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July 26, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:16
July 26, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #3
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No, no, no, no.
The reason they like the debt or the Reed debt plan is because it raises a debt ceiling in 2013.
There isn't any spending cuts in a Reed plan.
The only reason they like it is because it gives Obama spending authority all the way through 2013.
Takes this issue off the table.
Pure and simple.
That's the only reason.
You know, and there's another myth out there.
And this is something, ladies and gentlemen, that, as you know, has been a focus of attention on this program for I don't know how long, weeks.
And it's the subject of default.
We will not default on either our debt or our obligations.
Now, those are two different things.
And Obama's starting to change his tune on it.
I just got a fascinating email from a good friend of all of ours, Bernie Goldberg.
And Bernie's written a piece on this for his website.
But this whole myth of defaulting on the debt versus defaulting on obligations.
Now, defaulting on the debt is defaulting on bond payments.
And we're not going to default on bond payments.
The idea that we're not going to be able to pay Social Security or veterans is also bogus.
Those are obligations that have nothing to do with the debt.
And if we don't pay Social Security or veterans or anybody else that we elect, that is an elective choice by the president.
It's his decision to make.
His alone.
There's nothing in any of this legislation about any of that.
Now, could we default on paying federal employees?
If we wanted to, yeah.
But that's not defaulting on our debt.
And these credit rating agencies are not rating us based on the debt ceiling and based on defaulting on the debt.
They are strictly looking at out-of-control spending, and they're seeing nothing being done about it.
Pure and simple.
And the Harry Reed, if I hear one more time, some credit rating agency like Standard ⁇ Poor's or as our buddy Stuart Varney says, Moodis is upset here.
It's about our spending, pure and simple.
But when it comes to defaulting on the debt, it's not possible.
That's why I cringe when I keep hearing Boehner and the Republicans talk about the moral obligation we have not to default.
We're not going to.
And as Bernie pointed out, the president has changed his tone in terms of changed his lingo.
Next time you pay us close attention, next time you listen, he's talking about defaulting on our obligations.
No, that's not defaulting on the debt.
We're not going to default on the debt.
We're not there.
There isn't any debt reduction anyway in any of these bills.
You name it.
The Obama non-existent bill, the Boehner bill, the Reed Bill, the first Boehner bill, a second Boehner bill, the third Boehner bill, the fourth Boehner bill, the current Boehner bill, the Reed Bill, the non-existent Obama bill.
There is no debt reduction in any of it.
And yet the debt rating or credit rating agencies are still out there banging their drums.
Over what?
Spending.
Pure and simple.
But defaulting on our obligations.
Hmm.
Now we're talking about something entirely different.
That's simply who we choose to pay and who we choose not to pay, but not bondholders and not Social Security and not veterans.
What has everybody ticked off is there is no debt reduction being talked about here.
How can there be when we're raising the debt ceiling?
Yeah, we're going to raise the debt ceiling, and the president's got new spending authority, but he can't spend more than what we're cutting.
Well, a trillion over 10 years.
He gets to spend it right now.
The cuts over 10 years, $100 billion a year.
Pure and simple.
Anyway, other things, ladies and gentlemen, this stack is growing of things that have nothing to do with any of this.
Because we're looking here at a great civilization that's under siege, brought on by itself, arguably the greatest society on the face of the earth.
And it's being destroyed.
As constituted, it's being destroyed as we know it.
There's going to be a United States of America when this is all over.
The question is, what kind?
Is it going to be a representative republic or is it going to become a socialist, quasi-quote-unquote, democracy?
Is it going to become a dictatorship?
Will there be opportunity for prosperity?
Will there be an opportunity for the creation of wealth?
We've got an Atlas shrugged guy out there.
Got this off of Beck's website, The Blaze.
Now, I asked Cookie to listen to this.
She said the audio is not the best, so I haven't pre-screened it, so I can't tell you whether she's right or not.
She always generally is.
But this was last Wednesday in Birmingham, Alabama.
U.S. Justice Department, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the local U.S. Attorney's Office held a public hearing to investigate claims of a community being affected by pollution from local businesses.
There's a guy there, Ronnie Bryant, who is a mine owner, and he wants to open and dig and drill more mines.
And he's got business plans that would employ 125 to 150 people.
They would make from $50,000 to $150,000 a year.
And the environmentalists are trying to stop him from doing it.
Bunch of leftists.
And he's decided just to quit.
You know what?
I've had it.
He's doing a John Galton walking away.
I'm not putting up with this anymore.
Here is a little bit about what he said.
It was during the QA, the local mine owner, Ronnie Bryant, and his remarks.
Got a permit to open up an underground coal mine.
It would probably employ 125 to 50 people.
They'd be paid wages from $50,000 to $150,000 a year.
We would consume probably $50,000 to $60 million worth of consumables a year for more men to work.
And my only idea today is go home.
I see these guys, I see them with tears in their eyes looking for work.
And there's so much opposition to these guys making a living that I feel like that, you know, there's no need of me putting out any effort to provide any work.
And so as I stood against the wall here today, basically what I've decided is not to open my and I'll just quit.
That's Ronnie Bryant, Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama.
He was watching all the testimony of the leftists, all the damage his mind would cause, all the pollution his mind would create.
And standing up against the wall listening to it, he said, the hell with this?
Who needs it?
I'm not going to open the mine.
I'm quitting.
Thank you.
And I'm going to take my 125 jobs that might pay people up to $150,000 a year with me.
These are the kind of things we're doing to ourselves.
A little microcosm here of bigger things yet to come.
This story was the Christian Science Monitor three days ago.
Heat wave, federal program to help the needy pay cooling bills is broke.
What isn't broke?
In the winter, we don't have the money to pay heating oil bills.
Now in the summer, we don't have the money to help the needy pay their cooling bills.
In Port St. Lucie, they've run out of chicken McNuggets.
So you call 911.
In other parts of the country, some guy in a drug deal doesn't get the right change.
He calls 911.
Robert Bo Chilton, who heads a social service center in Columbus, Ohio, noticed an ambulance outside his office this week.
When he spoke to his staff, he found out that an elderly man and woman had collapsed from heat exhaustion as they trudged to the center, the social services center, in 90-degree heat.
Then Mr. Chilton heard why they were destined for his office.
They needed help paying their electric bills, which spiked this month on account of the heat.
Where's Hugo Chavez when you need him?
He's out there paying heating oil bills for people in Massachusetts in the wintertime.
I guess they forgot about the people in Columbus, Ohio.
The federal government, get this now.
The federal government sends the states around $5 billion a year to subsidize low-income households' heating and cooling bills.
Now, we don't have that $5 billion.
Folks, do you understand that we don't have any of this money?
We're spending it, but we don't have it.
The government also reserves several hundred million dollars more, above and beyond the $5 billion, which it can distribute to states during weather emergencies, such as the heat wave that's currently scorching large swaths of the country.
But again, no heat records are being broken.
Contrary to everything you've seen in the news, heat records are not being broken.
But this year's federal budget slashed that emergency reserve by about two-thirds, from $590 million down to $200 million.
And by the time the heat wave arrived this month, the pool of emergency energy assistance money was empty.
Really, the emergency pool was empty before the emergency hit.
You have a pool.
In the pool, you got money.
It's there for an emergency, $590 million.
The emergency hits, and uh-oh, only $200 million in it.
Where'd the other $210 million go?
Any guesses?
Want to guess personal back pockets?
The administration has no tools to use, says Mark Wolf, the executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents the state administrators of the federally funded assistance program.
So we've got this agency called the National Energy Assistance Directors Association.
And the administration has no tools, meaning they don't have any money.
Air conditioners and large fans can keep the summer heat at bay, but they also guzzle electricity.
They cause utility bills to soar.
Unable to pay for power without government support, some low-income families and seniors try to brave the heat without fans or AC.
Mr. Wolf said there's no reason for anybody to become sick or die because of bills.
The federal government stipulates that the income of households that receive the energy assistance must be no greater than 150% of the federal income level or 60% of the state median income.
While the money is mainly meant to go toward heating and cooling bills, states can also use it for related programs such as distributing free air conditioners.
In New York City, during the first two weeks of the program, 4,500 people applied for 2,400 available air conditioners.
And then once they were distributed, a thieves came along.
Just see that story.
And the thieves started stealing the air conditioners.
I'm sure we're saving a lot of people's lives, said Mr. Olga Suto, who added a large share of the applicants were elderly.
The center is no longer accepting applications.
Meanwhile, many elderly Americans in New York and around the country may bring in too much money each month to qualify for cooling subsidies, but barely enough to stay cool.
So, you know, I grew up in the Midwest, and I lived there through age 19.
And it's hard to believe that there are so many places without some manner of air conditioning by now.
But it seems, you know, every year come hell or high water.
The drive-by is you're going to find old poor people who can't manage to get a free air conditioner from the government or free heating oil.
And the accompanying stories are going to be, oh, what a rotten country.
Oh, my God, the suffering.
Oh, we've never seen anything like it.
How is it?
How is it that in this country of such vast wealth, even among our poor, the Heritage Foundation has updated what is poverty in this country?
Robert Rector and his boys got that in the stack here somewhere.
How is it that a heat wave, which happens every summer, throws the budget so out of whack that only the federal government can save a day?
How is that?
I'll tell you how it is.
It's because the money that's allocated never gets to where it's intended.
Can I mention levies in New Orleans?
It's the same thing.
You've got outright theft and fraud.
You've got people in charge of large amounts of money.
There's no way to account for it all.
It's just a mess.
It's just a mess.
And the fact that we claim we don't have enough money for this or that, it boggles my mind.
All the money that we do have, all the money that's been wasted.
Nothing's real anymore.
So we got this once-great society.
It's under assault.
We're watching it right before our very eyes, being assaulted.
And the Washington, D.C. ruling class comes up with their temporary fixes that end up serving the purpose primarily of applauding themselves for dealing with another crisis that they've manufactured in the first place.
One Armageddon after another.
I have to take a brief time out here, ladies and gentlemen, because of the vagaries of the format clock.
We'll do it.
We'll be back and continue before you know it.
A dispatch just placed in front of me from the Associated Press.
Conservative Republicans on Tuesday balked at House leaders' pleas to stop whining and back their plan to slash spending and increase the nation's borrowing ability, throwing into doubt the Republicans' proposal to rescue the nation from an unprecedented government default.
There will be no default.
Don't doubt me.
House Speaker John Boehner trying to round up the votes for his plan to cut spending about $1.2 billion and extend the debt ceiling for about six months.
No, it's $1.2 trillion.
That's a typo here.
Flanked by conservative colleagues, Jim Jordan, Republican Ohio, flanked by conservative colleagues, Jim Jordan told reporters he couldn't back the Boehner proposal.
He said it doesn't have the votes to pass.
In a two-step plan, Boehner is pressing for a vote tomorrow and a second vote on Thursday on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
We think there are real problems with this plan, said Jordan, who heads the Republican study group, and he's a good guy.
He argued that the spending cuts are insufficient and expressed opposition to likely tax increases.
If I had to vote right now, my vote would be no.
Now, the conservative challenge came just hours after Majority Leader Eric Cantor told a rank and file to stop grumbling as he sought to rally lawmakers for the Boehner plan.
In the closed-door session, the Virginia Republican acknowledged the resistance to increasing the nation's borrowing authority.
Debt limit vote sucks, he conceded, but Cantor insisted it has to be done.
He spelled out the options for the GOP: allowing default and stepping into an economic abyss, backing the Senate Democrat plan, or calling Obama's bluff by backing the Republicans' own proposal.
So those are the three options they've given themselves.
There is no abyss.
There will be no default.
These guys all know that.
Now, folks, there's something else to consider, and we're back to the old baseline budgeting.
Now, those of you who have been regular listeners of this program since the mid early 90s, you probably remember what my explanation of baseline budgeting was, or is.
Here is the dirty little secret.
Because Obama got his porculus and because we did TARP, the baseline on which all these so-called cuts are measured has gone way up.
So essentially, the baseline that is being used here is a baseline that is established after $9 trillion of new spending.
We're going to cut $1.2 trillion from $9 trillion in new spending.
We're still left with a new spending of $7.7 odd trillion.
Before we get back to the phones, and we're going to do that, I want to explain this baseline business because this is important.
I actually should have asked Speaker Boehner about this, and it didn't occur to me.
So I, as a highly trained broadcast specialist and professional, apologize to you.
But it's patently obvious.
We are talking about cutting spending.
And I've made this point countless times after Obama has blown the door off of the federal treasury.
Two and a half years.
Look at all of the spending.
This is what's been so infuriating to me.
Obama gets all of his spending, all of this out of control, worthless, the stimulus, TARP, all of this stuff.
And now he's playing the only adult in the room role.
He's playing the referee.
We've got to get serious of fiscal responsibility after having none for two and a half years.
Well, all of that spending, non-defense spending has gone up 24% in the last two years.
Now that translates essentially to a baseline from which all cuts and future spending are based on to $9 trillion new spending.
That's how much new spending there's been, folks.
We're at the $14 trillion in the national debt.
So after all of this new spending is when we start talking about these cuts.
And so Boehner comes along and his idea, I don't care whose idea it is.
Right now, it doesn't matter whose idea it is to make this point.
You have $9 trillion in new spending, $9 trillion added to the baseline.
And here comes a plan that's going to cut spending $1.2 trillion over 10 years.
Let's say it happens.
What we're doing is cutting $1.2 trillion from $9 trillion that's already been spent in the last two and a half years.
So essentially, when we're through with this, if this deal gets signed and passed up to Obama, the net is a $7.
What?
$8 trillion spending increase.
While everybody in the ruling class in Washington claps their hands over the hard work of cutting $1.2 trillion.
And it gets worse because the $1.2 trillion is spread over 10 years.
It may not even happen.
What's going to happen to spending in those 10 years?
This $1.2 trillion is literally a drop in the ocean when you add the new baseline plus all the spending is going to happen in the 10 years that the cuts are going to take place.
So once again, as is the way it is in baseline budgeting, we are not cutting anything.
We are reducing the rate of growth.
But we're not cutting anything.
And this is why the credit agencies are out there caterwalling as they are.
It's not about default.
So nothing's really changed.
It's the same Washington doublespeak.
When you hear the word cut, we're just talking about a decrease in the rate of growth.
We're not cutting anything from the baseline.
We're not taking the $9 trillion Obama spent and taking any, we're not cutting any of that.
That stays, that stands.
And I apologize for not referencing this in this specific terminology earlier.
Nothing's changed.
We're not cutting anything.
We're simply reducing the rate of growth.
Or even if you want to say we're cutting, okay, we're cutting after we've spent $9 trillion in two and a half years.
Okay, cutting $100 billion a year.
Same exact tactic and trick employed by the ruling class of Washington.
And note, note now, folks, to make this insult even more profound, after spending what Obama has spent, $9 trillion.
Now look what a cut of $1.1 trillion is presented at.
Look at what we've been doing for the last month.
They've had us in a veritable crisis mode.
The world is going to come to an end if, if we make these cuts, these drag codes, if we, and there aren't any cuts.
So once again, we've been had.
Once again, we have been played.
Our emotions, it's kind of like my theory on global warming.
I have a theory about global warming and why people think it's real.
Go back 30, 40 years when there was much less air conditioning in the country.
When you didn't have air conditioning and you left the house, may in fact have gotten a little cooler out there because sometimes houses become hot boxes.
Especially if you're on the second or third floor of a house in the summertime and all you've got is open windows and maybe a window fan, or you have some servant standing there fanning you with a piece of paper.
When you walked outside, no big deal, still hot as hell.
Now, 30, 40 years later, all this air conditioning.
And it's a huge difference when you go outside.
When you go outside now, my golly, is it hot?
Global warming.
It's all about the baseline you're using for comparison.
So we've been played like saps.
We've been told from the president all the way down to Capitol Hill that these budget cuts, wild, break the cunt.
Wild old folks won't get their social security check when they're all in their military.
We just spent $9 trillion in the last two and a half years.
We're talking about cutting $1 trillion up in over 10 years.
And they tell us the country is going to come to a screeching halt because of that.
And the $9 trillion is money we didn't have.
That's the problem.
Now, this infuriates me even more to look at it this way, to realize this.
Sorry, again, I didn't put it in these terms earlier.
But it is it's it's the dead-on truth.
That's what's infuriated me all along about Obama getting to occupy the position he occupies.
He's the architect of all this spending, and now he stands up there, talks about the need for shared sacrifice and balance and all these other terms that he uses.
And that if we don't get what he wants, why the end of the country is near and default?
They really do think we're idiots.
They really do think that they have us in the palm of their hands, that they can manipulate our emotions and really make us think that if we don't pay the price, if we don't go along with higher taxes or whatever else they're demanding, that the country is finished.
And Mabel and George are eating dog food.
We're saps.
Played as saps.
We're looked at as saps by the whole D.C. culture.
Plain and simple.
Back to the phones.
People have been patiently waiting.
This is Gary in Buffalo.
Gary, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Many have said this, and now I know exactly how they feel.
It is truly an honor to speak with you and thank you profoundly for my conservative education.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Under normal circumstances, I would agree with you that the United States under any other president would not default on our bonds.
But unfortunately, Obama has a track record that we have to look at.
He defaulted on the GM bonds.
So now is he trustworthy?
Well, I see your point, and I know what you're saying, that he might go ahead and choose to default on certain things because of his ultimate objective, which is the transformation of this country into a third world banana republic.
So now I'm skeptical.
Thing is, you can't default on T-bills.
But haven't other countries done that with less than honorable leaders?
Well, they are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.
And as long as there's money coming in, this see, this is something he hasn't, he has no authority not to pay the T-bills.
Now, he can choose, he can choose not to send out Social Security checks or veterans checks or whatever.
But he can't, if he said that we're not going to pay T-Bill, look at he's don't worry about that.
We're talking to Chikoms and Japanese and anybody else who's bought these things above and beyond you.
If all he was doing was screwing with you, yeah, but they're backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S., which still exists.
There are legal mechanisms in place for Social Security to be paid by selling even more T-bills.
We have T-bill auctions constantly.
We're not going to default on T-bills.
We can't.
What happens if the rest of the world finally understands what's going on here and says, I'm sorry, but we're not going to loan you any more?
Well, now that's another circumstance, and that's when interest rates go up, and they will then buy them.
If we have a T-bill auction and people say, sorry, not going to buy any, then we have to raise the interest rate to make it more attractive, which that's what would happen.
We're going to sell T-bills.
We have to.
That aspect is not going to shut down.
That's why all this is such bogus scare tactic BS.
If I may be so blunt about it in that regard.
Gary, thanks to call.
Appreciate it.
I want to get some other people in.
I'm not being rude here.
Chris Waterford, Wisconsin.
Hello, sir, and welcome.
Hello, Rush.
How are you doing?
Good.
Hey, I just want to tell you, you do have the most entertaining radio show ever.
Well, you know what?
I really appreciate you saying that because it's a challenge these days to be entertaining when this guy is destroying so many lives.
And I mean that.
Well, the comment that I wanted to make is we have already won in November.
All we have to do is nothing, and we win.
If we have the power to raise that debt ceiling, so if we don't do anything, they're going to have to live within their means.
And we should make them defend their spending.
Look, I totally agree.
The tables need to be turned.
They're the ones that need to be on defense.
Totally agree.
And if the election were held today or tomorrow, I would agree with you.
Landslide, slam, dunk.
But too much can happen now and the real election.
We could nominate a total doofus.
It could happen.
Or the person we nominate could commit such a gaffe in the process.
Anything, too many things can happen to say that we don't have to do anything and we win big.
I know what you're saying.
I know what your point is, that they're in such bad shape and that nobody wants any more of this guy.
But there are a lot of people out there who think that it's so bad.
I mean, there's an actual theory out there that it's so bad that you don't change horses in the middle of the stream.
That changing horses in the middle of the stream when it's this bad would make it even worse.
So I don't think that it's not a good procedure to have to conclude that this thing's in the can even.
And I know you may not actually mean that per se, but I wanted to treat it specifically as you meant it.
The Ps, if you will, are in Obama's court.
Well, the fastest three hours in media once again proves itself to be the fastest three hours in media.
The fastest commercial breaks in media, too.
Shows over.
Fini, we are adios amigos.
And be back tomorrow, though.
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