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Sept. 7, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
31:45
September 7, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
You tell me there's no war going on against the private sector.
State Control Associated Press, the U.S. has tumbled further.
The U.S. has tumbled further down a global ranking of the world's most competitive economies landing in fifth place because of huge deficits and declining public faith in government.
A global economic group said today.
The announcement by the World Economic Forum was the latest bad news for the Obama regime.
It isn't bad news for the regime.
This is what the regime wants.
No less a personage than Shelby Steele recently pointed out.
We have a president who was raised and educated with the belief that this country's greatness was illegitimate.
That it was built on the backs of the poor with resources stolen from everywhere else on earth.
So the fact that we're now being ranked fifth in global competitiveness in our own, our economy, pop the champagne corks in the Oval Orifice.
Switzerland held on to the top spot for the third year in a row in the annual ranking by the World Economic Forum in Geneva, is where it's based, best known for its exclusive meeting of luminaries in Davos, Switzerland every January.
And by the way, you know, I don't have any love for this group, and I'm not necessarily trusting what this bunch has to say, but it doesn't matter.
It's out there in the news.
So that's that.
Now, I went back to our website.
We had this caller, Tina, from Louisiana, who asked me if I recall the story about the Ivy League economist being schooled on the economy on a flight.
And I remembered it.
By the way, we put it right there in the orange banner at the top of the website at rushlinbog.com by Stephen Carter, who's a Yale economics professor.
The dated is May 26th of this year.
The man in the aisle seat is trying to tell me why he refuses to hire anybody.
His business is successful, he says, as the 737 cruises smoothly eastward.
Demand for his product is up, but he still won't hire.
Why not?
I ask.
Because I don't know how much it'll cost, he explains.
How can I hire new workers today when I don't know how much it's going to cost me tomorrow?
He's referring not to wages, but to regulation.
He has no way of telling what new rules will go into effect, when.
His business, although it covers several states, operates on low profit margins.
He can't afford to take the chance of losing what little profit there is to the next round of regulatory changes.
So he's hiring nobody until he has some certainty about cost.
It's a little odd, rights, Mr. Carter, to be having this conversation as the news media keep insisting that private employment is picking up.
But as economists have pointed out to all who listen, all who will listen, the only real change is that the rate of layoffs has slowed.
Fewer than one of six small businesses added jobs last year, and not many more expect to do so this year.
The private sector is creating no more new jobs than it was a year ago.
The man in the aisle seat is trying to tell me why.
I'm an economist.
I'm an economics professor at Yale.
I should know this.
I'm teaching young skulls full of motion about this, but I'm being schooled by a real-life private sector businessman.
I'm a professor of law.
I take it back.
He's not an economist, a professor of law.
He talks about the passenger.
He's trim.
He's white-haired.
He's bursting with energy.
He's proud of the business he's built.
It's not large, by the way things are measured these days, but certainly successful.
He shows me sales figures, award citations, stories from trade magazines.
I congratulate him.
I turn to the window and enjoy the view for a bit.
We're flying over the Midwest, away from the setting sun toward the darkness.
America stretches beneath us in every direction, flat and broad and beautiful.
My seatmate has just discovered that I'm a law professor.
That's the reason for his discourse.
He says, I don't understand why Washington does this to us.
By us, he means people who run businesses of less than Fortune 500 size.
He tells me that it doesn't much matter which party's in office.
Every change of power means a whole new set of rules to which he and those like him must respond.
I don't understand why Washington won't just get out of our way and let us hire.
There are a lot of responses I could offer at this point, but I'm interested now, so I prefer to let him talk.
It isn't just hiring that's too unpredictable, he says.
He feels the same way about investing.
He has never liked stock markets.
He prefers to put cash directly into businesses he likes in return for a small stake, acting in sort as a small-time venture capitalist.
Can't do that now, he says.
For people like him, people who are not filthy rich, it's become too hard to pick winners.
But he doesn't blame the great information advantages enjoyed by insiders.
He blames Washington once more for creating a climate of uncertainty.
Growing bold or maybe rude, I ask why if the climate's so terrible, he just doesn't sell his company.
This brings a smile.
I think about retirement a lot, he says, but I can't.
I wait to hear about how much he loves the business he founded or about his responsibilities to his employees or perhaps to the town somewhere in the Dakotas where his factory is located.
Instead, he tells me it's impossible to make a sensible decision about winding down his firm when he doesn't even know from one year to the next what the capital gains rate is going to be.
I argue a bit.
Surely government isn't all bad.
It protects property, the environment, civil rights.
My seatmate seems to think that I'm missing the point.
He's not anti-government.
He's not anti-regulation.
He just needs to know as he makes his plans that the rules aren't going to change radically.
Big businesses don't face the same problem, he says.
They have lots of customers to spread costs over.
They have installed base.
For medium-sized firms like his, however, there's little wiggle room to absorb the costs of regulatory change.
Because he possesses neither lobbyists nor clout, he says, Washington does not care whether he hires more workers or closes up shop.
We will be landing shortly in Minneapolis.
I ask him what precisely he thinks is the proper role of government as it relates to business.
Invisible, he says.
I know there are things the government has to do, but they need to find a way to do them without people like me having to bump into a new regulation every time we turn a corner.
Government should act like my assistant, not my boss.
We're at the gate.
We exchange business cards.
On the way to my connection, I ponder, as an academic with an interest in policy, I tend to see businesses as abstractions fitting into a theory or a data set.
Most policymakers do the same.
We rarely encounter the simple human face of the less than giant businesses we constantly extol.
And when they refuse to hire, we would often rather go on TV and call them greedy than sit and talk to them about their challenges.
Recessions have complex causes, but as the man on the aisle reminded me, we do nothing to make things better when the companies on which we rely see Washington as adversary rather than partner.
Stephen Carter, a Bloomberg View columns, professor of law at Yale.
Now, there you have it.
That's May 26th of this year.
And more and more CEOs of even larger companies are starting to echo the same thing.
Just get out of our way.
Just stop all this.
Now, I checked the email during the break, and it's predictable.
There you go again, Rush, predicting that Obama wants this to happen, purposely destroying the economy.
No president wants to destroy the economy.
He may be inept, rush, he may be incompetent, but he's not trying to do that.
Let me ask you a simple question: If this is not what the regime wants, why do they keep doing it?
Hmm.
Just give me an answer to that simple question.
If this is not what Obama wants, why does he keep doing it?
If this is not what Obama wants, why does he keep expanding it?
Do you doubt that Obama wants to grow the government larger and larger?
Do you doubt that the government wants to make more and more people dependent on it, meaning the Democrat Party?
If this is not what Obama wants, why does he keep doing it?
Back to the phones we go, Rush Limboy, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have doing what I was born to do.
And so are you, by the way.
I was born to host.
You were born to listen.
Here's Maggie in Oregon, Ohio.
Nice to have you.
I'm glad you waited.
Welcome.
Hi, Rush.
I called to leave a comment at first after your top of the one o'clock hour, your comments about your summary about compromise.
Oh, yeah, the monologue on moderates and all that.
Yeah, bear with me.
I'm a little bit nervous.
It ain't every day I talk to millions of people.
I thought that was one of the best explanations as to what's going on, what's going wrong in Washington, D.C. right now, and actually for many years.
You couldn't have described it any better.
I think that I think the Republicans, Snurdley asked me why I believe that, and I thought that you were right in your summary.
And I think that when I vote for somebody, they're supposed to represent me.
They're sent to Washington because I believe in what they believe in.
That's why I vote for them, right?
Right.
So they go there, and I'm thinking they're going to stick to their principles and what I believe in, and they don't.
They seem to fall under the narrative that they need to compromise.
Right.
And I think.
Which is, again, is a tactic.
Moderates are not.
You won't, you know, I overused this, but you won't find the book in the library of great moderates in American history.
There's no core there.
And a lot of people take this personally.
I'm not trying to offend moderates.
I'm just pointing out here: I want to know what I'm supposed to moderate.
And why am I supposed to compromise with what this bunch is trying to do?
Right.
I think they need.
It's a tactic.
Moderates do not have a set of core beliefs by definition.
They want to be able to float.
Yep.
Well, I think they need to look up and read again what their job descriptions are.
Their job description is to represent us.
And they tell us what they believe in.
And we say to them, okay, we believe the same thing.
Go to Washington, D.C., and do your job.
Yeah, but that's a toughie because there's not one monolithic set of principles or thoughts that elects these people.
I mean, your neighbor could have voted for your guy for totally different reasons.
They have to be independent thinkers.
What has to happen, they have to govern as they promised you they would, is what you're saying.
No, that's no, that's exactly what I'm not saying.
Just the total opposite.
Their job is not to govern.
Their job is to legislate.
Well, their job is to be true to what they told you they were going to be and do in their campaign.
Right, right.
That's all we're saying here.
Right.
When you start talking about compromise, everybody knows what that means.
It means move left.
Yeah.
Compromise means move left.
Sorry.
I'm not going there.
Nothing good ever happens when you go left.
No.
They just need to stick to the Constitution and forget the rest.
Just do their job.
If we're saying to them, no, this is not the route.
We call them and write letters and they're supposed to do what we're telling them to do.
It should be easy for them to say, no, Mr. Obama, we're not going to go that way because I'm here to represent my people.
And my people are telling me, no, so we're not going to do this.
It should be so easy for them.
And they just get in there and they get mired down and all this social justice talk and we've got to do what's right.
Well, they get caught in the dominant culture in Washington is run by the left.
They get caught up in that socially, politically.
I know this is what Obama meant when he said you can't told these congressional Republican leaders to stop listening to Limbaugh.
This is not how things get done in Washington.
You don't listen to Limbaugh anymore.
And I remember at a meeting with John Boehner, he said, what do you think he meant by why is he telling us that?
I'm sitting there saying, Mr. President, he didn't voice it.
What do you mean, don't listen to Limbaugh?
That's not how things are going to.
I explained to Speaker Boehner.
He was not speaker at the time.
I explained trying to get you to agree publicly.
What he was trying to do is get any one of you Republicans in that room to head to a microphone saying that you agreed with the president.
They've got to stop listening to people on talk radio.
That's what he was hoping.
He was hoping that you would repudiate.
He had chosen his conservative leaders that he was going to anoint.
David Brooks, Larry Kudlow, all those people are invited to George Wills' house.
Charles Krauthammer, Krauthammer Review Online.
What?
What's the worst?
What would I say?
The one thing is the worst thing.
When I said, oh, no, no, no.
You're telling me that to Democrats, the worst thing I've ever said is you don't compromise with the losers.
Winners don't compromise.
You think out of all the things I've said, that's what upsets them warden.
You think that's the thing that upsets them?
No, they're more upset.
No, wrong.
Oh, no.
They are.
Oh, they're totally upset by the fact that I said that I hope Obama fails.
That's the number one thing that bugs them.
I mean, I just, the don't compromise, that's fairly recent.
That's within, you know, the debt ceiling debate.
And I said, we won big in November.
The winners do not compromise.
It's the losers that compromise.
Did we compromise with the Japanese of the USS Missouri?
Hey, for you, NFL fans, Peyton Manning officially out for the opener in Texas in Houston on Sunday.
He's had two surgeries on his neck, and they haven't, the healing process has not been what the experts thought it would be.
They are waiting around for nerve regeneration.
Now, when I hear that, you know, Nick Bonicati, that's what Nick Bonicati is working on at the Miami Project to cure paralysis is nerve regeneration.
I mean, that's the kind of miracle everybody's waiting for to cure paralysis.
So this Peyton Manning situation is way up in the air.
I mean, people are extremely curious about it.
So Carrie Collins is going to start against the Houston Texans.
And this, I think Manning had a consecutive start streak of 203 or 207 games.
That's gone now.
And so Brett Favre's streak of 297 consecutive starts is safe for a long, long time.
Quick, snerdly, which active quarterback has the longest consecutive start streak after Peyton Manning.
Eli Manning at something like 103.
Eli Manning is now the leader in consecutive starts at quarterback in the National Football League at 103.
He's talking.
Favre started 297 straight games.
There are 16 in a season.
They don't count playoffs.
Wait a minute.
I don't know that 297 includes playoffs.
Regardless, 16 or 20, if you go to the Super Bowl, that takes a long time to rack up 297 straight starts in the National Football League.
So Peyton Manning is not going to play.
And nobody knows when he's going to be able to play.
Nobody knows when.
Cybercast News Service, the percentage of American adults who lack health insurance coverage has not only increased during the regime of Barack Obama, but it has continued to increase since Obama signed his health care law.
In 2008, when George W. Bush was president, according to Gallup, 14.9% of adult residents of the U.S. lacked health insurance coverage.
Increased to 16.2% in 2009, the year that Obama was emaculated.
It's now 16.4%, well, last year, 2010, the year that Obama signed his law requiring that all Americans have health insurance.
So not only has Obama taken jobs away, he has made sure that fewer people have health insurance.
And again, I ask: if this is not what they wanted, why do they keep doing it?
I don't care where you look.
I don't care what story you consult.
The economic news continues to worsen, especially in the area of Obama signature issues.
Audio soundbites.
I mentioned Howard Feynman.
Here he is last night on NBC's The Last Word.
Howard Feynman is the editorial director of the Huffington Post.
He said this.
The president will have a chance to make the case for government on Thursday, but he's got to make it in a way that results in people believing that immediate jobs will result.
He's been unable to do that so far.
That'll once again be his challenge in a very difficult situation for the president because nobody really is expecting anything to result from that speech on Thursday night.
There you have it.
Nobody is really expecting anything to result from that speech on Thursday night.
Why would anybody be expecting anything different to happen?
We're going to do, he's going to propose what he has been doing since he was immaculated.
Why all of a sudden is it going to change?
What can he do?
What could any president do?
What could any speech, how could any speech result in a massive move to create jobs in the ensuing days after the speech is made?
Now, I happen to think that if I were giving the speech, I could create atmospherics and attitude that would lead people to want to grow the economy.
I think I could make that speech.
I have no doubt I could make that speech if I had the power of implementation of my ideas behind me.
Well, I know people believe me, but I'm just talking about I've got the ideas.
This stupid AP story that, you know, neither side has the answer.
What a crock that is.
There's an answer out there.
And the answer has never changed.
The answer boils down to something very simple, very trusting every time you try it.
The American people.
Just turn them loose.
Just get out of their way.
Just inspire them.
We got a guy who's happily presiding over decline.
There's nothing motivational or inspirational at all about this guy.
There never has been.
I've never understood that.
Here's Jonathan Alter.
Feynman apparently didn't talk to Jonathan Alter because Alder says if you oppose Obama's plan, then you are against jobs.
This was yesterday afternoon on the Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington.
Fill-in host Chris Matthews.
What is with all these fill-in hosts?
At MSNBC, but it's after Labor Day, Snirdling.
This is not anyway.
The fill-in host is Chris Matthews talking with Mother Jones Magazine Washington Bureau Chief David Korn and Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Alder about Obama's speech.
And David Korn says the real issue is going to be credibility here.
Whether he can make a strong enough case that he can get people, especially independent voters, who will be hearing Republicans say spending, spending, spending.
What is this?
Corn, he's supposed to be creating jobs with his speech.
What is this?
Get people and independent voters to what's it?
What the hell is going on here?
I thought this was a speech to create jobs.
Obviously, it's not obvious a campaign speech trying to appeal the independents.
Jonathan Alder, after listening to what Korn said, said this: It's the way he throws down the gauntlet.
My party and I are for rebuilding America.
If you don't agree, you're against rebuilding America.
You're against jobs.
He needs it to be jobs first.
You're either for more jobs or you're not.
Jonathan, August 0.
Zilch.
Nada.
Jonathan, stimulus, 2009 minus 3 million jobs.
What are you talking about?
Somebody's going to have to tell me where it is that this bunch even knows about job creation in the private sector.
My party and I are for rebuilding America.
My party and I have destroyed America.
For two and a half years, people have witnessed Mr. Alter, Obama, and his party destroy the private sector.
And you think that in one speech tonight, somehow he can make people believe that he and his party are for rebuilding America?
Why does America need to be rebuilt?
America didn't need to be rebuilt two and a half years ago.
I'm taking another break.
I'm starting to really get ticked off as I listen to this lunacy.
Let's say, folk, let's say you're a leftist.
You're a leftist, hard leftist, narcissist, grand narcissist.
Unemployment is 11%, 16% is going to stay there.
How do you proceed?
You're president, a narcissist, committed ideologue, and the polls in history indicate it's unlikely you'll be re-elected.
So what would you do?
Would you fudge and compromise, hoping against hope that you can be re-elected with 9%, 10% unemployment?
Or would you go full board to try and leave your mark on the country you promised to remake?
Would you ignore history and assume your reelection, or would you begin planning to be a good one-term president?
Would you set yourself up in good stead with those that share your ideology for the years ahead?
Or would you compromise with hated conservatives and Tea Party types in hopes of winning the election but soiling your relationships with hard-left supporters and admirers worldwide?
Would you rebuke your supporters like that SOB Jimmy Hoffa?
Would you cave to the Republican SOBs on fiscal policy in a major speech to a joint session of Congress?
Let's say you're a relatively young man.
You want to be remembered until the end of time and beyond.
How would you close out your dismal, destructive presidency if it appeared to be in danger?
As a grand narcissist, you'll be spending a lot of time in your presidential library, the temple where you will worship yourself.
How do you want to feel when you walk through your shrine?
If you are Obama, what would you want to see and hear in your shrine?
In the wing of joint sessions of Congress, will you want to see the film playing where you gave up on your ideology or where you attacked Republicans?
Are you thinking about an exhibit that shows what might have happened with more spending?
Or are you thinking about an exhibit where John Boehner got his way?
What's in your personal shrine?
How will your story be told?
Remember, all your leftist buddies and admirers, many of them millionaires and billionaires, that'll arrive by private jet to your shrine, to your library, will come and want a personal tour.
Will you be proud or will you just hustle them through?
Are you today thinking about keeping a good portion of the campaign cash that you raise?
What are you thinking about as you go into this speech tomorrow night?
As a narcissist, as a hard-left ideologue, as somebody who no doubt wants to be reelected.
We will find out what it is that the little man child is thinking.
A little over 24 hours.
I expect MSNBC to start their stupid countdown any minute.
Josh in Los Angeles, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, how's it going?
Meganos from the left coast.
Thank you, sir.
California.
Hey, I just wanted to touch on the senator that is just talking about job growth and basically saying that, you know, if you're not with us, you're basically against this type of thing.
You know, that's a guy who doesn't own a small business.
That's a guy who's never worked a day in his life, never had to, you know, get up in the morning and work for himself.
Because if you don't, then you're not making money.
And I'm one of those guys.
I'm 30 years old.
I've been listening to you since, God, since I can remember, probably, you know, since I was eight years old.
And I started a company with my brothers a couple years ago, along with my mom.
And right now we're four people manufacturing motion picture equipment for the film industry.
And luckily in an economy like this, entertainment is rampant and we do okay.
But, you know, we, one, we can't afford employees because, you know, we get hit with workmen's comp and all this, you know, health insurance, you know?
So it just nutty, you know, and the fact that, you know, we're getting hit with 38% taxes.
I mean, if it's not.
Okay, so let me ask that question.
Hold on, get a quick question.
Get 20 seconds.
The president's going to make a speech tomorrow night about inspiring people like you to go and hire people.
What can he say to make you do it?
Probably absolutely nothing because the guy normally says absolutely nothing.
But if you were to say something, the best thing he could do was say no capital gains tax, lower the corporate tax, lower income tax, if not get rid of all of it.
And that would be the first three things right off the bat.
It's not going to happen.
Don't have to watch.
I just saved you a bunch of time.
That's it, folks.
Fastest three hours in media.
Got to go.
Show never really ends, though.
It's a continuum.
Just have a 21-hour break here, and we'll be back.
Same time, same place tomorrow, and revved and ready.
Thanks so much for being with us today.
Can't wait for tomorrow.
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