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July 26, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:24
July 26, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Greetings to you, music lovers, fill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plain.
I am America's real anchor man, a doctor of democracy, and America's truth detector, all combined as one harmless, lovable little fuzzball.
Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Happy to have you along.
We'll get to your phone calls here, Il QuickO.
Telephone number 80082-2882, the email address, L Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
There was two quite telling things in Speaker Boehner's comments on this program mere moments ago.
One, in his mind, it's going to be very difficult for real budget cuts because of all the retiring baby boomers.
He considers it a moral imperative that we not default or have a downgrade in our credit rating, which we already have.
There have been two downgrades of our credit rating.
And both of those downgrades, I shared one with you yesterday from an outfit that I'd previously not heard of.
Nothing to do with the fact that we don't have a deal on a debt ceiling.
It's simply our spending trajectory.
It's unsustainable.
The second quite telling point, Snertley, I don't know if you heard this because you were probably in there screening calls.
I asked Speaker Boehner, so Obama gets to spend this one trillion dollar line of credit right away.
And we get our 1.2 trillion dollars in cuts over ten years.
And the speaker paused.
He said, that's right.
Rush, Rush, it's not the best deal.
But it's a typical Washington deal.
In that sense, you spend whatever's agreed to in the next five minutes.
You cut whatever's agreed to over ten years.
And you know the truth the trick about the 10-year cuts is that nine of the ten years will be rendered inapplicable after next year's budget is done.
Because next year's budget, I mean, I don't they don't have to accommodate this agreement in it if um if they don't want to.
David Wu is resigning from Congress after all, a sex-crazed Democrat from the state of Washington.
No, that's true.
One Congress cannot force future Congresses to honor any budget cut.
They can't every year, Congress does its own budget for that year.
And then there are ten year projections and so forth, but that's what they are.
Tax law is a little different thing.
But even tax law can be changed every year if you want it.
They could cut taxes for whatever you wanted in this deal, and then next year wipe them out and redo them.
I mean, it's whatever whatever the current Congress wants to do, given current law, they can do.
They can leave it alone, or they can strike it, or they can extend it, or write a new one.
So uh now that Wu, now that Wu is resigning from Congress, sex crazed Democrat from Washington, maybe now it will be safe for the drive-bys to cover the story.
Now they won't mention his party affiliation.
They won't say that this uh sex fiend is a Democrat.
And if they do say that he's a Democrat, they'll lament the great loss of uh profound intellect or whatever.
So if you're keeping count out there, Wu's resignation will mean the fifth special election this year, and the third one caused by a sex scandal.
The previous one, of course, was um Anthony Wiener.
Now, Wu is the first Chinese American to ever serve in the House of Representatives, and now he'll be the first to ever quit.
And for what it's worth, Wu earned a Bachelor of Science from Stanford 1977.
He attended Harvard Medical School.
He got a law degree from Yale in 1982, which tells us all that the best education doesn't do a damn thing for common sense.
Now, the White House spokesman Jay Carney just announced that, quote, the speaker's proposal cannot pass the Senate, will not pass the Senate, cannot reach the President's desk.
You just heard Speaker Boehner on the program today, giving Obama what Obama wants is a raise in the debt limit that'll take him beyond the election.
So he can spend and spend and spend and buy and buy and buy votes.
So Jay Carney said the deal dead on arrival.
Can't pass the Senate, won't pass the Senate, can't reach the president's desk.
If it does reach the president's desk, and Kearney won't tell you this, Obama will sign it.
He'll sign anything right now.
Don't doubt.
I probably shouldn't say this.
I might be goofing things up by saying, but I mean, I don't want him acting just in a way so that I won't be right.
But sign anything that comes up up there now.
So, okay, here's Carney.
Nope, nope, nope, no chance, no way, no how.
Where's the spirit of compromise?
I mean, this is a deal with uh Harry Reed, a lot of other Democrat senators, blessings.
Three credit rating outfits have already downgraded a U.S. credit rating.
Weiss ratings, Egan Jones ratings, and DeGong global credit rating.
Those three.
Since when does the executive branch speak for the Senate?
Since when does Obama summon members of the other body up to the White House?
Who's he think he is?
Dung Xiaoping.
Kinda, yeah.
I mean, they both smoked.
Oh, yeah, Deng Xiaoping, a chain smoker.
And Deng Xiaoping went for the whole thing.
No filters.
Deng Xiaoping, he wanted the stuff that was left on the tobacco room floor.
He wanted the most kick butt stuff he could get in his cigarettes.
Damn straight.
I remember Dung Xiaoping.
I think I even saw him smoking at the Kennedy Center when he was there being honored.
Nobody was going to tell him not to smoke, might nuke us.
Okay.
Well, uh sorry, Wu is from Oregon.
Did I say Washington?
He's from Oregon.
And DeGong, Global Credit Rating, one of the three agencies that has downgraded us, they are Chicom.
Kind of makes sense.
DeGong.
I know they got the housing crisis.
I know all that.
My only point is that everybody's worried that we're going to have our credit rating downgraded.
It already has been.
That is my only point.
Story here from uh from Bloomberg.
Uh, the U.S. government can't afford a default.
Just I want to repeat this for at least a month after the Ramadan deadline to lift the debt ceiling set by the Treasury Department, John Sylvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo.
The Fed and the Treasury can work together to generate enough cash, probably for the next two to three months to avoid any kind of automatic default on the treasury debt.
It's not an emergency crisis.
By the way, I asked the speaker, not on the air, I didn't get to this during the on-air interview.
He called me uh about a quarter of noon today, 15 minutes before the program, and I said, When are you going to present this to Obama?
He said, uh end of the week.
They're gonna wait.
They're gonna wait very close to the deadline to uh to present this whole thing.
Here's here's heartwarming news from CNBC.
The uh info babe here is Christina Cheddar Burke.
The latest consumer confidence report aside, Americans are still apprehensive, especially about their jobs, and that fear Is likely to weigh on consumer spending in the months ahead, according to one retail industry consultant, Bert Flickinger, managing director of Retail Consultancy Strategic Resource Group, said the U.S. has just entered a 500-day retail recession.
And before it's over, the U.S. will see weaker retail sales, more store closures, and even additional retailers joining borders in bankruptcy.
Helping to drive the trend is a weak labor market, Flickinger said.
Job growth has remained elusive, pushing the unemployment rate to 9.2%.
Flickinger also expects more people will be joining the ranks of the unemployed as state and local governments make further cuts to their budget.
Latest consumer confidence report from the conference board showed consumer attitudes perked up from the prior month, but it also captured growing fears about jobs.
Those fears are likely to curtail spending, especially when you consider a large number of households that are living paycheck to paycheck.
Flickinger also cited a long-term unemployed who will stop receiving checks, benefits this year.
As another contributing factor.
Once the checks stop arriving, these people will have even less money than they do now.
I thought the economy had turned the corner a long time ago.
Didn't you?
Don't you remember being told that?
Yeah.
And uh so now we're at the start of a 500-day retail recession.
For those of you in Rio Linda, that's over a year and a half.
And it is just beginning.
Let me take a brief time out here, my friends.
We'll come back and start in with your phone calls.
Because I know you're itching to get in on all this out there, and it's your turn when we come back.
Rush Limbaugh giving you tomorrow's news today while we provoke the media and the rest of the left.
With incontrovertible truth.
Jay Carney, by the way, not only a spokesman for Obama, I think Jay Carney is now Harry Reed's spokesman.
I don't know if Reed knows it.
But Jay Carney is also his spokesman, and here is his reaction to the Boehner plan.
Say what you will about the Boehner plan.
This is a thing that continues to irritate me.
Where is Obama's plan?
Why is nobody asking can Obama's plan get passed?
You and it's all fair and good to rip into Boehner.
Boehner had this plan, he's had that plan.
I mentioned to him last week, you know, you guys are being forced to compromise with yourselves.
And Boehner, you know, he has said publicly Obama doesn't have a plan.
But what about Obama's plan?
Nobody's asking, can Obama's plan get passed?
This stupid media tards sit there and just assume he's president is king, and he gets to play this role of referee.
Smarter than anybody else in the room on all this, and it's very irritating.
Obama's plan exists.
It's just not on paper.
It's more taxing and spending.
Tax and spend, pure and simple, regardless of the circumstances.
So Boehner has come up with another compromise.
Obama keeps rejecting Obama, keeps saying no, and Boehner keeps compromising.
He puts the latest deal forward.
At the press briefing today, the AP, White House correspondent Ben Feller said there have been many times when a bill has been proposed, and the White House has said that uh should that legislation get to the president's desk, he would veto it.
So if Speaker Boehner's bill made it to Obama's desk, would the president veto this?
The speaker's proposal cannot pass the Senate, will not pass the Senate, will not reach the President's desk.
I mean, this is this is the problem we have is that we need Congress to produce something that is a compromise, and it therefore can get support from Democrats and Republicans in both houses.
I would note that the Speaker of the House in his address last night that followed the president's never mentioned the word compromise.
And yet that is the only alternative.
This is compromise.
And not a whole lot of people like it, but it is compromise.
The Republicans are compromising every day with themselves.
The president's uh president is demanding produce something that's a compromise.
Who the hell does he think he is?
Where's his plan?
Can his plan get passed?
I know it's infuriating.
We're starting in Atlanta, the home of school cheating where hardly anybody ever pays a price.
David, welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey Rush.
Been cheering you on for twenty years, and I finally got upset today enough that I picked up the phone and called you.
Thank you very much, sir.
Um if you don't mind, I want to vent on you just a little bit.
Yeah, go ahead and vent on it.
On me, you want to vent on me.
Not on you, but I just want to vent for a little bit and and you can be the recipient.
Go right ahead.
Listen, don't be bragging about cutting thirty dollars thirty billion dollars earlier this year, because that's chump change.
That's nothing to be proud about.
And one point six trillion over ten years betting on the comms.
That's that's uh that's a loser's bet there also that we've played that game before.
I'm sick of these games that are being played, and I'm ready for us to get ready to play some hardball, and let's have the battle right now.
Let's not kick it down the road any further.
Yeah, I know what you're saying.
And and I heard the mint last night, he was he was saying, look, if we'll just go back to two thousand and seven spending levels, the budget will balance itself in ten years.
Right.
Why can't we try that and lay it on the table?
And Congress right now has the power, the strongest power in Washington, and that is they have the power to say no.
That's that they'll never have that power again with the way the situation is, and if they'll just hold together, they can get this thing done.
I know.
Ten percent across the board cut would be easy, go back two thousand seven or even two thousand eight spending levels.
Exactly.
Well, you heard the speaker.
He's very worried all the retiring baby boomers are gonna put even more he doesn't think there's that much to cut really.
Uh and at least immediately and at one time.
I think I think closer to crisis mode than maybe they think we are, and that's what's frustrating.
Well, I'll tell you what all this means.
When you boil it all away or you strip it all away.
We need to win more elections, David.
We need to win more elections in the House.
We need to win more elections the Senate, and we have to win the presidential race in um November of next year.
That's what this really means.
Right.
We just need to win more elections.
Thank you for letting me vent today, Rush.
Well, you know, I uh I'm a sponge for all kinds of people.
I'm I I I take on a lot of other people's dress.
I got plenty of room for it.
So I'm happy to provide the service.
Thank you for the call.
Appreciate it.
Here's Cheryl in Newport Beach, Virginia.
I'm glad you called.
I'm glad you waited.
Great to have you here.
I'm in Newport Beach, California, Chief.
I'm sorry.
That's okay.
That's all right.
Newport Beach, California.
Great to have you on the program.
Thanks.
We don't have any global warming here today.
It's beautiful here.
Yeah, I was out there for one day last week.
Oh, I hope you had a great time.
Well, wasn't there long enough to have a great time?
Well, go we'll see up at Palican.
That's a beautiful golf course.
Yeah.
Um I I have something to ask you about Thomas Sowell, but I I was just completely uh absorbed in hearing you talk to Speaker Boehner.
So can I go over both these things if I hurry?
Yeah.
Okay.
Um the first thing when I when I listen to Speaker Boehner, I I really admire him because he's in a tough spot.
I gotta say the truth.
It I wouldn't want his job.
I I don't know if I could even though we we can birth babies, his job is pretty tough.
Um but I read a thing acc um according to Forbes that a ratings downgrade would be even worse than a technical default, and that um people from the S and P have told CNN that Boehner's plan would cause the US to lose its triple A credit rating.
Because they said that that we Congress needs to show cuts of four trillion or more.
And they said that his plan doesn't come close in real dollars, and I'm scared that you know, at the end of the day, when you start really reading a fine print, that that speaker boehner and Harry Reid aren't that far apart on STAP, and it's kind of making me nervous.
What do you mean they're not that far apart?
Because it just seems like they're both saying the same thing with in you know You mean they're not cutting enough?
Right.
Yeah.
I guess uh Yeah.
Well, you are right about one thing, and that is that these credit rating services are not making these threats uh relative to the debt ceiling.
Now everybody wants to think they are.
Uh but the credit rating is all going to be about our spending and whether we show any uh sign of getting handle on it and reducing it.
That's we're we're on an unsustainable path.
Yeah, and I uh that's what the shame is that we couldn't get anyone to to push this cut cap and balance.
That's really but I'm nervous about that.
Well, now look, you know, we tried that.
We just this is what I meant.
We need to win more elections.
The Democrats run the Senate.
They're not going to pass cut cap and balance over there.
It just isn't gonna happen.
We'll be right back.
Rush Limboy, you're guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, cave ins, lack of spine, and even the good times.
We are at 800-282-2882 and the email addressball at EIBNet.com.
Aaron Burnett, the former street sweetie on CNB Cent has CMBC's now moved over to CNN.
And I guess last night was her first show on CNN.
And they said her out there, or she rushed out there to make a point that Boehner's plan may not be enough to stop SNP from downgrading America.
Now that's all well and good, but there's no other plan out there.
The president doesn't have a plan, and he doesn't care about the SP downgrade.
I take it back.
There are other ideas.
Dement's idea is great.
Just go back to 2007 spending levels.
Or go back to 2008 spending levels.
What have you?
The last plan that Obama had was his budget in February, and it got wiped out 97 to zero.
97 to zero.
Not one Democrat voted for Obama's budget, and that is the last plan that we had from him.
So we've had the Ryan plan.
We've had cut cap and balance.
We've had the balanced budget amendment.
Now we've got Boehner's two-step plan.
We've offered all kinds of plans.
And they sent Aaron Burnett out there to say that Boehner's plan may still trigger the SP downgrade.
Wolf Blitzer, the chief business correspondent.
No, the chief business correspondent is uh Aaron Burnett.
And Blitzer said, look, earlier you suggested that one investor who was briefed by some of the ratings agents said that if Boehner's plans approved, it might still result in some sort of ratings reduction for the country.
Whereas, if Harry Reid's plans approved, the U.S. triple A rating might not go down.
I want you to explain what that means.
I spoke to a very influential investor who had a chance to sit down with SP.
The issue was that uh Speaker Boehner's plan does not cut enough spending right away.
Harry Reid's plan, of course, would cut about 2.7 trillion.
So just because uh it's bigger uh than Speaker Boehner's plan is really the reason uh that the Boehner plan may still trigger a downgrade.
There is no there aren't any spending cuts in Harry Reed's plan, Aaron.
Over a trillion dollars of cuts in Harry Reed's plan are the uh Afghanistan and Iraq wars ending, and they're not going to end.
That's not cutting spending.
And by the way, nobody is doing anything about the the baseline on which all this is based.
There aren't any cuts in anybody's plan.
This is this is just a crock, and this is why CNN doesn't have anybody watching them.
Other than they're, you know, hardcore leftists.
And if this is true, if this if if if uh Aaron Burnett was actually told this by SP just means that they too are playing politics.
If Standard and Poor is that's what SP is, if they're out there actually saying this, man, it planes Harry Reach plan is what we need.
Well, they're playing politics and they ought to be called on it.
I'll never forget the old buddy Stuart Varney was on Fox one morning, and he was talking about Moody's.
And Bill Himmer said, Well, wait a minute, is Moody's uh they got a political uh dog in the fight?
And Stuart Varney paused and he said, They say they don't.
Fine, that's an admission that they do.
They all do.
Some may be on our side, some may not.
Harry Reid's plan cuts nothing.
Harry Reed's plan doesn't even touch entitlements.
Harry Reed is double counting the end of the Afghan Iraq wars.
Everybody's already counting the end of the Iraq Afghan wars.
You know, to to say that uh the Iran Afghan wars being ceased equals a budget cut of over a trillion dollars is the same nonsense as trying to say a tax cut is spending.
Now we noted this last week.
Standard in poor's is regulated by Congress, particularly the Senate, thanks to Dodd Frank.
The new financial regulatory reform bill, the federal government regulates SP.
And particularly the Senate, the Senate banking committee.
So if you're SP and you don't want these guys up various orifices of yours, what are you gonna do?
You're gonna say what they want to hear.
Which in this case is Harry Reid's plan cut spending.
What what an what an insult.
What an absolute joke.
There is no Democrat plan.
There's no Democrat organism.
There's not a Democrat cell, there's not a Democrat Adam.
There's not a Democrat neutrino, there's not a Democrat anything that ever cuts spending.
And now we're being told a dingy Harry has a bill at cut spending, and that is pure BS.
Well, it didn't stop the regime from picking up on Aaron Burnett's talking point.
David Pluff was on PMS NBC last night with Lawrence O'Donnell, who wrote the script for President Hoever, played by what's his name, Martin Sheen on the West Wing.
O'Donnell said, now here's what Speaker Boehner coming out tonight responding to the president saying, let's do cut cap and balance.
I mean, that's going backwards.
They're moving backwards in these negotiations.
What Pluff said.
Listen, you know, there was a report that just came out uh on your uh competitor CNN that uh, you know, one of the ratings agencies is saying that if the Boehner plan is passed, it means a downgrade.
So that means a tax increase for just about every American in higher interest rates.
So, as the president said tonight, that doesn't solve the problem.
Okay, way to go.
So they send Aaron Burnett out.
David Plough from the regime picks up her talking point.
The Behner plan doesn't cut enough spending.
This is the first time I've heard in all this the White House wants spending cuts.
Are any of you aware that the White House really wanted spending cuts?
Oh, come on, snurdly.
They said they wanted a cut in Titland?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He said he was open to it.
Of course, Pelosi and all the rest of Democrats went absolutely kabazzo.
But just like $500 billion in Medicare cuts, do you really think that there are $500 billion in Medicare cuts?
But they're not gonna this there's no Democrat plan to cut spending.
I love the positioning of this.
Only the Democrats have a plan that cuts spending enough to satisfy the credit rating agencies.
And meanwhile.
How about Obama's plan?
Can it get passed?
What is it?
There is no Obama plan.
Okay, Eric in uh in Washington.
Eric, thank you for waiting.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Uh you know, this wasn't my original uh question or statement, but it kind of segues into it.
Are you are you saying or implying that there may be a crack in uh in the drive-by's uh unflagging support for our uh our president?
I know you mentioned David Brooks, and I never really saw him as uh as uh you know uh a uh uh a devout supporter of of Obama, but I guess you mentioned a couple other.
Oh, yeah, he was.
David Brooks.
David Brooks is the guy who said when I saw the crease in his pants, I knew he was gonna be president, and I knew he was gonna be a great one.
Right, I do remember that now.
But the the the rest of it uh rush is uh uh and this has been on my mind for a while.
I I'm convinced that people that pulled the lever for our president the first time are gonna have trouble not doing it again.
I uh you know, it certainly wasn't me, but you know, I uh, you know, uh uh being in DC and in in in you know in close proximity with uh you know many disappointments.
That is one of the problems that you have living in D.C. You are exposed to a culture that is not representative of anywhere else in the country.
The closest that you could get to where you live now would be to live in New York or San Francisco.
Maybe Boston.
Maybe.
There's nowhere else.
I understand why you think that.
I I understand why there is fatalism in abundance in Washington, D.C. if you are Republican or a conservative.
That that is its own distinct culture.
That is why, by the way, so many solid, decent conservatives end up turning into jello when they get into that town.
The culture is so dominant.
And don't discount the importance of the social culture in that town for influencing the way people behave and the way they uh the way they vote.
Uh I I think it's not nearly as bad out there as you think.
It's not automatic that the same people have voted for Obama.
There's no poll that says so.
Obama's not leading in any presidential poll right now.
And in the internal White House polls, it's even worse.
And by internal, I mean honest.
Polls that they commission, polls that they pay for.
You're just gonna have to you have to buck up in there if you're gonna stay inside the beltway.
If you're gonna live there, you're gonna have to tell yourself constantly throughout the day that what you're seeing and hearing is not at all reflective or representative of what's happening outside there in the rest of the country.
Just trust me on it.
Don't doubt me.
Wolf Blitzer, ladies and gentlemen, was in crisis before and during and after the speeches.
That's right.
Wolf was on before and after Obama's speech.
He worked himself into a total lather.
One week to go and counting Democrats and Republicans, they are scrambling to avoid a devastating national default, the desperate race against the clock to secure what President Obama is calling America's national credit card.
Just a little more than seven days from now, the country could face unprecedented default if Congress is unable to agree on a deal in just three hours.
He'll address the nation from the White House on the looming U.S. debt disaster.
The stakes in Washington could not be higher right now.
A deadlock has left the country facing what some believe could be an economic calamity.
The United States right now is an imminent threat of default.
I never expected to hear a president say that.
I'm very gloomy about the prospects.
It is possible there won't be a deal.
That's uh Wolf Blitzer at CNN reading off of his teleprompter what somebody had written.
Creating this crisis mentality.
And so, see, folks, this this is how we get caught up in the Washington think and Washington talk.
This country faces trillions of dollars in deficit spending every year for the rest of time.
Until the system drops dead.
Trillions.
Now look what we're doing now.
We are fighting over 1.1 trillion that may be cut over 10 years, which is what a hundred billion dollars a year.
Which is chump change.
This is why credit agencies are worried.
The total debt is trillions.
It's added to every day, and we're talking chump change.
This is how Washington's done.
You throw out a number like a trillion, it sounds big.
It's over ten years.
I even said to Speaker Boehner, wait Obama gets to spend his trillion right away, and our cuts over ten years, and there's a pause.
He said, Rush, rush, it's not the best deal.
It's hard to get a good deal.
This is why the credit agencies are worried.
This is why people are worried.
And meanwhile, what are we debating?
Republican establishment types are coming forward now telling us this is a great deal.
Get what you can get.
They're all over the place.
You're going to see them, folks.
All over cable TV.
I'm not going to mention any names.
I just tell you that when you watch your cable shows tonight, the Republican guests, there will be exceptions.
Senator Dement, others.
But names that you know.
People have run for president before.
They're going to come out and say, time to do it.
Time is now.
Time to get a deal.
It's not the best deal, it's a good deal.
Some might say it's a great deal.
But we got to get what we can get and we got to move on.
This is the time.
We've worked really hard here.
This is establishment Washington on the Republican side.
We are on a disastrous trajectory for the first time in my lifetime.
There are people who are actually talking about the country imploding financially.
There are people seriously talking about.
You've heard the phraseology, country's finished.
Serious people are worried about this, as are you.
We don't need a bunch of former politicians telling us this is great when it isn't great.
something, but it's come about because Obama refuses to have a plan.
We keep compromising with ourselves.
While at the same time we're compromising with ourselves, the White House says, you guys better start compromising.
White House says, I want to see some shared sacrifice.
All they want is tax increases.
We're not, well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to speak for myself.
I'm not interested in playing in a little corner of the playing field.
That Washington tells us we have to stay on.
meaning affecting everything that's going on.
Thank you.
There's a lot of people now saying we can't do any better than this.
And I don't like the word.
I never have liked the word can't.
In this case, what they what they really mean is won't.
Just they've had enough of this.
They've been nervous a long time.
As I've been telling you, been opening a program for the last week and a half.
Republicans are very nervous.
They are nervous.
They just want to get this over with.
They want to end this and move on to something else and have it said that they dealt with it.
Just remember a trillion dollars in cuts over ten years equals a hundred billion dollars in cuts a year.
We owe a hundred billion dollars a month.
Now you may not believe it, folks, but there are other things going on besides the debt ceiling fight.
And I have them.
I know what they are.
I got stacks of stuff of it.
We'll delve into some of it.
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