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Dec. 30, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:50
December 30, 2011, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
That's right, uh Johnny Donovan, Walter E. Williams sitting in for the vacationing rush, and by the way, Rush will be back January 3rd.
And you can be on with us uh if you call uh 800-282-2882.
And we have a real treat for the second hour, so you have to tell all your friends, get them all by the radio because I'm gonna have my uh very good friend, longtime colleague, uh Dr. Thomas Sowell, he's the senior fellow at the uh Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and we're gonna talk about his most recent book, uh The Thomas Soul Reader.
And I believe, folks, that that might be the 46th book that he's uh written.
The guy writes with both hands, and he's uh delight to have on.
Um there are a couple things I want matter of fact, uh you can i let's see how are we going to run the show?
It's like it's kind of like open line Friday.
Uh and so that means that if you s heard me say something on the television or some radio program, and you don't think it's right or you think it's wonderful, call in.
Or if you read my syndicated column, you say, hey, Walter, you know, I think this is wrong, but that's right, call in again.
Now, let speaking of syndicated column, my next week's syndicated column is called Greed.
And I'm kind of motivated by a very, very interesting article in the American thinker by a fellow uh Michael Bargo Jr.
And he starts off his first paragraph.
As the country continues to suffer from joblessness, excessive federal deficit spending, the occupy Wall Street people, they just talk about corporate greed.
It's a simple cause of all our problems.
It's greed.
Well, look, folks, I'll tell you, and I believe Rush might have uh said it oh about a month ago or several weeks ago.
I well, let me not speak for Rush, but let me speak for Walter Williams.
I love greed.
I think greed is wonderful.
Now, when I say greed, I'm not talking about stealing, cheating, uh going to government, getting handouts or special privileges.
What I'm talking about is people trying to get as much as they can for themselves.
And I think that this process of people trying to get as much as they can for themselves, it's it's a uh it results in wonderful things.
For example, you're gonna have Texas cattle ranchers out this winter, getting up in the middle of the night, maybe during blizzards, running down stray cows to take care of them.
The cows might even kick them.
And they're making this huge personal sacrifice so that New Yorkers can have beef on their shelves.
You had Idaho potato farmers this winter, no mean this summer rather, getting up in the morning, doing backbreaking work, uh, sun beaten down them, bugs biting them, making this personal sacrifice so that New Yorkers also have potatoes.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, why do you think they're doing that?
Do you think they're doing that because they love New Yorkers?
They may hate New Yorkers.
I'm not that wild about New Yorkers myself, but they make sure that beef and potatoes gets in New York New York every single day of the week.
Why?
Because they love themselves.
They're trying to get more for themselves.
And that's what gets wonderful wonderful things done.
Now, here's the next question, folks.
How much beef and potatoes do you think New Yorkers would have on Their shelves if it all depended on human love and kindness.
I'd be worried about New Yorkers.
I'd be seriously worried about how much beef and potatoes they would have if it all depended on human love and kindness.
And so this is what Adam Smith is talking about in the Wealth of Nations.
Matter of fact, the Wealth of Nations is uh Adam Smith is considered to be one of the founders of economics and the Wealth of Nations, which is a uh very, very important book came out in 1776, the same same time our uh ancestors uh declared independence.
But he said, and I'm just paraphrasing phrasing he said that we get our bread and our milk and our candles not from the benevolence of the baker, the and the candlestick maker.
We get it because they're of their concern for themselves.
Now, so when you hear people talking about greed, you have to ask them, you have to ask them, well, what's that you know, what other motivation is going to get wonderful things done?
It's not gonna be charity, although charity is a wonderful idea.
Anyway, think about that when people talk about greed.
Now, again, let me be perfectly clear.
I'm not talking about uh people going to Washington and getting special favors from government, uh crony capitalism, uh product misrepresentation, theft, burglary.
I'm not talking about that because I think those are despicable forms of human behavior.
I'm talking about human greed.
Now there's another issue on the table as well.
And and I and this is gonna be uh it's probably gonna bother some people out there, but it's an article by Robert J. Uh Samuelson, and he writes fairly reasonable uh stuff in economics.
And the article came out in uh July, but I think it's in the Washington Post, but I think it's important that we pay attention to this.
And the title of the article is why are we in this debt fix?
Question mark.
It's the elderly stupid.
Now that's the that's the title of his article carried in the Washington Post.
And he points out some things here.
And he says that in 1960, national defense was the government's main job.
Matter of fact, national offense is in the Constitution.
It's one of those things enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.
And he says national defense was the government's main job, and it constituted 52 percent of the federal budget.
In the year 2011, even with two wars, national defense is 20 percent of the federal budget and falling.
Now, where's the big bite out of the federal budget?
Well, it's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other retiree programs that constitutes roughly half of the Federal Budget.
I think it's slightly over uh 50 percent of the Federal Budget.
So that is the major problem, financial problem facing our country.
That is the huge expenditures made on senior citizens.
Now now, where does the government get the money to spend on the elderly?
Now, by the way, folks, I'm not picking on elderly because Walter Williams has been living one-third of the time our country has been in existence.
So that means I've been living in quite a while.
Now, now, where does the government get the money to give to the elderly in all these uh elderly programs?
Well, it doesn't get it from the tooth fairy.
It doesn't get it from Santa Claus.
Where does it get it?
The only way the government can give one American citizen one dollar is to first take it from another American.
Now, there's kind of a perverse income redistribution.
That is the elderly in our country, they have the highest net worth.
I believe close to 70 per 70 percent of the elderly own their homes outright.
There's no other age group that can that can uh fit the category of owning their homes outright.
Now, isn't it kind of perverse income distribution, redistribution to take from young people who are struggling 20 years, 30 years old, tax the heck out of them, and give it to people who are much better off than they are.
I used to, when Mrs. Williams has now uh departed after 48 years of marriage, but I used to we used I used to argue with her because she used to accept senior citizen discounts when she went on the uh on the train to uh visit my daughter in Richmond, and she would take senior citizen discounts.
I refuse senior citizen discounts because I would ask her, I said, now here you have a young couple on the train, they have two or three children, they're paying full fare, and here you are, you're married to a man who's in the top one or two percent of the American people so far as income, and you're taking a senior citizen discount.
I mean, that seems to be perverse.
But anyway, the point is is that the kind of programs that we have for the elderly, I think they're they're bankrupting our nation.
Now I know some of you are gonna call you're gonna call in and say, hey Walter, I've worked my whole life paying into Social Security, Social Security, and I'm owed this money.
Well, yeah, you owe somebody, you owe some you owe somebody snurdly to tell me you got it already.
Okay, but the point is is that somebody owes you it, but is it a 25-year-old?
Is it a 35-year-old that owes you the Social Security payments?
I'd say the Congressman owes you Social Security payments.
Now, here's what I did.
I wrote a column uh, oh, I guess early this year.
If I had my way, I would write to every senior citizen on Social Security.
If I headed Congress, I say, look, we have about sixteen six hundred and fifty million acres of land that's owned by the government.
If you will refuse any fruit future so Social Security payments, we will give you a hundred acres of land to do with as you please.
Take it or leave it.
That's how I would solve the Social Security problem.
We'll be back with some of your calls after this.
Walter Williams sitting in for a rush show.
Uh pushing back the frontiers of ignorance and and trying to sell my fellow American on the moral superiority of personal liberty.
And its main ingredient is limited uh government.
And you can be on uh to talk with us about this just by calling 800-282-2882, and let's go to Grand Rapids, Iowa and talk to, is it Jerry?
Welcome to the show, Jerry.
Well, thank you very much, Walter.
This is a pleasure to speak with you.
I have been trying to get into uh call in for some time.
I'm getting so tired of people lumping Social Security in with entitlements such as food stamps aid to children and all the others that we have.
Social Security was paid into by the people.
And had the government not rated the more chest, there would be plenty of money in that account.
And now in the last it seems like the last couple of years, uh the radio hosts and the pundits are all have all joined the bandwagon and calling Social Security a an entitlement.
Well, well, let's let's look at this a bit.
Now you tell me.
Now it turns out that the person who retired in 1980 gets all that he ever put into Social Security in two and a half years.
The person who enters the labor force in 1980, he will have to live until he's 92 years old to break even with Social Security.
That is the it's it's a it's a Ponzi scheme on top of being a a deal uh uh a bad deal.
Now now the the money that you receive, if you receive from Social Security, where does that money come from?
Does it come from the Social Security uh uh trust fund?
No, it's nothing in the Social Security Trust Fund but IOUs.
That's because our government leaders stole it.
I I know, but the question is who owes it to you?
Is it should the person who is thirty years old, should he be taxed to take care of somebody who's sixty-five years old.
Well, there are other programs, other ways to handle retirement income.
Like how.
And as far as the as far as the the person retiring in 1980, and he gets all of his money back in two and a half years, uh that's an extra awfully broad generalization how much they make.
No, it's factually true.
How the market is doing if the money is invested properly, uh all those things play into how much that uh there would be into the in that social security account.
No, the gu the government does Congress does not invest the money.
Soon as a po uh person uh uh FICA money is sent to Washington, it's immediately spent.
No, they don't yeah, they don't invest in anything but you just said it's invested.
Pardon me?
You said it was invested, but look, look the the point is the point is I think that American people ought to recognize that Social Security was a mistake.
It was not authorized by the United States Constitution, and we're living with the effects of that mistake.
It won't work, it's going to blow up by at least 2030 or 2040, and it'll be nothing.
It'll be economic catastrophe for your grandchildren.
Let's go to uh next is who is this?
Who it's Steve?
Oh, Keith.
Welcome to the show, Keith.
It's an honor to talk to an economist.
That's what I love talking to.
And with Dr. Soule, I'm gonna tell you what, you couldn't find a better a better uh commentary and I'll dump all the newspapers he's right on.
And here's here's my here's my take on this.
Obama in this new bill, they're adding 1.2 trillion to the national debt from 15.1 trillion.
16.3 is our GDP.
They're gonna take two percent off of my Social Security, 20 dollars a week.
I'm gonna tell you what, if that's a stimulus, it's a joke.
And also, if they can take unemployment to two years when it should be six months, that's a joke.
If he wants a 447 billion dollar stimulus, why don't we do this?
I'm getting $5600 in February for my sales total.
That's gonna pay my girlfriend's blazer off, it's gonna put me a topper on the back of my pickup, it's gonna spray the liner, it's gonna help on my credit cards, it would help people on their mortgages.
Why don't they do what they should do?
Give the instead of the green energy and the wasted policies of his, just give every family seventy five hundred dollars, every single taxpayer a five thousand dollar deal, and know the government and the senators, you're right.
They're gonna come back and say they know how to spend it better than you do.
Well, I I think the the the big problem we face, and I'll be talking about it uh off and on throughout the show, uh the big problem we face is that Congress has exceeded the authority granted to it by the United States Constitution.
You folks uh out there ought to read Article One, Section 8 of the United States Constitution that says what Congress should do.
And the big problems that we face as a nation is a are a direct result of Congress exceeding their authority.
They're doing things that's not authorized in the United States Constitution.
But the big problem is, and they'll come back to this, and I'll come back to this, is that any Congressman who would obey the United States Constitution, the American people would run that Congressman out of office because the American people want Congress to give them the right to live at the expense of other Americans.
And we're going to talk more about that when we come back.
We're back, and it's Walter Williams sending in for vacationing rush, who will be here in front of the EIB microphone on January 3rd.
But in the meantime, uh it's Walter Williams uh trying to sell my fellow American on Moral Severi Art Liberty of Liberty and which is a hard job to do.
You know, there's another issue that's in the news as a result of uh these uh um people that they're call themselves the uh Occupy Wall Street people.
And well, it's been going on actually before they actually uh got into the scene.
But people are talking about income inequality.
And let me just spend a few minutes talking about income inequality.
Now uh let me just give you some case examples.
Now, there's this lady in London.
Uh yes, I'm in the one percent of that.
Uh uh Bo Snerdl asked me whether I was in the uh uh one percenters, and that is absolutely right.
Uh but but I have not always been in the one percenters.
I started at the bottom.
And by the way, you folks who are interested, you can pick up my autobiography.
People have been after me to write this autobiography for years, and it's called Up from the Projects.
And it's a it's an exciting autobiography.
It has photographs of me of when well, I hardly I I started to say when I was younger and more handsome, but I think as I'm getting older I'm getting more handsome.
Anyway, includes matter of fact, uh actually it c contains the court the records when I was court-martialed when I was in uh Fort Stewart, Georgia, and people say, Well, Walter, how come you got court martial?
You had so much trouble in the Army.
Well, I was drafted in the Army.
Actually, I don't call it a draft.
I like my labor services were confiscated in 1959, and I was sent to Fort Stewart, Georgia, without a very good orientation on the Southern way of life.
And so I had some adjustment problems.
And I even have the records of my court martial in there.
And I actually have made a jackass out of the people who court-martialed me.
And the I think the FBI was making inquiries about my wife and the CID, they were following me uh while I was under and CID is criminal investigation division.
But if you're wondering about all this, I did get an honorable discharge.
And uh, and matter of fact, those people, even after I got an honorable discharge after two years, they wanted me to be in the in the um in the reserves.
I had to spend two years in well, I I was supposed to spend two years in the reserves, only spent one year.
And it turned out that I was in the reserves in, let's see, where was it?
It's it's in San Fernando Valley, uh, California.
And I was the only black guy in the reserves.
But I was going to Cal State, LA, and I was doing, you know, I was uh, you know, I was going to college.
And so I used to do my homework at the reserve meetings while the other guys were marching around and cleaning their rifles and doing all this kind of stuff.
And one time, a junior flip lieutenant came up to me while I had all my homeworkers spread homework spread out.
He said, Soldier, what's your job?
So I looked at him.
I said, sir, and I always address these guys by sir.
That's the first thing out of my mouth.
I say, sir, my job is to integrate this unit.
And once I sign in, my job is done for the night.
And so he turned around, utter shock.
And he darn near walked into the flagpole.
Anyway, he went into the company commander's office and I heard them talking, and nobody ever said anything to me, but I would imagine that the company commander told him, Look, let sleeping dogs lie.
The guy's not bothering anybody, he's not causing any disruption by doing his homework.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
That's what I think will happen.
Anyway, that's an exciting story.
It's called Up from the Projects.
Uh my and it's available at my webpage.
You can see it on my webpage, you know how to get it from Amazon.com and and Hoover, and just go to Walter E. Williams.com.
And also another benefit of my webpage is that there's a handsome photo of me there, and so many uh people, so many women like to make that as their home page, and you can feel free to do so.
But anyway, okay, here's the story about income inequality.
The uh actually is a column I wrote.
Now you take somebody like Joanne Rowling, she uh Roland, uh she is the uh Harry Potter uh lady, and and she's a billionaire.
She's in that top one percent, although she's in Britain, she's in that top one percent.
Now, how did Rawling become so wealthy and unequal to the rest of us?
Well, I think the entire blame for this social injustice lies at the feet of the world's children.
The children are responsible because her wealth is a direct result of more than five hundred million Harry Potter book sales.
And if the children did not have their parents go buy them these Harry Potter book sales, she wouldn't be rich, she wouldn't be in that top one percent.
Or you take my friend, actually he's not a friend, I just really like the way the guy plays, LeBron James.
He is an animal on the basketball court.
And this guy has 43 million dollars a year.
And that's very unequal to the rest of us.
That's socially unjust.
Now, how does uh LeBron James get 43 million dollars a year?
Well, again, it's the children.
It's the children getting their father instead of children staying home doing the homework and their fathers helping their wives out with the kitchen duties, they're going downtown to the sports arena and plunk down $100 to see LeBron playing James play basketball.
And then I think there's a form of gross discrimination with this as well, because uh I can play basketball too.
But nobody's paying me 43 million dollars.
As a matter of fact, uh Bo Snerdly can tell you I can play basketball because I mean he's about half my age, but I did a job on him in the basketball court and I made him quit.
He just gave up.
And you know the job I did?
I I guess I was maybe about half court, not not half court, but uh uh almost half court, almost half court, and I did a uh uh a behind the back uh shot and it went clean and uh uh just plain net, no bouncing whatever, and he just said, I give up.
I was beating him already.
But anyway, I I I don't get the kind of money that LeBron James gets.
So it's not only inequality, it's discrimination.
But anyway, let's um do we have time to take note?
Yeah, let's take one more call.
Let's take um uh Barbara from what is it, uh Appleton, Wisconsin.
You have to move this monitor up for me uh some because I my eyes, you know, I'm getting you know, I've been living one third of the time our country has been in existence, and your eyes wear out as a result of that.
But welcome to the show, Barbara.
Good good good afternoon, sir.
I just wanted to to just point out something.
You know, President Obama and all the people in Congress like to give everybody Christmas presents.
They love to extend the unemployment conversation from, you know, what are we at?
Two years now, they want to continue to extend it.
And I just want to say, you know, I I know that the people out there on unemployment really appreciate that, but as a small business owner, I just received a a New Year's present in the mail from our federal government.
I had received one.
I had received one in the in July from our state government because our state had to borrow a couple of million dollars from our federal government to continue the unemployment compensation and that that gift was a five thousand dollar bill.
Uh and I just received another five thousand dollar bill from the federal government saying, hey, you know what, we extended that unemployment compensation and we need you to pay.
We need you to pay in above and beyond what you already pay into unemployment conversation.
The money does not come from the Tooth Ferry or the Santa Claus.
It comes from some other human being.
And by the way, the the duration of unemployment has increased since nineteen forty eight.
A colleague of mine is on studies of it and he shows that when the unemployment compensation was only for five or six months, then the duration of unemployment was far less than it is now.
Right now can say, well they can be picky and choose they'll say, oh well I'd rather draw unemployment.
I'd rather sit on my butts watch Oprah and Rev and take this uh ten dollar an hour job.
And so uh m a lot of businessmen uh business people like yourself they're competing not only uh g uh against other businesses they're competing against government that has that forces them to drive up the wages that they have to pay in order to get people to take their jobs and I think that's very unfortunate.
We'll be back with your calls after this well it's Walt Williams and Rush will be back next week.
Uh I think Monday is best of right is best of and Tuesday Rush will be back.
Uh rested okay let's go back to the phones and let's go to Annette from St. Louis welcome show.
Hi Walter thanks for taking my call.
Yes.
And I'm not calling to create controversy last time I called I created controversy for Rush.
So I'm calling oh don't worry no I I I thrive on controversy.
Well I said that Republican women didn't like Sarah Palin because she was hot and they were jealous and so they they got a lot of controversy from women because of that.
But today is my birthday and I'm on a road trip and before the show started I told my husband I hope it's Walter Williams because that would make my birthday dreams come true and it's you.
Well happy birthday to you.
Well thanks and it's a three hour road trip and I get to listen to you the whole time and if Brush isn't here well sometimes even when Rush is there I think wow I wish it was Walter today.
I'll pass on that programming note to Rush.
Yeah so thank you so much for taking my call and thank you for coming in today.
And and and thank you very much and I I I hope you um I I hope you have a very happy birthday and many more of them and I'm not going to ask you how old you are.
Oh no I told my sons I said never ask a woman two things how old they are and how much they weigh so yeah and and how much money they need.
Exactly well that I would say so well happy birthday Jeanette.
Well thank you and and happy new year to you.
And thank you and thank you.
Let's go to uh is it uh Andrew in Stevenspoint welcome to the show Andrew how you doing okay uh I I was just uh commenting on an issue that I really think is probably being overshadowed you know it's like the federal tax holiday I think they're putting it in the bill it was to do with the Keystone XL.
And uh the one thing I just want to say about it because I mean I I don't want to say that I'm a complete expert on it but I I do have inside you know I have a couple relatives that work for Trans Canada.
And uh just an insider perspective is that yeah we do have uh millions of miles of uh pipeline that run through this country every single day.
What a lot of people don't realize is that there there is a lot of salt there too.
I mean like a lot of these are going unmanned, un you know, not not being maintained like they should be.
Like for example, in the division that they have in central Wisconsin, they went from I think about twenty people that were manning around you know, around the state, and now they're doing the work or four people are doing the work of twenty people.
Well maybe technol maybe technology allows them to get away with it, but I I think that many of our environmental concerns are overstated.
And I think that they're overstated in an effort to get uh government to have greater control over our lives.
People have been people have been trying to get us uh uh worried as about everything, and it turns out that everything is getting better.
Yeah.
Um and I and I do I do agree with that.
You know, it's uh and uh and I can't be completely selfish on the Keystone XL thinking, you know, because I do consider myself, you know, uh, you know, environmentalists, I like to try to look out as much as I can, but you also can't be selfish by saying, you know, you can't put this pipeline in because we do depend on oil.
I mean, every everyone drives cars every single day, so if you say that you don't depend on oil and you drive a car, you're a liar.
Well, you depend on oil for you you depend on oil for your shopping bags.
Many, many, many things that we use oil for.
And the point but the point is is that that if if Keystone does damage, then there are liability laws that we that can take care of that that should address those issues as opposed to regulating them out of business.
Well but the main but the main thing that I just want to point out is uh when it comes to like rerouting a good idea because I mean uh otherwise because they've they've had the other oil pipelines up in Canada that have been they have had many leaks for years.
So to put this under the you know America's lawwater aquifers.
I'll tell you what you do.
Wait, wait, wait a minute.
Wait a minute, Andrew.
I'll tell you what to do.
As soon as you hear of a leak, call this show and we'll take care of it.
We'll be back with your calls after this.
Headed back to the phones.
And by the way, stay tuned for the next hour because my colleague and friend Thomas Sowell will be on to talk about his new book, uh The Thomas Sowell Reader.
But right now, let's go to Nathan in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
You gotta be fast, Nathan.
We're up against the clock.
I'm gonna try my best, Dr. Williams.
I honor, pleasure to talk to you, and if I give my first sugar in my life and I rank this meeting with you right up there.
Hey, uh what I told Snurley when I called in, I said, What do you think w I was gonna get your personal opinion of what went on with Herman Cain.
Well, I I I think the the the leftists and the media and the Democrats had to sink 'em.
Because I mean he I mean Clinton did some things that were very, very similar if if Herman Cain indeed was re uh uh was actually did those things he's accused of.
But they had to get them because if Herman Cain were running for for the presidency, and if he could just pull twenty-five percent of the black vote, that would be the end of the Democratic Party forever.
Yes, sir.
Because uh the Democratic Party gets ninety-five percent of the black vote, and if they just lost twenty-five or thirty percent of it, uh they would be out of the running for very long time.
So they had to get uh Herman uh Herman Cain.
Yes, sir.
Well, Dr. Williams, I drive a taxi here, and I'm presently putting you on cassette tape, because when people get in my car, and especially black people, they go, Who is this?
I found he's a black economist, he's been around forever.
So with you, sir, we're gonna push back all the frontier of the vehicle.
Well, thank you.
Thank you very much for calling in.
And by the way, um if you were driving a taxi cab in New York City, you'd have to buy a license that would cost a million dollars.
Did you know that?
And matter of fact, I talk about those kind of things in my uh in my book.
And Tom, so uh yeah, I started driving the cab, but this is back in 1957.
And uh I I d I did not own the cab, so I did not have to get a license.
The yellow cab company had the uh license.
I just worked for them.
But in New York City, the license sold two months ago for a million dollars each.
And that restricts the uh that restricts entry.
It's and I talk about many of these things in in my book uh uh race and economics.
That's the other one I wrote uh that came out in April.
A brilliant book, I think.
But it's race and economics, and it talks about all these uh uh restrictions that handicapped people, not only blacks, but people at the bottom rungs the economic ladder, trying to get access to upward mobility.
And it it's the uh ins versus the outs.
And this is the kind of thing that ought to be looked at by the people who want to help.
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