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Aug. 5, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:44
August 5, 2011, Friday, Hour #3
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Time Text
And another new economic report just out.
An increasing number of small businesses not hiring.
An increasing number of small businesses not hiring.
It's Friday.
Let's rip it.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
One big, exciting, busy broadcast hour to go here on Open Line Friday.
Happy to have you along, ladies and gentlemen.
Genuine thrill and an honor every day to be here and hash this stuff out with you.
I love it.
I look forward to it each and every day, just like you do.
Telephone number 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.
Snerdley in a relatively good mood today because Wendy, during commercial breaks, is in exercising.
So your chances of getting on the program are a little bit better today than they otherwise would be.
All right.
So my analysis of Keynesian economics has thrown these people for a loop.
And you just heard Clarence Page basically say that the Tea Party wants to take money out of the private sector.
And he means by that, the Tea Party is for spending cuts.
Money in the private sector equals government spending.
This is 30 years of, I don't know where Clarence Page went to school, but this is what he was taught.
I know it's unfathomable, Snerdley.
That's what he believes.
The government's God.
The government's the beginning and end.
It's the end-all to all the problems.
But haven't we just found out, we just learned today with government numbers that the gross domestic product was far worse in the last two and a half years than what we have been told.
The GDP has been revised down hugely.
So how did government spending of more than a trillion dollars work?
And all they have left to say is, well, we didn't spend enough.
It's like saying the Soviets didn't spend enough.
And they say that FDR didn't spend enough.
If he had spent more, it wouldn't have taken World War II.
The New Deal didn't get us out of any depression.
It made it worse.
You and I both know you take money out of the private sector.
In fact, the only way, and look at this, this is fundamental.
This is not even arguable.
The government doesn't have a dime until it either takes it from somebody who's earned it or prints it.
The government doesn't produce wealth.
The government redistributes it, confiscates it, taxes it, what have you.
But for the government to put a dollar into the private sector, i.e. government spending, it has to take it from the private sector first.
It's a wash.
What the Tea Party is opposed to is precisely that.
The Tea Party wants tax cuts, an end to burdensome regulations, get the EPA out of everybody's hair and the drilling moratorium, and basically turn the entrepreneurs of this country loose and let them start producing things.
And you will get economic growth.
Works every time it, and you'll end up with more government revenue to boot because you'll have more taxpayers paying taxes.
Therefore, the Federal Treasury will swell.
Ronald Reagan cut taxes.
Liberals hate this.
Ronald Reagan cut taxes, and the amount of revenue to the Treasury doubled in eight years, taking the top marginal rate from 70% down to 28%.
It's it's it's not.
It really isn't complicated, but these people have been taught wherever they went to college, wherever they went to school, people they've been hanging around with, that government is the center of the universe.
That whatever the private sector has is because government's good graces put it there.
And that's what they genuinely believe.
And so anytime you make government smaller, you are making the country smaller.
You're making the economy smaller.
This is what they believe.
And that's why there's no compromise.
The only thing is re-education camps for them or defeating them.
And I'm not a big fan of re-education camps.
We don't have the time.
We just have to defeat them.
Here, listen.
Let's go to CNBC.
We've got a montage here.
The CNBC today was shameful.
I mean, the unemployment numbers came out, and these people are singing the praises of Obama and the government.
And of course, CNBC and the government are corporate cronies, Jeff Immelt, and so forth.
But listen to this montage, it's stupefying.
None of the stimulus has worked.
The GDP today is smaller than it was in 2007.
We have had QE1, QE2.
We've had the Fed spending money.
We've had the government spending money.
We've had stimulus after stimulus after stimulus, and it hasn't worked.
And listen to this montage.
We need more stimulus.
There's some fiscal policy stimulus that can be enacted.
Some kind of stimulus will be happening.
The markets could look to the Fed for more stimulus.
Pass another stimulus plan.
Some type of stimulus program.
They would like to throw in some stimulus.
There should be further stimulus.
We should have additional fiscal stimulus.
The fact that the Tea Partiers have taken away any stimulus is a bad thing.
So there you have it.
This is what they believe.
So now this unemployment news today, all right, we're coming back.
The stimulus worked.
Now we need more.
Folks, again, if the job universe were the same size today as it was when Obama was inaugurated, the unemployment rate today would be 11.3%.
This is a tweet factoid from Jim Pethikukas at Reuters.
The unemployment rate is 9.1% because there are simply fewer jobs in the country to fill.
That's the only way you can report an unemployment rate going down, and that is to say they're just a smaller universe of jobs.
Also in the email, people are asking me, okay, why has the market rebounded?
And it started out up 150, and then it went way down, and then it started seesawing back, and it started going down, and now it's, let me check, the approximate number, up 80.
Rush, how did this happen?
As I understand it, and this, of course, is, you're not going to believe this.
But what has happened, folks, is that Germany has decided to bail out the entire Eurozone.
Germany has decided to buy bonds in Italy and in Spain.
But here's the kicker, and this is from Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com.
The European Central Bank, at the behest of Germany, has pledged a bailout that is equal to 133% of the German GDP to cover all of Europe's bad debt.
Now, that's not possible.
That simply is unworkable.
The market comeback today is based on this fantasy that Germany can bail out the entire Eurozone.
But in so doing, 133% of the German economy is being pledged as the bailout.
Can't happen.
So this may bide them some time today, but at some point, the reality of the folly of this is going to settle in.
This is chewing gum in a leaking dike.
And if you don't like that, chewing gum in a leaking dam.
If government spending works, if Keynesian economic works, how come our economy is smaller today than it was in 2007?
How many trivions more in government spending have we had since 2007?
It's like Obama actually said today at the Navy Yard with the veterans, he actually said, I'm going to quote him, said, extending unemployment benefits will create jobs right now.
Extending unemployment benefits will create jobs.
It will do the exact opposite.
It is a disincentive.
People now are unemployed for a record amount of time in this country, over 40 weeks, a month shy of a year is the average time people are unemployed.
And they're all on unemployment benefits, except those who have expired.
Somehow this is creating jobs right now.
Monticello, New York, as we return to the phones on Open Line Fridays.
Eric Hello, sir.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hi, Rush.
You mentioned the other day that McNabb had never won a Super Bowl.
And I know it came up in the context of, I guess, McNabb being traded.
And Mike and Mike had mentioned you, which I didn't even understand.
How did you get in the conversation with them?
Well, whenever McNabb is mentioned, I get mentioned because of the controversy that ensued in 2003 when I was on the pregame show on ESPN every Sunday.
Are you not familiar with that?
Oh, absolutely.
I certainly am.
Okay, so that's so whenever McNabb's name is, McNabb has had to weather a number of storms in his career.
The Rush Limbaugh thing, the T.O. thing.
I'm a thing that McNabb has had to endure in his life.
But I don't think I'm the one that said he didn't win a Super Bowl.
I call or did.
Or, no, Snerdley.
Snerdley asked me if he'd ever won a Super Bowl, and I said, no, he hasn't.
Well, you know, I mentioned to, you know, the screener when I called, I said, let's check the record of some other elite quarterbacks.
Philip Rivers, how many Super Bowls has he won?
Zero.
Drew Brees, how many has he won?
One.
Who's won one?
Drew Brees won one with the New Orleans Saints, yeah.
They beat, you might remember the Indianapolis Colts.
I was wrong.
I guess I thought Indianapolis won that one.
No, that's when Peyton Manning threw that interception.
Tracy Porter cut the root.
He was aiming for Reggie Wayne, ran it back, and that was it.
Well, and I think Mr. Snerdley had asked you, which I know was that you didn't even bother to answer, which you knew was a no-win situation for you.
How did you think that Donovan was going to do with the Vikings?
How do I do?
You think that's a no-win situation for me, being asked that question?
No, to answer it.
Oh, it's a no-win to answer it.
No, I'm not afraid of answering the question.
What are you, where are we going here?
Well, you know what, Rush?
I was just wondering, okay, his career, you know, he's had some ups and downs.
You've had mostly ups.
I started to think that maybe you and Donovan were joined at the hip.
But, you know, how he can do from here, who knows?
But, you know, you're on a, you know, you're just on the up and up.
Yeah.
But I've got nothing against Donovan McNabb.
I have no wish for Donovan McNabb's failure.
That was for Obama.
I'm not hoping McNabb fails.
I don't want him to either.
I like McNabb.
That's how I mentioned him in the beginning.
You know, my comment about maybe you and McNabb are joined at the hip.
Well, maybe in some conversations, but career-wise, no.
Oh, oh, I see what you mean.
Well, no, McNabb's had a great career, and he may get voted into the Hall of Fame.
Oh, you think?
Well, I think it's entirely possible he could get voted in the Hall of Fame.
I really do.
Because of the Rush Limbaugh thing, and because of the T.O. thing, and because of how he handled it.
Of course, they say that stuff doesn't matter.
In addition to his performance on the field, of course, that's the primary.
But those other factors, the voters say that stuff doesn't matter, but I think in McNabb's case, when it comes up, it probably will.
It does matter.
Look at, God bless him if he gets in the Hall of Fame.
And I know the Vikings have high hopes this season with McNabb.
Well, you know, he's been around a while.
I mean, if he does well, I agree with you.
God bless him.
And, you know, what happened in Washington, I'm not even sure.
I know what happened.
I know exactly what happened in Washington, but I can't tell you.
Oh.
Because I have class.
But I know I'm not going to tell you what happened at Washington, but I know exactly what happened there.
So it was Shanahan's fault?
I didn't say anything.
Oh, I'm just asking.
Yeah, you're trying to trick the host.
You know, it might work against some other hosts, but not me.
Well, this is Open Line Friday.
Yeah, I know.
And you can ask me anything you ask, but I did not say I would answer it.
You can ask me anything you want.
I know exactly what happened.
They have high hopes.
Snirdley, they've got high hopes simply because they traded for him.
They got a rookie quarterback that they're hoping McNabb will mentor, Christian Ponder.
And they're hoping that McNabb's going to provide some veteran leadership.
The Vikings have lost a lot of players.
They're rebuilding.
And they've got a lot of hope invested in him that he can provide some glue and adult professional attitude.
He's been there.
He is a winner.
He's hoping that they're hoping that that translates to their young guys.
I know they've got high hopes.
Otherwise, the Jets are going to do what the Jets are going to.
Well, you know, Rex Ryan's already said they're going to be in the Super Bowl.
So that's cool.
And Rob Ryan, now that Rex's twin brother is a defensive coordinator in Dallas, and the Eagles, speaking of the Eagles, the Eagles have probably on paper had the best free agency in recent years.
I mean, they have got the number one cornerback in the draft in free agency.
Namde Yashmuga from Oakland.
This guy is as good, if not better, Durrell Rivas.
They have picked up a tremendous number of players.
They have got tremendous defense and they got Vic.
And they are on paper now the big winners.
They're the team.
And their owner, Jeffrey Lurie, is not digging this.
He doesn't like that being said.
But Rob Ryan, the defensive coordinator, Dallas Cowboys, has called them the all-hype team already.
And there's already a rivalry between the Cowboys and the Eagles.
So that's good.
So, yeah, I'm glad this is all shaping up the way it is.
This is, I'm happy football's back.
I'm glad.
This is what I just was asked a question as to why exactly why you people ask me, why doesn't Snerdley and Brian these people be heard?
Because of what Snerdley just asked me.
He just did a characterization for the free agents that the Patriots signed that would normally be assigned to people that break the law.
And there aren't.
I'll tell you what.
I'll answer your question.
You're talking about Chad Ochosenko, Albert Hainsworth.
If history is any guy, one of two things is going to happen.
Those two guys are going to go to that organization and do a 180 and become model citizens and have the best years of their careers, or they are going to remain who they are and be cut in a record amount of time.
It won't be put up with there.
That simple.
Anything else?
When we get back.
Well, Alan Simpson, Alan Simpson's on a war path out there.
Alan Simpson is simpering over Obama.
This is from the Politico, which means it's from the White House.
Obama's smarter than critics, says Alan Simpson.
Simpson said that Obama would have been savaged and torn to bits had he chosen to publicly support the findings of his own commission.
The Simpson Bowles Commission, Irksome Bowles and Simpson co-chaired this commission that Obama ignored on deficit reduction and all that.
And that's what Simpson's talking about.
He said, he'd have been savaged and torn to bits if he had chosen to publicly support the findings of the commission.
Alan Simpson said, Obama, this guy is a little bit smarter than some of the guys who are trying to hammer him.
They ought to give it up.
Now, Simpson and Bowles worked for how long on a recommendation that was completely ignored.
Who is the smart guy here?
And Irksum, by the way, was irked.
Irksom took it very seriously.
He felt that his country was calling him at a time of dire consequence.
So Irksum gave up what he was doing.
He went there.
He worked in his commission.
He put out his report and Obama ignored it.
And Irksom was irked.
He wasn't happy about it.
Here's Obama.
It's interesting.
This is fun today.
I've been quoting Obama or some of these other people, John Kerry, and the email.
You're making it up.
There you go again.
I think the moveon.org crowd or the Media Matters crowd has got a spam thing going into my email today.
So this is fun.
Obama didn't say, Obama didn't say that unemployment benefits create.
Here it is.
Washington Navy Yard.
Obama speaking to veterans about the economy and the July unemployment rate.
This was just hours ago.
I want to move quickly on things that will help the economy create jobs right now.
Extending the payroll tax credit to put $1,000 in the pocket of the average worker.
Extending unemployment insurance to help people get back on their feet.
Putting construction workers back to work, rebuilding America.
Those are all steps that we can take right now that will make a difference.
Extending unemployment insurance will put people back to work, create jobs right now.
Putting construction workers back to work, rebuilding America.
A president of the United States saying it, rebuilding America.
Okay, well, yeah, why don't you just order that?
Just issue a fatwa.
Just, okay, construction workers, start rebuilding America.
How does he think this stuff happens?
He's just up there mouthing a bunch of words.
This is all for the consumption of the stupid people that vote for the guy.
Purins of all right, who's next on the phones?
Robert in Brunswick, Georgia.
Welcome, sir, to the EIB network.
Hello.
Good afternoon, Mr. Limbaugh.
Hi.
I called you a naive, optimistic guy the first day this Congress was sat.
And over the past couple months, my optimism pretty much has evaporated.
Last week, Mr. Bramer called in and played Kabuki Theater with you and us and lied to us that he was working for us and trying to get a deal done when in fact him and McConnell had something in common with Obama.
They think this is a political game, not economic vandalism.
They think that they're trading away our lives for points in a golf game.
And, you know, because of what's going on, I'm in the most productive years of my life.
I'm going to have less money for retirement, less money to pay off my mortgage, less for my family because of this vandalism done by Democrats and Obama.
And I just don't think the leadership gets it.
I know one Republican gets it, and that's Orrin Hatch.
Orrin Hatch saw the light when Bennett left the Senate.
He has been on your buddies Hannity and Levin gladhandling the Tea Party and saying, oh, I'm with you.
And he voted against this compromise because he saw the light.
I don't think that the leadership in the House has seen the light, that the voters are tired of this.
We're tired of our lives being frittered away in this political game of power.
I think a lot more people, in addition to Obama and the Democrats and the Senate, need to be shown to the House.
I think a lot of people on our side need to be shown to the House.
Boehner, McConnell, my senators, Chamberless and Isaacson, Graham and Steve, the rest of these people need to know that this is not a game they're playing up there.
This is our lives.
This is our, you know, what do they think we're doing here?
And it's just so disappointing to think, like, you know, all this hope we had in the Tea Party, we got rid of Nancy Pelosi, but now what are we left with?
We're left with Boehner, who does not have the testicular fortitude to make this budget deal happen.
And I wish you could comment on that.
I know you're a nice white guy.
I think this to Banks.
What you're saying is pretty much being echoed by everybody hearing you say it in this audience.
And I don't think the people in Washington quite, they might, they might just be ignoring it.
I'm not sure they really know the level of discontent and dissatisfaction.
I'm not sure they're aware of it.
The Republicans that you mentioned were operating entirely out of fear.
Examine in your own life when you have made decisions out of fear or when you have acted out of fear.
You don't make the best decisions.
You don't make the best choices, especially for yourself.
And the fear that they faced was a fear that they always face, and that is of the media, that they would be blamed for a default, that they would be blamed for a credit rating downgrade, that they would be blamed if they didn't do something, if they didn't agree with what the conventional wisdom in Washington wanted.
And that's what hasn't changed.
I mentioned earlier today, yesterday, more debt in one day was racked up in this country than any of the budget cuts we will see from the budget deal, from that debt deal, because they're spread over 10 years, and most of them in the out years, which means they won't happen.
Future Congresses are not obligated to pay attention to them.
But the spending happens immediately.
So it was pretty much foreseen, too.
And a lot of people were afraid, deathly afraid, the Republicans would cave because Republicans always do cave.
There was, I don't think it's really any more complicated than that.
Just basically operating out of fear.
I tell by listening to them.
That was the whole point of that deal.
The whole point of it was so that whatever happened afterwards, they didn't get blamed for it.
And now look, look at what happened after.
Everything they told us that that deal would prevent happened.
Stock market, $1.1 trillion of wealth destroyed yesterday, or lost.
It's going to be a while for that to be made back up.
So you're not alone out there.
I think a lot of voters feel the same way.
Let me give you details about this.
I teased this earlier, but here is this CNN money story.
Gas tax may be next Tea Party target.
You may want to consider investing in some good shock absorbers for your car this fall, fresh from blocking any new tax increases during the debt ceiling debacle.
Some lawmakers in Congress may now oppose renewing the federal tax on gasoline and diesel fuel, which is used to maintain our nation's highways.
Our nation's highways should all be wonderful after all the Obama stimulus money that we ostensibly spent on them.
There are no official efforts to scrap the tax yet, but as first noted in the journal Politico, momentum appears to be moving in that direction.
The federal gas tax of 18.4 cents a gallon expires at the end of September.
In order to keep the gas tax, lawmakers would need to vote to extend the highway funding bill, which is what the gas tax is tied to.
A bill was recently introduced by Senate Republicans that would allow states to opt out of the federal highway program.
The highway program uses $32 billion every year collected by the gas tax, plus a handful of smaller fees and some borrowing, some borrowing, to distribute some $50 billion a year to the states for road construction, maintenance, and mass transit projects, mostly mass transit now, because they all want us out of our cars.
So there is great fear what these Tea Party Republicans are going to do.
Now, what's happening here, folks, is a classic illustration of America making a decision on how government works.
And again, the states need control over this.
The states, they're going to be given the opportunity to opt out of this and take care of this themselves, their responsibility themselves.
Now, all of this, look at this paragraph, fresh from blocking any new tax increases during the debt ceiling debacle, as though that's a crime.
The Tea Party people, they committed a crime.
Why, they stopped tax increases.
All tax increases do is take money out of the economy.
There's a quote in here.
First, there's the bureaucracy.
Why collect the money at the state level, send it to Washington, only to have it returned to the states?
Why indeed?
And then there's the question of federal oversight.
Federal money often requires the use of union labor or comes with other stipulations.
So the states are saying, they're making us collect the money, and then we send it to them, and we get a portion of it back, and then they tell us how it has to be used.
Well, screw that.
We're going to do it ourselves.
Increasingly, you're going to see, as part of the effort to save this country, Republican governors in states use the levers of federalism to insulate themselves from the efforts Obama and the Democrats are making to destroy the private sector.
We.
Got to take a break.
Back right after this.
Don't go away.
Okay, I'm told I mispronounced the name of the great cornerback just signed by the Philadelphia Eagles.
Apparently it's a somewhat.
It's spelled A-S-H-O-M-U-G-U-A, or something like that.
And I have never heard his name pronounce.
As you know, I'm deaf.
So I read closed captions.
I've never heard his name pronounced.
I was not purposely trying to mispronounce the name of Namdi Ashamuga.
That's what it looks like, but apparently it's pronounced a Samwa.
So I just need to brush up on I'm happy to be corrected and get it right.
I don't know how you get a Samwa out of the way it's spelled, but I'll accept it.
Pittsburgh, what?
Steelers?
Steelers, it's tough.
You know, losing Super Bowl teams traditionally, the Steelers even have off years after they win Super Bowls.
You got an aging team.
Got a lot of people on their defense in the 30s, but they're still, it's going to come down to them in Baltimore, the division.
I don't know.
I feel good about Steelers.
I do.
I feel good.
I think all in all, Steelers 11 and 5, maybe 12 and 4, but they've got a tough, early schedule.
It could all blow up early on.
The end of their schedule for them, at least on paper now, is a piece of cake.
New York Giants, New York Giants, it's going to, that division, that division, the NFC East, the Philadelphia Eagles, and then they get the Cowboys in there, Redskins, Giants, I, I, I don't know.
I'm going to wait a while on that.
See some things first.
I mean, the Cowboys have got real problems in their secondary.
They got real problems in their secondary.
They didn't beef up their cornerback.
They got problems there.
So we'll just have to see.
I want to squeeze one more call in here before we have to go.
This JR from Grand Blanc, Michigan.
Great to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah.
I just have a question for you about these unemployment numbers, there's jobs numbers that come out today.
I'm wondering if those numbers are also taken into account because, you know, at the beginning of July, all the automotive manufacturers layoff, all their workers for changeover and all that, they go on unemployment and then they come off unemployment two to three weeks later.
Are they counting those people that are coming back in with these so-called jobs that were created?
Because if it is, I mean, I mean, I just can't, I couldn't see that number being as high as what they're doing.
This number is bogus.
Look, this number, this number is bogus no matter how you look at it.
But you raise a good point.
I had forgotten that we have people working in the auto industry, period.
So I had not factored that in.
We've only sold 250 volts.
This number is, you wait, this number, like, it's going to be revised.
Next week, we won't hear much news about it.
I'll tell you when we get the revision.
The media won't because they're not going to like it.
But that is a good question.
And I appreciate your call.
We'll be right back and wrap it up, folks.
From the UK Scotsman, an academic, Scotts Academic says students should be able to sell their kidneys for tens of thousands of dollars or pounds to pay off student loans.
Should be able to sell their kidneys before they die to pay off their student loans.
That's a solution from an academic in Scotland.
Have a wonderful weekend.
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