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Dec. 20, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
31:01
December 20, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Well, there he is, the Bamsters on television, ladies and gentlemen, all upset that nobody will go along with him on extending the payroll tax cut for the length of time that he wants it cut.
He's out there blaming the Republicans.
Of course, he thinks that's going to drive up his poll numbers.
He's sitting there.
He's all excited.
He's up to 50% job approval, and they're telling him this is why.
So he's out there hammering the Republicans again.
Now, the House Republicans want to cut the payroll tax for a year.
Senators of both parties don't.
And that's the bottom line today.
The senators of both parties only want to go two months.
Obama wants to go two months.
The House Republicans want to do this for the whole year.
So what's happened here, folks?
The House has rejected the Senate's two-month extension after the Senate rejected the House's one-year extension.
Now, everybody knows that the House plan on this is more rational and it's more economically sound.
But despite that, the Republicans are going to be blamed for this.
But I want to raise another point.
By the way, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh and the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute.
And it's great to have you with us.
Obama, stick with me on this.
Obama really wanted to cut the payroll tax by 4%, which experts say would have blown a hole of $250 billion in Social Security funding.
Now, what we're talking about here, the payroll tax cut extension, the payroll tax, FICA, on your pay stub, if you see it.
I need to ask a question.
Seriously, pardon my ignorance on this.
I just don't know.
Are any of you on the other side of the glass there, Dawn Snerdley?
Do you get paid with direct deposit?
Okay.
Where do you see what your deductions are?
Okay.
Okay.
The statement is sent to you in the mail or electronically.
Okay, but you get either electronically or in the mail.
But is it just like any other piece of junk mail that shows up?
Do you have to look at it?
I mean, is it something you normally look at every week to see how much you got paid and how much was withheld?
I mean, do people, my question is, when I'm sitting here saying payroll tax is FICA on your pay stub, do people know what I'm talking about?
Okay.
All right.
Good.
In the old days where you actually got paid with a check, you know, it had your deductions listed on there.
And that's back in the old day when I, I mean, the Brinks truck, that's get paid.
I get paid by Brinks truck.
So I don't, right?
You get it.
I know you get a statement, but is it, you know, I get, I get junk mail.
I don't even open because I know it's junk mail.
So I'm just, well, how many people look at these statements is what I'm saying because I'm sitting here.
I'm you, you, are you telling, yeah, that's what you know what your net is, but you don't know what your FICA deduction is.
What I'm asking is, is how many people know what that is?
I'm telling you that the vast majority of, I'm guessing, do not know what the number next to FICA is.
Okay.
Well, that's why I'm spending because the FICA deduction, if you got paid by electronic deposit, next time you get your statement, look at FICA.
That's your payroll tax.
And that is the sole funding mechanism for Social Security outside of borrowing and all the other rot gut.
I'm talking about the direct constitutional virtue of the law way that Social Security is paid for is with that one deduction on your paycheck.
FICA.
I don't remember what it stands for, and it doesn't matter.
Now, my point about this is, here you have a Democrat president who wants to cut the payroll tax by 4%.
He wants that large a tax cut in the payroll tax, which would blow a $250 billion hole in Social Security funding at a time when everybody knows that we're short on being able to pay all the obligations now.
We have reached the tipping point.
People who are receiving Social Security payments are now receiving more than they contributed.
That's not a knock.
I don't want to get any phone calls.
I don't want to hear it.
And we're getting to the point now where the youngsters in America know full well that it's probably not going to even be viable by the time they retire.
And yet here is a Democrat president advocating a huge tax cut in the sole funding mechanism for Social Security.
If this were a Republican president, folks, we wouldn't be having the argument about whether to extend it for two months or a year.
The Republican president would be in the process of being destroyed as somebody who wants to kick senior citizens out of their houses, deny them health care, force them to eat dog food.
This is so damn topsy-turvy.
The news media and the rest of the Democrats have managed to convince the American people that cutting Social Security funding by hundreds of billions of dollars is a good thing.
Meanwhile, when George W. Bush came along and wanted to privatize a portion of Social Security, or allow individuals to, so as to increase, maximize the returns, make their stash bigger, you remember the demagoguery.
Bush wants Social Security recipients to go broke.
Look at what happens in the stock market.
You want to turn it over to those Wall Street people.
It's not a get-rich-quick scheme for Wall Street people.
Now we have a Democrat president, Democrat Senate, doing everything they can to blow holes and underfund Social Security under the guise of a re-election tactic for the president and putting money in people's pockets.
Mr. Limbaugh, you're leaving off something very key.
And that is how the president is too big to pay for it.
There's no paying for it.
Raising taxes on millionaires, so forth.
There's no paying for this thing.
There never is any of this pay go stuff.
Never happens.
It never works.
Folks, this goes to show you two things.
The raw power of the media, but also the unrelenting power propaganda and the absolute lack of objectivity on the part of the news media covering this.
Because I am here to tell you that if anybody with a capital R beside their name were proposing a one-month cut, if he were a president in the payroll tax, my God, there would be an endless parade of seasoned citizens in Washington with pitchforks, and they'd be hunting down members.
Remember what they did with Rostinkowski in Illinois?
They surrounded his car, and that was over a tiny little Medicare thing.
I find this bizarre.
I find this truly bizarre.
And Obama's out there saying, well, we've got more important things to worry about politics right now.
And by that, he means his Hawaii vacation and his reelection.
Now, I'm going to tell you something else about this two-month business, and I'll make this a little selfish.
Like some Americans, I pay my taxes every, on average, three months.
Quarterly estimates.
The second estimate of the count of the year, that's the bear, because that comes in two months.
You make one payment.
For those of us that pay our taxes this way, on April 15th, we pay whatever we owe, and we always structure so that we owe a little.
You pay what you owe for the year you're filed.
Then you have your quarterly estimate for the first quarter of the current year.
And then two months later, you have the second.
And that June 15th estimate, that's a bear.
My point is, they're going to extend this.
They want to extend this payroll tax cut for two months, but it's an accounting nightmare for people who file quarterly estimates.
And there's a lot self-employed, entrepreneurs, contract hires, this kind of thing, independent contractors.
And this is what the report out yesterday said.
We can't implement this.
It's two months is not enough time to rewrite the software.
We just can't, this is nothing but a political football that's being kicked around.
And the House is the only place where there is a rational belief or policy involved here.
Senators of both parties want to cut payroll taxes for two months.
House Republicans want to cut payroll tax for the full year and just be done with it.
Now, for those of you who want to know, FICA equals the Federal Insurance Contributions Act.
And the FICA tax is 6.2%.
If you're self-employed, you pay the whole thing.
That's a mess.
I don't even want to get sidetracked on that.
But I really, we have here a Democrat president and a Democrat Senate cutting Social Security funding by $250 billion with a payment mechanism that doesn't exist.
There is no paying for this.
And people don't associate payroll tax cut with Social Security.
That's why I asked how many people know what the FICA number is in their pay stub or in their statement.
I find this literally amazing.
At any rate, Obama's out there really yapping on the Republicans.
Now Boehner's taking his term.
Our microphones are there.
If there's anything interesting being said here, we'll have it for you.
In the meantime, ladies and gentlemen, brief timeout, El Rushbo, cutting edge, don't go away.
Steve in Nogatis, Arizona.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Mega Christmas Dittos, Rush.
Congratulations on the new product line.
Thank you for the whole nine-yard.
Thank you very much, sir.
It's the 80s, and I really appreciate it.
By the way, at 54, because of your Hank Haney series, I took up the game of golf.
And so you inspired me, Rush.
But that's why I was.
Oh, geez.
Can I tell you something?
I really am sorry for you.
Oh, I didn't.
Do you realize the torment that you are now visiting upon yourself, trying to learn the game at 50?
It's tough.
I took the game, what was 1997?
So it's 46.
If you don't start playing this game in your teens or younger, the odds of getting really proficient at it are quite long.
So you best, you just need an avatar.
Need an avatud of just loving being out there and having the chance to smack the ball around.
I actually enjoy it.
As lousy as I am, I actually enjoy it.
Good.
That's not why I'm calling Rush.
I'm calling because I want to implore you.
I want to thank you.
And you had a caller similar to this weeks ago that begged you and implored you, made it seem like it was your duty and obligation to endorse a particular candidate.
I'm not going there.
I just want to implore you and beg you, Rush, to please consider getting on more TV shows than Greta Van Sustran.
I know you turn him down all the time.
Maybe you can do it from your studio, but Rush, you're the only one who can articulate the conservative positions.
There is one candidate who can articulate his positions, and he's real good at it, but I'm not sure he's my guy.
And so I'm just begging you as an American citizen to just please reconsider making your message broader through the television.
I know it's a pain.
I know that it creates all kinds of headaches for you, but Rush, your country needs you.
You know, I have heard.
I must react to this honestly.
Since this Greta appearance last week, I have, I don't mean to take away from what you said, but I've heard this from, I can't tell you how many people, that, gee, you know, you ought to do that more often.
Gee, you were really good.
You just look like natural.
You just got to do it more often.
I've never that in the CPAC speech.
But even this last Greta appearance, I've heard that more than ever before.
Even when I had my own TV show.
Why do I think...
Oh, why, why am, well, let me ask.
Steve, why now?
Why do I need to do more of it?
I mean, there's all kinds of people on television.
We're at a tipping point, Rush, and you know that.
We are at a tipping point where this country, if it doesn't make a right turn, we are going to go deep left.
And you see that in the education process.
This has been in the works by the left for years and years.
And, you know, they've got their guy in the White House now, and they've got the masses brainwashed.
But the conservative position makes logical sense.
And it's very difficult to argue with truth.
I think John Adams said, you know, facts are a stubborn thing to argue with, Rush.
It is your time.
And I'm just begging you as an American citizen.
I don't care about the candidates at this point.
Let the process work its way through.
But you're the only one who can articulate the conservative position.
And I know I've said that before, Rush, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
I am begging you, sir, to get out there because I know you turn down more offers than you take this time, Rush.
I have no idea.
I mean, do you really?
I appreciate that, but do you really?
There are all kinds.
Do you think I am saying are articulating conservatism better or however you describe it than the presidential candidates are?
Yes, sir, only because of the KISS method of selling.
And no offense to you, sir, but KISS, keep it simple, stupid.
You're able to describe it like a working-class guy like me can understand it.
And not only can I understand it, but I can also reiterate it when I'm faced with various liberal challenges from various liberal, you know, mindless robots.
And you just, you have a way.
It is a God-given talent, Rush.
You have a way of making the complex understandable.
And that, sir, is your gift.
And that's why for 20 plus years, I've been listening to you.
But I think it's time.
I think it's time that you just at least allow your positions to get out there because we literally, this country is on a tipping point, man.
And if it wasn't for guys like you, we're going to lose.
Well, that's pretty powerful.
That's a lot of, I mean, that's a lot of pressure.
You're putting a lot of pressure on me out there, Steve.
I mean, you're basically telling me that possibly, possibly, the fate of the country hinges on whether I do more TV.
First off, you can handle it.
And secondly, this just may be your higher calling from God.
It's not a question.
Cigar in my mouth.
Excuse me.
It's not a question of handling it.
I'm just not.
You should have seen what it took to do this.
And this was simple.
There was a crew in my studio for three hours setting that up.
Then there was the makeup, babe.
It's snurdly.
They have to bribe the staff.
I don't know.
The Haney show used by the Haney.
That took 10 hours per episode.
You know, maybe I ought to hire a couple black buses and do a mini tour using only the safest bridges.
By the way, I got a note from Greta Van Susteren last night telling me that they're going to rerun the interview.
By the way, they edited a few things out to get it to fit in the previous airing last Wednesday, the day we did it.
They're going to run a full hour on January 29th.
That's Thursday.
That's like a week from a week from this is Tuesday, right?
So it's a week from so nine days now, seven or eight days, whatever it is.
January 29th, they're going to rerun the whole thing at 10 o'clock.
Let's see.
David Axelrod, we mentioned this earlier in the program.
What?
You have what?
Tell what?
Consideration what?
I never.
Of course, I'm not going to commit to doing more television right now.
I appreciate the guy's call.
I thank him very much.
I probably.
It's not a Chris Christie answer.
I don't know if I'm going to do any more TV next year than I did this year.
So why should I sit there and commit myself to it if I don't know?
If I say, okay, folks, I'll be happy to do more TV.
You realize what's going to happen?
In the first place, the phone won't stop ringing.
I mean, we turn down every day.
We turn down every morning show.
Every day.
I think Stephanopoulos has stopped calling every day now.
But is that right, HR?
But it was for the longest time, it was every day.
And they didn't, there were no preconditions.
Just show up.
What a whole half hour?
I'll think about it.
I will take it under advisement.
Bill in Hampton, Virginia.
Let me go back to the phones.
Great to have you, sir, on the EIB network.
Hello.
Merry Christmas, Rush.
Same to you, sir.
Hey, I want to back up a little bit to your story about the high school lunches and your use of the term the black market.
Back alley lunches, black market back alley lunches, yeah.
Yeah.
I really think there's too much negative connotation that goes with that term.
And really, it really is the resiliency of the free market that no matter what the government tries to do to squash it, capitalism and free enterprise will...
That's an excellent point.
It actually was the free market triumphing over a command and control economy from the White House.
Absolutely.
You're exactly right.
We were having fun with the term back alley lunch.
I just love ramming liberals' terms right down their orifices, especially that one.
I just love back alley lunch.
But you're right.
It wasn't a black market.
It's the free market.
It's the kids saying, I want burger.
And look at, here's something else.
When they really want it, they'll find a way to pay for it.
If they really want it, here they have this free lunch of tofu garbage, whatever else Michelle Obama wants them to eat.
They don't want to eat that.
They are willing to pay free market prices for food they do want to eat.
Even though we're told that the children of America don't have any money and everybody's too poor, that's why the government has to pay for it.
School teachers, in that article, school teachers were caught selling so-called junk food to the kids.
The junk food being a hamburger or a slice of pizza.
Junk food, yeah.
But even teachers were caught getting in on the act.
But I'm told I said January 29th for the Greta Reapers.
December 29th.
It's nine days from now.
This is the 20th and it's the 29th, so it's a week from Thursday, not January 29th.
I'm going to replay it on December 29th.
I want to go, I got some audio sumbites I want to get to.
We found one from, oh, and I've got, may not have a chance to get to this today, but there are two things in this stack that I'm going to get to either today or tomorrow.
One, speaking of food, all of these myths, a guy has written a book about all the myths that are out there about food, about coffee being bad for you, carbs, all the stuff that's that.
And he's debunked all this stuff.
And I got that.
And then there's a website called economiccollapse.com.
And they have 50 economic numbers that'll shock you.
You know, we always have these end-of-the-year lists, the best, that, the best quote, people who died.
This is the 50 economic numbers that'll shock you or the legacy of the Obama era.
For example, number one, a staggering 48% of all Americans are either considered to be low income or are living in poverty.
Number two, approximately 57% of all children in America are living in homes that are either considered to be low income or impoverished.
I frankly, that just doesn't compute, but that's on the list.
This number three, I know is true.
We've used it.
If the number of Americans that wanted jobs was the same today as it was back in 2007, the official unemployment rate put out by the government would be 11%, not 8.9.
And there are 50 of these.
Number five, a recent survey found 77% of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers.
77%.
There are fewer payroll jobs in America today than there were back in 2000, even though we've added 30 million extra people to the population.
30 million additional people.
There are fewer payroll, 2 million fewer jobs just since Obama was emaculated.
That's one reason why the unemployment rate can go down when more and more people are out of work.
Anyway, got a piece here.
Mitt Romney, April of 2010, talking about Obamacare.
There are some similarities and there's some differences.
I like it.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Stop this again.
I forgot.
He's comparing Romney care to Obamacare.
He's been asked to compare Romney care to Obamacare.
That's the proper setup for this.
There are some similarities and there's some differences.
I like some of the similarities.
I dislike most of the differences between my plan and their plan.
The similarities are that we have an incentive for people to become insured and the incentive works.
We have 98% of our citizens in Massachusetts that are insured.
So that's working.
Another similarity is you can't be denied coverage, insurance coverage, if you have a pre-existing condition.
Or if you change jobs, you don't need to worry about losing your insurance.
So our insurance is entirely portable.
Those are perhaps the most important or well-known similarities.
The differences, one is our plan was a state plan.
I believe in federalism.
I believe the 10th Amendment gives to the states the right to create their own health insurance programs rather than have the federal government intrude on the rights of states.
That's number one.
So some similarities, some differences, and I hope we're ultimately able to eliminate some of the differences, repeal the bad, and keep the good.
Now, this is from 2010.
Did you catch something important here?
See, Romney is being twisted, or he's twisting himself into a pretzel in the campaign because he's saying, Obamacare, got to go.
It's horrible.
And the first thing I'm going to do is repeal it.
And they say, well, what's bad about it?
Because it looks just like yours.
There's all kinds of differences.
I don't need to get into them now, but there's all kinds of.
And we've had Romney's people that put together his health plan say it's identical to Obama.
In fact, Romney Care was the model for Obamacare.
Romney's one of people saying so.
So as part of the Republican primary contest, or people have been trying to point out, wait a minute, Romney has not been really forthcoming about this.
So this bite has been discovered.
And Snerdley caught it.
The similarities in Obamacare and RomneyCare, he named two that he likes, and one of them is the mandate.
He says here, the similarities are that we have an incentive for people to become insured.
That's the mandate, and the incentive works.
98% of our citizens in Massachusetts are insured.
So when he's asked about that today, for example, what does he say?
Well, let's go back to September.
He's in Orlando, this Fox News channel.
It's a debate.
Chris Wallace said, Governor Romney, the other day, Governor Perry called Romney Care socialized medicine.
He said it's failed in Western Europe and in Massachusetts.
And he warns that Republicans should not nominate his words, Obama Light.
How do you respond to Governor Perry?
Obamacare intends to put someone between you and your physician.
It must be repealed.
And if I'm President of the United States, on my first day in office, I will issue an executive order which directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to provide a waiver from Obamacare to all 50 states.
That law is bad.
It's unconstitutional.
It shall not stand.
Okay.
So the reason people keep bringing this up is that you can go back to just last year and you can hear Romney totally supportive of the mandate, which is what the entire question of constitutionality on this bill is all about.
That's what's going to be decided, the Supreme Court.
There's Romney supporting it.
But when he's asked about it, I'm going to get rid of Obamacare.
It's a horrible.
2009.
There's some things I like about it.
This is, it just goes to the flip-flop nature or the flip-flop charge, if you will.
Now, I must also point out that it's a lib site that keeps bringing this stuff up.
Talking Points memo.
Talking Points memo, but at Talking Points memo, they said that the guy that actually digs this stuff up, I'm having a mental block on his name.
Talking Points memo is run by a guy, Joshua Micah Marshall, or Micah Joshua, Josh Marshall, big lib.
And there's a guy that they're crediting for digging this stuff up that they say is a Republican Operation Research guy.
He's 23 years old.
And I can't for the life of me remember his name now.
But while the so-called Republican opposition research guy is digging this stuff up by watching C-SPAN, that's what he's doing.
He's just looking at all these C-SPAN archives, finding this stuff.
It gets posted at Talking Points Memo, which is a leftist blog.
It's the website of the Center for American Progress, which is John Podesta.
And I mean, it is out there.
So Andrew Kaczynski is the guy's name.
Andrew Kaczynski, 23 years old, is the guy that they credit as a Republican opposition research guy who's finding all this Romney stuff.
This is just one Romney bite at this site.
Now ask yourself, this isn't Newt Gingrich doing this.
This isn't Michelle Bachman doing this.
This is essentially Obama doing this.
I mean, the Center for American Progress Talking Points memo, they are invested in Obama winning reelection.
They are the ones finding this stuff out.
They are the ones.
This is why I've always said, and the establishment thinks I'm full of it.
Conventional wisdom people think I do not know what I'm talking about, that I'm just, I'm so inexperienced in real politics, and I'm just such a novice that when I say I think the White House really wants Romney as the non-they think, you don't know what you're talking about.
You're stupid.
Romney's the only guy you can beat him.
That's good enough to Romney.
What they really want is Newt or the latest non-Romney.
But I think Occupy Wall Street, and I think this, I think they're gearing up for Romney.
They have been from the get-go.
Now, we're going to be doing Open Line Friday on Wednesday tomorrow because tomorrow is our last day here.
So you might want to get ready for that as we look forward to the future.
The day before, the day before Christmas Eve.
And look at this from CNN.
If Congress fails to pass an extension of the payroll tax holiday, it would put a serious dent into economic growth in 2012 and could even tip the U.S. back into recession.
Are you kidding me?
A 2% cut to payroll tax?
They don't do it.
We'll throw us back.
Not doing a tax cut, will throw us into a recession.
This is what CNN wants us to believe.
Unbelievable.
See you tomorrow.
Can't wait.
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