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Sept. 8, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:33
September 8, 2011, Thursday, Hour #2
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Time Text
Hey, views expressed by the host of this program documented to be almost always right 99.6% of the time.
It's great to have you with us as I, El Rushbo, serve humanity simply by being here.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address El Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
One thing I was going to say, previous hour, when Social Security started, the way it worked was that in practical terms, every recipient's benefits were spread out over 140 contributors.
In other words, the taxes of 140 people paid the benefits of one person.
So that's spreading the burden around pretty well.
Social Security never, it never was.
You put in X and you get back X. Somebody was always, it was always somebody else's money you were getting.
Always.
I don't, frankly, I don't care.
I've probably got Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Oh my God, Limbaugh's killing us on Social Security.
Oh my God, it sounds like we hate the program.
I don't hate the program.
It's not about hating the program.
It's about fixing it.
But it's never been the case.
Not one Social Security recipient was getting his or her money back.
It's always been somebody else's contribution that was paying you as a Social Security recipient.
Now, I'm sorry if this bursts your bubble.
I'm sorry if you think that Social Security was a little bank account over there and it had your name on it.
And when you turned 65 or whatever, that money came back.
It's not how it worked.
Now, here's the point.
When it started, it took the taxes of 140 people to pay the benefits of one recipient.
So that's spreading the burden out.
You know what it is today?
Three.
It takes the taxes of three taxpayers to pay the benefits of one recipient.
So we've gone from spreading out the burden of payment from 140 taxpayers to three.
And that number is getting smaller.
And that's why this is unsustainable.
So it has to be, it has to be fixed.
Pure and simple.
The Social Security trustees, Obama's own debt commission panel, whoever has looked at this, has all, they've all said the same thing.
And it's ditto for Medicare.
Medicare is probably worse, worse shape than Social Security is in.
Now, before we go to the audio sound device, just some thumbnails here.
I thought Michelle Bachman, who inexplicably is detested more and more on some of our blogs.
I don't know why.
Some of our conservative bloggers and others just don't like Michelle Bachman.
I thought she was very strong last night.
She's always composed, extremely professional.
She is most times that I see her speak.
Was there something she said last night that was way off base or problematic?
Wrong?
No.
Was there something she said last night that was cockeyed, crazy, or kooky?
No.
Others said cockeyed, crazy, and kooky things, but she didn't.
She won the Iowa Straw Poll, and it's almost like that has relegated her to irrelevancy with a lot of people.
But I think, as I mentioned earlier in the first hour, I think Bachman right now is being hurt a little bit by Palin's indecision or lack of an announced decision.
And if Palin gets in, then of course Bachman will be hurt even more.
But I have nothing but the highest regard for Bachman's intelligence, her conservative grit, her love of country, her commitment to what she believes in.
I think she deserves a lot of respect.
Romney did pretty well last night.
He did pretty well in the prior debate.
A lot of others have been critical of him.
Dances around Romney care.
Not going to give it up.
But he's understandably as a frontrunner.
He's cautious.
And so I understand the need to be cautioned when you're the frontrunner, cautious when you're the frontrunner.
I just don't want cautiousness in the Oval Office.
My point is this.
I, El Rushbo, the big barbarian at the gate, I am not going to trash any of those people that were on that stage last night.
Because as Newt said, any one of them is preferable to what we have now.
Any and all of them are preferable to what we have now.
And admittedly, we've got a lot of people in that panel last night that have no prayer, and they'll be winnowed out as the days unfold before our very eyes.
There's a piece at Reason magazine, Reason.com, by Sheikah Dalmia.
Social Security, not a Ponzi scheme, Mr. Perry.
Piece begins this way.
Rachel Maddow and her MSNBC guests are scandalized that Rick Perry stuck to his guns.
Social Security is a Ponzi scheme during the debate last night.
This kind of rhetoric will hurt him in the general election.
They all assured each other.
They never said he was wrong.
They just said that he hurt himself.
Byron York never said he was wrong, just said that he was in grave danger.
But according to the author here, Sheikah Dahlmia, Perry was wrong.
Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme.
It's worse.
Here's why.
A Ponzi scheme collects money from new investors and uses it to pay previous investors, minus a fee.
But Social Security collects money from new investors, uses it, some of it, to pay previous investors and spends the surplus on programs for politically favored groups minus the cost of supporting a massive bureaucracy.
Over the years, trillions of dollars have been spent on these groups and bureaucrats.
Social Security revenue has been spent on all kinds of vote-buying programs and schemes.
Participation in Ponzi schemes, as I said, is voluntary.
Not so with Social Security.
The government automatically withholds payroll taxes and invests them for you.
And finally, when a Ponzi scheme can't con new investors in sufficient numbers to pay the previous investors, it collapses.
But when Social Security runs low on investors, it raises taxes.
Michael Tanner, Cato Institute, points out Social Security taxes have been raised 40 times since the program began.
The initial Social Security tax was 2%, split between the employer and the employee, but the employee always pays it all.
And it was capped at $3,000 of earnings.
So the original Social Security recipients paid 1% as their tax rate at a maximum $3,000 of their income.
That made for a maximum tax back in the day of $60.
Today, the Social Security tax is 12.4%.
It's capped at $106,800 of income.
Maximum annual tax is $13,234.
Even adjusting inflation, that represents more than an 800% increase in taxes in Social Security.
Now, given that the worker-to-retiree ratio is expected to fall from the 3 to 1 today to 2 to 1 in 2030, it was 16 to 1 as recent as 1950.
It was 140 to 1 when the program began.
These taxes are only going to go up unless the government decides to kick retirees in their dentures and slash benefits, as it says here.
I did not my words.
And this guy from Reason magazine says Rick Perry should stop softpeddling the issue and tell it the way it is.
Somebody must.
I mean, the truth is what it is.
This is a program that's unsustainable.
As is Obama.
Obama is unsustainable.
Obamacare is unsustainable.
The Obama economic program is unsustainable.
I don't know.
Somebody just sent me here the first page of each Social Security statement that you get in the mail.
Under Social Security's future, they say they're only going to be able to pay 78% of promised benefits in what they send you.
I've got it.
I haven't printed it out.
I'm reading it off of the computer screen.
Here from Social Security's own website, the problem with the Ponzi deal.
The problem with Ponzi's investment scheme is that it's difficult to sustain this game very long because to continue paying the promised profits to early investors, you need an even larger pool of later investors.
This idea behind this type of swindle is that the con man collects his money from his second or third round of investors and then beats it out of town before anybody else comes around to collect.
These schemes typically only last weeks or months at most.
Well, what's the difference exactly in that and what's happening here?
Audio soundbite.
Let's start the top here.
This is CNN this morning.
American Morning Carol Costello interviewed Richard Trumka.
And they were talking about Jimmy Hoffa Jr.
His remarks at the Tea Party are sons of bitches who need to be taken out.
Costello said, listen to what Rush Limbaugh said about Hoffa's comments.
What is this?
When is Obama going to repudiate Hoffa?
Obama wrote it for Hoffa.
That's what she quotes me as saying to Trump.
Here's Trumka's reply.
I mean, look, that's what he does for a living.
He's an entertainer.
He's insidiary.
I mean, of all people to be talking about reconciliation, Rush Limbaugh, come on, cut me a break.
The guy's insider every day, and the truth never gets in his way.
Insidiary?
Is that what he said?
Insidiary?
I am insidiary every day.
What is that?
What does incendiary mean?
That's incendiary.
He said insidiary.
I've never heard of the word insidiary.
Oh, it's a new Democrat word, a cross between insidious and incendiary.
Okay, so I'm insidiary, and I'm back to being an entertainer.
Okay, same, no, different show, same network.
The anchor Kira Phillips spoke with Democrat strategerist and DNC member Robert Zimmerman about last night's debate.
She said, who had a better night, Perry or Romney?
If the goal is to play to the extreme right-wing fringe to win the nomination, then you've got to give the edge to Governor Perry last night with his attack on Social Security as a failure in a Ponzi scheme and his complete assault on science as a valuable or useful technology or a valuable and useful educational tool.
Basically, he's Rush Limbaugh with good hair.
Rick Perry, Rush Limbaugh with good hair.
I tell you what, I guarantee you, Rick Perry is complimented by that.
All right.
Well, the time is zipping by here.
Let me brief time out.
We'll come back, grab some phone calls, and we've still got audio soundbites from the debate, which, as I say, will afford me the opportunity for even more detailed, unique, you can't get it anywhere else, analysis.
Okay, to the phones we go.
We're going to start in Fort Worth, Texas with Arthur.
Arthur, great to have you on the EIB Network.
Hello.
Mega Dittos Rush, it's a pleasure to be on your show.
Thank you, sir.
I'm 65 years old, a senior citizen, and I'm just wondering why these politicians, pundits, and poo-bobs think that nobody can talk about Social Security because it'll scare the seniors.
What the hell is that idea?
I'm on the internet every day.
All my peers are on the internet every day.
We're informed.
We're involved.
That is so much balarkey, I just can't believe it.
Well, it stems from a 50-year plan, 50-year, not plan, this actual program.
Democrats have been accusing Republicans of wanting to take Social Security away from you for 50 years.
And over the years, Social Security recipients have believed it.
And they have been persuaded to vote Democrat on the basis of that charge.
Well, I believe those days are over now because, you know, we know something's got to be done about it or our children and our grandkids are just going to be SOL.
I think that's the situation too.
I think more and more seasoned citizens are very much aware of it.
Evidence is clear when you look at membership in the Tea Party.
But look, the point is, ladies and gentlemen, that I don't care who they are, they cannot deny the financial state of Social Security.
They cannot deny that they have destroyed it.
They cannot deny that it is a cash cow for other spending.
They cannot deny what the Social Security trustees themselves say.
So they attack anybody who says it's a Ponzi scheme or it's unsustainable.
And then they try to position themselves as defending it and seniors.
The very people who are destroying it and who refuse to fix it then set themselves up as its great defenders.
That's the point of all this.
Meanwhile, who is taking money out of Medicare?
Obama.
Who is destroying jobs?
Obama.
Who is destroying homeownership?
Obama.
Who is destroying the value of pensions and investments overall?
Obama.
Who is responsible for now an out-of-control escalation in the prices of health care?
Obama.
I say to all of you within the sound of my mellufluous voice, may well have been true that in years past, all of this irresponsibility in Washington was a joint effort.
But whatever went on in the past pales in comparison to what one man and his party have done in three years.
The problem is not only the Democrats, but the establishment Republicans.
The establishment Republicans join in trashing conservatives who want to actually fix this and other problems.
That even the establishment Republicans, for all their problems and weaknesses, are not destroying jobs.
Yes, it was Obama $500 billion out of Medicare in order to bring the cost of Obamacare under the magical mythical figure of a trillion dollars so that it could be scored in a bogus basis by the Congressional Budget Office.
We had the story yesterday that premiums are way up.
More and more people are losing their health insurance.
And we have only just begun to implement this program.
And the full damage is nowhere near being implemented yet.
Most of it won't happen until after 2012 or 2013, once Obama's no longer accountable for it.
The ruling class, which would include the establishment Republicans, tell us we can't talk about Social Security because they don't want us to talk about Social Security because they want to use that money when they get back in power for their own purposes.
Maybe insidiary, but that's the truth.
So this problem is real, and it's another reason why there is the Tea Party.
Responsible Americans who understand that what's going on is no longer sustainable.
Status quo can no longer be.
This is the fundamental problem that we have, ladies and gentlemen.
We conservatives, you and I, we argue over facts, ideas.
The left lies and appeals to emotion.
The establishment Republicans run for the hills at the first sign of any controversy or problems.
This is why our credit rating is downgraded.
This is why we dropped to fifth on the lists of great competitive societies as we have done now.
I can't tell you how livid that news made me yesterday.
The United States of America, number five.
Our economy is number five on the list of competitiveness.
We have to borrow over $1 trillion from the CHICOMs.
And we still have a president here who spends money as though we've got a surplus of incalculable trillions.
And we're borrowing trillions from the ChiComs.
And this is why the country is declining because these political hacks on the left in and out of the media are deceitful.
The question that Brian Williams should have asked last night, if he was truly serious, would have been, the Social Security trustees say the program's going broke and unsustainable.
The increase in elderly is such in this country that we do not have enough young people to pay for retiring seniors.
There really is no such thing as a trust fund with segregated monies, and there hasn't been for 50 years.
And the Democrats refuse to talk about any of this or look for reforms.
If you're president, how would you address it?
That's the Social Security question for anybody running for president.
Instead, we get, how do you sleep at night with all those executions in Texas?
Or we get, you wrote that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.
you really mean that?
So there are serious problems.
And we've got the media, the leftists totally circling the wagons here in order to protect Obama.
We borrow more than $4 billion a day.
A day, we borrow $4 billion.
I don't think the moderators last night asked one question about the deficit or our national debt.
It never crossed their minds because all they wanted at the end of that night was for the viewers to think the Republicans are killers, haters, racist bigots, all that rot gut garbage.
All that small-minded crap that they're incapable of thinking beyond.
Here, this is grabs down by number five.
This is Brian Williams framing the debate, no doubt just the way the White House wanted him to.
A majority of people in this country now believe the Republican policies of the first eight years of the past decade are responsible for the economic mess we're in.
And we should quickly add a majority also don't believe the current Democratic president has set the right policies to fix the fix we're in.
Question is, really, who can?
That's how the whole thing was set up.
It's all Bush's fault.
Eight years of Bush.
Well, Michelle Bachman was, you know, she said when she's president, she's going to get the price of gas back down to $2 a gallon.
And everybody's hem-hawing over that.
It was $1.76 a gallon when Obama was emaculated.
You know that?
You remember that?
$1.76 two and a half years ago.
But now we can't drill for our own oil.
We've got a moratorium.
We cannot explore, develop, produce our own energy.
We have a federal diktat against that.
We're not permitted as a country to add to our own energy supplies.
No, we have to continue to import it or what have you.
In large part because of the hoax that is climate change.
You look at all this stuff with Obama, green energy, this news that continues to pop out about this Cylindra bunch, this now turning out to be a totally fraudulent, phony hoax of a company.
Solar panel company.
They announced they're going out of business last week and the tears started flowing.
Oh, you can't compete with the TICOMs.
They have $503 million in federal loan guarantees or what have you.
Here's Newt last night at a debate.
John Harris said, Speaker Ginger said, it sounds like we have a genuine philosophical disagreement here.
In Massachusetts, a mandate, almost no one uninsured.
In Texas, a limited approach, about a quarter uninsured.
Who's got the better end of the argument here?
I'm frankly not interested in your effort to get Republicans fighting each other.
I, for one, I hope all of my friends up here are going to repudiate every effort of the news media to get Republicans to fight each other to protect Barack Obama, who deserves to be defeated.
And all of us are committed as a team.
Whoever the nominee is, we are all for defeating Barack Obama.
Run on.
There was a tremendous applause.
We, of course, edit the applause in the interests of time.
Back to the phone, Charlotte, Lancaster, California.
Hi.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Program.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you very much.
I want to get to it real quickly because I have so many points.
And so I'm going to probably sound really silly, but you've covered so much this morning.
I'm just so excited that you have covered these things with Social Security and all that and everything.
I think seniors, a lot of them, of course, your prior caller kind of helped me to understand that there are seniors out there actually that do understand the truth.
And we need to keep getting the truth out there because there are so many seniors that are scared to death because they're believing the lies that are being told.
We have not heard the truth in so long that we don't know it from the lies.
Let me tell you something, though, Charlotte.
I've been tracking this.
When I started this radio show, actually in Sacramento in 1984, I remember Alan Cranston, who at the time was dating Morgan Fairchild or something.
That was before Viagra.
So it must have been real.
Said that Republicans want to kick old people out of their homes by eliminating Social Security.
And back then, old people, senior citizens, believed it.
And for the years before that, they believed it.
That's all they had.
If all you've got is your Social Security check and a United States senator who you don't know other than he's a senator and therefore he has respect tells you that the Republicans want to take it away from you, you're not going to roll the dice that he may be lying to you.
You're going to believe him if that's all you've got.
Well, I've been tracking it over the years.
That has not been working.
In Florida, it is not electing Democrats.
We've got, you know, Florida's nickname is God's Waiting Room.
That means there's a lot of seasoned citizens here.
And the Democrats have been trying that technique in election after election, and Democrats are not getting elected here.
Well, I hope we keep getting that message out.
That's the point I wanted to make.
I just don't think it's working anymore.
Well, I know, I know.
But you know what?
The truth will prevail, and we need to keep it out.
Concerning the debate last night, right now, Perry is my choice.
And there's a lot of people up there that would be excellent, but I don't think they can win against Obama.
I really think, you know, and Palin, let me just put this out here real quickly.
Palin, I hope she doesn't get in.
I love her, but I hope she'll get behind whoever the nominee is and really help them because she has tremendous power for that in that area.
We really need to win this election in 2012, or we're going to lose our country.
And I hope people will take their eyes off of what the little marbles that the Democrats are throwing out there in front of everybody.
We need to take our heads out of the sand because we need to remember what part of our body is exposed when our head's in the sand.
And we need to stand and take this country back by getting someone in there.
Now, the people that are up there that are in Washington right now that make the statement, it's the way it's always been done in Washington, they need to get their pink slips.
We need to clean those people out of there.
And we need to get people, we need to send reinforcements for the Tea Party that are in there in the House.
We sent them up there, and that's great.
They're holding the line, but we need reinforcements to help them to change these things.
And they're getting beat up like crazy.
And I pray that the Republicans, the conservatives, the Tea Party, all of us together, will stand behind those people.
We're going to lose our country.
You know, Obama, the reason he's not involved in a lot of things is because he has people behind the scenes doing things to our country that we have no idea are what's going to happen until they become law.
Well, that's true.
And people better wake up to that or we're going to lose our beautiful, wonderful country that has been fought for through all these years.
I'm concerned about that rush, and I pray that we, the American people, we have one more chance.
We have one more chance to get our country back, and we better not blow this.
I agree with you, and I don't think we will.
I feel confident about it.
I'm going to be upfront, open, and honest and tell you, I feel confident about it.
I think if he elects you today, that Obama would lose in a landslide.
I don't think there's any question about it.
Now, 14 months is a long time.
And any number of things can and will happen unpredictably.
So it's be foolish to predict election results today.
But if it were 14 months out, if it were today, there's no way.
And everybody, the White House, they'd know it.
Their internal polls show it.
So I appreciate the call, Charlotte.
Thanks very much.
Folks, let me try this again.
If Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme, how about this?
How about the Social Security Administration refund us all the money that we've put into it and let those of us who want to fend for ourselves do so?
Like every dime I've put into Social Security, give it back.
And I'm going to assume total responsibility for it.
If I invest it and lose it, that's fine.
And at the end of my life, if it's gone, I'll live in the gutter.
But give me my money back.
And any and all of you who want to follow in this technique, just call the Social Security Administration and say, you have to pass a law for this, of course, but I'd like my money back.
I'd rather take care of it myself.
I don't want to be a burden to anybody else.
I don't want to have anybody's taxes have to support me.
So whatever I've put in, I'm 60, just give me the money back.
But they can't give us our money back because it isn't there.
Do you realize that?
Give us our money back.
Those who want out, give us our money back with interest.
See, if I go to the bank, if I go to the bank, I can take out my money.
If I own stock, I can sell the stock.
I can get my money.
Well, if Social Security has all these segregated funds, we all have our accounts and our money in it, then we all ought to be able to go get our money back to those of us who want our money with interest.
We should all write Obama, send him a demand letter, and insist on cashing out our contributions to Social Security with interest and insist that they cut each of us a check.
Do you think they would be able to, if that law were passed, that we could, do you think the money's there?
You think that there's an account with your name on it?
I know you get a letter from Social Security if you're nearing retirement age or a current recipient, but I'm here to tell you that there is no account with your money in it.
So if it isn't a Ponzi scheme, what is it?
As I say, it's involuntary.
Brief time out, as they all are, but we'll be right back.
Okay, next is Lyle, Illinois.
This is Bob.
Welcome, sir, to the EI.
Yeah.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks, long-time listener.
Can you hear me okay?
Yeah, I just, wait a minute here.
Bob just was handed here a CNN start a headline here.
Are jobs obsolete?
Who wrote this?
Douglas Rushkoff.
I never heard of Douglas Rushkoff.
It's a column.
I'm going to have to read this.
The point of this is that the whole concept of jobs may be obsolete in America now, which the most amazing attempt to excuse Obama I have yet seen.
But that's just that cursory glance.
Bob, I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
What was the point you were going to make?
Yeah.
Hi.
I just recently got an email that showed up a Social Security office in Texas, and there wasn't a gray hair in the place.
There was hundreds of people in the room, and they're all, you know, young people, different ethnicities, all the ethnic groups, and everything.
Here's the problem with the Social Security.
It's no different than anybody's pension.
If you look at the private sector and you look at the government sector, everybody gets some kind of pension.
Well, we get Social Security.
And yet, everybody gets put on Social Security.
They have disabilities and everything else.
I want to give you an example.
Let's say I was a school teacher for five years and then I got sick.
Well, I wouldn't be able to go to my teacher's pension and get a full pension because I didn't pay into it all the way.
But under Social Security, they get their pension or their payments through Social Security.
So what I'm saying is that there's a big inequity in the United States here that they're putting all people under disabilities and all kinds of other groups to collect under Social Security.
And that's hurting the people that actually have paid into the policy.
And then we have government agencies that are now saying that we have to wait till we're older to collect Social Security.
Well, how about these pensions that the government has?
How come they're not having to wait to collect their pensions or how come they're not going to take a hit?
You know, this actually is a good point here.
The little Bob from Lyle, Illinois is making.
You see a picture of the crowd at a Social Security office, and it's not a bunch of blue-haired gummers.
It's a bunch of young people in there trying to collect on their parents or grandparents under the guise of Social Security disability or what have you.
That's right.
It is.
Social Security has become a welfare program for a bunch of bottom feeders.
I'm not talking about the seasoned citizen population here.
No, that's right.
You go to any federal building or even state office building and take a look at who's in there and why.
They're all in there getting a check of some kind for some reason.
That's actually an excellent point.
The people drawing out Social Security funds are far more than just retired Americans.
Yeah, get this, folks.
America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working.
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