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Feb. 21, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:39
February 21, 2012, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Okay, folks, it's official.
I just have to, I'm overwhelmed.
It is not possible to get everything in today.
It's no longer possible to get everything in in three hours.
Even if I didn't take a phone call today, it's not possible to get everything in.
And I have to take some phone calls.
But it's just overwhelmed with stuff here today.
For example, Larry Kudlow has just posted this at National Review.
A Boulder Romney tax cut plan is coming.
Here's what Kudlow has posted.
Tim Romney tells me that there will be a Boulder tax cut plan released, either at the debate tomorrow night if Romney gets in it, or more formally at his Detroit Economic Club speech on Friday.
Kudlow says he's embargoed from releasing details until tomorrow.
But he writes, I can say that the new plan will be across the board with supply-side incentives from rate reduction and that it will help small business owners as well as everybody else.
Now, just yesterday, you think this is an accident?
So Kudlow gets a call from the Romney.
Hey, guess what?
By the way, I'm going to show you, but you can't tell anybody about it until tomorrow.
But we're going to have some new tax proposals.
Well, it was just yesterday that on this program, we read James Pethikukis' analysis of the first two points of Romney's economic plan, the 59-point plan,
and the first two points to maintain tax rates on personal rates, maintain business tax rate, maintain small, maintain, and Pethikukas said, now, that doesn't fly if Romney's back at his Bain Capital days and somebody comes in with a proposal to fix a company they just bought, maintain is not going to get you anywhere.
Guy would probably be fired.
Well, that begot a phone call from an angry Romney supporter who ripped me from one side of the room to the other for being anti-Romney, anti-conservative.
And all I did was read what Jim Pethukukas said, his impressions of Romney's 59-point plan are.
And lo and behold, Kudlow gets a call today, and guess what?
Supply-side tax cuts are coming in this week in Romney's revised tax plan.
That's cool.
Fine.
I'm just pointing out the confluence of events here, or actually the flow of events.
So the 59-point plan is on the way to being revised.
I want to go back.
I'm not through with this Obama business.
Folks, this soundbite that we just played again here from January 25th in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, it is profound.
President of the United States purposely destroying hope.
Mr. Hope and Change tells the American people, the American middle class, hey, no reason to shoot high.
We know you don't want to shoot high anymore.
We know what it's going to take satisfy here.
Listen to this again.
If you're willing to put in the work, the idea is that you should be able to raise a family and own a home, not go bankrupt because you got sick, because you've got some health insurance that helps you deal with those difficult times.
Stop this for a second.
What a picture of life in the United States painted by this guy.
What a desolate picture.
What a cloudy, gray, raw, overcast October day this guy presents us.
You're willing to put in the work.
The idea is you ought to be able to raise a family and own a home.
Not go bankrupt because you get sick.
And I ask again, who the hell does?
How often does it happen that people go bankrupt from getting sick in this country?
I'm sorry, this offends me.
We have the best health care system the world has ever seen.
It does not drive everybody into bankruptcy.
No, but he wants you to think it will.
He wants you so afraid of getting sick, so afraid having to go to hospital, it could be the end of your financial life bankrupt.
That's why you've got to support Obamacare.
That's why you've got to turn your life over to him to make sure those big bad wolves out there who all want to kill you don't get away with it.
Obama will save you.
And you'll have your little 1,800-square-foot house, your 2.8 kids, a white picket fence, a dog, a couple of electric cars, 48,000 hours to charge you damn things, able to drive 40 miles.
They really want you on a mass transit, stupid little bus, going to your mass job where you're nothing but a number.
You don't exist as a human being anymore.
You fill in the blank for whatever the regime needs you to do, and you're either called a good worker or a bad worker.
And that's all you want.
You just don't want any more than that.
You want to be able to send your kids away to college without going bankrupt.
You want to put some money away for retirement without going bankrupt.
That's all most people want.
They don't have unrealistic ambitions.
So give up your hope and give up your desire for the American dream and give up your dream, period.
Give up your desire to make it big.
Give up your ambition.
It's outsized anyway.
You don't have no business dreaming that big.
Who do you think you are?
So hope equals a nine-to-five job.
You arrive and get home on some form of mass transit when you have to go to the grocery store.
You get in your little electric car or whatever.
Your house looks like everybody else's house.
It's where everybody else's house happens to be.
And if you do this the way Obama says, he promises you won't go bankrupt when you get sick.
Or you won't go bankrupt when you send your kids to college.
But why send your kids to college when this is all you get for it?
What kind of hope is this?
What kind of change is this?
What kind of ambition is this from a guy who hasn't accomplished Jack you know what in his life?
In the real world, where you get up and go to work, this guy doesn't have a resume.
Well, yeah, if you think everybody's poor, oppressed, and downtrodden, and every corporation's out to kill you, then yeah, I guess this dream looks pretty good.
But sorry, we are not take your pick of a third world country that we're not all Obama's brother living in a six by nine foot hut.
Now, this view that Obama just paid looked pretty good to Obungo Oyongo Hussein, Obama, whatever his name is.
But this is why the election is going to be about Barack Obama, because it's going to be about the future of the country, economic liberty, religious liberty, speech liberty.
All of it's under assault from this guy and his party.
He's not alone in this.
That's all people want.
They don't have unrealistic ambitions.
And if you do, if you have unrealistic ambitions, if you want more than your 1,200 square foot little house, and if you want more than your 2.8 kids, and if you want more than your wife who goes to work and bosses you around every day, if you want more than that, and by golly, Jesus tells me to raise your taxes.
If your dreams get too big, I'm going to do what Jesus told me to do and tax the ever-living hell out of you.
I'm going to punish you for having visions that go way outside what your normal ambitions ought to be.
40 acres and a mule.
That's what Obama's promising us.
Folks don't have unrealistic ambitions.
They believe if they work hard, they ought to be able to achieve that small measure of the American dream.
Mr. Limbo, you know very well this is not what the president means.
What does he mean, Mr. Newcastrotti?
He simply means, Mr. Limbaugh, the small measure of the American dream is what he, at the very least, this is what people should be able to achieve by work, at the very least.
No, no, Mr. Newcastrotti, it sounds good.
That's all he envisions for people.
Look at his economic pun.
You end up acquiring more than that, and you are the enemy.
You get punished.
He's going to tax that achievement right out of your back pocket and right out of your bank account.
There won't be any achievement left.
Now we move on.
What's the next?
Oh, this was Obama this morning in Washington at the White House speaking about the importance of the agreement passed between Congress or by Congress to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance.
Here's what he said.
Whenever Congress refuses to act, Joe and I, we're going to act.
In the months to come, wherever we have an opportunity, we're going to take steps on our own to keep this economy moving.
Because we've got a choice right now.
We can either settle for a country where a few people are doing very well and everybody else is having to just struggle to get by, or we can build an economy where everybody gets a fair shot and everybody's doing their fair share and everybody is taking responsibility.
And everybody's playing by the same set of rules.
And that's the economy that I want.
Yeah, Val.
In a few months, pal, what you want isn't going to matter.
That's the economy you want.
Who are you?
That's the economy you want, where everybody's equal?
And you get to define equal?
Don't forget what I told you yesterday, quoting Tocqueville.
Americans in the early 1800s fought the perils of equality, not the perils of inequality.
They fought the perils of equality.
They knew policies like those prescribed by Obama would end the country as it was founded.
And how about this picture that he paints of America?
We can settle for a country where a few people are doing very well and everybody else is.
That's not this country.
It's not just a few people who do very well in this country.
It is loads and loads of them who traditionally have done well in this country.
And in many cases, speaking bluntly, the people that don't do well have only themselves to blame.
And those who have no control over themselves are the ones we help.
I don't care.
I don't care what kind of trouble I'm in.
I've been doing this 23 years.
They can't get me in any more trouble than they tried to put me in now.
What am I in trouble for now?
I'm telling you to people with this country, with the opportunity that is present in this country every day, that is unlimited.
The only limits in this country on anybody's advancement is their own limitation that they place on themselves.
The greatest obstacles that people face are those put in place by themselves came along, until the Democrat Party achieved prominence.
But even now, we are not a country where just a very few are doing well and everybody else is just struggling and barely getting by.
The people who are just struggling and barely getting by are the people who trusted him.
The people that voted for him.
The people sat around and waited for him to give a new car, a new kitchen, a new house, a new yard, a new lawnmower, whatever in the stupid hell they wanted from him.
Well, they're going to be sitting around waiting for the rest of their lives to get it because he doesn't have the power to give it to them.
For him to sit here and redefine the American dream into such an ordinary, slipshod, mediocre type existence offends me as much as anything this man has ever said.
And he doesn't know what he's talking about.
His portrayal of this country is nowhere near accurate, past, present, or future.
He hasn't the slightest idea.
A guy dripping with resentment for this country is now in charge of it.
That's the economy I want.
And I'm going to get the economy out.
Joe, Joe and I, we're going to get the economy we want.
We better pray they don't, folks.
Tell me something, folks.
How is it playing by the rules?
How is everybody playing by the rules when half of us don't even pay income taxes?
How is that playing by the rules?
And how does this guy, how does this guy have the nerve to give this poor man's American dream speech while Moo Chell and the daughters are in Aspen staying with some billionaire supporter at a luxury ski resort on their 16th vacation in the last three years?
He has the audacity and the nerve to paint a picture of a future that is bleak and colorless while his wife and daughter are staying with some billionaire in Aspen skiing on their 16th vacation in three years.
Soft despotism, soft tyranny.
And he wants you to applaud what he's doing and how he's doing.
All right, let's go to the phones.
We're going to start Newport News, Virginia with Shirley.
I'm glad to hear from you.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hi.
Well, hello, Russ.
This is such an honor to speak to you.
I'm so glad I got through.
I can't believe it.
Thank you very much.
Yes.
Well, I'm calling about Vick Santorum, and I think his candidacy is a godsend.
Do you realize that we are having these issues on a national debate for all to see?
Rick Santorum represents the polar opposite of Barack Obama in character, word, deed, and ideology.
You see, on one end of the spectrum, you have Barack Obama, who is a complete epitome of social, cultural, and economic Marxism.
And on the other end of the spectrum, we have Rick Santorum, who represents and articulates and demonstrates conservatism with an all-American Judeo-Christian worldview with conviction, principles, heart, logic, and truth like no one else can do.
You have such a bold stark contrast here of what's happening in America right now, and he's the only one with the courage to address the root cause of the big government and the economic crisis we're having.
Yeah, by the way, you have reminded me, I've got this piece by Bill McGurn, who I should say, in the interest of complete full disclosure, McGurn is a friend of mine.
He's got this piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled Sex Lies and Rick Santorum, the Politics of Double Standard on Social Issues.
It's really good.
It's in large part, it's an advice piece for Santorum on how to deal with all this, which I will share, I promise, in the next half hour.
But this is all coming about because of this long-drawn-out campaign.
This is what the establishment didn't want.
They wanted no part of this.
They wanted this over before it started.
I'm here to tell you this primary is not hurting the party.
Why does the party think that the primary is hurting it?
Now, that's part of it.
But the main reason that the party thinks that this campaign is hurting them is because it really, the long campaign is not helping Romney, is it?
Well, that's their guy.
The long campaign is not helping Romney.
In fact, some might say that the longer it goes on, the more his chances are hurt.
And the establishment, they're panicking over this.
But I'm going to tell you, even if he ends up being the nominee, if Romney is the nominee, he's going to win or lose based on his own ability or inability as a candidate.
It's not going to be due to anything else.
And that's another.
The establishment and some of our brave warriors in the conservative blogger sphere.
And no, I'm not going to mention any names because I don't care to be distracted by these phony, fake little contrived rivalries.
But I'm just telling you, some of these brave conservative bloggers are already setting the table to be able to say, it wasn't my fault, wasn't my fault, if we lose.
Yeah, some of these brave warriors telling us how we ought to think and what we ought to do are already, because they think if Romney loses the nomination, the party's finished.
And Obama's massively re-elected in a landslide.
And so they're setting things up.
So, hey, don't blame us.
We try to tell you.
And so they're in a totally defensive posture right now.
And meanwhile, others are moving forward with a positive attitude, a can-do spirit, and confident of victory.
I think anybody on our side who gets a nomination can win.
And I have not wavered from that because this campaign is going to be about Barack Obama.
I'll make another prediction to you.
Snerdley keeps talking to me about unity.
Snerdley's worried that there's so much infighting and there's no way it's going to be unity.
Let me tell you what's going to unify everybody.
It's Barack Obama.
This, what do you want to call it, anger or the conflict that's going on when this nomination is decided and whoever ends up being the nominee, this energy is going to be rechannel and aimed right at Obama.
And that's the way it's supposed to be.
That's the way it will be.
Mark my words.
Don't doubt me.
My staff once again think that I have stepped in it big time and that I have essentially lost touch with you, the quote-unquote average American member of the audience in my References to bankruptcy vis-a-vis getting sick.
I will deal with this in just a moment.
First, a couple of observations.
Barack Obama.
We've gone from Obama lowering the oceans, which he promised to do, to now lowering our expectations and furthering a fear not rooted in reality.
And that's what bankruptcy because of getting sick is, a fear not rooted in reality.
I understand the fear is real.
And I understand people live with the fear every day.
Now we'll just give an example.
Imagine your kid needs a kidney and your health insurance doesn't provide it because health insurance companies are mean SOBs.
And you have to sell your house, which you would do, to find the kidney for your child.
I calmly replied, can you tell me the last time somebody sold their house to buy a kidney?
That's not what I mean.
I'm talking about the fear.
Besides, people don't own houses anymore because they're essentially underwater.
I say, can you tell me the last time somebody sold their house to buy a kidney?
Well, there won't be any houses and there won't be any kidneys.
Can you tell me the last time somebody sold their house to buy a kidney?
It's the fear, Rush.
It's the fear.
And who created this fear?
The Democrat Party.
And what's the purpose of the fear?
The purpose of the created fear is to paralyze you and to get you to subliminally agree with the downsizing of your life, the downsizing of your expectations, the downsizing of your dreams.
They want health care passed because they want to control every breath you take.
And they want to scare you into accepting it by telling you that you are one illness away from bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, when is the last time that happened?
Now, I'm sure in a country this large, people can cite me examples where people have been destroyed financially or harmed severely financially because of an illness not covered by health insurance.
Is it the norm in this country or is it a fear?
Well, it's clearly not the norm.
It might become the norm if these people succeed in getting this monstrosity implemented because guess who's going to ultimately be in charge of whether your kid gets the kidney, whether you can pay for it or not?
The Secretary of Health and Human Services is going to be in charge of determining whether or not your kid gets a kidney in this example.
In the meantime, they hit you every day with this fear, bankruptcy because you get sick.
Obama just did it.
That's what the soundbite's all about from January 25th.
You're willing to put in the work?
Hey, ideas, you should be able to raise a family, own a home, not go bankrupt because you got sick.
Who is going bankrupt because they get sick?
Isn't it true that we hear stories in this country of great valor involving the medical community?
Aren't most of the stories we hear about involving good works and good deeds by people living in communities in dire circumstances coming together to help the aggrieved?
It's not normal.
It's not the rule of thumb that people go bankrupt in this country because they get sick.
They want you to think it is.
And they want to think it could happen to you tomorrow.
And that's why you'll give up a little of your freedom.
And that's why you'll sacrifice a little of your liberty.
And that's why you'll sit there and eagerly pay higher taxes to make sure you don't go bankrupt if you get sick.
That's right.
The government will protect you from that.
I'm not denying the fear is real.
I'm not denying that people base their lives on it.
It's to me a crying shame.
It's a crying shame.
This is the kind of stuff totalitarian regimes do.
Soft despotism, soft tear.
This is not bludgeoning you over the head.
This is working on you for years and years and years and exploiting a natural fear.
What could be a greater fear of your child getting very sick?
You'd do anything to stop that, including give up everything you've got to Obama or the government.
And they're exploiting that.
And they've created a fear that isn't rooted in reality.
Federal law is you get treated in this country.
Emergency room or what have you.
Now, I've had a guy looking for an example.
Google searches since this all started.
I've had a guy looking for an example.
Somebody's selling a kidney or selling a house to buy a kidney.
No, no, I'm not going to let this go.
I'm told I'm out of touch.
I am the one in touch with reality.
I don't have the fear, and it's not because of anything financial.
It's just I know liberals.
I know how they work.
I do not allow them.
I mean, they scare me in other ways.
They scare me by having this stuff work on other people.
That's how I get scared.
I am terribly frightened about how easily they are able to get inside people's heads and turn them into squishy mush.
I am frightened at how easy liberals get into people's heads and convince them to give up their freedom and their security and everything else for an imagined crisis.
One that doesn't happen.
So I had this guy out there looking, for an example, somebody sold a house to buy a kidney.
You know what I mean.
Now, I didn't mean by a kidney.
You know exactly what I mean.
To pay for the transplant surgery, whatever.
You still have to get the kidney.
Point is, we found something in the San Francisco Examiner.
A 17-year-old high school student did sell a kidney to buy an iPad.
Yep, Google search medical bankruptcy, 105 million hits.
Medical bankruptcy, 105 million results from the National Center for Policy Analysis, July 8, 2009.
U.S. medical bankruptcies, a myth.
The idea that large numbers of Americans are declaring bankruptcy due to medical expenses is a myth.
Therefore, the introduction of government-run health insurance in the U.S. will do nothing to reduce personal bankruptcies, concludes a new study by the Fraser Institute.
This is a think tank.
Went out and looked at it.
But a 17-year-old high school student in the San Francisco Examiner in what was the date?
This is the date.
Has to be recent.
The iPad is only two or three years old, sold a kidney to buy an iPad.
You can sell a kidney.
Somebody bought a kidney.
My only point here is that we've got a guy downsizing people's dreams.
That's that, that try that with your child.
You ask your child, hey, little Johnny, what do you want to be?
I want to be.
Let's say your kid tells you he wants to be a trained physician to do.
No, John, you can't do that.
Why are you, you'll never be able to.
In fact, do we not all know of parents who continually beat their kids down?
You can't do that.
Who do you think you are?
You're never going to be good enough to do that.
That's what Obama's doing here.
Obama's telling us we have to learn to deal with our own limitations.
The problem is, it's his limitations being forced on us that he is attempting to replace our own dreams with.
And our dreams are none of his business.
And he has made our dreams his business, and his purpose is to downsize our dreams, our hopes, our expectations.
And the techniques they use to do this are fear, loathing, frighten, scare, intimidate.
It's just a show.
I tell you what, instead of lowering the oceans, how about we raise our expectations, throw him out of office, and then we enjoy the oceans.
Instead of feeling like we can't even enjoy that, can't even enjoy the oceans.
And by the way, you remember a piece by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal not long ago.
I quoted from it repeatedly.
Henninger's point was that Romney is not naturally a conservative.
He's going to have to be nudged.
He's going to have to be shoved in that direction.
And here we have a long campaign, and it looks like that's happening.
Jim Pethikucas writes critically of Romney's 59-point plan the next day.
Romney calls, or his office calls Kudlow, and says, Hey, big change coming on the economic.
We got two new economic proposals, and it's all supply side.
So Henneger was right.
They're being nudged to their, it's all good, folks.
It's all good.
The long campaign is just fine.
Don't go away.
Be right back.
And welcome back, Rush Lindborn here to cutting edge of societal evolution.
Normal people are more likely to go bankrupt not being able to pay their taxes than because they lose a body part or an organ.
You check it out.
How many people go bankrupt because of the IRS than because they need a kidney?
Look it up.
Who's next?
Rich in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania.
Great to have you on the EIB Network.
Hello.
First time caller.
Love the show.
A reason for my call would promptly be with the guy that was on yesterday at the end of the show.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
You know, he was so aggravated with you, but, you know, I think that all this animosity and anger and passion is all coming because of the desperation of the people.
They're so aggravated with Obama that, you know, we're hoping that the Republicans aren't going to blow it.
I really feel that whoever the candidate is, we're going to rally around him to defeat Obama.
That's right, because that's going to be the objective.
And that's what this is all about now.
What this is all about now is beating Obama.
And what the people who are not supporting Romney, they think Mitt Romney's not conservative enough, and they want a conservative.
They think that's what will beat Obama, and that's what they want governing the country.
It's conservatism.
It's nothing personal to Romney.
It's just the fact that this is all about defeating Romney.
This Republican primary is not a beauty contest.
The American people, the Republican base that is participating in this, is animated about one thing, and that's defeating Obama.
It's not because people love Santorum and prefer his issues or this and over Romney per se.
It's about beating Obama.
This is what the Republican establishment doesn't get.
Hell, the Republican establishment is not even unified on the concept that Obama can lose.
A lot of the Republican establishment think there's no way he can be beat.
So they want a candidate who's not going to lose so many in the Senate or the House or might win some down ballot, win the Senate.
I mean, that's not where the base is.
The base wants to send this guy packing.
The base wants to send the Democrat Party packing.
The Republican establishment doesn't think that can happen.
And that's the reason for the divide.
The Republican establishment is scared to death.
The wrong candidate will scare away the moderates, and with that, or the independents, and with that will go their chances of winning the Senate.
The base wants to send Obama packing after one term.
And to them, that's what this primary is all about.
The Republican establishment, the party elders, had better figure out that what this primary is about is precisely beating Barack Obama and limiting him to a one-term presidency.
Oh, yeah, there's a little sending of messages back and forth to the establishment saying we want conservatism.
We're tired of moderates and people whose turn it is being the nominee.
It's all about beating Obama.
And the Republican base thinks it's possible.
They know it's possible.
And that's the objective.
That's why the Tea Party exists.
It's about securing a future for people's kids and grandkids.
It's about making sure a kidney doesn't bankrupt you.
That's what it's about.
Don't forget ABC's special from the White House on health care.
A woman stands up.
Mr. President, Mr. President, my mother, 90-some-odd years old, perfect health, huge spirit.
She just needs a pacemaker.
Will you factor?
I couldn't believe this question.
Will you allow for someone's spirit or will to live in decision?
Nope.
Don't think we can do that.
At some point, we're just going to have to decide: give them the pill, give them the pill, and make their remaining days as pleasant as possible.
Give them the pill.
What?
The United States of America?
The will to live doesn't matter in terms of parceling out health care.
He said it.
I was stunned that we'd even gotten to the point where a citizen would ask the president if he would allow her mother to live.
That's the kind of stuff that scares me and infuriates me at the same time.
We looked it up, by the way.
12% of Americans claim medical bankruptcy.
Claim it.
A lot of times people claim bankruptcy when they're not, but it's the stat.
12% of Americans claim medical bankruptcy.
However, we looked at Canada, socialized medicine, where we're hit.
15% of Canadians claim medical bankruptcy.
So you think that we get Obamacare that your daughter needs a kidney, you're going to get it?
Why?
If for some reason you are determined unfit by the regime, then so will be your daughter or child who needs the kidney be determined to be unfit.
The GOP base is confident conservatism can beat Obama, can win the Senate, and expand the House.
The elites in the party think conservatism will cause a landslide defeat.
The Barry Goldwater model.
The elites think moderates will beat Obama.
Ain't going to happen.
That's the divide.
I know, I know I did not get to the Santorum piece by Bill McGurn.
That's what I mean.
I'm overwhelmed, overloaded, whatever.
But I'll lead off the next hour with it and make sure it gets in that way.
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