to see if you did.
Policy accommodation, that phrase is Fed speak for monetary policy.
So I was right.
Their policy accommodation, meaning all that stuff we printed is finally going to start paying off once all these temporary shocks to the system.
I think the biggest temporary shock to the system ought to be Obama.
But what I know.
I know.
That's the thing.
There's nothing temporary about any of this.
It's all permanent.
That means that's the problem with Bernanke.
The guy running the show doesn't get it.
Temporary shocks.
That is the front.
None of this is temporary.
It's all lifelong, life long lasting.
Oh, it's depressing.
It just did.
Okay, time to savage another myth here.
Here is a couple of audio sound bites.
Tip O'Neill.
In 1984, talking about Ronaldus Magnus in Washington on WETA, IBOL 7 Lawmakers was the name of the show.
Paul Duke.
Remember Paul Duke?
He was uh PBS guy.
He was also a uh an anchor, a correspondent reported uh NBC for a while.
Not to be confused with Bill Malone.
Paul Duke.
Interviewed O'Neill.
And listen, here's here's O'Neal talking about Ronaldus Magnus.
I think that he thinks he's in a great beat movie fighting the Indians or something.
I really get frightened about him.
I don't believe he does his homework.
I don't believe that he does the study.
I don't believe that he puts the time in on it.
I know his working habits are such that uh I don't believe he wakes over three and a half hours a day.
He wakes off three by five cards at all times.
You take them away from him, and he really uh he can't discuss the issue that you're talking about.
You can't discuss the take away the three by five.
These are the guys, the best buddies.
Gloria border, best buddy.
And this is after four years of Ronaldus Magnus administration.
This is 1984.
Oh, yeah, best buddies.
They might have gone at it during the day, but when the day was over, they went to the pub and had a beer, and they just God bless them.
Uh Paul Duke said, Mr. Speaker, the critics might say that a lot of this is politics, you're a left-wing Democrats or right-wing Republican.
What would your response be to that?
I don't think that the president of the United States is truly in tune with the average American citizen.
You know, he likes to say, you want to come back to the old days.
The old days.
You know, we're in the same age vintage.
That's a myth talking about the old days.
When the bread went out of the family worked six days a week and saw the family on on once uh once a week.
He's forgotten from where he came.
He barely sounds awake in this interview.
Here's uh Stephen in Dallas, Pennsylvania.
Now welcome to the EIV network with L. Rushbow.
Hi.
Hi, Rush, Megadetto from Pennsylvania.
Thank you, sir.
I've been listening for 21 years, and it's been a real treat.
Well, I appreciate that.
I really do.
Thank you.
I just want to know if uh if President Obama can't get the Social Security checks out on August the third, maybe it's time that we try and go back to privatizing Social Security.
And we write those checks ourselves, just go all in.
I mean, that's right.
Just go all in.
Okay, if he can't get the checks out, we'll handle it.
We'll take care of it.
Uh Candidate Sharon Engel wanted to have Social Security choice if it wanted to go privatize or have the government do it.
Right.
All these all these ideas are coming home to Ruth that we should start taking care of ourselves if the federal government can't do it for us.
Well, don't forget the importance of Ramadan and all this, too.
Now Ramadan is August 1st.
And you know there's uh respect for Ramadan, there's not a whole lot of work you can do.
What is it last snurly?
Uh fifth fifteen days.
Ramadan's that might be a month.
Besides raising taxes, what did Tip O'Neill ever do?
What what what's so damn great about Tip O'Neill?
What did he ever do?
Here's another example.
Tip O'Neill cared.
Compass do you realize compassion?
The whole concept of compassion has led us to this point of destruction.
Liberal Democrat compassion and what it means.
Now Ramadan's a whole month.
The factor.
I don't know that you have a party for Ramadan.
I'm I'm not I I don't know anything about Ramadan other than when it starts and what you don't do.
No, you're not supposed to offend them.
I mean remember when I first heard about this is 19 uh 90, the government and we had to suspend operations for a month.
Or we had we had to make sure that we had completed operations by the start of Ramadan.
It was almost like an automatic truce.
You have a party at the end of Ramadan.
I guess for having survived it.
I don't know.
I'm just I shouldn't say that, because I don't um really know.
Now I've been saying for the past three, four days that all of this notion that the government shuts down with a default is poppycock.
Terry Jeffrey, Cybercast News Service, President Obama told CBS News today that there's yesterday that there may not be enough money in the Treasury to cover Social Security checks after August 3rd.
However, according to the Daily Treasury statements published by the U.S. Treasury Department, the ongoing flow of federal tax revenues since the Treasury declared that it had hit the debt limit on May 16th has been more than enough to cover the combined costs of federal spending on interest payments, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the VA, and federal workers' wages and insurance benefits.
You know, this is an interesting point, and I'm I'm I'm glad you made it.
It's totally slipping my mind.
We are at a debt limit.
We are at a debt limit, and the world is still turning.
We are at a debt limit, and every payment is being made.
The world did not come to an end, and country didn't either.
And specifically, according to the Daily Treasury statements, as of the close of biddings on May 16th, the federal government had taken in 1.3 trillion dollars in tax revenue since the beginning of the fiscal year, which is October 1.
By the close of business on July 7th, tax revenues for fiscal 2011 had grown to 1.6 trillion.
Therefore, between May 16th, when we hit the debt limit, and July 7th, the federal government took in 296 billion dollars in tax revenue, some of it mine.
Total interest payments on the national debt equaled 14 billion.
So the income was 296 billion.
Interest payment on the national debt was 14.6 billion.
make the payment with ease.
We're just on income and outflow.
Just tax revenue coming in, which comes in every week.
Thank you.
Also, during that same period, the federal government's combined expenditures for interest payments on the national debt, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security to VA, and Federal workers' wages and insurance benefits equaled $270 billion.
So hitting the legal limit on the federal debt on May 16th, the federal government could have spent its $296.1 billion in tax revenues to pay for its combined $270 billion in expenses.
For interest, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, VA, federal workers' wages and insurance benefits, and still had $26 billion in additional tax revenue to spend on other government activities.
For another $2.1 billion, for example, a government could have covered all Justice Department programs between May 16th and July 7th.
For another $11.2 billion, the government could have covered all its housing and urban development programs between May 16th and July 7th.
That'd bring the surplus down to 12 billion.
For another $8 or $7 billion, a government could have covered all its Federal Highway Administration programs between May 16th and July 7th.
All these calculations are based on numbers from the U.S. Treasury and its department daily treasury statements.
Government figures.
The revenue's there.
There's no reason not to pay Social Security or Medicare or Or the interest on the debt or anything else.
We can pay our debts.
Even beyond the debt limit.
By now you may have heard of the story of the guy who caught the home run that was Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit Saturday at Yankee Stadium.
Here's what happened.
The guy caught a ball.
Yankees officials immediately ran to him and made him a deal.
Give the ball back.
We'll take it down to meet Jeter, get pictures taken, we'll give you some seats for the rest of the year, and for next year, uh some other stuff.
And the guy said, fine, it's Jeter's ball, it's not mine, I'll take the deal.
His name is Christian Lopez, 23.
So he catches Jeter.
Well, he didn't catch it.
He ends up with the uh the ball that Jeter hit.
He handed it over to the Yankees.
He didn't demand any kind of payment.
The Yankees gave him uh sweet seats for the rest of the season, plus a bunch of autographed team memorabilia, a couple Jeter jerseys that were signed and so forth.
And so the media went out and started talking to accountants about this poor guy's tax consequences as a result of this.
New York Times, for example, said that the total value of the seats that they gave him and the memorabilia could exceed $120,000, and that the IRS would consider that to be income.
This is what several accountants told both newspapers.
And that has been the running theory ever since this story began.
I don't think there's this would be an easy case to make that this was a gift.
And in such case, there's no tax.
There was a modification to the gift tax law this year and next year.
I think it is.
Maybe it's this year.
And maybe it's two additional years past this.
I'm not sure.
But they have rem they have upped the personal exemption on gift giving from $1 million to $10 million.
It used to be that you could you could give money away over the course of a period of time, and once you hit a million dollars, you wouldn't pay any tax on it.
But there was a limit on how much you could give per person.
And it right now it's $13,000 that you can give any one individual with no tax owed by anybody.
So if you're married, you and your spouse could give somebody $26,000 tax-free, them and you.
And you can do that all day long.
If you have it and you want to do it.
But when you hit the million bucks, at whatever point in your life, then the gift tax rate began to be implemented, and that's forty-eight percent.
So if you went through your million dollar exemption, and then you could still give somebody 13 grand tax-free.
But if you gave somebody 25 grand, the twelve thousand dollars over it, once you hit the million dollars, you the giver would pay a forty-eight percent tax on on that on that amount.
That's been done away with.
That one million dollar exemption has become ten million for the next two years.
Who knows if it'll continue?
You never know.
It's tax law.
So theoretically, this guy.
I mean, if he gets a good account, it's a gift.
The Yankees are giving him this.
He's not doing any work.
There's no income here.
He ended up with a home run.
He gave it back.
This is the to me, this is an easy case to make that the Yankees gave the guy sweets.
It's not he's not doing any work.
They compared it to the old um contestants on the prices right.
When you went on those game shows and you chose door number three and all the goodies, but you did have to pay.
If you want a car, you had to pay the tax on it, because it was considered income that you earned in the process of appearing on a show where you knew you could end up enriched if you won.
But this, you don't go to a baseball game expecting to come out of there with more money than when you went in.
Quite the opposite.
Depending on the stadium, you go in there expecting to come out with nothing.
So I I don't think this guy is uh he's saying he'll if he's if it's such a great thing, he'll pay it if he has to.
I don't think he has it.
Fourteen thousand dollars uh is is what they're claiming he would owe on the gift that comes in at 120 grand.
He said worse comes to worse.
I'll I'll have to pay the taxes.
The RS has a job to do, so I'm not gonna hold it against them, but it would be cool if they helped me out a little on this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't.
And he's all yeah, he's already in debt.
I don't uh I this is a pure gift that never knows the Yankees are not hiring a guy to pay him to do anything, right?
It's a pure gift.
Tim and Salem, Oregon.
Hello, sir.
You're next.
Yeah.
No, no, no, I'm fine.
Well, uh no, I wouldn't exactly say that.
I I I No, it's like I said in the first hour of the program.
To me, it was just simply like throwing out a white flag.
I uh if if there was no reason to surrender on it, it's it's it no, I don't think against McConnell, it's it's it I very much admire him.
I just too many Democrats like it.
And this isn't we're not trying to change the blame game here, we're trying to save the country.
And that's that's what this is all about.
Yeah.
Rush?
Yeah.
Uh here's my question.
Okay.
Which of the following is going to have the greatest impact on the presidential election?
The candidate or the actions of Congress.
It's always going to be the candidate.
Why?
Just because it's always.
You people, when voting for the presidency, don't vote on what Congress is doing or not.
Can they uh can Congress, based on the choices they make, that are against what made conservatives believe him.
Will that impact the uh candidate?
Depends on if the candidate is.
Okay.
Um the way the people like i if if if the candidate happens to agree with what Congress has done starts talking about if people don't like it, It's finished.
If Congress has done stuff the presidential candidate disagrees with, majority of people agree with him.
People vote for presidential candidates strictly on the basis of candidates and what they're saying and how they perceived and how they look on TV and uh and all that.
Will the presidential candidate have to make a comment about what the Republicans do or don't do in Congress?
What are you really asking me here?
Sure.
I think that if the Republicans take the wrong action with a death limit or any compromise, it could show that the Republicans or the candidate aren't serious.
Well, I don't know that it would work that way, but it could certainly if the Republicans cave, if that's what voters perceive, uh then the candidate is not necessarily dead, depending on how he deals with it.
But if the voters think the candidate is a carbon copy of the members of Congress, he's toast because he's a Republican.
So that's how they could affect it.
That's how but uh it would still be up to the candidate to distance himself from it or to tie himself to it.
And I if look it, if I I have I've never seen a uh presidential candidate run for office citing Congress and say, let me in there so I can do more of what these guys did.
I've I've just never seen that.
It doesn't work that way.
Here it is in the New York Times.
Uh uh, ladies and gentlemen recounting how the 1995 government shutdown helped Bill Clinton win re-election the next year.
Senator McConnell said any impasse that hurt the nation's credit and led to government checks being delayed could have the same result for President Obama.
So I know our guys too.
They're worried about being blamed for it, and uh that that might mean Obama's uh automatic re-election and only part of it.
It's it's it's disheartening.
It'd make Obama lose this thing.
It wouldn't be all that hard.
In fact, Jay Carney, they just asked Jake Carney if uh you you think it might help if Obama would be specific about no, no, no, that would make a mess of it.
Wait, the president doesn't have a vote in here.
There's no reason for the president to be specific.
Right?
This is no reason for the Democrats to put forth a budget.
Why should we?
Cleveland, Ohio, Chris, thank you for waiting, sir.
Your turn.
Hello.
Uh hi, Rush, Megadetto.
Thank you.
I just wanted uh uh I was wondering how much latitude the president really has in choosing his priorities for spending.
Uh under the full face and credit uh clause, he's got to service the debt.
Well, isn't uh Social Security a trust fund that the government has borrowed against, so doesn't he have to uh honor those commitments?
Well, in truth, entitlements are not items that must be serviced.
They are not debt that must be serviced.
Those are contractual obligations.
But when we talk about servicing the debt, we're essentially talking about paying bonds who come to mature, uh rollover or what have you.
That's essentially what we're talking about.
The other the the if there's money left over, of course, uh to spend on these other things that can be done, but it's it's y the he does have some discretion over what can be paid off to answer your question, yeah.
That's why we're in the driver's seat.
It it's it can be up to him.
He's the one that has to prioritize if there's a default.
He's the one who has to prioritize what gets paid when.
He's the chief executive.
He pays the bills.
Well, I don't see any default here.
Uh default means not paying any service or anything.
Well, that's you're absolutely right.
What there isn't going to be a shutdown.
We we're going to have money coming in to service the debt.
That's been one of the frustrating realities about this all along.
That's why what Senator McConnell's saying it doesn't compute with me because there is we're we're at the debt limit now and we're servicing the debt.
Well, and and the other thing, on Social Security, there was actually borrowing against uh the Social Security premiums that were paid.
And that's a big point, too.
Uh I mean the government owes the trust fund, isn't that uh a borrowing?
It comes from a trust fund.
Exactly right.
Social Security by law has to be paid.
You know, I would it got me to thinking about all of the things that uh uh should be that that government is required to do and you know mentioned in the Constitution.
Isn't the military mentioned in the Constitution?
How about uh protecting the borders?
In other words, there are things that are required, and there are things that are not.
I know.
That's why it would be fun.
We had a good caller on this uh yesterday who said, okay, if Obama chooses not to pay Social Security and the veterans, let's publish a list of all the people who are getting their government checks.
Because some people are going to be getting their checks if he chooses not to pay Social Security.
But by law, recipients must be paid.
Good points out there, Chris, and I gotta take a brief pause back after this.
I don't know how many government shutdowns there have been.
They're more frequent than you know.
But even in 1995, when that giant government shutdown, every every government shutdown, Social Security checks go out.
They just do.
All of this is patent lies.
Full-fledged misinformation, scare tactic, economic terrorism, lies, scaring senior citizens and all that.
And it's time to stop reacting to it and call them on it.
And we'll see you tomorrow.
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