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Aug. 1, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:12
August 1, 2011, Monday, Hour #3
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The views expressed by the host on this program documented to be almost always right 99.6% of the time.
And that's because we are engaged in a relentless, unstoppable daily pursuit of the truth.
Great to have you with us.
Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone at 800 282882 email address.
L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
Byron York is reporting.
He's at the DC examiner.
Used to be at Krauthammer Review Online.
That the uh news about Cantor's office, uh they say Cantor's office is denying Dingy Harry's claim.
Eric Cantor's office uh press office says that Dingy Harry is wrong on revenue.
At a press conference this afternoon, uh Dingy Harry claimed that Leader Cantor said revenue could be a part of the joint committee.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
As Leader Cantor has said since the beginning of the debate, House Republicans will not agree to tax increases, period.
Senator Reed's claim is absolutely false.
Eric Cantor thus saying a dingy Harry lied.
When Dingy Harry said that he had heard that Eric Cantor was all in favor of the uh of the deal.
Okay, so where do we leave off?
We left off with the New York Times in an absolute tizzy over the deal, which is the reason why I'm convinced so many on the left are uh over the top about it.
Uh audio sound bites, let's go to number nine, Juan Williams.
Last night Fox News Channel, Fox Report, Shepard Smith.
Did you note that the the the cable networks brought in the big timers yesterday?
They brought in they got rid of the weekend schlubs and they brought in the big timers on the eve of the big vote and so forth.
So that means that um Shep Smith had a show up, and Juan Williams was there.
Shep Smith said, Hey, it's important to remember qualify and quantify what it is that the Tea Party members are doing however you want.
One of the facts is that these Tea Partiers campaigned on this very promise.
I will not do the following things, AB and C. And now they're not doing them.
Who in the world is supposed that uh they put government in gridlock?
Who's surprised?
They told us in advance that they were gonna do it.
Normally people go through a campaign cycle and they say, Here's my promise, here's what I'm gonna do, but then they get to Washington, and the older, wiser heads, the leadership with Boehner McConnell and others, take control and say, young man, young woman, here's how we get things done.
Here's how the sausage is made.
Trust me, and I'll help you get re-elected.
Well, in this case, I thought that they would do just that, but instead they have continued into a campaign cycle, and they do things like say, I am operating on pure principle, and there's nothing that can move me, and I'm going to pray.
I'm not going to talk to the speaker.
I'm going to have a prayer group, which is what those five from South Carolina did.
So the inside the beltway types continue to just be flummoxed and angry as hell that the Tea Party guys are not doing it the old hand way.
And one Williams really ticked off that these five South Carolina hicks went in and prayed.
Well, he might not have said Hicks, but we all know that's what he means here.
Like these prayer group, which is what those five from South Carolina did.
Hicks.
Imagine that.
Five hick tea parties from South Carolina went in and prayed before the vote rather than went in and talked to the speaker.
They did uh F. Chuck Todd last week was beside himself, and this morning, on his own show on PMS NBC, he was still beside himself.
We were waiting.
It felt like, frankly, it brought back memories for me of waiting for the birth of my first child.
Just took hours and hours waiting for the announcement that we finally had a deal.
Is that how he looked at the birth of his first child?
Daddy finally had a deal.
What his wife was was negotiating with who in there.
Waiting hours and hours and hours before we finally had a deal.
These Tea Party people have all uh shook up in there.
Uh here's Obama last night at the White House.
Dirty little secret foretold.
I've said from the beginning that the ultimate solution to our deficit problem must be balanced.
Despite what some Republicans have argued, I believe that we have to ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share by giving up tax breaks and special deductions, despite what some in my own party have argued.
I believe that we need to make some modest adjustments to programs like Medicare to ensure that they're still around for future generations.
So Republicans have given Obama the rest of the year to keep uh campaigning for tax increases.
That's what he wants.
I've said from the beginning, ultimate solution, tax increases.
And again, to go through this.
Uh the the the the tax increase possibility here.
There are two screws of thought.
Now, here's the way the Republican leadership, both the House and the Senate is thinking that they have ensured there will be no tax increase.
Well, tax the Bush tax cuts will expire.
So that is a tax increase right there.
I mean, you've you're gonna be your your rates will go up.
But there's gonna be a move to extend the Bush tax cuts.
That will happen.
And it is thought that there's a good chance that the Bush tax cuts uh tax cuts could be extended because of what happened last December during the lame duck session.
The Democrats had 59 votes in the Senate.
They could have let the Bush tax cuts expire and gone back to the Clinton tax rates, where the top rate would have been 39.6 as opposed to the current 35.
Well, the economy was in a mess, and even Obama went out and said letting the Bush tax cuts expire would equal an additional 1,000 to $3,000 a year tax increase on every American.
We can't have that in our economy right now.
Thereby admitting, by the way, the Bush tax cuts were not just for the rich.
So it is assumed by some that the Bush tax cuts can be made to extend again.
If that happens, if the Bush tax cuts are extended, then the CBO is going to score that as a five trillion dollar cut.
Then we go to the special Democrat-Republican Commission, which is going to propose a tax increase to make up for the loss of extending the Bush tax cuts.
Again, it's just like it was last December.
If you know the tax rates are what they are, the benefit of those tax rates took place long ago.
Within the first two years of the rates being cut.
That's when the increase in revenue took place.
The only way that you contemplate a change in revenue is if you are certain the tax cuts are going to expire.
And then if you start planning in that basis, then if they don't expire and you've already spent the money you thought you were going to get, then you're in a situation where you've got a cut.
This is the way they think about things.
So the Commission would then have to propose a tax increase, which they're entitled to do, according to the law, the bill, in order to make up for the shortfall.
Then the thinking goes, wait a second.
The Commission itself cannot authorize a tax increase.
They can suggest it, but that has to go to the full House and the Senate for a vote.
The thinking is that there is no way in December of 2011 or January of 2012 that Republicans in the House in a re-election year are going to vote to raise taxes.
So the Republican position is that if we can extend the Bush tax cuts, and we did it once, that there won't be tax increases.
On the other hand, Obama is hellbit.
Now in 2013, there are going to be massive tax increases with Obamacare.
And that's not part of this deal.
So taxes are going to go up.
But Obama wants more.
He wants an income tax rate increase on what he considers to be high income individuals, $250,000 a year or more.
So he's going to keep campaigning for it.
Now last week, all we heard about was the panic of what would happen if a triple A credit rating was downgraded.
It would be the biggest embarrassment we've ever suffered as a nation.
And this is something we cannot have.
We have got to raise a debt limit.
We cannot sit here.
These irresponsible Tea Party people are going to ruin the credit rating.
Now that they've got their compromise, and we're going to get downgraded anyway.
Suddenly, it was never that important.
Suddenly, it's not a disaster.
In fact, it's already been factored into the market.
Saturday and Sunday, we got a montage.
CNN's Ally Velchy.
Bloomberg TV's Carol Master.
CNBC's Bob Pisani.
University of Maryland Professor Peter Moricci.
Northern Trust Global Investment Bob Brown.
Fox News Channel's Brenda Butner talking about the impact of a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating.
It's not clear whether the downgrade is going to be as important.
How much of a downgrade do you think has been already priced into the market?
Maybe some kind of credit rating downgrade is already baked into the pie.
There's going to be a credit downgrade.
That's already almost baked in.
We're getting downgraded, whether we get a deal or not.
economy is so large and the Federal Reserve can manage interest rates, we should be able to get through that six months from now without higher mortgage rates.
Any global fixed income investor worth or salt has anticipated a downgrade.
No one's going to be selling treasuries.
There are some who say perhaps a downgrade would be a good thing for America.
Oh.
Oh, now they tell us the hell you say.
Well, now the downgrade would be good.
Shaziam.
And now the downgrade ain't no big deal.
Remember the panic last week?
But now could even be a good thing.
Charles Crowdhammer last night in a special live Sunday edition of Fox News Special Report.
This was a bonus special report.
A bonus of the Fox All-Stars, a super bonus, super all-star, and a special bonus report.
And it was during the All-Star Panel, the super special bonus report, All-Star Panel special.
During a discussion about a tentative federal debt deal, Charles Crowdhammer of Krauthammer Review Online said this.
The winner is the Teat Party.
They have changed the debate in the country.
I think they ought to do what George Aiken advocated in the worst of days of the Vietnam War, declare a victory and go home.
There'll be another fight a year from now, Obama is losing it.
And I think that's where the big payoff will be, and that's when the country will decide what it won't wants to do about debt and also about the size of government.
That next election is what he's talking about.
That's when everybody's going to decide what everybody wants to do about debt and about the size of government.
I think they decided that in November.
Or at least they made a first really powerful statement.
Friday night on Fox News Channel, they got this new show at five o'clock, and they call it the five.
Do you know why they call it the five s where Beck used to be?
Do you know why they call it the five?
No, well, partly because it's five o'clock, because they got five hosts.
They do a round table of five hosts.
Now last Friday on Fox News Channels the Five.
At five o'clock, they had uh Greg Gutfeld, who hosts Red Eye.
And he had this exchange uh about the federal debt regulation, and the Kimberly Gilfoil was uh was also on there.
And this is what Guttfeld had to say.
There are two competing ideas here.
Charles Crowdhammer and Rush Limbaugh.
Crowdhammer says, declare victory, focus on two thousand and twelve Republicans.
Rush Limbaugh says there really is no victory because the Boehner bill is going to turn into a rebill which has fake cuts and delays the budget.
I'd like to believe that Crowdhammer's right, but I think Russia's right.
Greg Guttfell on the five on the uh Fox News channel.
Here's Trump this morning, CNBC on the squawk box during a discussion about the tentative deal, co-host Joe Kernan says, uh, what are your initial thoughts on the deal, the Donald finally got cobbled together.
It's an embarrassment to the country.
At some point in life, you have to balance the budget.
Now, the president got something that was fantastic because he got the deal past the election.
If he had this going on again, and it will go on, the fact is if this were going on sometime prior to the election, he would have zero chance of getting reelected.
Zero.
The big victory that the president had is he really got the deal past the election.
That was the only thing he was really fighting for.
He was fighting for that harder than anything else, because he knew that if this happened sometime prior to the election, again, he could not get re-elected.
Well, when you get right down to it, Trump has a point.
As far as Obama was concerned, that was it.
Obama had one concern.
A lifeline to re-election.
And to him, the Republicans, Boehner, whoever were the lifeline.
And if they could get debt ceiling increases through 2012.
He's still got to go through this thing in December.
It's not gonna be a slam dunk.
Still got to go through it.
But uh Trump looking at it, clearly Obama, who really only wanted one thing, is a bigger winner than the Republicans or their Democrats who wanted a series of things.
And finally, Emmanuel Kleber.
Last night, PMS NBC Live, Chris Jansen, said you've been quoted coming out of your caucus as calling this agreement a sugar-coated Satan sandwich.
Was that indeed your quote?
Sam how you feel about this.
I'm concerned about this because we don't know the details.
And and until we see the details, uh, we're going to be extremely non-committed, but on the surface, it looks like a Satan sandwich.
And we'll be back.
We'll continue right after this.
Don't go away.
And we go back to the phones.
Who's there?
Wilnington, Delaware.
Eric, thank you for waiting, sir.
Really appreciate your patience.
Hey, Rush, from um, you're the Radio Free America of the United States, and you're the titular head of it.
Yes.
Any anyway, um, I was just calling to um see that if you feel duped like I do when um Boehner and um Obama and McConnell and Reed basically had a plan put together, and they were basically feeding us false information.
And telling you false information about the plan, knowing that they had it all worked out in advance.
And that's my question.
Uh no, I don't feel duped.
You don't feel used because I feel used.
Uh no, because I uh no.
Uh I I don't feel duped because I exactly what I predicted was going to happen happened.
They they didn't convince me that I was wrong, and they didn't have me singing their tune.
Okay.
You think I was duped?
I think you were being used, yes.
And the audience was being used when they were talking to you on the when the um Boehner was talking on the radio.
You know.
And um I'm just, you know, it's hard for me to even contribute to the Republican Party, because that's what they need money to win an election, so they better um straighten up their act.
That's all I can say.
Well, you know, this happens frequently.
People call here and threaten not to send them any money, and they always end up with more money than the Democrats.
Somehow that always happens.
Well, I'm sorry that that um that that you feel that I allowed you guys to be duped or uh used, but I I can't feel duped because I wasn't duped.
I think I predicted uh, in fact, everything that was going to happen even after speaking to them.
And I warned you what was going to happen.
Well, does that make you angry knowing that he did what you said?
Um, of course it does.
Yeah, I've been angry for quite a while about it, but it is what it is.
It's knowable.
We knew it was gonna happen.
Funny story, CNBC this morning, Washington is annoyed at Wall Street's failure to panic.
I just got off the phone with a source on Capitol Hill, spent the past few days trying to convince Republicans to vote for a debt ceiling hike.
He told me the biggest obstacle he faces has been market complacency.
Frankly, a bit of panic would have been very helpful right now.
As he explained it, lots of people in Washington expected that this would be a week marked by panic in the markets.
Stocks would tank, bonds would get clobbered, a dollar would do something dramatic, and all this would help convince reluctant lawmakers that they had to reach a compromise.
But they didn't panic.
And then when they did reach a deal, the market plunged.
What is it now?
Let me check.
Down about 83.
No, 77, down about 77 now.
So I know, tarped too many times.
Tarped way too many times.
How the Tea Party Hobbits won the debt fight.
A Wall Street Journal started that term.
Wall Street Journal calling their own subscribers hobbits.
This is by Mark Thiessen.
Published last night.
Tea Party came under fire from all the sides Friday after House Conservatives nearly brought down Speaker Boehner's debt limit bill.
John McCain went to the Senate floor to mock Tea Party or his hobbits.
Democrat Representative Chris Van Holland said Tea Party Republicans are unfit for governing.
what a difference a weekend makes.
The reported debt limit deal appears to be a victory for the Tea Party.
It includes around $1 trillion in spending cuts, Creates a special committee of Congress to recommend cuts of 1.2 trillion dollars more.
If Congress does not approve those additional cuts by year's end, automatic spending cuts go into effect.
The package sets an important new precedent that debt limit increases must be paid for with commensurate cuts in spending.
According to Senator Rob Portman, a former White House budget director, if we cut a dollar of spending for every dollar we raise a debt limit, we will balance the budget in ten years.
Something even the Paul Ryan budget would not achieve.
And all this is accomplished with no tax increases.
And I just remember back in March.
I just I had to laugh after that debt limit battle.
Where Boehner, the end of the day ended up with $300 billion in cuts.
Big winner.
Remember that?
Bahner was the big winner.
Okay, so that's the Washington Post and Mark Thiessen.
Here is Peter Beinart in what's well Yahoo News.
Sorry, the Daily Beast.
No, he's not a new Republican.
I when I th when I saw Yahoo News, I thought, well, wow.
And what a fall from grace.
Actually the Daily Caller published at Yahoo News.
By the way, nothing against Yahoo News.
You know, I'm a uh I'm a trustee of the first Tea Foundation.
And so Jerry Yang, I met Jerry Yang, avid golfer of Yahoo!, How the Tea Party won the deal.
While the details of the dead ceiling deal remain fuzzy, this much is clear.
Barack Obama may be president, but the Tea Party is now running Washington.
How did this happen?
Simple.
This is what American politics looks like when there's no left wing movement and when there's no war.
No war?
I thought we were at four wars.
What does he mean?
I'm not smart enough to know.
Let's start with the first point.
Liberals are furious that Obama agreed to massive spending cuts and the promise of more without any increase in revenues.
And they should be.
Given how much the Bush tax cuts have contributed to the deficit and how little they've spurred economic growth, it's mind-boggling that they've apparently escaped this deficit reduction deal unscathed.
No, they haven't.
They automatically sunset next year or 2013, I forget which.
But what Vinart doesn't get, and what these Democrats don't get is that Obama doesn't care about them.
Obama cares about reelection.
He cares about himself.
He doesn't care about them.
Furious that Obama agreed to massive spending cuts and the promise of more.
Whatever.
Whatever Obama can use to claim victory for his reelection campaign, he'll do.
That's what he that's why he had no specific plan.
From the UK Telegraph, Alex Spilius.
Though its members are disinclined to declare victory, the prolonged political tussle over the U.S. debt ceiling was a clear win for the Tea Party.
They would have liked to see greater cuts and a constitutional requirement to balance the budget in the future.
They're fundamentalists, so nothing short of total triumph will do.
But make most state, no mistake.
They have proved beyond all doubt that the Tea Party calls a shots in the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
It beat the White House too.
Rewind a few months to win President Barack Obama was forced to cut tie cutting deficits to any agreement to raise the debt ceiling.
Originally he had asked for a clean vote, no strings attached, to up the borrowing limit, a liberty habitually enjoyed by his predecessors.
When negotiations on a deficit reduction package started, he insisted on including increased revenues, favoring closing tax loopholes and ending various credits for wealthy individuals in corporations.
Mr. Obama has and will face criticism for playing a bad hand and for yielding too much ground too soon.
But it was Republican intransigence that principally wore him down.
It was the Tea Tea Party.
Such big winners.
And folks, I'm I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings here.
I'm I Tea Party did do some great things.
I mean, holding out as long as they did.
You realize the Republican leadership would have caved much sooner without the Tea Party.
But all of these stories about the Tea Party winning have one purpose.
And that's to get the Tea Party people to vote for this thing tonight.
That's the purpose of these stories.
If the Washington Post calls this a victory for the Tea Party, and they do in at least two articles today, something is terribly wrong with the deal.
One of their most liberal bloggers, one of their angriest liberal bloggers, a guy named Greg Sargent.
GOP on verge of huge unprecedented political victory.
That means that there's something terribly wrong with it from our perspective that they are attempting to get the Tea Party people to vote for.
Michael Walsh in the New York Post, floundering Obama aims for twelve miracle.
Then there was one.
With the Senate's tabling of majority leader Dingy Harry's debt reduction deal yesterday afternoon.
The only game in Washington's a nearly three trillion two-stage compromise plan worked out between the White House and Congressional Republicans.
The details were emerging last night, but one thing is clear.
Both sides can claim victory.
Both sides can blame the other guy for taking so long to come to terms.
But the real winner here is President Obama.
He stands to get the only thing that really matters to him, the troublesome issue of the troublesome issue off the table until after the next election, since the debt ceiling argument won't be revisited until 2013.
What?
What are you saying, Snerdley?
You don't believe that?
You don't believe you don't believe Obama's the And then there's this Tim Stanley UK telegraph.
If Republicans aren't careful, this debt deal could relaunch Barack Obama as an electable moderate.
Public opinion could rebrand Obama as a centrist.
Obama the liberal is dead.
Long live Obama the centrist.
Last night the Democrats and the Republicans reached a deal on the budget that if it passes Congress will prevent the U.S. defaulting on its debt.
It's been an incredible few weeks in which the narrative of American politics reversed itself.
They claim this guy claims that Obama won by not doing anything, by not having a position, by pretending to be the adult in the room and brokering peace between a bunch of extremists.
Obama the triangulator, Obama the great moderate.
Snerdley, poor guy.
I really came in here so fired up.
Well, what's a big big 23rd anniversary of the Limbaugh Show, Snerdley thought what a great anniversary we get to come in here and proclaim such a huge victory.
And because of the content of the program today, Snerdley is not feeling as happy as he was when he arrived.
Then there's this, this is uh the Reuters debt deal offers only small blessings for the economy.
This story basically talks about how small it is, the cuts, and how uh irrelevant they are.
At any rate, that's a basic summary of the drive-by today.
We'll have more of your phone calls too, folks, when we come back.
Lots still to do.
Okay, uh, ladies and gentlemen.
There's a guy, Nate Silver, there's a website 538 out there.
And uh in some circles, in some political circles, these guys know what they're talking about.
538's quoted.
Nate Silver has just tweeted his latest extrapolation from the Hill.com's whip count.
The Hill.com's up there whipping counting votes.
As of now.
The vote were held at this moment, the bill would be defeated.
212 to 219.
As it stands right now, it's 153 Republicans, 487 against.
59 Democrats, 4132 against.
It adds up to 212 yes votes for 219 no votes.
They need 218 in the House to make plan C law.
Plan C is dingy Harry and McConnell.
The plan C bill.
The thing we've been talking about all day today.
So the whip count as of now, according to the Hill.com.
The bill is failing 212 to 219.
So Baehners got a switch basically four or five votes.
Which shouldn't, it depends on who they are.
If they're Tea Party votes, they can't be bought, they can't be uh paid for.
They can't be promising.
So it depends on who the uh who some of the 219 are very quickly.
Security screener, Sky Harbor Airport, on heightened alert.
It's out in Phoenix.
Only this time they're looking to protect their own identities.
It's scary to think that they can obtain your info that quick, said Traveler Robert Shannon.
Phoenix police said about a dozen TSA security screeners have had their credit or debit card information stolen, and there may be more victims.
Sergeant Tommy Thompson said it's unclear how the information was obtained.
Investigators looking at common places, the victims ate, bought magazines, even ATMs were card reading skimming devices, can be used without detection.
So TSA agents are having their identities lifted while on the gig at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.
Probably not a whole lot of sympathy here with the opinion people have.
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