All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 18, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
31:54
August 18, 2011, Thursday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Greetings, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
You are tuned to the Rush Limbaugh program, and I am the all-knowing, all-caring, all-feeling, all-sensing, all-everything, maha-rushy.
And this is the EIB network.
We're doing Open Line Friday on Thursday today, meaning you get to talk about whatever you want to talk about.
Normally, callers have to talk about what I care about, so I won't be bored.
But we broom that on Friday, so we're not going to be here Friday or all of next week.
So we're doing Open Line Friday today.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882, the email address lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
Okay, you have heard from me, ladies and gentlemen, what I know the president's going to propose.
I know the jobs bill.
It's going to be another stimulus.
The only thing left to be decided is how big it's going to be, but it's going to be big enough that it'll never be passed.
Because it's not going to be a jobs bill.
It's not going to be about creating jobs.
He knows he can't create enough jobs between now and November 12 to matter.
It's a campaign bill.
It's going to be something designed to be able to, I'm saying the Republicans are obstructionists and mean-spirited and don't want to help people and all of that.
However, and I'm guessing that this is going to be a trillion and a half.
One and a half trillion dollar stimulus.
The first was $787 billion.
It's got to be bold.
It's got to be big enough that it'll never see the light of day.
But it's got to be big enough it can contain all that magic.
Set the stage.
Oh, yeah, if we could just do this.
Oh, this is what we should have done first if the Republicans stood in the way.
Well, former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich, actually takes all this seriously.
He thinks that a jobs bill that the president's going to propose is actually going to be about jobs.
So he has offered his suggestions, published somewhere, don't know where.
Starts out by saying president is sounding like a fighter these days.
He even says he'll be proposing a jobs bill in September.
And if Republicans don't go along, he'll fight for it through Election Day or beyond.
Yeah, exactly right.
Well, later in his piece, former Labor Secretary Reich proposes his plan.
What would a bold jobs bill look like?
Here are the 10 components that I, former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich, shh, would propose.
And by the way, for those of you new to the program wondering, what the hell is that all about?
Former Labor Secretary Reich used to do a commentary on the McNeil-Lara News Hour.
And at the end of his commentary, he would look boldly into the camera and say, I'm Robert B. Reich.
His name is Reich.
But he would say, I'm Robert B. Reich.
Just, you know, this kind of a signature thing.
Everybody tries to come up with a signature.
Like, Amy Grant had a song, and the lyric contained baby, baby, but she never said baby, baby, you know, baby, baby, whatever.
It's designed to stand out by being odd.
Because here is his proposal, the 10 components that he would put in his bold bill.
Exempt, get this first one, exempt the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes for two years and make up the shortfall by raising the ceiling on income subject to payroll taxes.
Why do it at all if it's going to be something you want to cancel out?
Exempt the first $20,000 of income from payroll tax of two years and make up the shortfall by raising the ceiling on income subjected payroll tax.
What do you do?
He's shifting again here the payment burden to the corporate jet owners.
That's all of you, by the way, who earn more than 200 grand.
How do you like that jet, by the way?
Number two, recreate the WPA and the Civilian Conservation Corps to put long-term unemployed directly to work.
Let me ask, how many of you know what the WPA was?
And how many of you know what the Civilian Conservation Corps was?
Snirdly, do you know what WPA stands for?
He doesn't.
There's no shame.
There's no shame.
It's a 75-year-old thing.
Yeah, it's Roosevelt's.
It's a WPA.
It's the FTD.
It's the TVA.
I don't know myself what it stands for.
Don't bother looking it up.
It isn't going to happen.
Civilian conservation to put long-term unemployed directly to work.
Doing what?
Number three, create cleaning the sidewalk.
Okay, cool.
All right.
Create, and right, and it was World War II that actually ended the Depression.
It was not the New Deal.
How much look at why don't we just get serious about an alien invasion?
Like Paul Krugman suggested, rather than all this stuff.
Number three on Reich's list is create infrastructure bank authorized to borrow $300 billion a year.
Now get this.
What was the first stimulus for?
Yeah, shuttle-ready infrastructure, roads, bridges, schools, basically, right?
Here's Reich, create an infrastructure bank authorized to borrow $300 billion a year to repair and upgrade the nation's roads, bridges, ports, airports, school buildings, and water and sewer systems.
$300 billion.
I don't think that would take care of any substantial length of subway in New York.
Make it livable.
Amend bankruptcy laws to allow distressed homeowners to declare bankruptcy on their primary residence so they can reorganize their mortgage loans.
Allow distressed homeowners to sell a portion of their mortgages to the FHA, which would take a proportionate share of any upside gains when the homes are sold.
Provide tax incentive to employers who create net new jobs.
We're back to this $2,500 deduction for every net new job created.
Now, can I point the folly of that out to you?
By the way, WPA stood for We Poke Along.
If you want to know.
Now, here's the former labor secretary, the brilliant lecturer Robert B. Rice, suggesting a tax incentive to employers to create new jobs.
So we're going to go out to Mr. Small Businessman.
So Mr. Small Businessman, you go out, you create this new gig, and we'll give you a tax deduction of $2,500.
Now, what's the new gig going to cost, Mr. Small Businessman?
What's going to cost the salary and whatever benefits package he throws in?
And I guarantee you, a $2,500 tax deduction is by no means going to come anywhere near incentivizing.
This is not how jobs get created anyway.
This is all pathetic.
Number seven, make low interest loans to cash-starved states and cities, i.e. those runs by Democrats, so that they don't have to lay off teachers, firefighters, police officers, and reduce other critical public services.
This is, you know, I've never met Labor Secretary Reich, but I always have liked the guy, but this is lame.
It is just utterly, literally, liberally cliched lame.
Number eight, provide partial unemployment benefits to people who've lost part-time jobs.
I've never heard of that.
Partial unemployment benefits if you lost your part-time gig.
Enlarge and expand the earned income tax credit, a wage subsidy for low-wage work, and impose a severance fee on any large business that lays off an American worker and outsources the job abroad.
And he said, the great thing is that some of these won't cost the federal government money.
It's all going to cost them.
There's not going to be one ounce of work done.
There will not be any new real job creation.
And this guy lectures or has at Harvard and other places on the economy.
It's a typical joke during the Depression.
A WPA joke during the Depression.
I hear your brother was trying to get into the WPA, said one man to another.
What's he doing now?
Nothing, was the reply.
Oh, he got the job?
Yep.
Hi, we be back serving humanity.
El Rushmore and the cutting edge of societal evolution, executing assigned host duties flawlessly.
Zero mistakes is a man, a legend, and a way of life.
Yesterday in Atkinson, Illinois, at a hybrids seed corn production facility, President Obama held a town hall meeting, and during his opening remarks, he thanked his hosts.
I want to thank the Waffles family for Wiffles, rather.
Excuse me.
I haven't had lunch.
So Obama picked a seed corn production facility because they probably do things in a green way.
I don't know.
Just guessing.
Why else go there?
And mispronounced the name of the place, call them Waffles.
And the employees are shouting, no, no, no, no, it's Wiffles!
Wiffles!
What this really means is this company is going to be out of business in six months.
Whatever green outfit he has sent, except for GE, whatever green outfit, turbine companies, two or three of them just this week that have gone belly up.
So you people at Wiffles, Hybrid Seed Corn, we're pulling for you here.
But I mean, you had the political version of Geraldo show up yesterday.
And that does not portend good things.
Here's Marlon in Wrightsville, Pennsylvania.
Welcome to the program.
Harlan.
Hello.
Hello.
Marlon.
Marlon, you're there?
Yes.
Good.
Rush, for years.
For years I listened to whether it's debates or on the news.
And is this too simplistic?
Or why do we argue about where we collect the taxes?
Because is there something that I don't understand?
If we spend $10 or if the country spends $10 trillion, the people are going to pay for it regardless of where they collect it.
Is there something more complex than that?
No, but what is your point?
Well, it seems to be on the news all the time for years and years that it's not fair where we're getting the tax money from.
And it seems to me that it's coming from all of us, regardless where they collect it.
Is there something else to it?
Are you trying to say that whenever they run around and talk about taxing the rich, it's actually everybody that pays it?
Yes.
Yeah, you're right.
Where do they get their money from, Rush?
It doesn't come from the sky.
Since Moses, nothing came from the sky.
I know.
Okay, what you're saying is the government doesn't have a dime until they take it or print it or borrow it.
Well, right.
Okay, take the oil companies.
Where do they get their money?
So if you take all the taxes from the oil companies, they don't bring more out of the sky.
They didn't get it out of the sky.
They got it from us to start with, and they've got to keep getting it from us.
Remember that congressman or senator said too much consuming going on?
We're somewhere alive and breathing, then we've got to be the one that's paying the taxes.
Is that too simple?
Why can't they just return the question every time and say, and where do they, if you want to tax the oil companies, just say, where do they get their money from?
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
What you're saying is everything ends up at the consumer.
Yes.
Everything is paid.
The oil companies don't pay taxes.
Right.
They're going to get it from us when they're going to get it.
That's right.
Whatever.
Their taxes are built into the cost that they charge all along the line for their products.
Right.
You're exactly right.
Well, you're just illustrating that the Democrat.
Well, no, you're just illustrating a Democrat tax policy is all class envy.
It's not about substantive economics.
I guess he's dazzled, overwhelmed beyond the ability to respond.
Happens to me frequently.
I don't know about you.
Patrick in Nashville, Tennessee.
Hi, and welcome to the program.
Yes, sir.
My comment is just this.
The number one problem with the U.S. economy is simply that people in businesses have no confidence in Barack Obama.
The handwriting is on the wall.
He has been weighed in the scales, and he has been found lacking.
Thank you.
There you go.
Brevity is the solo wit.
It's Open Line Friday on Thursday, Johnstown, Ohio.
Hi, Jack.
You're next.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you for joining my call, Russ.
You've been listening.
I think Donald Trump, they're setting him up to be Barack Obama's ace in the hole.
Tell me how.
The reason why is there right after John Maynard in the House passed the cut cap and tax bill, or balance bill, I was surfing the radio and I found him on a liberal radio station Saying how bad that bill was and how John Boehner and him was going to get laughed out of office when they got back and how Nancy Pelosi was very, very smart.
Well, anybody thinks Nancy Pelosi is very, very smart.
It's a brain-dead Democrat anyhow.
But the other thing is, is like Ross Perot was to Bill Clinton.
He got in the race.
He was winning.
He dropped out.
Then he come back in to lose credibility.
He took enough votes away from George Bush and Bill Clinton got elected.
Donald Trump jumped in.
He was doing good in the polls.
He made up an excuse about the TV stations wanted him out, so he dropped out.
Now he keeps saying if the Republicans don't put the right nomination up, that he's going to run independent.
What's that going to do?
That's going to take votes.
Well, look, I know he's saying, I'm going to talk to him about that.
He's been doing a lot of media lately.
No, I'm going to talk to him before the golf course.
His course down here doesn't open back up until October.
I'm going to talk to him before that.
But before then.
But he's been doing a lot of media lately.
He goes in cycles on this stuff, and he's really ripping into Obama here.
And he is floating the idea that if the Republicans don't nominate the right guy, he's going to run, maybe get back into it again.
This independent business is that's third party.
That's death.
That's absolutely, you're right.
Your instincts on that are run out of money.
I'm not convinced that Trump is going to do that, even though he said so.
Another caller, literally dazzled with a reply into sheer silence.
You know, Trump, who knows what he wants?
He may be angling for Treasury Secretary.
He'd be a hoot.
If you imagine Trump dealing with the ChiComs, anyway, folks, a brief time out here, and we will be right back.
How about this?
Don't you just love this?
The Justice Department is investigating whether Standard and Poor's improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis, according to two people interviewed by the government and another briefed on such interviews.
The investigation began before Standard and Poor's cut the U.S. AAA credit rating this month, but it is likely to add fuel to the political firestorm that surrounded that action.
Lawmakers and some administration officials have since questioned Standard and Poor's secretive process, its credibility, and the competence of its analysts claiming to have found an error in its debt calculations.
So the regime is going after Standard and Poor's now, trying to tell us, no, no, no, no, we started this before they took down our credit rating.
And then they're questioning a secretive process.
Have they ever heard of Obamacare?
The stimulus bill, a debt ceiling bill, the Fed?
How about Obama's life story if you want to talk about a secretive process?
And this regime wants to go.
This is so typical.
The regime now suing the messenger.
It's in the New York Times.
U.S. inquiry eyes standard and poor ratings of mortgages.
It's just curious.
I have a little bit of a question here.
For you liberals in the audience, and you and I both know who you are.
You and I both know that you're there.
I hear a lot about fair share from you people, fair share, shared sacrifice, and all that.
I want to focus on the fair share.
I'm curious, if the federal budget were in balance today, I'm curious if the wealthy would be paying their fair share.
If, say, if we were in balance and the top tax rate, marginal rate, 35%, would the wealthy be paying their fair share in your mind?
If so, then what would be fair for sticking them with the bill that the president and Congress run up?
My point here is this.
If the budget were balanced and the rich are paying 35, 36%, and all of a sudden, here comes Barack Hussain Obama and the Democrats in Congress, and they run up $14 trillion in new debt.
Let's be $4 trillion in new debt.
Then is your definition of fairness sticking the rich with the bill for that?
Because that's what's happening.
We weren't in balance, but we were nowhere near the mess that we're in now.
The very people that you are targeting, the so-called rich, so forth, had nothing to do with the mess that you've created, and yet they now are the villains.
All those people who earn $250,000 a year and fly around in corporate jets, they have become the villain.
They didn't do anything.
Or does that matter to the president?
Is a 70% tax rate fair no matter what?
Because that would level the playing field.
What does this fair share actually mean to you people?
What is the president's obligation to fair share?
Does he have a share?
I mean, meaning, does he have an obligation to list programs to be eliminated to balance the budget?
Does he have an obligation to chip in and pay for some of this spending that he's writing checks for that he can't cash?
I mean, let's define what's fair from everyone in the game.
Isn't it fair?
I mean, it's not fair.
It's totally unfair to waste money on pie-in-the-sky green technology.
Nothing fair about that.
It isn't fair to pay off union political foot soldiers.
It isn't fair to pay off cronies like General Electric.
It's not fair to not publish a budget for over 800 days.
It isn't fair to go out and lie about the financial realities of Obamacare.
Congressional Budget Office has a whole new way of looking at Obamacare since it was passed.
And it isn't fair to pretend it isn't so.
It isn't fair to pretend that you, the president, have nothing to do with the trillions of dollars in debt piled up during your term in office, thanks to laws you either voted for as a senator or signed as president and supported us both.
Why do we have to pay for it?
How come all of a sudden you go nuts?
You and the Democrat Party go nuts with all this spending.
How come all of a sudden Americans aren't paying their fair share?
How does that work?
I mean, intellectually.
How does that work?
What is our fair share?
I mean, it isn't fair to shut down drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
It isn't fair to refuse to develop America's oil, gas, and coal natural resources.
Just as it isn't fair to deny Americans high-paying energy sector jobs because you aren't drilling for any of these energy sources.
What's fair?
What's fair about shutting down the domestic oil business and natural gas business and then telling people because of the resulting lack of revenue from income that somehow they aren't paying their fair share?
Passing the buck isn't fair, which is what you do.
Billing taxpayers for campaign bus trips.
Taking vacations instead of even pretending to solve problems that you say, Mr. President, are at a crisis level.
It isn't fair to confiscate private property when the president screws up.
But that's what happens.
Piling up deficits and then accusing the wealthy of wrongdoing and greed.
Uncontrolled, irresponsible spending, and then after it's all done somehow, Americans aren't paying their fair share.
Lying about temperatures around the world, lying about climate change and global warming.
That's more than unfair.
State-controlled media acting as the Department of Propaganda for Barack Obama.
That's not fair.
Political libel aimed at people like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman.
Nothing fair about that.
You liberals, all you can talk about is fair share here and fair share there.
You create all of these problems, and you run around and say the American people aren't paying their fair share and they're not sacrificing enough.
The bottom line is there's nothing fair about who and what Barack Obama represents.
This subject of fairness, and if you want to talk about fairness, I'm open to it any day, because I think it's one of the most maligned, misguided, misused concepts out there because it actually doesn't exist.
That's how journalists get around the whole notion that they're not biased.
Well, are we fair?
No, you're not.
Not in the slightest.
The recent apparent suicide of a real housewives of Beverly Hill star's husband is raising questions about the dangers of the instant fame and notoriety of reality television stars.
News broke on Tuesday that real housewife Taylor Armstrong's estranged husband, investment banker and venture capitalist Russell Armstrong, found dead in a friend's Malholland Drive mansion, believed to be a suicide.
The Bravo Network, which airs the show, immediately issued a statement offering their condolences.
All of us here at Bravo deeply saddened by this news, and we're really sad we don't have video of it.
Our sympathy and thought.
They didn't say that.
I'm just throwing that.
Sympathy and thoughts are with the Armstrong family this difficult time.
Jeffrey Schwartz, MD, author of You Are Not Your Brain, says reality TV can be very, very dangerous.
It's not an issue of media training.
It's an issue of not having adequate education and support to deal with the high potential for feelings of shame when being exposed to media spotlight.
Boy, amen to that.
I've read this guy said somebody is reporting.
He told them that right before he apparently committed suicide, he thought the storyline was just he and his wife are going to get creamed this season in the reality series.
It's one instance.
I'm warning about this.
This craving for fame that people have vomiting every bit of personal information they have about each other so they get on television.
Have you watched any of these real housewife shows?
Have you ever seen one?
I haven't either.
But I've read, you know, I read voluminously and omnivorously.
And what I read about these shows and the people in them.
It's just amazing.
Anyway, in the weeks leading up to his death, Armstrong had indeed become the subject of tabloid fodder, which his lawyer claims led to his emotional troubles.
And last month, Taylor filed for divorce, accusing her former husband of physical abuse.
His alleged violent past was also revealed by radar online two weeks ago.
Here's this guy running along, living his life.
Somehow his wife ends up on this show and everything about him ends up being in all the gossip pages.
I got to take a brief time out, folks.
Sit tight.
We're coming right back.
Don't go away.
Who's next?
Scott in Los Angeles.
Hello, sir.
Welcome to Open Line Friday on Thursday.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
Hey, I just got a, I just filled up with gasoline, and I realized that there's no, like, the government wants you to list all of your calories on a food package, but I want to see on a gallon of gas a line item of all the taxes that I'm paying.
Like, a pack of cigarettes is seven bucks.
How much does that pack of cigarettes really cost you?
Yeah.
How much of its taxes?
How much does that gallon of gas go?
You know, because Obama wants you to hate ExxonMobil because gas is four bucks.
But how much of that four dollars actually gets to ExxonMobil?
And what goes into the government's pocket?
That is an excellent point.
It's an excellent point.
And the federal tax is static.
The federal gas, but state gasoline taxes change.
They're different from state-state.
And, you know, some states show taxes, but most of them don't.
Right.
Yeah, there's no, they don't list the taxes that we have to pay to the federal government.
Well, what fake count is.
If you, I saw this the other day.
It's impossible to do on radio.
It would take me four shows.
Just the state and local taxes in Florida.
All of the various agencies.
It is mind-boggling the taxes people pay.
Nickel and dime stuff that's in the phone bill.
It's in the utility bill.
It's all over the place.
Taxes are like a cancer out there.
And the idea that we are not paying our fair share is so absurd.
The problem is, or the fault is the irresponsibility of the people managing all of it.
Okay, folks, that's it for this week and next for me.
Mark Davis will be here tomorrow.
And part of next week, so I get Stein, Belling, and Davis next week.
Okay, fine.
And I might come back the week after that.
I might take Snirdley's advice not to.
I don't know yet.
We'll see.
In the meantime, don't worry.
▲
Export Selection