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Aug. 24, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:50
August 24, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #3
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The key there is Wisconsin.
I'm sure all of you have been following to one degree or another.
The remarkable controversy in my state, Wisconsin, over the last six to seven months.
We were a state that has always been a swing state, but the Democrats over the last few years ran everything.
They controlled the State Assembly and the State Senate, both houses of our legislature, and they had the governorship as well.
They ran up huge operating deficits.
They raided all sorts of funds with money that had to be paid back.
They were forcing significant increases in local property taxes because state aid was being cut because they were spending so much money on other things.
The Democrats got thrown out of office in the last election, and a new guy was elected governor.
His name is Scott Walker.
And he proposed to balance the state budget by making changes in the way public employees receive their benefits.
He said they'd have to kick in a little bit for their pensions, and they'd have to kick in a little bit for their health insurance, about ten to twelve percent.
That's it.
He also said they couldn't collectively bargain using their union on non-wage related issues.
From that point forward, war was declared by the American left on my state.
We've been under siege, and Governor Walker and that Republican legislature have been under siege.
It's been a remarkable several months for me doing a talk show describing all of this stuff.
We just held recall elections for a number of Republican and a handful of Democratic members of the state legislature.
What many of you may not be aware of, because the media has pretty much left, and the protesters are starting to leave, is that everything that Governor Walker sought was passed, was enacted, it's not been overturned by any courts, and after the recall elections, the Republicans still control both chambers of the legislature.
The provisions are now in effect.
Our budget in Wisconsin is now balanced, and we even have a projected surplus.
And at the local level, all of these communities where the lefties have been claiming education would be destroyed, these school budgets are in better shape than they were before.
I'm joined right now by the guy who made all of this happen, the governor of my state, Wisconsin, uh Governor Scott Walker.
Scott, good afternoon.
Hey, Mark, great to be with you.
So here you are.
We've known each other forever and ever and ever, and I'm great talking to you on a national program after you used to be a panelist on my television show.
Amaz amazing how what goes around sort of comes around.
Let's get right to the point.
You talk on more abuse than almost any political official I can think of, stuck to your guns and your stuff is working.
Do you feel personally vindicated?
Well, I think for the state it we certainly are.
I mean, as you mentioned, uh all the things we said, certainly the impact it had on the budget, uh going from a three point six billion dollar deficit to uh by the end of this budget it'll be a three hundred million dollar surplus.
But I think even more exciting than just the budgetary news, and that's obviously important, is exactly what you mentioned.
I is Marcus, you know I've I've got two sons who go to high school in Walatosa, a public high school, and for for me to see uh earlier this past month, one of the school board members say, you know, when kids go back to school, they're gonna see the same teachers, they're gonna see their they're gonna see you know the same number of teachers, the same programs, and they're actually gonna see new things.
And to see not only Wawatosa or my kids go to school, all across the state.
I mean, my goodness, in Kokona, just outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin, they went from a one and a half million dollar uh deficit to a four hundred million dollar surplus.
They saved so much money because of our reforms, they're actually hiring more teachers.
Now here's how small of a world this is.
That's my hometown.
See that that that's that's where I grow up.
So you know exactly, and the beautiful part is they're gonna be able to lower classroom size and what I love more than anything, and this is the thing, Mark, you know, you know about it, but but really got completely ignored, certainly by the media of the state, but particularly nationally.
Because they kept talking about collective bargaining.
Collective bargains are right, it's an expensive entitlement.
What what they uh what so many of the media outlets overlooked is in the end, this is gonna be great for schools.
This is gonna be great for parents and students, because teachers now are hired and fired based on merit.
School districts can set money aside to pay for performance.
They can put the best and the brightest in the classroom.
There is no tenure, there is no seniority.
Our schools and for that matter, all their local governments are going to be able to do this.
So our reform is a very good thing.
Some of them are not some of these school boards are now pre in fact, right now is the time that they prepare their budgets for the next fiscal year.
There are a number of them who are saying that they will be able to freeze their property taxes, and some of them may even cut their property tax levies, which in as you know in our state is unheard of, cut their property tax levies, even though more money is going into the schools, even though they're getting less from the state, it's almost like magic, which just reveals how much money we had been wasting in things that didn't go into the schools themselves.
Well, a particular good example is we had, as you know, a WA trust, which is a teachers union run and operated uh health insurance plan uh that the school district after school district now, because they're no longer mandated through collective bargain to have our saving in some cases, just had a school district yesterday mention double the savings they originally projected.
It's uh a million and a half dollars for a relatively modest sized school district just by shifting to a traditional health insurance plan from the WA trust.
There's example after example.
That's not even a matter of making a pension or health care insurance premium contribution.
That's just about changing who provides the plan.
That's money back in the classroom.
Now, the the the national unions came in and they vowed to break the Republicans for doing this.
There were going to be the recalls.
They talked about a recall election uh against you next year.
They couldn't change control of the legislature in the most recent elections because the stories had started to come out.
The city of Milwaukee, where the de where the gu the mayor is a Democrat, an opponent of yours, the city of Milwaukee is now estimating that it's between ten and twenty million dollars better off because of your reforms that got out just in time for these recall elections.
By next spring, when people get their property tax bills and see in most cases no increase at all, and they see that their schools are surviving just fine, in fact, maybe better off, don't you think that your reforms are going to become more popular?
Well, I I think so.
I I think you're right.
The two key dates I've said all along, as much as I dislike the recalls and people across America probably scratch their head and think, how can somebody face a recall just because of a vote?
But that's how bizarre the law is in this state.
But as much as I wanted those recalls done so we could get back to our focus on jobs, the reality is in some ways, instead of August 9th for those six Republicans, I would have loved a January 9th election because two things would have happened by then.
First of September, all kids go back to public schools, including my kids.
Parents like me and Tonette will see that our schools are the same or better than they were before.
They're not destroyed like they said they'd be.
They're exceptional.
And I've had in the last two weeks alone, in particular, I've not only had parents, I've had teachers who come up to me and say, you know what?
It is so exciting to see that staffing decisions now in our schools are made based on merit that they're thrilled because they're good, hardworking, decent teachers.
They want the best, and they're excited about an environment where they're having that.
The other part is the second week of December when property tax bills go out and people see the bills are the same or less than they have been in the past, they will see yet again, despite all the attack ads, despite the $30 to $40 million, which is unbelievable.
I spent $13 million in 18 months running for governor.
In about three to four months, the unions dumped in about two to three times that amount.
And yet, in the end, the voters saw through that.
They saw that the message was working, that the reforms were working, and that they saw that, in turn, it was not only balancing the budget, making government work better, it was helping us attract more jobs to the state of Wisconsin.
That's what brings me to why I wanted, when I was doing Russia's program today, have you on the air.
Because you and I know that because we're in Wisconsin, you're the governor, and I'm the guy that's been describing all of this.
I'm convinced that there is a lesson in this for Republicans in every state in the union and nationally.
If we stick to our principles, conservative principles, and enact them, they're going to work, and politically, you're going to be better off.
I want to put the question to you.
If you could say something to other Republican either candidates, either nationally or at the state level, about your own experience here.
What would it be?
Well, stay on point.
Stay on point.
Be positive.
Don't be frustrated.
Don't be aggravated.
Don't attack the other side.
Make your point over and over and over again.
Use example after example of how things didn't work before and how you're going to make it work.
Hopefully in our case, you can point to Wisconsin and make the case.
But stay on point.
There were many people that wanted me to attack our opponents and lash out.
So no, in the end, we stayed focused, and I believe in these recall elections.
The voters, despite many of our candidates being spent outspent three to one or more, voters in the end came back to the facts.
Results matter.
I think back to Mitch Daniels six years ago in the state of Indiana, he did something like this for just state employees through an executive order.
His approval rating went down, but by the end, voters put him back into office because results matter.
And I think the same thing is true here.
Remember, it's ultimately the results that'll matter in each of these states and ultimately in our country.
Yet you were accused of destroying education and all of that stuff, and that people were going to be laid off, people were going to lose their jobs.
Yet I'm holding today's New York Times.
777 school employees will be let go in New York City, largest layoff under Bloomberg, our neighboring state to the South, Illinois.
Illinois loses the most jobs in the nation.
Illinois chose to get through its budgetary problems by borrowing another eight billion dollars and a sixty-seven percent increase in their income tax.
What we're what we're finding is that the layoffs are occurring in the states and in the communities that refuse to address excessive spending.
Whereas those that are going after the FAT and making reforms, we're thriving.
Well, that's exactly right.
I mean, in the end, I I gotta chuckle with the attacks about the middle class because you and I, and I think your listeners know that the people who pay for the expanse of government are the middle class.
Those are the people who get stuck footing the bill.
In our case in Wisconsin, by making structural changes, long-term structural changes, not passing the buck, not rating funds, not using one-time federal stimulus money, but making structural changes that affect both our state and local governments.
We in turn have not only balanced our budget, we've done it in a way that protects middle class property taxpayers by freezing property taxes, and we protect middle class jobs because unlike these other states that are laying off thousands of public employees, we're not doing that either in Wisconsin.
We're we're protecting those jobs.
We're asking people like myself to pay a little bit more for pension health care, although much less than the average taxpayer pays for those same expenditures.
But in the end, people are having their job, keeping their jobs.
That helps our state's economy go forward.
I I'm convinced the reasons the attacks were as strong on you when they tried to stop you as aggressively as they did is because they knew this would happen.
They knew it would work, and they knew that the message would get out that excessive compensation as a result of government unionization is the problem.
It is government unionization, and it is the fact that the Democratic Party refuses to show any kind of fiscal responsibility and has totally sold out to government unions.
It is because of the structure of AFSME and WEAC and the other public employee unions that they were terrified that if you succeeded in your plans that it would work and that this would spread to other states, and it is going to spread to other states.
Do you agree with me on that?
One of the disadvantages, for example, for John Kasich in Ohio is the fact that they went and got those signatures.
It actually stopped the law from going into effect.
One of the advantages we had long term.
It certainly didn't seem so at the time when it passed, but over time, every day, every week, every month that has gone by since the law went to effect, it has become clearer and clear to the taxpayers of our state that the reforms are working, they're helping not only balance our budget, they're ultimately helping us put more people to work on our state.
When others see that, that will ultimately have an impact.
And the irony is I think they also saw the process we used was one despite the attacks, despite all the signs and slogans and everything else.
We started out in January working not only with every Republican, but with a number of discerning Democrats to pass a pro-job agenda.
We continue to stay down that focus.
We haven't personalized attacks against folks.
We've stayed on point on message.
We've made this about the issues, and in the end, the results are working.
And I think everybody in America is looking for more conservatives who will stick to their guns and see it through as you did.
And I know that I'm speaking for a lot of Wisconsin conservatives and even people outside our state since everybody knows about what's happened in Wisconsin.
So we're really proud of you for sticking to your guns and pulling this off because I think it does prove that there is a ton of waste in government, and if we get rid of it, we can fix most of our problems.
So thank you.
And Mark, you know, the last thing I just done that is one of the great things about living in America is that not just here in Wisconsin, but examples all across this country.
For more than 200 years, what has made our country great is in times of crisis.
You've had leaders who stepped up and thought more about their children and their grandchildren than they thought about their own political futures.
And this is another one of those moments, not just in Wisconsin, but across the country.
And I have faith in this exceptional country that people will step up and lead again.
Thanks.
That's Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
When we come back after the break, I'm going to expand on a couple of the points that he made about some of the unbelievable fact that was uncovered once the governor's changes were enacted and why what happened in Wisconsin can be done all across the United States.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush.
Mark Davis is going to be here tomorrow and Friday.
In this segment, for those of you who've been listening to me for the last last couple of days, if you remember only one thing I've told you, I want it to be what I'm going to share with you in this segment because I'm going to tell you why the budget reforms in Wisconsin have worked.
They have worked better than even Governor Walker thought they would, and the conservative supporters like myself thought they would.
It's because we found that the effects of government unionization were even worse than many had felt.
The State Teachers Union in Wisconsin formed its own health insurance company a number of years ago.
They call it WEA Trust, Wisconsin Education Association Trust.
And using their leverage under collective bargaining, they pressured most school districts in Wisconsin to buy health insurance from the company the union owned.
Everybody knew about that, but it wasn't until Governor Walker's reforms came in place, and these school districts were able to put their contracts out for bid rather than automatically have to use this WEA trust that we realized how badly the unions were abusing the fact that they had this racket going.
They formed their own health insurance company.
They used collective bargaining to pressure the school districts to buy the health insurance coverage from the company that their union owned.
That was bad enough that they were able to do it.
But they couldn't leave well enough alone.
What they did is they started overcharging for the insurance.
And no one really knew how much because these contracts were never ever put out for bid.
And what's happened in school district after school district after school district in my state Wisconsin over the last couple of months is as these contracts are being put out for bid, as the school districts no longer have to use the union's owned insurance company.
They are finding that their costs are falling through the basement by switching carriers, or even staying with WEA Trust, which has had to lower the premiums it's charging, lower the amount it's charging to sell the insurance.
They are saving in many cases hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This is money that over the last number of years in Wisconsin was being overpaid for health insurance.
Whoever heard of an employer right now lowering its health insurance costs.
Yet in school district after school district after school district, they are finding that they are able to save a fortune simply by being able to go out and buy insurance on the open market from the provider of their Choice.
Because of collective bargaining, the unions had this ability to essentially force buying the health insurance from them.
And what they did is they overcharged and took it all to the union bottom line and added to the profits of the union, which they've then turned around to use for all of this political activism and all the campaign ads and all the other agitating that they're doing.
The union wasn't satisfied with simply having the ability to profit off of the health insurance.
They had to go out and overcharge.
I've got a number of clippings in front of me.
Heartland Lakeside School District, Heartland, Wisconsin, is finding that is saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They asked the owners of the union owned insurance company, why were you charging so much?
They never had an answer.
The answer is they were able to get away with it.
That's the kind of fat that exists in government budgets in our country.
I started today's program by saying that I had another one of those themes that would work all the way through the program.
That we've become a nation of wimps.
Parents can't even handle their kids getting yelled at by a teacher or a teacher being harsh with them.
Men have become girls, babies, sissies.
We have become over reliant on government because we don't think we can stand up for ourselves.
And almost every story that I had just seemed to come back to that theme, including the one about the situation in Wisconsin.
There, you saw what would happen if a conservative stood up for his beliefs, and if Republicans and the Republican Party in Wisconsin had a hold together, and it did, they had to pass this thing, despite incredible attacks and the threats of being recalled from office, that the stuff would work.
Here's the kicker though.
It turned out to be a lot easier than you would have thought.
The advantage Governor Walker had in Wisconsin in balancing his budget was that there was so much fat in my state because of government unionization, that all you had to do was whack out the fat and the budgets would be balanced, merely by requiring teachers to make minor contributions for their health insurance and their pensions, and then take away their right to bargain on issues like dictating who the insurance carrier was.
That produced so much savings that the governor was able to cut aid the state was sending to school districts.
And those school districts are still able to balance their budget and freeze their taxes because of the incredible savings that they get by not overpaying for the health insurance.
You know, the government unions always claim they care about the kids and they care about the middle class.
What they were really engaging in was overt greed.
They were gobbling up stuff that couldn't be justified.
It wasn't sustainable.
The rates that they were charging for their health insurance were simply so that they could take it and engage in political activism.
None of that had anything to do with the quality of education.
And in Wisconsin, I think it's been an eye-opener even for the governor how much savings was out there once you had the ability to cut into some of these things that the unions considered to be sacred.
It won't be as easy in other states.
Many states don't have any collective bargaining privileges for government employees, and many don't allow the public employees to bargain at all on benefits.
Governor Walker did have more fat that he was able to whack at.
It won't be as easy at the federal level.
Federal government employees can't bargain on really anything.
There is federal government unionization, but they can't even bargain on pay, so there isn't the same degree of fat in the employee compensation at the federal level as we had in Wisconsin.
But if you stick to your guns, if your focus is that we're going to live within our means, and you're going to take on whatever special interest you have to take on, if you see it through, it's going to work.
And I think that's what conservatives are looking for right now in the Republican Party.
Merely saying you're going to cut spending isn't enough.
Merely replacing Obama isn't Enough.
You've got to act on our principles.
You have to walk the walk in addition to talking the talk.
And if the Wisconsin experience proves anything, it's that if you do that, not only will it work, you'll survive politically and eventually become even more popular.
Let's go back to the phone lines.
1 800 282 2882 is the number here at EIB to West Plains, Missouri.
Annie, it's your turn on the Rush Limbaugh program with Mark Belling.
Hi, thanks for having me.
Thank you.
Um I just You sound like an Annie.
Thank you, I think.
Um I am a rural school teacher, public school, and I live in a very conservative area of the United States.
I happen to be a liberal.
Hope you won't hold that against me.
But what I see are I completely agree.
Students are unable to cope for themselves.
They don't seem to have any real world skills at all.
But I'm seeing that a lot from the parents of conservative children, not giving them any kind of a platform to see any other idea system other than what they're taught at home.
And what they're taught at home is you can't be gay, you can't do this, you can't do that.
Christianity is the only way.
And so when I get into I teach um community college, when they get into college, they're not able to have a conversation that might challenge those views.
They they cannot handle it.
And it's gotten to the point where in my classroom, well we can't have a debate.
No, Annie, this is gonna be hard for me because you you you sound as I said, like an anti, and I'm gonna sound mean for just for disagreeing with you.
But why are you challenging their beliefs on issues like that?
What does that have to do with educating kids?
Why are you getting into their beliefs on homosexuality or any of these other things?
You said that you you said that you find that these conservative parents are raising their kids to be closed-minded.
Why is it your job to work worry at all about what their political beliefs or the sociological beliefs are?
Well, for one, because I teach a public issues class.
So part of it is that we talk about, and I don't mean that I stand up at the podium, I I don't tell them my views on homosexuality or who I voted for in the last presidential election.
But part of what we discuss are the things going on, and one of those things debates happens to be gay marriage, civil civil union.
Um and these kids are supposed to what?
They're supposed to approve of gay marriage?
No, absolutely not.
Well then what?
What what's your point then?
The the problem is that when they hear perhaps another student voicing their opinion, then very rarely do I have a student who's like, yay, gay marriage in this area.
But if I do, the they can't even sit through that person's opinion or belief without jumping in and saying, This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, before the person can can even finish their own.
Well, now you know what it's like to be what it's like to be a conservative where we've been told to hush up on all of our beliefs for years and years and years.
Now you know what it's like to have been in the situation here in Wiscons here in my state of Wisconsin where the governor was saying we've got fat in the budget.
If we cut our spending, we can balance our budget and we can preserve the quality of government services.
Now you know what it's like to be a conservative who believes that we can alter Medicare and make reforms in the entitlement program and still save it without being told that we want to kill old people and that we're going to destroy the social safety net.
Liberals have been using that forever and ever and ever, demonizing our positions, and now you're concerned that some kids who have beliefs that they hold dear disagree with people who are on the other side.
They have a right to think that way.
But the stifling of opinion is coming from the left that it says everything time we say anything, we're engaging in racism or sp or hate speech, or we're involved in one phobia or another or an or another or another.
That's where the problem comes in.
Never once did I say that.
You're completely missing my point.
I'm not saying you do that, but that's certainly what's happen.
Look, look at the evisceration of Sarah Palin.
And every idea that she's ever thrown out in the ridiculing and the marginalizing that exists of her.
Look at what happens when any conservative dares talk about you know, reforming the entitlement programs.
What go go go ahead?
That has to do with well, okay.
If we're talking about can we talk about what happened in Wisconsin?
Do we have a second to talk about that?
We've got a second.
You can.
Go ahead.
Okay.
I'm a government employee.
Now I'm not a government employee who who m perhaps in the same capacity, but my salary is thirty-two thousand dollars a year.
I pay a portion of my own health care.
I pay a portion of anything else that is required of me.
In Wisconsin, they weren't.
Right, and I understand that.
But government employees, those of us who are considered peons, low on the totem pole, don't make very much money.
I have a master's degree in English.
Okay, well, you're talking about your situation.
My point was in Wisconsin, what you're just describing wasn't true.
Public employees in Wisconsin got to retire in their mid-50s and could go out and get another job and double dip and didn't pay anything for that pension.
They kicked in absolutely zero for it by addressing the fact that that was an abusive waste.
They got to keep their pensions in Wisconsin.
They're not being laid off.
Their pay isn't being cut.
They were merely told you've got to kick in for your pension.
They were told that you can't create your own health insurance company and then overcharge for it.
You can still have your own insurance company.
You just have to charge market rates.
But instead, the arguments that we got were all of the ones that you were raising about people low on the totem pole and all of that stuff, but that wasn't the reality that ever existed in Wisconsin.
What you're trying to do is change the subject from the reality that was going on there, just as Democrats who nationally are saying that if we change Medicare and move it toward a voucher program ten years into the future, they're characterizing that as somehow destroying the quality of Medicare for people currently on the system.
You're changing the subject and distorting what was attempting to be done here.
In other words, you're doing exactly what you say that your closed-minded kids would do, but thank you for calling Annie.
She was way too nice of a liberal.
I prefer to have the obnoxious ones who generate no sympathy from the audience who just yell and scream and uh blame Bush for everything and she didn't do any of that stuff.
My name is Mark Belling and I'm in for Rush Limbaugh.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush who's on vacation this week.
Rush takes his vacations pretty much the same weeks every year.
I know this because when I come to New York to guest host the program, it's always at the same times every year.
And it's always right around when the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament is starting.
Although this week, either they're starting a week late or Rush's vacation is a week early because the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament is always underway.
When I'm here doing the program.
In fact, last year the tennis players stay in the uh hotel that me and Mr. Snerdley are at.
I don't know if you knew that.
Last year I rode the elevator down with Kim Cleesters.
I did.
I didn't say anything to her, other than she was had it had her tennis.
She was her match was that night.
She was going down and the driver was was out front.
I want to get to this Jerry Lewis story, but I still don't know what my stand on it is.
The whole Jerry Lewis and the MDA and they don't want him on the telethon this year, and the telethon's only six hours and he's mad and they're mad and they're trying to patch it up and Jerry Lewis is probably refusing to go away and he probably needs to go away, but how can the MDA kick?
Were it not for Jerry Lewis, muscular dystrophy would be another one of those diseases that we've all heard about, but we don't know what it is.
He in fact is responsible for putting research for that disease on the map, and they probably need him to leave and they probably need him to move on, and he doesn't want to go, and somebody's gotta work that thing out because it's just gonna be ugly if they hold this thing and he's not the everybody wants him to see everybody wants to see him saying you'll never walk alone one last time.
People want that.
Let's go to uh somewhere on Michigan, Joseph, you're on EIB with Mark Belling.
Yes, Mr. Belling, I want to thank you for having the governor on.
You have done the nation a great service by having him explain exactly what was going on in Wisconsin with the unions and with the criminal act that they were controlling uh medical benefits for your state.
And and overcharging if they would have simply formed their own company, made a small amount of profit, took it to the you know, make a reasonable amount of profit, took it to their bottom line.
Instead, they profiteered.
They did all of the things that lefties accuse corporations of doing, they excessively charged, and the reason we know that is once these contracts are put out for bid, they're all able to dramatically lower the cost that they were paying for health insurance.
Yes, that's exactly the point.
Not only that you've done a nation of service and showing that the the nation will see that we can take back our country and fix the problems once we get rid of these criminals that are in office and in these unions that are doing this to our nation.
Also, I agree with you a hundred percent that Sarah Palin would make a glute kicking testicle busted president, because she's not a PC person, and she would do what's good for America, and she would bring it to the people, just like she's telling right now, rove, hey, you can kiss my you know what, because I don't need you to become president.
I'm gonna go to the people, and the people will elect me president just the way that we're supposed to.
Yeah, I I think what she and Perry and some of the others have to do is they've got to persuade Republicans themselves that either she or Rick Perry, if it's him or Bachman or whomever the candidate is, that they can beat Obama.
I know that's one of the big hang ups that many Republicans have with Sarah Palin.
They like her, but they think that the number that's been done on her, just that the savaging of her has made it impossible for her to be able to beat President Obama.
But she, if she does run, she's got months to make that case, and she's got months to change that image where people can see her in action out there on the campaign trail.
I don't count her out.
And I think that the Republican field has gotten stronger with the entry of Perry and the possible emergence of Sarah Palin, the candidate that's out there that I have a hang up, and I don't want to keep repeating this, is Mitt Romney.
I just think if the message is less government, if the message is is that we can't create another entitlement, I just don't know how Mitt Romney can carry that message given his refusal to acknowledge that what he did in Massachusetts with health care is a mistake.
Thank you for the call.
Might not North Dakota might do I think Ron Paul, you want me to talk about Ron Paul.
You're pushing me into this.
The problem I used to make fun of Ron Paul because I didn't like his stance on terror, and I didn't like his, I think, downplaying the Al-Qaeda threat and the terror threat.
What I have found over the last four years, really the last three to four years is I'm agreeing with Ron Paul more and more and more.
Ron Paul comes across to some people as a little too preoccupied with certain threats.
And it rubs a lot of people the wrong way, and it's rubbed me the wrong way.
But the fact is Ron Paul is right about the Federal Reserve.
He's right about Bernanke, he's right about the Federal Reserve becoming something larger than it ever should have been.
The Federal Reserve should be charged with the task of maintaining a stable dollar.
Instead, it's buying up AIG, it's funding all of these bailouts, it's intervening in the bond market, and every time it moves, it's making the wrong move.
One of the reasons we had the housing mess is because interest rates were kept unnaturally low for way too long.
And Ron Paul's been right about that.
But I don't like saying that because I used to make fun of Ron Paul, and I can't do that anymore.
Presidentially, though, he just doesn't pass the test that people are going to look at and say, can he beat President Obama?
And he doesn't strike people as presidential, and he's got those foreign policy flaws.
But on the economic issues that he's harped on, he's right.
I just don't think he's the right candidate to lead the Republican Party.
And I know that that really angers the Ron Paul supporters who are very, very devoted.
But you don't just have to be right on some of the issues.
You've got to be able to sell yourself as a president, and I don't think that Ron's been able to do that.
Is that good enough for you?
Or do you want me to want me to criticize it?
You're trying to push me where I don't want to go.
I'm Mark Belling in for Rush.
I really enjoyed doing the last two days, even though the staff, particularly Mr. Snerdley, trying to make my life miserable or pushing me to criticize Ron Paul more harshly than I want to criticize him because you want me to take the heat for criticizing Ron Paul.
Ron Paul has a lot to offer.
I just don't think he's the answer.
Because the number one priority is that you've got to beat Obama, and then you have to l beat Obama with someone who leaves.
I will tell you this.
If the Republicans regain the White House, you know who I want to be chairman of the Federal Reserve?
I want it to be Ron Paul.
He is the absolute perfect person for this.
He should drop the presidential campaign and just audition for that because then he could accomplish everything that he wants to do with regard to the Fed, and he'd be right about that.
I've loved doing the show.
Hope you've enjoyed it.
Talk to you soon again.
Mark Davis tomorrow.
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