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Dec. 28, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:57
December 28, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24 7 Podcast.
You know, you do this show long enough, you start to figure a few things out.
I finally figured out the deal with Bo Snerdly.
And I figured out why you've been with Rush as long as you've been.
You are the troublemaker.
That's your that's your entire role here.
Anyway, he finds me.
I've got to address what happened in yesterday's show at some point, but before we do any, I've got the most amazing story to lead the program with.
And I didn't find this.
This should be in every newspaper in America.
Everybody who hears this story who didn't already know it is going to be your jaw is going to drop at this.
You have to be of a certain age.
I I guess to get it.
Some the Associated Press.
I'm just going to read this straight.
Go back to my old radio newsman days.
A Florida Animal Sanctuary says Cheetah the chimpanzee sidekick in the Tarzan movies of the early 1930s has died at age 80.
The Sun Coast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor announced that Cheetah died December 24th of kidney failure.
Who knew Cheetah was alive?
That's astonishing to me.
Cheetah wasn't dead.
Now let's start with it.
Who knew chimpanzees live to be 80?
Did you know that I I if you would have asked me, I would have guessed maybe 30, 35.
What do I know?
You know, dogs make it to 15 or 16 if they're really, really well.
Cheetah was alive.
I mean, you have to be of a certain age to understand this whole thing.
The Tarzan movies, I don't think any kid ever saw Tarzan any time other than Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon.
That was the only time they ever ran them on television.
They weren't any good, but they were the only thing that was on.
This was back in the days in which you had maybe three or maybe four or five TV channels to choose from, and that's all there was.
And Tarzan was this guy who lived out in the jungle, and he what was Jane?
Was Jane his wife or his girlfriend or what?
Common law wife, we assume.
They never really explained that because in order to explain what the relationship with Jane was, we'd have to explain what boy was.
Anyway, there was this champ, Cheetah.
Now we find out it was actually the same chimp in every one of the Tarzan movies.
They didn't have like 19 different cheetahs.
You know, there were like five or six Arnold Ziffles, but there was only one cheetah.
He's alive.
I mean, Tarzan's been dead for what, 50 years?
Jane's dead?
Boy is dead.
Cheetah was alive.
Cheetah had bad PR.
Wouldn't you have thought that wherever the sanctuary is would have been able to milk this for a little bit more than this blows me away.
You know there's that website, Dead or Alive, where you can check on whether or not somebody that you haven't heard about from a lot for a long time is dead or alive.
Usually very, very comes in handy for any member of the Grateful Dead.
Cheetah, I you could have given me 500 names, and I would have guaranteed you that Cheetah would have had to have been dead, and I would have thought, I would have thought he would have died sometime around.
You know, D-Day, 1944.
So anyway, Cheetah is dead.
Now let me move on to this one.
Have you seen the footage from North Korea of the funeral procession to beat all funeral processions?
Again, I'm dating myself here.
I remember the funeral procession for President Kennedy.
I mean, that made an unbelievable impact on me.
I'm this little kid, and here this thing was, and you could just sense even then that the country was going through something real.
I worked for five years in Springfield, Illinois.
I am a student of Lincoln.
I love reading everything about Abraham Lincoln.
I know the stories about the funeral procession and the train that brought Lincoln's body back from Washington to first Chicago and then to Springfield, and how people just gathered along the railroad for all of this.
You know, as Lincoln's body was finally coming back to his adopted home, Springfield, Illinois, and the emotion.
But none of that tops this Kim Jong ill funeral procession.
There hundreds of thousands, millions.
And then I watched this footage.
This doesn't even appear to be an inflated crowd count.
Wailing away.
Appearing to be distraught.
Think about this for a minute.
Think about this for a minute.
Every one of those people crying, knowing they have to cry because if they don't, they might get shot.
How many of those people that were crying actually sincerely were upset?
Maybe one half of one percent.
You know who had to love this.
Every Democratic politician in America was eating it up.
Man, this was an impressive show of force.
Force to cry, force the ball.
I mean, it was you should watch these people.
The anguish is so over the top.
It is so exaggerated.
This is the worst acting ever.
Oh, Kim Jong il is dead.
Good.
Wailing at the television set.
Anyway, Kim Jong il.
Should we wish that he rest in peace?
I'm a Christian.
Should we wish that he rest in peace or not?
We should wish he, you know, I I believe in yes, Cheetah.
I would good point.
I would rather the Cheetah rest in peace than Kim Jong il.
The uh Rush Limbaugh.com website keeps all Rush listeners updated and everything that goes on with the Rush program.
Rush, of course, is gone this week.
By the way, if you're wondering, Mark Stein will be here tomorrow and Dr. Walter Williams on Friday.
I love listening to Walter.
He is so politically incorrect.
He makes Snerdly, he makes you seem politically correct.
Walter's at that point in his life where he just doesn't care anymore.
Anyway, I'm on the Rush Limbaugh website, and when there are guest hosts like myself, you will usually see a quote or two of the statements that we've made on the previous day's program.
Usually some the best point that we made all day, or something that you can get the audience to understand.
Well, okay, the guest host that was on isn't all that bad.
Look at this incredibly smart thing that they said.
So I look at what the the quote that they have from me from yesterday.
I have been wrong about every single thing I would have expected this primary season.
So whatever you don't think is going to happen next probably will happen next.
Of all the things I said on yesterday's program, the one that's going to be highlighted is that I'm an idiot and I've been wrong and analyzing politics.
I thought I had some good things to say.
Stein's gonna do the show tomorrow, and they're gonna put on one of his incredibly w poignant comments about the demographics of Europe and how the whole world's headed for a train wreck because we aren't getting our fiscal horse in order and all that stuff.
And I got I don't know anything about politics.
That's the respect that I get here.
Anyway, as many of you know I'm from Wisconsin, and as most of you know, there has been a lot of political turmoil in my state this year.
You haven't been reading much about Wisconsin lately, though.
I want to bring you up to speed on what's happening in my state.
And there's good news and bad news.
And I think what's happening in Wisconsin is very, very important for the country.
The background, of course, our state elected as strong Republican governor, and at the same time, control of both houses of the state legislature turned to the Republican Party.
Wisconsin, like many states, was a fiscal train wreck.
A lot of fundraising and borrowing, cutting spending here and there to get through each year's budget under the preceding bad Democratic governor.
Governor Scott Walker came in and said, we're gonna balance our budget.
We're going to get our fiscal house in order.
There's going to be no more of this borrowing to get your way through, no more of this rating of funds and no more of these constant tax increases.
We're a northern industrial state, our business, our business climate was not competitive, said I'm going to fix it.
And he came in and he made some Very, very tough decisions.
He realized that an extraordinary amount of money was being wasted on benefits for public employees.
Public employees in Wisconsin were not paying anything for their health insurance.
No premium at all.
So you got to kick in 12.5%.
Public employees in Wisconsin get to retire with full pensions after about 35 years of service.
Most of them were retiring in their mid-50s.
The pensions, which is a defined benefit plan, the rate that they were to be paid was guaranteed.
It's based on the number of years of service times your uh highest average salary.
Very, very generous.
They were kicking in nothing for that.
In the real world, you have to save some of your own money for retirement.
And in the real world, you're not paying 0% or even 12 and a half percent, but you're paying a lot for your health insurance.
So Governor Walker said, look, what we're going to do is require employees to kick in for their pensions, and we're going to require them to pay for a portion of their health insurance.
He also realized that so long as you had government unionization, you'd never be able to achieve these savings.
That they would always fight.
They would always kick back.
So he took took away the right of government unions to bargain on issues like this.
They're only able to bargain on the issue of actual pay.
In doing this, Wisconsin was also able to save a lot more money by doing away with scams that the unions had negotiated like, forcing school districts to buy health insurance from a company that was created by the teachers'union itself and then charged above market rates.
So we got rid of most of that stuff.
Some communities haven't taken advantage of the tools that the governor has created, but most have.
The end result of all of this, Wisconsin's budget is balanced.
No taxes were raised.
The governor did cut, big time, state aid to cities, counties, and school districts.
But the amount of money that they were able to save by having employees kick in for their health insurance and pensions and doing away with the overpayment for the health insurance, that's compensated for these cuts.
It's compensated so much that all over my state of Wisconsin, despite the fact that they're getting less money from state government, communities are now so flush with cash that they are lowering their property taxes.
This is proof that if you are willing to take a look at where the fat is in government budgets, and if you are willing to take on powerful interests, you can get your fiscal houses in order.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that the rebellion against this governor is still there.
The government unions are so furious at what has happened that they're literally trying to recall him out of office.
Right now they're circulating recall petitions.
They've got until the middle of next month to get enough signatures.
If they get enough signatures, there will be another election.
This governor that was elected in November of 2010 will have to stand again sometime this coming spring.
That's the bad part of this.
I am convinced that what has happened in our country is that once people are getting unsustainable benefits from government, you can't take them away from them without these kinds of tantrums.
Look at Greece.
Look at the school teachers and the other government workers in my state of Wisconsin.
The same is going to happen with our nation if we allow entitlements to expand to include health care for all Americans.
Once government starts giving you something, there's an incredible backlash if you ever try to take it away.
When we come back after this break, we're going to be joined by Wisconsin Governor Walker and a little bit of a tale from the front line of what happens when you actually do show fiscal responsibility.
My name is Mark Delling, sitting in for Rush.
Rush.
I'm Mark Delling, sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
Back in my state of Wisconsin, it was like the days of rage all over again.
Controversy, protests at the...
the State Capitol, all because a Republican governor was trying to get a state to live within its means.
And in the end, made cuts in government spending that seem rather modest.
It's working, but they still want to throw them out of office.
I'm joined right now by Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
Uh Scott, good afternoon.
Hey, Mark, good to be with you.
It's been quite a year for you, hasn't it?
It hasn't it has indeed.
It's been a little surreal, actually.
The do you feel right now, with so many local governments coming in cutting property taxes, do you feel vindicated or the fact that the recall is still hanging over your head?
Are you not at that point yet?
Well, I don't vindicate it.
I feel happy for the taxpayers because I I said there were two key dates, September first and and this past week in December.
As you just alluded to, uh nearly all across uh the state of Wisconsin, property tax bills came in the same or lower.
In fact, it was the first time in more than half a decade that we actually had school tax levies on average go down in this state, which is the biggest part of our property tax bill.
But the other key part is back on September first, kids went back to public schools like my sons, Matt and Alex, who go to a public high school in Wawatosa, and most of our schools saw that the schools themselves were the same or better.
So you have great schools, you have school levies down, you have people seeing the benefits themselves, not through an ad or a flyer, but actually seeing it themselves.
And I I hope the taxpayers and the citizens in general of our state have have feel vindicated much more so than I need to politically.
Now, I I'm guessing that the rush listeners from the other 49 states who are listening right now are wondering if indeed it's working so well, why are people trying to recall you out of office?
What is your take on the recall?
I think the simple reason is is that you know most of the money that came in in early on in February and then came in the Supreme Court race, and then the tens of millions is spent on uh trying to defeat six Republican senators and recalls, and most of the money that's going to come in here comes from the big government union bosses.
And more than anything, it's it's not just collect the bargaining, it's not just where the employees had to make a pension or health care contribution.
Because as you know, Mark, what we asked for from our public employees in the state is still much more generous than what the average middle class taxpayer is paying in this state and for that matter in this country.
What really is at stake is the unions what they like the least, what really got them worked up to be willing to spend this kind of money, and and and some groups have said outside of any campaign it could be sixty to seventy million dollars here in Wisconsin in this recall.
What really got them worked up is the fact that I gave the nearly three hundred thousand public in the state.
Each of them, whether they worked at the state or local level, now has the right to choose whether or not he or she is going to be a part of a union, and they no longer have their union dues automatically deducted from their payroll.
That's what this is about.
That's why the unions are spending the big money.
Uh they'll say a lot of other things, but that in the end that that's why they're investing probably more money than they'll invest in any state across the country.
Your contention is is that for the bosses of the government unions, not just the ones that are sitting there in Wisconsin, but nationally, you cross the line.
You said to public employees they don't have to pay these dues anymore, and you think that's what this is all about.
Yeah, I mean, I think that you know the larger issue they talk about is collective bargaining and the and I think that has an impact too, because I I believe they look and and and they they really want to hammer it down now with me, because if it can happen in Wisconsin, it can happen anywhere.
And it didn't just it's not something that's just been replicated or pieces of it with other Republican governors.
I mean, you look at Massachusetts, where they passed it with a Democrat legislature, Democrat governor passed collective bargain reform for local health insurance.
You look at New York State where Andrew Cuomo is trying to make some of these changes.
You look at Jerry Brown in California and Pinches.
Now, granted, none of them go as far as what we did in terms of true reform, but they are are going down that path.
Even Rahman Manuel, the mayor of Chicago, obviously the former chief of staff for for the president himself, is taking on the unions, recognizing If you do not get a hold of legacy cost, of pension and health care cost in your state or in your city government, it will eat up like a virus more and more of your budget and take away the things that you want to do, either protecting taxpayers as I've tried to advocate, or even for some of the more liberal uh executives out there, it takes away their ability to spend money on other things they'd like to.
So I think the unions recognize if they don't stop it here, if they don't send a message that nobody should dare look at these sorts of issues in the future, others, including not just Republicans, but other elected uh officials in both parties may go down this path.
But the biggest uh deterrent to them, though, is the fact that we took that money away, and now people can decide that money as they see fit on their kids or you think that's what it's all about, and that's the reason that's the reason that they're they don't have to automatically have to take another paycheck.
That they're launching back against you.
I want to hold you over after the break and ask you another couple of questions.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is here facing, really, a rebellion from government unions for being willing to take them on.
Music by Ben Thede.
Talking to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who is facing an attempt to literally recall him out of office.
The way the process works in Wisconsin, you've got to get about five hundred thousand signatures, and we're only a state of five and a half million people.
That's a lot.
If they get them, there then is in an election, just like the regular election, there'd be a potential for a primary election and then a general election, and presumably it would happen this spring, all because the governor chose to get Wisconsin's fiscal house in order by going after what he felt were excesses in public employee compensation in the area of benefits.
Do you think let me put it this way?
What if you lose?
Are you fearful that aside from the toll on yourself, that it's going to send a message to every other government official that there are just too many sacred cows to go after?
Well, absolutely.
I I mean, first off, let me say I as you've you've known even before I was governor, I've never uh never made decisions about uh whether or not I was going to win or lose an election.
I've I've never been afraid to lose my wife would gladly love me back in the private sector.
But but uh to me I've always tried to think about when I think of Matt and Alex, I tried to make decisions thinking about the next generation, not just about the next election.
But my hope is, and and I saw it in my own county before, which is obviously as you know, a very blue county, that in times of crisis people want leadership.
But but I believe firmly in this case, when we prevail, because I still believe I have enough faith in the voters that the the same majority of the elected me, or a similar majority elected me a year ago, uh, if given the facts, if getting past the distortions and the attacks that are out there, look at the facts and look at the other options that other states have had, raising taxes, laying off thousands of employees, cutting core services.
We chose instead long-term structural reforms.
I believe when we prevail not only be a victory in Wisconsin for the taxpayers and the people of the state, I believe it will send a powerful message in every State House and particularly in the halls of Congress where Lord knows they need courage.
And on the flip side, God help us, if we've if we fail, I think it sets back courage uh in both state and federal government at least a decade, if not a generation, because people will be afraid to go out in the limb and make tough decisions, even if they know they're right for fear that somehow uh there'll be something like this will happen to us.
I think that's not just important, not just to Wisconsin, but across America.
It's not just you.
I mean, you take a look at Greece where they're trying to impose it on an austerity program, you take a look at what's going on in Wisconsin, you take a look at the backlash, the government officials who suggest that we reform entitlement programs.
There are just certain sacred cows that are out there that there's this incredibly belligerent reaction.
Had you done the alternative, had you done what Wisconsin's neighbors to the South had done in Illinois, which was raise their state income tax significantly, do more borrowing, and then cut aid to public education, you wouldn't be facing a recall.
People would be grumbling, but you'd be the governor and you wouldn't be having to go through this whole recall and try to raise money for your campaign and all of that stuff stuff.
The path of least resistance is not the one that you talk.
No, not by a long time.
I always tell people though, who you know, there's some people, there are not many left, but there's some people in the state are undecided.
And I tell them, you know, nearly every state in America had a budget deficit.
And there are really only five ways to balance it.
You either raise taxes, you lay off thousands of public employees, you cut core services like Medicaid, which would devastate seniors and needy families and children.
Use accounting gimmicks, which is precisely what Wisconsin did in the past and got them all in this trouble.
Or you do the fifth option, which we didn't, which was long-term true structural reforms, allowed us to take a $3.6 billion deficit with the largest per cap in the country and turn it into a budget with a slight surplus.
That's about, again, caring about that next generation.
I said that that's what's made America great.
I think back, you know, think back to Philadelphia and those great patriots uh led by Washington and others at the time, when they signed the Constitution, they cared more about their kids and their grandkids' uh future than they did about their own political future, and in their cases, even their lives.
There should be at least a few of us in America left in politics who are at least willing to take that political risk to do what's right for a kid.
You know, I I one of the members of the staff said to me in preparation for this that there are people out there who actually want to help that think that what you're doing is that important.
Uh for people who don't live in Wisconsin, is there anything they can do?
And I suppose the obvious answer is they can donate donate money to your campaign.
But if if if I asked you the question, what can people do to help you in this fight?
What is the answer?
Well, I say it's three ends.
Message, manpower, and money.
I've always said that's the most important things, and you know, obviously people are curious about any of those.
Scott Walker.org is the is the website, but I always say the most powerful thing, whether people live in the state or they have friends or they do business is to pass on the message to quietly encourage people.
You know, the media covers all sorts of attacks and protests.
I had protests in front of my house where my kids still live.
I have I have my personal home, not the governor's residence.
I've had people go after my kids and Facebook protesters.
I've had all sorts of attacks.
But in the end, what encourages me through all this is the quietness of people that come up to me and pass on a prayer card, they give me support, they don't yell at, they don't to put up a sign, but but they they pass it on.
So the most people can do is pass on the message to anybody they know in Wisconsin.
Uh certainly people who sign up to help us out, getting that message out.
And then the money, and I I wouldn't sell anybody short on this.
I I raised $5.1 million in this last report, which is a record.
I had uh almost 50,000 donors, and of my donors, uh 79% of them were people who gave me $50 or less.
So anybody who's out there listening who says, Well, I can't help, well, that's who the majority of people are helping me.
It's low-dollar grassroots volunteers.
Thanks for joining us, Scott.
Uh that's the governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker.
Uh now, some of the things that he said, you know, I'm right there on the front lines of this thing.
He's not exaggerating.
I cannot stress to Russia's audience, how much hatred has been directed at him and also to some extent, the members of the state legislature who enacted his program.
He's chosen not to move into the governor's residence in the state capital of Madison, but still is living in his home, which is in a Milwaukee suburb.
Regularly there are protests in front of his home.
When they start the day that the recall campaign started, they started by going right into his neighborhood and they set up shop in his own block, with all of their people marching past his house to do this.
His kids have been attacked on Facebook.
The number of threats that have come in are off the charts.
The recall effort itself, some of the people that involved that are involved in this are just zealots.
Let me tell you about one incident.
There was a Toys for Tots fundraiser at a town in Washington County, Wisconsin, Jackson, Wisconsin.
A Toys for Tots fundraiser, one of those things where actually the ceremony, I think, where they gave away the kids.
Toys for Tots is that great charity.
It involves the Marine Corps in which people donate money so the kids toys can be given to needy kids and children who otherwise wouldn't get Christmas presents.
The recall people showed up at that.
They were asked to leave and they would not leave.
They crashed a Toys for Tots thing.
They are so adamant about all of this.
Now I happen to think Walker's going to survive this.
I think he's going to win, and I don't even think it's going to be that close.
Because in Wisconsin, the only people who were affected by his reforms were these government workers.
And even then, the sacrifice that they're making isn't all that great.
They're kicking in a small amount for a health insurance plan that's still lavish.
They're kicking in for a pension that they still get at a very, very young age.
And for many of them, they're no longer forced to pay union dues.
That's it.
Nobody else, yeah, I think he's going to win.
Nobody else.
Yeah, but I've been wrong about everything else.
As the Rush Limbaugh website points out, I just keep bringing that up.
I can't predict anything anymore because I acknowledge that on the prime my comments were restricted to the presidential race.
He's going to win, and I'm going to tell you why.
For the average citizen in Wisconsin, they haven't seen any cuts at all.
We haven't shut down any parks.
We haven't shut down any universities.
We haven't made any we're not ending highway construction.
Teachers weren't laid off by and large, except in the communities that wouldn't take advantage of the governor's tools.
There's been no impact on Joe Citizen.
So Joe Citizen isn't going to throw out a governor who's fixed our state's finances and managed to harm no services at all.
But, and this is why I wanted to bring up this topic today.
The fact of the matter is that in Wisconsin, Governor Walker's job was easier than it's going to be nationally.
It's even easier than it is in some other states that were more far gone than Wisconsin, like for example, California.
In Wisconsin, merely by having the employees kick in for the health insurance and the pension and getting rid of the overpayment for health insurance, we're able to balance the budget.
We didn't have to cut services to the core.
We didn't have to go after programs that the average citizen gets.
At the federal level, we're spending 40% more than we're taking in.
Entitlements are going to have to be reformed.
We're going to have to address federal aid for all sorts of programs that employ a lot of people in all these do-gooder operations.
And that's where I think you're going to see a multiplication of the kind of backlash we've gotten in Wisconsin.
Mark Stein, who's going to do the program tomorrow, talks about this a lot.
I think we're Greece.
Greece is just a few years ahead of us.
When you spend way more money than you're taking in, eventually it comes to an end.
And the people who are the recipients of that money cannot accept that.
When you get something from government, it is harder to turn away from it than it is from anything else that is addictive.
I'm telling you, it's like crack.
When you get something from your boss in the private sector, and he takes it away, you grumble.
And that's the end of it.
And all of us who work in the private sector have seen things like this happen.
The health insurance gets a little bit worse every year.
The cost for this goes up, the cost for that goes up.
Some people are told that they have to change their work schedules.
You grumble about it, but you accept it as reality.
In your own family, if you have to cut back on spending, you may grumble about it and you may not be happy about it, but you do it.
But when you get it from government, and I don't care what it is, food stamps, energy assistance, subsidies for whatever program you're involved in, Medicare and Social Security, SSI, union power.
If it comes from government, there is a rebellion when you don't get it anymore.
The Greece situation, I think is going to be replicated here in the United States.
The challenge for whomever the next president is, presuming that it isn't Barack Obama, if they are going to take on the successive spending that we have is they're going to have to stand firm and put up with the kind of abuse that Governor Walker has got in Wisconsin because people can't tolerate having the money that they get from government altered at all.
We're addicted to it.
It's debilitating.
You've seen what's happened in urban areas across our country.
You start giving people government assistance, they never get off it.
Their lives get worse.
The family structure falls apart.
Well, can you now multiply that toward an entire country?
Imagine if we get the Obamacare mandate if it comes in and government is giving us our health care.
It's scary stuff.
The addictive power of government spending is vicious.
I'm Mark Belling, sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh.
1-800-282-2882 is the official Rush Limbaugh phone number to Fort Worth, Texas, and Julie.
Julie, it's your turn on the Rush program with Mark Belling.
Oh, hi, thanks for taking my call.
I was just listening um to what you were talking about with Scott Walker before you interviewed him, and I try to keep up with that, but um that was the best explanation of what has happened there that I have heard, and I really appreciated hearing that, and I wish more people would understand that because I think it's so important that what he did, you know, has really re is really producing positive results.
And I don't know that everybody realizes, you know, the struggle that's going on there, and it's classic for what's, you know, going on nationally.
Well, and I I'll admit, one advantage he had that you know, Rick Perry in your state, Texas didn't have, is that we had all of this fat because the benefits were so out of control that we had these incredible health insurance policies that they were play that they were paying Zippo for, that we have these pensions that were unbelievably expensive.
I mean the pensions of Wisconsin is unbelievably expensive because the payout when they retire, which is in their mid-50s, is so high, and because they get it so early, they live so long that you're paying all of that stuff.
Simply making them kick in a little bit for this and kick in a little bit for their health insurance produced all of these savings.
Admittedly, it is easier to cut spending in a budget that is fat than one that is leaner.
So so he did so he did have that advantage.
The point is is that it's worked.
He's put in place an austerity program in which hardly anybody had to pay any price.
The people who are paying the price are merely paying a little bit for benefits that the taxpayers are still giving them.
But the way that the way the story is being played out nationally, when you see all of these protests, you'd think that he was laying off people and you know, shutting down fire stations and all of these things.
None of those things have happened.
That's what makes it to me so telling that they're raising all of this ruckus when there really weren't any real cuts to speak of.
And that message just comes out so clear, you know, you don't hear the rest of it and the real truth behind it.
And and I think it really took guts for him to do what he did because he did have to take something from people that they thought they were entitled to.
And it makes me angry that there that this is happening to him.
He's a good man, and I was hoping there was some way to support him, and I heard you talk about that, and and I just hope he succeeds because I think that's a prime example.
And I didn't fully understand everything, and I think what you said was perfect, and I just wish more people could hear that.
And I appreciate those comments, Julie.
And as I said, for people who are bored about just the situation in Wisconsin, this is a metaphor for everywhere else.
Absolutely.
You've got to be willing to cut spending.
You've got and if you would if you do it in a reasonable way, it doesn't have to savage people, it doesn't have to result in all of this terrible pain.
But the longer you put it off, the worse the cuts actually are.
But do understand the crybabying from the people who feel as though they're the victims of the cuts will be way worse than you can imagine.
Thank you for the call.
I'm Mark Belling, sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush.
Like I said, I'm an optimist and a pessimist on all of this.
In Wisconsin, I think Walker's going to survive his recall.
Every attempt that they've had to try to block the reforms in Wisconsin has failed.
They tried to throw out a state Supreme Court justice so that the balance of the court would become liberal so you could block his reforms in the courts.
That didn't happen.
They tried to recall Republican state senators so that they would get control of that, at least that chamber of the legislature.
That didn't happen.
Now they've got this recall effort going on.
They're getting a lot of petition signatures, but all sorts of indications that there's a lot of fraud there.
They're encouraging people to sign more than one time because they may need to do that to get over the number of signatures.
Who knows whether or not they'll be thrown out?
They don't have a credible candidate to run against him.
And I think he's going to be vindicated here.
My pessimism comes in by taking a look at the bigger problems we have nationally.
Those things actually affect people's lives as opposed to these minor reforms that Governor Walker has put in place in Wisconsin.
When you see the rebellion over minor reforms, it makes me wonder what will happen to our nation if the next president actually tries to take on far more serious cuts in spending.
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