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Oct. 25, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:46
October 25, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
Time for broadcast excellence, hosted by me, L. Rushbow.
Often imitated, often copied.
Never equaled.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, the email address.com.
A couple big things here from the uh New York Times.
Well, not big things, but some things I just want to take care of at the outset from the New York Times blog, The Caucus by Jim Rutenberg.
A uh a reporter I should I should point out that we have praised over the years at the New York Times.
Any notion that Herman Cain was going to fade into the background as Governor Rick Perry and Mitt Romney took center stage after last week's debate can be dispatched with.
The Herman Cain campaign announced in a statement yesterday that it was beginning a 50 state radio campaign running on the single most important force in conservative talk radio, the Rush Limbaugh Show.
It's actually 57 states.
But who's counting?
So you will be hearing Herman Kane commercials on the program.
He is a 50 state by virtue of this program.
And uh when you when you hear that, don't it doesn't imply an endorsement.
We're not doing that.
We're just business people here.
And uh candidate Kane said, we want to buy some time on your program.
We said fine and dandy.
What?
I did not endorse Romney.
Who said I endorsed Romney?
No.
Yeah, yeah.
It was that it was not a guy on the email.
It was a woman that was mad at me for criticizing Romney.
Now, anyway, the the Herman Cain commercials will start soon.
It doesn't mean that we've endorsed Herman Cain, and it doesn't mean that we're not going to talk about anybody else.
You know, Romney can buy some time.
Uh uh Rick Perry can buy some time.
Uh if if they wish.
I just don't want anybody to think here that uh the fact that one of the candidates has purchased time means that we have endorsed or have well, of course I haven't.
Haven't endorsed anybody yet.
Uh and accepting Mr. Kane's advertising does not mean that we have.
As it so happens, Rick Perry has his uh uh months in the making, weeks in the making plan out today.
We're gonna be talking about it a bit, uh, as as we would do regardless uh whether candidate cane had purchased uh advertising time on the uh on the program or not.
Uh so I just wanted to get that straight here at the at the top of the program because many people might make assumptions that that would uh end up being incorrect.
In fact, I'm just as on the fly.
I don't even know what I'm doing.
Mike, do you have a Herman Cain commercial standing by?
Does it start today by any chance?
Yeah, call up.
Well, just we always we always welcome uh new advertisers here to the program with a just like we did when I began advertising.
Uh two of by T. We uh I gave myself a welcome to the program.
What are you looking at me like that for?
I just want to get this out of the box.
I just want.
I I do not I don't care what happens.
Don't care what happens.
We're doing this.
Herman Kane is an advertiser just like everybody else's.
You got one of Herman's spots ready.
All right, here it is.
I haven't even heard him yet.
I had other people approve him.
Here it is.
999 means jobs, jobs, jobs.
I'm Herman Kane, a candidate for president, and I approve this message.
But Obama doesn't.
My 999 plan creates six million jobs.
Obama doesn't want you to know because he doesn't want me to win.
Go to 999 means jobs.com and help me defeat Obama.
And Uprising has me leading an hour.
But I need you.
Please donate $9 or 999.
Every gift counts.
999 means jobs.com.
Paid for by friends of Herman Kane Inc., thank you.
And that's uh sample Herman Kane commercial as part of his 50 state buy.
It's a very efficient way to advertise in all 50 states is to advertise on um on this program, the single most important force in conservative talk radio, according to the New York Times.
Well, there you have it.
So in the and again, uh uh Perry's economic plan is out, and it's good.
I like Rick Perry's plan.
In fact, folks, I want to make a point about something since we're brought this up here.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'm not endorsing anybody here.
I'm just telling you, I like Perry's plan.
We've got audio sound bites of Perry being grilled on the plan on CNBC.
Uh and we'll let you hear those as the program unfolds.
But I want to talk about the conservative Republican media intelligentsia.
These are the people who were dead wrong when the Arab Spring popped up.
These are the people who could not have been more incorrect.
They told us what was happening in Egypt.
Marvelous, wonderful.
It's an outbreak of democracy, and we need to get behind it, and we need to support it.
All the while Obama was trying to get out in front of it and make it look like what was happening in Tariq Square was just an extension of his campaign from two thousand eight.
The conservative intelligence on our side doing much the same thing.
Uh claiming that the Arab Spring was this wonderful uh uh breakout of democracy that we should uh we should support.
And they're dead wrong.
They're dead wrong about what the Arab Spring was.
Now we've got Sharia law that's going to be enforced in Libya.
Sharia law probably is going to become the law of the land in Egypt.
The enemies of Israel are lining up and joining forces.
Now my point is our conservative intelligentsia was as wrong as they could be, and yet they continue to pass judgment on all of these candidates.
Herman Cain, Michelle Bachman, uh Rick Santorum, Rick Perry.
And they and specifically when talking about Herman Cain, what they're they're claiming that Herman Cain doesn't have the slightest idea what he's talking about with foreign policy.
And Herman Cain's an embarrassment.
At Herman Cain not qualified to be president, all he did was run company, but he's never been in politics, which is a business, and his uh is his qualifications on foreign policy are very, very dubious.
And who are who's saying this?
The people who totally missed what this Arab Spring is all about.
The so-called experts on our side who are told us get behind it.
It's an outbreak of democracy over this is a wonderful thing, an extension of the Bush policy.
It's a rock flowering in a democracy in Egypt.
And so it's not it's the outbreak of Sharia law throughout that region.
So our intelligentsia, and not to drum it home, and I don't want to be redundant here to the point of boredom, but these are the people set themselves up as lofty experts claiming Herman Cain to know what he's talking about.
He's not qualified, or Romney or not Romney.
They're not criticizing Romney.
Cain, uh uh Santorum, Perry, Bachman, they don't know what they're talking about, and neither do the people who are criticizing them.
And I think it's an important point to make.
Same people who were wrong about the debt ceiling.
They told us we ought to go along with a debt ceiling.
They told Boehner, no, no, no, no, don't fight Obama on this.
We've got to raise the debt ceiling.
We have to do it.
The same people who attacked the Tea Party.
Talk radio, conservatives.
Said we gotta go along.
You know, let let Obama and and and Boehner come to an agreement here on the debt deal.
Okay, so where did that take us?
So we got this super committee, which uh has as part of its task either raising five hundred billion dollars in revenue or cutting five hundred billion dollars in defense, which is a disastrous choice and a huge trap, and this is what our own experts gave us.
And they tell us after a series of blunders that they've made, misjudgments that they've made, they sit there and pass judgment on these candidates Who are actually presenting some pretty good ideas compared to what we're dealing with, compared to what we've got in the White House.
What they ought to be talking about is the poor judgment of Obama.
They lack a qualification of Obama, the lack of competence of Obama instead of ripping our own people.
That they're ripping our own people because they're ripping conservatives and they're not conservative, even though they want everybody to think that they are.
I mean, fine, if you want to question Herman Cain's foreign policy, qualifications, and credentials, cool.
But let's talk about yours at the same time.
Arab Spring, Outbreak of Democracy.
Where is it?
Didn't quite happen that way.
Sharia law now looks like it's going to end up being a law of the land in Libya.
Now we have some really good proposals coming from Herman Cain and now Rick Perry pushing forward a flat tax.
In either case, both of them are talking about serious tax reform, limited federal intrusion via the IRS.
And the same crowd is attacking this stuff on the basis that it's too simplistic or joining the critics of the left when they say that certain people who don't pay taxes will not who continue to not pay taxes, going on and on and on.
And what it really boils down to is that certain elements of our own intelligentsia are making the case, defending big chunks of the status quo.
Because they like big government and they like an active executive, quote unquote.
And they they like their turn in charge of the money.
We have we have some conservatives running for president who are proposing serious, substantive, compelling ideas for addressing big problems, and they are,
of course, set upon by the usual liberal suspects, but they also are hit on by Republican operatives, so-called conservative strategists and so forth, on the basis that, well, they don't know who they did an inexperience, uh, lack of qualifications, uh, really, I really don't know what they're talking about.
And of course, they're not infallible themselves.
I can continue to point out areas in analysis where they themselves have been wrong, and yet they continue to occupy these lofty perches of wise men.
They and only they know, and yet they're not right either.
I just wish that people on our side could get unified and understand that the problem is not Herman Cain, the problem's not Rick Perry, the problem's not Rick Santorum, the problem is not any of our people, the problem's Barack Obama.
And what he has done so far to this country and what he will continue to do if given the chance.
So a brief timeout, we'll come back and what?
What?
No, I'm I haven't gonna go to Washington anytime soon, and I I if I if I I don't see these people when I go there anyway.
And by the way, have I mentioned any names?
How do you even know who I'm talking about?
Yeah, you might think I uh you know who I'm talking about.
Uh anyway, let me get brief timeout here, my friend.
Sit tight.
We uh brief timeout, obscene profit timeout, and we'll be back and continue right after this.
I do.
I think the focus ought to never leave Barack Obama.
But our inside the beltway intelligents seems fit to have to go out and attack Perry or Cain, say, Bachman, unqualified, unprepared, don't know what they're doing when any of them would be a 2,000% improvement over Obama.
Who is what?
Barack Obama is the least experienced, even after two and a half years in office, the least experienced, because he learns nothing.
His ideas are unworkable, his policies are stupid.
His ideas are naive and dangerous.
His record is a disaster.
He is the most unqualified, irresponsible, disastrous candidate, not the conservatives, not the people on our side running for office.
They are such a step and cut above Obama.
It's laughable.
Now let's take a look at Santorum.
Rick Santormi, just as an example.
He's way down in the polls.
But other than the liberals and the inside the Beltway conservative intelligentsia, most of us know full well, he'd be a very good president.
Far superior to Obama.
His views on economics, the judiciary, very sound.
Yet he's attacked.
Michelle Bachman.
She's trailing in the polls, but she's solid.
She was among the first to build opposition against Obamacare in the House.
She was a leader, the Tea Party rally, she's articulate, and she's right about virtually everything she said respecting domestic and foreign policy.
She'd be a very good president, especially compared to what we've got now.
Newt.
Successful Speaker of the House, big, solid ideas, would be a very good president.
Rick Perry just came out with what I think is a really good tax reform plans, not unlike Steve Forbes' plan in the past.
He's got an energy plan that would unleash our own vast resources.
He would make a very good president.
Herman Cain is not just an experienced businessman.
He's a brilliant businessman.
He turned around failing franchises and companies.
He is both intuitively and substantively conservative and would be a very good president.
And Herman Cain has also begun the great debate about tax reform with his 999 plan.
Which to me is not something to sneer at and laugh at.
It's refreshing.
It's necessary.
It's long overdue if we're serious about all of this, and we are.
There's so much to like about all this.
Now, this, nevertheless, this group of people that I have just highlighted here...
These people, we're told that they are the inexperienced, uninformed, inarticulate, weak conservative candidates, repeatedly attacked by the liberals, repeatedly attacked by the media, and in some cases, attacked by the Republican establishment.
But at the end of the day, I would trust any of these conservatives serving as president of the United States.
I would trust any of them.
I would be confident with any of them.
I would be happy with any of them.
And furthermore, I am certain that this country would be reinvigorated if any one of them were president.
Major reinvigorated.
And I have no doubt, by the way, folks, that the liberals, the media, and even some in the Republican establishment would despise their presidencies.
But that's good.
That's not a bad thing.
That's not that's not a disqualifying fact.
Just because the Washington establishment, I don't care what party they're in, just because they oppose this, just because they wouldn't be happy, who cares?
Any one of these people would be such a vast improvement over what we have now.
And they've all thrown their hat in the ring.
They've all taken the plunge, they've all been willing to take the media anal exam.
They all think that there is a desperate need for what they have to offer.
And the people criticizing them are no better than they are.
The people criticizing them don't have any better records when it comes to foreign policy or domestic policy than these candidates do.
The difference is the candidates have accountability.
The critics don't.
Nobody holds them, nobody even remembers.
When their criticisms have been incorrect or erroneous, or what have you.
Now I've not mentioned Romney in this.
I don't want anybody get upset.
I haven't mentioned Romney because he's not being attacked.
Romney's not being attacked as an inexperienced conservative ideologue, et cetera, et cetera.
All these other people are.
Newt, Perry, Kane, Bachman, Santorum, they're all being attacked as inexperienced or unqualified.
Or they they come up short in one area or another.
Foreign policy, domestic policy, or what have you.
But I didn't mention Romney, and I didn't leave him out on purpose.
I just didn't mention him because he's not a target.
Nobody's attacking Romney.
But this constant refrain that the Republican field is weak compared to the brilliant and vibrant Obama Biden team.
I can't sit by while that takes hold.
That's something that needs to be constantly vigorously challenged.
We got the most incompetent, dangerous group of people running this country in my lifetime and beyond.
And anybody on our side seeking to displace them would be a two thousand percent improvement.
Rick Perry announced his uh tax plan today, which I'll go on record as saying I. Furthermore,
eliminating the tax on dividends and capital gains would immediately add trillions of dollars in new wealth to the economy, benefiting all Americans.
Perry clearly understands that revitalizing the economy should start with a complete overhaul of a tax code that's nearly choked economic growth to death.
Conservatives looking for a champion to carry the banner of a pro-growth tax reform will surely rally behind the proposal of Rick Perry.
Now, the president of Club for Growth, uh, Chris Chocolo also took a jab at Romney in his statement.
He said, quote, it's disappointed Governor Romney has yet to embrace a flat or fair tax.
He would be wise to avoid using class warfare when comparing his current proposals to those of Governor Perry or Herman Keane, Chocolate added, talking about Romney.
Here's David Rodham Gergen this morning on CNN's newsroom.
The uh the host here is Joe Johns.
He said, uh Mr. Rodham Gergen.
Politically, when you listen to this, is this the sort of a hail marry pass for the Perry campaign?
He's dropped in the polls.
And now he has to get back in the game, doesn't he?
It comes along with a sweeping bold, I would say radical plan.
Some would even call it breathtaking.
We ought to talk about the content of this plan because it is one of the most dramatic proposals we've heard in a major presidential campaign in some years.
It could revitalize his campaign.
Clearly that's what he intends.
This Perry plan is likely to be very well received among Tea Party types, and on the right of the Republican Party.
It's going to catch hell from the left.
Because when you look at it, it can easily be painful because it is.
It's a windfall for the wealthy.
This is going to drop the net revenue for the government.
How is the Perry going to deal with that?
He's going to hold spending down to 18% of GDP.
We haven't been anywhere close to 18% now for some years.
What does that mean for a lot of government services are going to go away?
This is why a lot of people are going to like it.
It is a return to fiscal sanity.
We don't have the money we're spending now.
We're broke.
Look at our annual deficit.
Look at the national debt.
If something isn't done about this in a major way, not just tinkering around the edges, you know, taking the top rate from 35 to 38% or 35 to 30%.
That's not going to make any difference.
Raising the retirement age to 67 from 64, whatever, that's not going to make any appreciable difference.
There has to be genuine structural systemic change here.
If we're serious about this.
And this is my point.
We have a we have a bunch of candidates who are dead serious about this with their proposals.
And measured against the status quo, of course they're radical.
But what's truly radical is destroying the country.
What's truly radical is destroying the private sector, which is what is being done now.
That's what's radical.
Perry Kane, Bachman, Newt, you name it.
Their proposals are not radical.
They're salvational.
They're only radical if you compare it to the status quo.
Would it be radical to say let's go back to spending levels of the Clinton years?
Everybody was happy then.
Boom times, everybody says the Clinton years, whoa, let's duplicate that.
Look at raised taxes, we had economic growth, we had surplus fine.
Let's go back to those spending levels.
We did fine, right?
How about the spending levels of 2006?
Everybody was fine then.
Oh no, no, no, can't do that.
We can't possibly do that.
Look at the numbers we had yesterday of growth in the government sector, the wealthiest county in America, suburban Washington.
Most everybody that lives there earns twice what people in the private sector earn.
Unemployment in that area is single digits.
Three to four percent.
They all work for the government.
Who pays them?
People that don't have jobs anymore, people who can't find jobs, people whose homes are underwater.
You want to talk about what's radical?
Obamaism is radical.
What's radical is what Obama has done and his party and continues to do.
That is what's radical.
What we're talking about here is a return to sanity.
Herman Cain's plan does it.
Perry's plan at least gets us talking about it.
And the shock and the oh no, we can't do that reaction that we're getting from inside the beltway elitists ought to tell you everything you need to know about it.
The establishment from both parties wants no part of any of these serious reforms.
Government spending was at 18% during the Reagan Revolution.
It's been a long time.
But we got by.
We had massive economic growth in the private sector.
We had employment going up.
We had inflation going down.
People thought it wasn't possible for those two things to happen at the same time.
But they did.
So what's everybody all in a tizzy about?
Well, Perry was on CNB, the CNBC this morning's squawk box.
And John Harwood was interviewing him.
Harwood said, look, by uh by cutting the top rate to 20%, it's a flat rate.
You can opt out.
You've got two possibilities with the Perry plan.
You can either choose a tax rate of 20% or the rate that you were paying previously.
So if your tax rate was 15%, you can choose that.
If your tax rate was 35%, you can choose that.
Or you can choose the 20%.
What do you think people would do?
And this is where they're bugged.
That's that's why David Rodemgurg and all these other people say it's nothing more than a big bone to the rich.
So the question By cutting the top rate to 20%, eliminating dividends and capital gains, interest income taxes.
That's uh that's providing a huge tax cut for wealthy people in the country.
Given what's happened with income inequality, why is that a good idea, Perry?
We're trying to get this country working again, and that's what I focus on.
As a matter of fact, as we looked and as we talked and as we went through what are the ways to really get incentives to those that are going to risk their capital to create the jobs.
I mean, this country's got 14 plus million people out of work.
And uh I want to get that money back out into the economy where people have confidence that they can have a return on their investment, and they'll hire individuals, and that's what this is really all about.
Those that want to get into the class warfare and talk about, oh my goodness, there are gonna be some folks here who make more money out of this or have access to more money.
I'll let them do that.
Harwood won't let go, though.
He says, wait a minute.
What for those people at the top, it's hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of dollars for them.
But I don't care about that.
What I care about is them having the dollars to invest in their companies to go out and maybe start a business because they've got the confidence again that they actually get to keep more of what they work for.
Uh, this idea that we've got to have a tax system in this uh country where you take more away from those that have the ability to create jobs.
I'm all about job creation.
That's what I've done for 10 years as the governor of Texas, and that's what I'm focused on.
So I'll take that criticism because what I'm interested in is getting Americans working.
I kind of like that answer, folks.
I don't care about that, Mr. Harwood.
I don't care about your template.
I don't care about your BS that my plan's gonna result in the rich having more money because I'll tell you what, what I care about is those people having money to grow their businesses and start their businesses and hire people.
What I care about is jobs, Mr. Harwood.
I don't care about the government getting bigger.
I don't care about that.
I love that.
I don't care about that's not what this is about.
I'm not trying to throw a bone to the rich.
I'm trying to get money returned to the private sector from the public sector.
I'm trying to get money back out of Washington back to Main Street.
And that's what Herman Cain's plan is all about.
Any of our people that have an economic plan, I'll guarantee them to you that's what their plan's about.
Their plan is about refueling the private sector.
Restocking it with capital, if you will, because you know, Biden's running around talking about rape.
Let me tell you has been raped.
The private sector of this country has been raped by the Obama administration.
They have been held up.
We have been held up.
Our capital is in Washington, and it continues to go to Washington, where it is redistributed to people who are going to send it back to Democrats in the form of campaign contributions.
Money laundering is the essence of union support of Democrat candidates of the Democrat Party.
So Harwood says, Will, you mentioned class warfare.
In 1996, when your advisor Steve Forbes was running on a flat tax, Mitt Romney says it was a tax for the fat cats.
I would say that he ought to go look in the mirror, I guess.
I consider him to be a fat cat.
He ought to go look in the mirror.
I consider Romney to be a fat cat.
So then Harwood and Governor Perry have this exchange.
They're talking about Trump and his questions about Obama's birth certificate.
It's a good issue to keep alive.
You know, Donald's got to have some fun.
But are you saying that your comments about that are kind of a joke?
Or do you seriously have an unresolved question Donald Trump has about this?
I don't have a clue about who are the president and what this uh uh birth certificate says.
But it's also a great distraction.
I don't have a clue.
I frankly don't care.
As long as Donald Trump's having fun, that's all I need.
I'm trying to get people back to work.
I don't know where Obama was born, and at this stage, I don't care what his birth certificate says.
I want to get people back to work.
Here is Perry himself, Grey Court, South Carolina, a portion of his remarks.
The size of the current code is more than 72,000 pages.
That's represented by this palette right over here and that and the reams of paper.
That's what the current tax code looks like.
The best representation of my plan is this postcard.
This is the size of what we're talking about right here.
Taxpayers will be able to fill this out and file their taxes on that.
Right, and one final bite.
It's the kind of economic stimulus that President Obama could have achieved if he wasn't so hell-bent on passing big government schemes that have failed American workers.
Okay.
All right.
So that's Rick Perry and uh and his plan.
Uh basically flat tax 20% opt-out.
If you don't like it, pay the tax you're paying now.
Uh and uh with the with a focus here on you know, I I Mr. Harwood, I don't care.
You tell me the rich are gonna end up with more.
I don't care about that.
That's not the point.
The point is I want money back in the private sector.
That's where people get hired.
That's where people's lives expand.
That's where people's prosperity exists, and we've got to be get the money, capital back from Washington in the private sector, and that's what I care about.
And we'll be back.
Don't go away.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh here on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
Let's grab a phone call very quickly as we navigate toward the conclusion of this hour.
This is uh Rob in Chicago.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Oh, thank you so much.
Much rush.
Uh please excuse me, I'm a little nervous here.
I understand that.
Uh most people are talking to me.
Okay.
Sir, the uh reason I'm calling is the uh uh the Democrats, they constantly redefine what the definition of rich is.
Okay, currently their idea of rich would be a teacher and a fireman, or a construction worker and a nurse.
How in the blue blazers are we?
Actually, you know, we I ran some numbers on this, and they really are very consistent at this guy.
I went back to 1984.
In 1984, it's a Democrat National Convention in San Francisco, Walter Mondel promised to raise taxes on the rich, and back then it was defined as um anybody earning sixty thousand dollars a year.
Well sixty thousand dollars won't buy you much anymore.
Well, but but sixty thousand dollars today is roughly a hundred and twenty-four thousand.
And if you add that with two people in a house, you get two hundred and fifty grand, so it really hasn't changed.
Um uh if the the household income is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to that that's the new definition of rich.
It's pretty much consistent.
I mean, there's some variables here that uh don't make it exact, but it's pretty pretty consistent.
Their idea of what's rich.
But your your overall point is um is exactly right.
The time you start adding household income of various professions, we're not talking about rich at all.
What we're talking about.
Middle class.
We're talking middle class exactly, and we're talking about the federal government, the Obamas, the Democrat Party doing everything they can to eliminate upward mobility within the the uh middle class.
The the income tax is the greatest prevention, preventer of the accumulation of wealth in our society.
Rush, if you'd allow me, I'd like to make two points.
One is that the greatest enemy of the communist party, per se, is the middle class.
And two is that the biggest lie in the Democrat lexicon is middle class tax cut.
True.
But your point is.
That is my point.
Those are my points.
But what are you saying?
The Democrats try to wipe out the middle class.
Exactly.
Exactly.
They are they're doing everything they can to limit upward mobility of people in the middle class.
While speaking as their champions, while claiming to be the champion of the little guy, the middle class, the working man.
The Democrat Party's doing everything they can to stagnate the middle class.
Because you're right, middle class upward mobility.
Great, great threat to the Democrat Party.
That means people will move out of a state of dependence.
Quick timeout, folks.
Sit tight back with more after this.
Another exciting hour of broadcast excellence is in the can.
It's middle class jobs that are the jobs that are being destroyed.
Middle class education being dumbed down to the point that people in the middle class are not being educated to be upwardly mobile.
This is not a coincidence, and it can't be denied.
Sit tight.
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