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Feb. 15, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:22
February 15, 2012, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Holy cow.
Grab grab audio soundbite.
Uh let's see.
Number 21 and actually 2021 and 22.
Before we get to number nine.
I got so much to do here.
Greetings.
Welcome back.
Great to have you, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network.
Our telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882.
I need to correct myself on this nuclear warhead business.
I erroneously stated at the beginning of the show that we peaked at 12,000 nuclear warheads.
That was way wrong.
In 1967, we peaked at 31,255 nuclear warheads.
1989, we're down to 22,217 warheads.
In 2010, we were at 5,113 nuclear warheads.
And by 2017, we are scheduled to be at 1,500 warheads, 1,550.
It is that number Obama is suggesting be reduced to 300 warheads and before 2017.
And I had said we peaked at 12,000 warheads in the uh in the 80s, and I stand corrected.
31,000 warheads in 1967.
Now, to illustrate what I was just talking about regarding how the Democrats and the media work together to set up just outrageous characterizations and lies.
First, here's Santorum, October 21st last year.
He's uh he's appearing on a on a blog called Caffeinated Thoughts, and the the editor of this blog, Shane Vanderhart.
Now, what's at Rick Santorin's core?
What are your core values, your convictions, the hills that you will die on?
We'll repeal Obamacare and get rid of anybody that you have to have abortion coverage, contraceptive coverage.
One of the things I will talk about that the president has talked about, of course, is I think the dangers of contraception.
Many in Christian faith have said, you know, contraception's okay.
It's not okay.
It's a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counted how things are supposed to be.
If you were unable to hear that, I have the transcripts.
One of the things that I will talk about that no president has talked about before is the dangers of contraception in this country, the sexual liberty idea.
Many in the Christian faith have said that you, you know, const uh contraception's okay, but it's not okay.
It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that's counter to how things are supposed to be.
So Sandorm clearly is suggesting this is an area the feds ought not be involved in.
All it does is promote um abarrant behavior that causes cultural rot and decline.
I know it's been the church's position for centuries.
He's a Catholic.
Exactly right.
There's nothing new here.
That's my point.
This has been the church's now, the church doesn't preach this anymore.
That well, that was the point of Paul Ray's uh piece at Ricochet the other day.
The church has totally thrown in with the Democrat Party on this stuff.
So uh last night on MSNBC, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson was on.
He got this question.
Are are we headed toward a November election that is the pro-birth control party against the anti-birth control party?
That cannot be a good idea for the Republicans to go into a November election as the anti-birth control party.
I've tried to figure this out from every sort of cynical smart politics angle I can figure it out from, and it doesn't work for me.
What's the figure?
Something like 98% of American women use some form of birth control at some point during their lives.
How can you be against that?
All right, so that that's one example.
Now, up next, yesterday on Capitol Hill.
This is during a Senate Democrat press conference.
Senator Frank the Lout Lautenberg, Democrat New Jersey, had this to say about the Republican Party.
The GOP agenda gives women one option.
Barefoot.
Pregnant.
It's time to tell a Republicans to mind their own business.
Our side believes that women should be able to choose the paths in life that's best for them.
And that's why President Obama wants to make birth control more affordable.
Contraception is basic health care.
And it's essential for individuals to choose when they want to have a career and when they want to start a family.
This is an attack by the men's club here.
So this now Republicans want women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
Exactly what I said.
Exactly.
I didn't know this was in the roster until Cookie pointed it out to me.
This is exactly what I knew.
I even said it last half hour it was going to happen.
Now let me move on to this New York Times piece.
It's from February 11th.
This is about the takers.
They had a call in the last hour.
The guy agreed with me.
Obama is campaigning on the notion there are more takers than there are producers.
That there are more people dependent on government than there are not, and that they will vote for whoever they think is going to keep that gravy train flowing.
Doesn't matter any other issue.
It doesn't matter a whit what's happening in any other realm of American life, American politics.
And that's what they're banking on.
The regime, the Democrats are clearly now think that we've reached a point where all they have to do is wage a campaign aimed at the takers, the dependents in this country, that they vastly outnumber us, the producers, and they win.
So the New York Times has a piece, February 11th by Benyaman Applebaum and Robert Gebeloff.
Even critics of the safety net increasingly depend on it.
Now I mentioned after that call during the break at top of the hour.
I mentioned a snertly.
I said, I'll tell you what worries me, and part of it was having read this piece.
I've actually had it in the stack here for a couple of days.
I think that there are a lot of uh middle class people who now believe that the deck is so stacked against them that all the hard work in the world will not get them anywhere.
And that some of what we call the takers are those people.
They want to believe they want to do the hard work.
They want to play by the age-old rules that led to the American dream, but they just don't think that they can get there anymore.
And therefore, it's just easier to sit there and let Obama wipe out your student loan.
It's easier to let Obama take care of your mortgage.
It's easier to let Obama give you a food stamp.
It's easier.
May not like it, but it's easier.
So here's the New York Times.
It starts this way.
Kai Gulbrunson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side, and referees youth soccer games.
He makes about $39,000 a year.
And he wants you to know that he does not need any help from the Federal Government.
He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means.
He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending.
In 2010, he printed t-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor who ousted this region's long-serving Democrat Congress.
And the story comes from Lindstrom, Minnesota.
Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Kai Gulbronson, now 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned income tax credit.
He signed up his three scrual aged children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense.
Medicare paid for his mother, 88 to have hip surgery twice.
There's little poverty here where he lives, Northeast of Minneapolis, where cheap housing for commuters is gradually replacing farmland.
But Mr. Gulbrenson and many other residents who describe themselves as self-sufficient members of the American middle class And as opponents of government largest are themselves drawing more deeply on that government with every passing year.
So we're left to believe here that this guy hates it, but he needs it.
He's in the middle class, he wants out of the middle class, but he can't get by without the aid the government gives him.
He's in the social safety net, but he doesn't like it.
And what he instinctively knows here, the social safety net, and let's be honest with each other.
The social safety net, if you acknowledge the good intentions of the people that started this, and that's a stretch.
But let's, just for the sake of this discussion, let's let's say that the original good intentions were that the social safety net was for the poor.
That that's who the social safety net was intended to catch.
But as time has gone on, more and more middle class people, and we know this is true, this is uh inarguable, more and more middle class people are in the social safety net.
And the point of the New York Times to this headline, even critics of Safety Net increasingly depend on it.
The point of this story, and it's a long story, and it it has examples of a number of people.
And uh it basically posits here that a whole lot of people in the middle class are in the social safety net and don't like it, but can't do anything about it.
Listen to this.
This is make it a little bit uh clearer.
The government safety net was created to keep Americans from abject poverty.
I happen to disagree with it.
I I think the original intent was to do exactly what's happened.
I think the original intent of the social safety net was to make as many people dependent as possible.
They sold it on the basis that it would help the poor.
They sold it on the basis that we're good people, that we're a compassionate country, and that we'll take care of anybody who really can't.
We're good people.
I think that's how they sold it.
But I think the FDRs and the LBJs and the architects of this intended from the get-go to ensnare as many Americans as possible.
I think they intended for the social safety net to be like glue for the middle class.
The more people, you know this, the more people that you can make depend on the federal government.
And if you run the federal government, then the more dependent on you they are, and that equals power, and that equals re-election.
So I don't accept this notion that the original purpose of the safety net was just for the poor.
It was sold that way, but that was never their intention.
But let me continue with the Times piece.
The government safety net was created to keep Americans from abject poverty, but the poorest households no longer receive a majority of government benefits.
A secondary mission has gradually become primary.
Maintaining the middle class from childhood through retirement, that has become the purpose of the safety net.
Stop and think about that now.
A secondary mission has gradually become primary.
Maintaining the middle class from childhood through retirement.
What that means is entrapping people there and keeping them there.
The American dream has always been to get out of the middle class.
The American dream has always been to have upward mobility and eventually get out of it.
Not because there was anything wrong with it, because that was what America was, economic advancement, improving one's lifestyle standard of living.
What's happened now is that the poor are not the primary members of the social safety.
The middle class are.
The share of benefits flowing to the least affluent households, the bottom fifth, has declined from 54% in 1979 to 36% in 2007.
That's a CBO figure.
As more middle class families like the Gulbrensons land in the safety net in Chicago and similar communities, anger at the government has increased alongside.
Many people say they are angry because the government's wasting money and giving money to people who don't deserve it, but more than that.
They say they want to reduce the role of government in their own lives.
They're frustrated, they need help, they feel guilty for taking the help, and they resent the government for providing it.
They say they want less help for themselves, less help in caring for relatives, less assistance when they reach old age.
But they can't get out of it.
It just if you read the whole story, what you learn is the middle class.
I mean, this is kind of perverted.
The middle class taxes are going to support the middle class in the safety net.
And the people, this story is about people in the safety net who resent being there, to whom it is a stigma.
They don't like it.
But at the same time, they look at the amount of work necessary to get out of it and to equal all the benefits they're getting, and they don't think it's possible.
And so it just becomes easier.
Becomes easier to hang in the safety net, take whatever you get, and be mad about it, but it's still easier.
Now, this is what the Democrats have wrought, and this is what they're counting on.
So when the guy calls about the takers, he's talking, whether he knows it or not, about this element of the takers as well.
Takers who are taking but profess to resent the heck out of it, not like it, but experience all kinds of frustration that they just can't work hard enough to get out of it.
The deck is stacked or whatever.
Media creates this impression, by the way, the rules are stacked against them, only the rich are getting rich, the rich are getting richer, the income gap, whatever.
Uh the reason they think it's pointless to work as hard as would be necessary to improve their lot in life, or to even improve themselves such a way that they stay even with the benefits when they no longer have them, when they're providing for them themselves.
The expansion of government benefits become an issue in the presidential campaign.
Santorum has warned of the narcotic of government dependency.
Gingrich has compared the safety net to a spider web.
I've called it a hammock.
Mitt Romney has said the nation must choose between an entitlement society and an opportunity society.
All the candidates have promised to cut spending and further reduce taxes.
But the problem is the politicians have expanded the safety net without a commensurate increase in revenues.
It's a kind of fascinating story from the New York Times, but it does make me wonder if indeed it's true that a lot of people stuck in the safety net simply think it's pointless to work hard to get out of it because they don't think they can.
We had a report last week, if you recall, from the Heritage Foundation, which said this.
The average individual who relies on Washington could receive benefits valued at $32,748, more than the nation's average disposable personal income at $32,400.
So it's already marginally more profitable to live on government benefits than to have a job where you earn the nation's average disposable personal income.
And it dovetails nicely with the New York Times story.
Even critics of the safety net increasingly depend on...
Folks, Newsweek did a cover story not long ago.
We're all socialists now.
And that's just what the New York Times story is.
We're all socialists now.
Even some of us who don't like it are all socialists.
It just easier.
That's what the Times story is.
Just easier to stay in the safety net than to try to work out of it.
It's just easier.
Steve in Uptown New Orleans, great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Rush, mega 94-rated cigar chopping dittoes, my friend.
Well, thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
Listen, my question regarding the health care mandate.
If it's not a tax on the middle class, then why is King Obama assigning 17,000 IRS agents?
Ha!
Another excellent question from an informed member of the audience.
Thank you, sir.
There are 17,000 new IRS agents as part of Obamacare to enforce it.
And one of the things that has to be enforced is the collection of the fines.
If you don't buy health.
And by the way, early on, just to remind you, the fines for not having health care insurance are far lower than the cost of a policy.
And so does of America are going to opt to pay the fine early on.
And that I don't care.
It will have the same effect on them as a tax.
It will come out of their disposable income.
They've got to pay the fine.
And the process of all of this, private sector insurance, is driven out of the market.
If you have to buy insurance, but then you don't have to.
If you can pay a fine, young people will choose the cheaper course, which is paying the fine.
But then after a few short years, the cost of the fine is way higher than the cost of insurance, which will not be cheap.
Eventually they will force everybody onto a government insurance policy because the government is going to be the last remaining place you can go to buy an insurance policy for your health.
Talent on loan from God.
We are meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis, Gallup.
I mentioned earlier the uh the Gallup poll people say that the real unemployment rate in America, 9%, not Obama's 8.2 or 3%, whatever it is.
The underemployment rate, they say is 19.1%.
And in addition to that, Gallup went out, they polled small business owners whose small business value is uh under 20 million dollars about their expansion plans.
They did this in early January, and they found 85% of the entire sample do not plan on hiring anybody.
85% of small businesses under 20 million dollars don't plan on hiring anybody.
And then there's this from the politico.
Dave Mustain is the leader of the heavy metal band Megadeth.
Dave Mustain has decided he's voting for Rick Santorum.
You know why?
He said earlier in the election, I was completely oblivious as to who Rick Santorum was.
But when the dude went home to be with his daughter when she was sick, well, that was very commendable.
Mustain mentioned this to MusicRadar.com.
You know, he said, I think Mike Santorum has some presidential qualities.
I'm hoping that if it does come down to it, we'll see a Republican in the White House and it's Rick Santorum.
So the lead singer, the leader of Megadeth, supports Santorum because he went home to see his daughter.
Speaking of Santorum, he's got a new ad out.
He's got a new name for Romney called Rombo.
And Romney is a character in the ad, and he runs around firing mud from a shotgun or some kind of a rifle, firing mud at cardboard cutouts of Rick Santorum.
It's hilarious.
It's a hilarious ad.
Suggesting that Rombo is engaging in dirty tactics, firing mud from a rifle at cutouts of Santorum.
Last night, by the way, the campaign event, Boise, Idaho.
Santorum spoke, and I have a about a minute here soundbite of his remarks.
The reason we have to reduce the size and scale of government is to protect your freedom.
That's what this is about.
This election ultimately is about freedom.
And the bigger the government is, the smaller you become.
It is a zero-sum game, folks.
And we have a president who is spending us into oblivion.
This is right out of the FDR playbook.
Continue to grow government to get more and more people on government programs.
More and more dependency.
We have almost half the people in this country don't pay taxes, and almost half now receive some sort of government benefit.
We're reaching a tipping point, folks, when those who pay are the minority, and those who receive are the majority.
Freedom in election process is not something people will care about.
They'll care about whether they get their peace.
This is what it's all designed to do.
Gradually, slowly erode your freedom and increase your dependency on government.
That's why this election is the most important election of your lifetime.
This is a chance for Americans to stand up and say we will be free.
Entitlement growth is designed to make you care less about your freedom.
And I call your attention to this New York Times piece right there, February 11th.
Formerly nicotine stained fingers, even critics of SafetyNet increasingly depend on it.
Middle class, ensnared with the safety net, not the poor.
They don't like it, but they're stuck.
They think they can't work hard enough to get out of it.
It's just not possible anymore.
That's what they think.
So they resent having to depend on it.
They don't like it.
And they're really ticked off about the fact that hard work in their minds will no longer elevate them out of the middle class.
By the way, the Rombo ad, you know, Santorum is lifting a lot from this program in his ads, which if it's accurate, I have no problem with.
One of the things in the in the in the Rombo ad, there's a screen banner that takes a screenshot of our website, Rush Limbaugh.com.
Romney Advisor admits Romney care was blueprint for Obamacare.
It can't deny that.
Guy's name is Gruber.
He's out there saying so this week.
He's also out there saying, guess what?
We were wrong.
Premiums are going to go up with Obamacare.
Moving on.
This was back on February 1st, a couple of weeks ago, Lansing, Michigan, State Capitol, during a House Education Committee hearing.
Debbie Squires, the associate director, the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association testified.
And you remember the story yesterday.
Federal agents inspecting kindergarten student lunchboxes in North Carolina.
Little girl shows up in her lunchbox, a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, something else, the federal agent said nope, doesn't meet the standards, the federal guidelines, and they gave her chicken nuggets instead.
This is all from Michelle Obama, by the way.
We hit that story.
It went viral.
It showed up on Drudge later in the afternoon.
The the woman who was the subject of the mother of the little four-year-old, the kid who had her lunchbox commandeered, was on Fox today.
That story went everywhere.
Now you wonder how something like that can happen.
Listen to Debbie Squires.
On February 1st, in Lansing, Michigan, the state capitol, she is again the associate director, Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association testifying about education.
And she had this back and forth with a member of the Michigan legislature.
You know, educators go through education for a reason.
They are the people who know best about how to serve children.
That's not necessarily true of an individual resident.
I'm not saying They don't want the best for their children, but they may not know what actually is best from an education standpoint.
Wow.
Parents don't know what's best for their child.
I said they may want what's best for their child.
They may not know.
Debbie Squires.
Parents don't know what's best for their child.
That's why we have to do it in the schools.
That's why we have to be in charge of kids in this because their parents don't know what's best.
Just like uh Clinton in the 90s in Buffalo said, Well, one of the reasons why raise your taxes because you won't spend the money right away.
Uh we we we in government are always gonna spend your money better than you would.
It's what liberals think.
Let's do number 11 here last night in Las Vegas.
Channel 8, the anchorette Paula Francis was interviewing Obama.
She said you used to be against the mandate when you were running against Hillary in 2008 for the presidency.
You were against the individual mandate.
And then you're all for the mandate in your Obamacare Act as a constitutional lawyer.
How do you see your bill's chances in the Supreme Court?
You never want to make predictions because, you know, obviously there are nine folks whose job it is to make these decisions.
But I would not have proposed the notion that people have to get insurance rather than rely on you and me and others to buy their insurance or pay for their medical care.
I wouldn't have proposed that if I didn't think it was constitutional.
It's constitutional because I said it was constitutional.
It was constitutional because I proposed it.
So Kathleen Sibelius, Michelle Obama know what's best for your child.
Obama knows the Constitution better than you do.
The fact of the matter is he doesn't care what's in the Constitution.
He's gonna do what he wants, and he's doing it.
The mandate that insurance companies provide abortion services and contraception, so-called free.
A president does not have that power, and yet last week he just did it.
So, ladies and gentlemen, uh it's they're not even creeping anymore.
It's not even happening in a stealthful way.
There is just an open, right in front of our faces grab by this government, this regime for every bit as much power as they can grab.
Including.
With agents in classrooms inspecting what you send your kids to kindergarten with and determining whether or not it fits their guidelines.
Here's how that works, by the way.
And now, President Obama on childhood lunch preparation awareness.
My fellow parents, on behalf of the First Lady's childhood obesity task force, I want to inform you that a non-union school lunch prepared at home may be disqualified for human consumption if it doesn't meet the Department of Agriculture's new guidelines.
Suspect lunches will be subject to search and seizure by federal inspectors.
Don't let this happen to your child.
So did your mommy make your lunch?
Uh-huh.
Let's have a look.
Pinna butter and jelly, cheese cups, fruit cup milk, and chocolate cake.
Yeah.
Honey, this is just a little too unhealthy for you.
Here's some chicken nuggets.
Miss Obama, come back with my lunch.
This message was brought to you by the First Lady's Childhood Obesity Task Force, the SEIU, and the Chicken Nugget Council, who remind you that we're giving more money to Obama for president than Solindra did.
Shut up and eat your nuggets.
By the way, I would be remiss if I did not remind you.
We just had audio of Obama saying, I wouldn't have submitted Obamacare.
I wouldn't have authored it.
I wouldn't have put it up if I didn't think it was constitutional.
Well, just so you know, when he was running against Hillary in the 2008 primaries for the Democrat nomination, he was against the mandate.
He was opposed to it because it was unconstitutional.
Barack Obama opposed The mandate that he's now defending in the U.S. Supreme Court in the 08 campaign because he said it was unconstitutional.
Last night says it's constitutional.
All over the place on this.
The bottom line is we have a dishonest leader.
Profoundly so.
As president of the United States.
Here is Tina.
Homer Glenn, Illinois.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Good afternoon, Rush.
I believe the news that you wanted to talk about earlier was the announcement that Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, has decided to fly the flags at half mast.
In New Jersey.
That's what it was.
That's what I had seen.
I did not read Governor Christie.
I'm not sure he did.
He's the governor.
I didn't I just I just saw that flags were to be at half staff in New Jersey in because of the death of Whitney Houston.
Yeah, I I was astounded.
I I I am when did we become to revere drug addiction and alcoholism?
What are we teaching our children?
Well, that's not what's going on here.
Yes, it is.
I think it is very blatantly.
Um we've put the flags in half mass, but that's not fear someone.
If you if if you could get Governor Christie alone in a room and assure him that what he was going to say would not go beyond the room.
What he would tell you is that there are a lot of people who'll vote for him because he's doing this.
The pop culture, the people we've been talking about, uh people still covering uh watching coverage of her death.
They're voters.
They're potential voters.
They did this for Frank Sinatra.
When Frank Sinatra died, they the flag flew at half staff, New Jersey.
But he didn't die under the same sort of circumstances.
Uh, I'm not I'm just looking, I'm I'm really treading very lightly here.
Um look it.
Nobody's gonna admit here that what they're doing is lionizing uh alcoholism and drug abuse.
They are honoring a great reformer who sang the national anthem better than anybody's ever sang it, and a lot of people that vote uh who will be moved by this decision.
Well, I am appalled for one.
Well, I don't I'm not saying you shouldn't be appalled.
Don't don't misunderstand.
Your reason is a little I understand how you think that.
I just think the reason this is being done is political.
That's all.
Yes, I'm very cynical, folks.
Um Chris Christie said that Whitney Houston, an important part of the fabric and the cultural fabric of this state, her accomplishments and her life were a source of great pride.
That's what he said.
She's focusing on her accomplishments, not her demons.
Pure and simple.
Speaking of pandering for votes from the Washington Examiner, Obama, to break ground for a national black museum.
It is uh black history month, is it not?
It is, I knew that.
So I know black history because I I knew what black history month is.
So I can't possibly be a racist.
Hey, can't ever say that about me ever again.
We'll see you tomorrow, folks.
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