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May 2, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:55
May 2, 2012, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Hiya, folks, great to have you back.
It's great to have you with us.
It's a Rush Limbaugh program already Wednesday.
It's hump day.
It's a thrill and a delight.
Be here each and every busy broadcast day, including a lot of holidays, discussing the stuff that matters most.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882 and the email address.com.
I don't want to hear any more from anybody.
Rush, rush!
Did you see what happened on CNN?
I don't want to hear about it because nobody did.
They had their worst ratings at CNN since 2000 or 2001 in April.
Something like I mean, the top number, the highest number of viewers they had any one time, I don't know when it was, but 350,000.
A national cable network, 350,000.
We have that many amputees in New York.
Just in Manhattan.
350,000.
And the highest rated show they have.
Well, no, no, wrong way to put it.
The show that suffered the least damage was their 9 p.m. show, hosted by Piers Morgan.
That was down 14%.
Nobody sees it if it's on CNN.
They can run a continuous loop of Obama saying this and nobody sees it.
Not domestically.
Now, internationally, it's a whole different game, but anyway, uh Renee, if you're still listening out there, and those of you who heard her call in the last hour, really got me thinking on this.
Not so much how to um respond to Democrats.
I'm I'm more interested in all of you understanding this.
And her call was a great thing for me because I sometimes assume, because I have such a uh uh a great respect for all of you, your intelligence and and the degree to which you're informed.
People listen to this program, we've we've done audience research, and we know the the education level of this audience is vastly above that of most media programs, television or radio.
But it's always good for me to learn that some stuff is not as not understood as I understand it.
Now let's look at this spending business.
See, to me, I don't understand how anybody but a Democrat partisan, and by definition, Democrats are not critical thinkers.
They pure reactors.
They simply react.
They are they are the quintessential mind-known robots.
They are the ones with marching orders.
They're the ones with talking points.
And they get them off the websites.
They're they're not.
I'm talking about average Americans that you would run into in your town.
I'm not talking about elected Democrats or the schemers or the uh campaign consultants or any of that.
I'm talking about average run-of-the-mill guy who lives down the street from you, Democrats.
They are not critical thinkers.
They can't possibly be.
They wouldn't be Democrats if they were.
And so they run around and they tell all these Republicans how it's the Republicans' responsibility, all this deficit spending.
Well, they believe it because their leaders say it and the media says it.
But here's some facts for you.
Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for four years, not just two.
For four years, starting in January of 2007, after the House elections in 2006, the midterms, the Mark Foley election.
Pelosi and the Democrats are sworn in, and they run the House.
And that is when, if you want to start tracing the genuine economic despair and destruction, I'm going to get these numbers.
I'm seeing them.
They've been worked up, the unemployment numbers, the uh GDP output numbers starting in 2007 compared to the previous six years, it's it's clear what happens when Democrats assume control.
It's clear what happens to the economy, it's clear what happens to uh unemployment, it is clear what happens to spending.
It's what happens to revenue to uh Washington, it always decreases.
Democrats claim that that's what they care most about is funding government.
Tax receipts always plummet when Democrats run things because they destroy economic output.
They transfer wealth from the private sector to the government.
They make the private sector smaller.
Obama's done that better and more intensively than any Democrats since FDR.
So the Democrats control both houses of Congress for four years, starting in January of 2007.
During that time, during those four years, and it's it's George W. Bush's uh the last two years of his administration, admittedly.
But during that time, 2007 through 2010, no Republican legislation was considered in committee.
Legislation is crafted in committee where the majority is in control, and particularly in the House where spending bills originate, the Ways and Means Committee and all the other committees.
No Republican legislation was considered.
Pelosi didn't even consider Republican legislation.
The idea that Republicans have any responsibility congressionally for the spending that occurred in this country starting in 2007 is simply not possible.
Pelosi didn't permit it.
Pelosi and Stenny Hoyer and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, they ran the House back then, they didn't permit it.
Even now, the Democrats still control the Senate and the White House.
So from 2007 to 2010, the Democrats had the House and the Senate.
Then they got the White House, and for two years they had the White House, the House, and the Senate after two years of total control of Congress.
So the Democrats had total control of Congress for four years, two of those years they also had the White House, those two years of the first two years of Obama.
That's when all of this deficit spending started.
That's health care, the stimulus.
That's when Obama's spending took root.
And there's this thing called the baseline in the budget.
I know if you're new to the program, let me do this very briefly.
I'm not going to bother explaining why to you now because that you just accept this, because I'm I'm I'm struck for time here.
Every year of the federal budget, item by item automatically is slated to go up by a certain percentage.
I don't know what it is because it changes from department to department, but it's not based on any previous year's spending.
There's a built-in increase every year, regardless whether the department in question needs it or not, which is why at the end of every budget year you'll see advertisements for food stamps from the agriculture department.
They want to make sure that they get or have a reason to get more money.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter because they're going to get it anyway.
The baseline can be as high as 10% in some departments, could be as high as uh 3% in others.
So if, let's say the Department of Defense, just to pick one here, let's say that the baseline increase for a particular year is scheduled to go up 8%, because that's what the law has been written as by previous Congress.
And let's say that the defense spending only goes up 4%.
That's when the Democrats start talking about cuts.
Even though the increase was 4% instead of 10, they call that a cut.
When it's a 4% increase.
Every year, the federal budget is slated to grow by a minimum of 3% to 5%.
How did that happen?
Look at the stimulus.
Obama's stimulus of $800 billion, basically, Raised the baseline of federal spending just in that one piece of legislation by $800 billion.
Once it's spent, it has to be spent every year again.
Now, maybe not the same way.
There hasn't been a second stimulus of that size, but it still gets spent.
It's etched in stone into the budget.
Thank you.
So the Democrats have been in charge of the Senate from 2007.
They were in charge of the House and Senate from 2007 through 2010.
2009 and 2010, Obama was president.
And even now the Democrats control the Senate and the White House, and no law can be passed without the approval from both those bodies.
The Republicans controlling the House can't stop anything.
So now after five years with Democrats in control of two-thirds or more of the government, only somebody genuinely ignorant or a liar would think Republicans or conservatives have any responsibility for the current state of affairs.
The Republicans haven't had the power to implement their own ideas.
And when they try, Democrats have not even presented a budget the past three years.
Only the Republicans have.
Paul Ryan, the past two years has been the author.
And you see what happens to him.
And as I said in the last half hour, whenever the Republicans present a budget that has some reductions in spending, the Democrats then start talking about potential government shutdowns.
And that's when Republicans cave.
Oh no, they don't want to be blamed for that.
Not after what happened in 1995.
Now here's some numbers for you.
January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress.
Dow Jones industrial average closed at 12,621.
The unemployment rate, January 3rd, 2007 was 4.6%.
The gross domestic product, economic output for the previous quarter was 3.5%.
The economy had just set a record of 52 straight months of job creation.
52 straight months of new jobs every month in the 52 months prior to January 2007.
26 million Americans were on food stamps.
January 3, 2007.
That number has doubled now.
The Social Security program took in a neighborhood of $100 billion more than it paid out in 2007.
The national debt was approaching $9 trillion.
What is it now?
Well, the Dow is about the same $12,000, 13,255, but that's just recently.
For most of the past years, the Dow was way down and people were in panic over it.
The unemployment rate, January 2007 was 4.6%.
Today it's 8.3 and actually in the 9%.
GDP, January 2007, 3.5%.
Now it's 1.8%.
January 2007, the economy had just set a record of 52 straight months of job creation.
We're into three straight years of job losses since Obama took office.
The Social Security program is now spending more than it takes in, and the national debt is approaching $17 trillion.
It was $9 trillion in January of 2007.
And four out of the five years.
Four out of the last five years, Democrats have had majorities in the legislative and executive branches.
There is no intellectual case that can be made that Republicans are the authors of all this spending or the reason for the economic collapse.
There isn't one Republican policy that's been implemented here, not one conservative policy that's been implemented.
And Social Security for the first time ever is spending more than it is taking in.
Sixteen trillion national debt, GDP 2% at best.
It's really around one and a half.
And falling.
Our debt is rising.
There's no way.
It's not mathematically possible.
It's not politically true.
It is not factually accurate to say that all of this decline, all the bad news has anything to do with conservatives or Republicans.
They just haven't had enough power.
And they haven't had the ability to stop any of this.
Now some of you might, well, it's not they don't have the ability, they don't have the guts.
Well, that may be true too.
But regardless, they haven't been able to stop.
And even if they had wanted to, we can argue about whether they want to or not another day.
But even if they'd wanted to, they haven't been able to.
And we'll be back.
All right, for you Oprah fans, we have uh we have Oprah style news here.
Dylan Byers, uh writing in a blog at The Politico, has uncovered an interesting fact in Obama's 1995 autobiography, Dreams from my father, there is the story of his girlfriend.
We've asked on this program, where are Obama's former girlfriends?
Everybody has former girlfriends, and you can find him and find out what kind of guy the guy was, especially if he's running for president.
He was such a cool guy.
Yeah, well, you would think women would be falling out of the woodwork here, tell everybody what a great cool dude Obama was.
And people inspired by his uh professorship at uh University of Chicago, uh teaching how to uh overthrow uh private sector governments and so forth.
You would think there'd be a lot of people come forth and say, yeah, Obama, he was such a cool guy.
Really inspired me.
You can't find these people.
You can't find them.
Now uh Dylan Byers says one of more mysterious characters from Obama's 1995 autobiography, Dreams from my father, is the so-called New York girlfriend.
Obama never referred to her by name or even pseudonym, but he describes her appearance, her voice, and her mannerisms in specific detail.
But Obama has told biographer David Marinus or Moranis of the uh of the used to be at the Washington Post, that the New York girlfriend was actually a composite character based on multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and Chicago.
During an interview in the Oval Orifice, Obama acknowledged to uh David Moranis or Marinus that while Genevieve was his New York girlfriend, the description in his memoir was a compression.
His word meant composite, I'm sure.
Compression of girlfriends, including one uh who followed Genevieve when I was in Chicago.
So New York girlfriend was a composite.
The bunch of girlfriends, Obama, and he just combined all the character traits into one woman.
And the excuse, hey, it's just a couple paragraphs in the book.
What's the big deal?
Well, in an autobiography, if you're going to invent characters in an autobiography, if you're going to invent characters and then only admit you invented them after people have tried to find them, you know, he invents this Genevieve baby can't find her, she didn't exist.
Well, I haven't read I don't know if he quoted her.
Uh if he compressed her, she might have said something.
But it's not reported.
I don't know if he quoted her or not.
The point is, if they can find a couple paragraphs where a person was essentially made up in an autobiography.
It's kind of like when Charles Barclay said in his autobiography was misquoted.
Remember that.
Yeah, there was something in in in Charles Barclay's book that was I I forget the nature, was controversial.
And so they asked him about it.
And he clearly was unfamiliar with it.
Whoever the by Charles Barclay with, whoever the with guy was, had put it in Barclay hadn't even read his own autobiography.
I didn't even know it.
Well, I was misquoted.
Like Josh Steiner.
Do you you you people happen to remember the uh lovely and gracious uh Josh Steiner?
Josh Steiner uh worked in the Clinton administration, and didn't he have something to do with the FBI files or something like that?
And Hillary and Bill had 500 FBI files squirreled away, and Steiner had something to do, I think it was with them, and he kept a diary.
And his diary ended up being subpoenaed.
And he had to testify either in court or before a congressional committee in a yeah, before Congress.
It was a congressional committee.
And what he said was at variance with what was in his diary.
And his excuse in his testimony before Congress was he had lied to his diary.
He lied to his diary.
Barclay misquoted in his autobiography, and Obama makes up and compresses the girlfriend character in his autobiography.
Meeting and surpassing all the audience expectations.
Every day, every busy broadcast hour, Rush Limbaugh from the distinguished Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Here's Pietro in Deer Park, New York.
Great to have you on the program.
I'm glad you waited.
Hi.
Hey, Rush, it's an honor to speak to you.
Uh how are you doing today?
Very well.
Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Um well I'm I'm calling because I had this debate with one of my professors in college.
Um I'm a college student in Nassau Community College, and uh he went on about how the Republican Party is a party that favors the wealthy and the rich.
Well, the Democrat Party w uh favors the poor.
Naturally.
And and that the tax rate, the taxes that the Republicans want to reduce are those that help out the wealthy and uh Yes.
The uh what what is the course?
Uh History 103.
It's uh American history.
History one hundred three.
American history, and you're talking about how the Republicans have policies that only favor the rich.
Yes, it it's a very liberal professor that every time he has a chance to bash a Republican president from Reagan to Bush to Do you do you realize what a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance your professor is.
Yeah, yes.
That's that's why when he said that I I confronted him about it.
I tried to explain to him the conservative principle that if you tax a business uh each business had a profit goal during the year.
Now, if you take that a if you take a chunk of that away from a business, then they'll make it up somehow.
Or raising prices on the consumer, or firing employees, or packing their bags and going somewhere else.
And he said I was wrong.
I was wrong, and and nothing that I could say could change his mind that I was wrong.
And uh I even had I even had a debate with the other students that were all clearly Obama supporters that uh taxing the wealthy is the best thing that you can do right now.
Uh taxing the wealth of course this is standard belief of uh lifelong Democrats.
And again, they believe it reflexively.
They th they haven't arrived at this uh point of view on the base of thought or reason.
This is just what they've been taught, they think it makes sense.
Um the ways to deal with this are numerous and almost countless.
Uh You could, for example, the next time the subject comes up, sounds like it comes up every day in your class.
You could ask your professor, well, you know that you you say Democrats care for the poor.
He'll say, Oh, yeah.
The Democrats, they're the ones that really, really care about the poor.
That's right.
Ask him why are the poor doing so bad?
Ask him why cities run by nothing but liberals and Democrats for years are bulldozing houses and getting smaller.
Ask them, ask your professor why the Great Society, the war on poverty, and all of these programs designed to end poverty have expanded it and deepened it and driven families apart.
I nobody'll tell you.
I'm not asking you to ask him this to persuade him, because you never will.
No, no, I uh well, from from that day on, I I just gave up on this.
Right.
He'll just come back and say, Well, because the Republicans won't let it all happen.
The Republicans have stopped it.
Republicans so you say the Republicans want people to be poor, and he'll be forced to say yes.
And you say, Why?
Why what's in it for the Republicans to keep people poor?
Exactly.
Exactly.
And and Where Where did you learn, Pietro, that your professor is wrong?
Well, I I I listened to you, Rush.
Uh listen to the radio.
I I used to be a Democrat uh when I was young and I didn't have a job, I didn't have to pay taxes.
I was a Democrat.
I believed that those that were wealthy were supposed to take care of those that were not.
And and once I stepped into the real world and I had to pay all these taxes, and I had it at all these government programs that fail, I see that it doesn't work.
And I lived in a socialist country, and I tried to explain to you students that socialism doesn't work, and I know socialism because the Democrat platform is a socialist platform.
Because I lived it and I I know it.
What country I see uh Uruguay?
Uruguay, okay.
In South America.
Um you have the inspired question here.
Oh, taxes.
You've mentioned taxes a lot.
I would next time you this comes up, your students are um your professor.
You said that your professor argues against trickle down, that that tax cuts to wealthy people do not find their way.
The money doesn't find its way to the middle class, correct?
Absolutely.
He believes that the wealthy don't create jobs at all.
Yeah, wealthy don't create jobs.
So the question to ask your professor would be, okay, then how does taking the money from the rich and bringing it to the government help the poor?
And what he will tell you is, because the Democrats have compassionate programs, they take that money and give it to the poor, whereas the rich would never give it to the poor, so the government has to force that.
Then you ask, well, then why are there still poor people?
Because, and this Pietro, that's what you say.
Because since 1964, there has been over four trillion dollars transferred from the producers in this society to the poor by all rights.
We should not have any poverty if socialism works.
We shouldn't have any poor people.
We've taken four trillion dollars away, and we have redistributed that to the so-called needy and so why are the percentages still the same?
Why are the people living in poverty still the same percentage-wise as it was when LBJ started his war on poverty?
The then you then you ask him, could you tell me what happened in the eighties, professor?
Well, well, to him, the 80s were.
Well, what happened in the 80s was Ronald Reagan was president for two terms, and the top marginal tax rate when Reagan took office in 1981, um, Pietro was 70%.
This is this perhaps the most important thing you could tell this brain dead professor of yours.
The top marginal tax rate in 1981 when Reagan took office was 70%.
When Reagan left office eight years later, in 1989, the top marginal tax rate was 28%.
70% to 28% equals tax cuts for the rich and everybody.
And then ask his brain dead professor what happened.
Have him check out economic growth.
Have him check out what happened to employment.
Have him check every economic statistic for the entire eight years, and it's not arguable what happened.
An economic boom was created by cutting the top rate on the rich from 70 to 28%.
In addition to that, Pietro, because this was, you know, you're you're college student now, so this is you you weren't alive then.
This is important.
So the amount of money that was generated to the Treasury by taxes in 1981 was about 500 billion.
In 1989, when Reagan left office, cutting taxes from 70, 28 percent, the amount of money collected by taxes almost doubled.
It was close to a billion, a trillion dollars.
Tax cuts, 70 to 28 percent, doubled revenue.
The reason why is because it created economic growth, and the very people you're talking about, the rich grew businesses and started hiring people, and more taxpayers were created.
There were more people working and paying taxes, and revenue to the government grew.
Because it worked so well.
People like your brain dead professor and others have been rewriting history and lying to people like you about what happened in the eighties and what happened with supply side economics, because it's the best proof yet in this country that socialism is a lie, that socialism doesn't work, that socialism is a false promise and a false premise.
And therefore, because it worked, it shows that they are wrong, and they can't afford to be wrong because this is their life.
So they have to rewrite history and lie about what happened during the eight years of Reagan, the 80s, and even the 15 years that ensued after that.
Uh it led to a tr terrific economic boom.
And you could then cite Bush.
Bush tax cuts led to 52 straight months of un of employment growth.
I mean, the the the your professor has no evidence to support his claims.
All he's got are emotional tugs on your heart and every other student's heart about compassion.
The poor, the rich are evil and mean, and they won't give their money away, and they won't pay people livable wages with their money.
So a compassionate government run by Democrats has to raise their taxes and take it from them and then give it to them, and therefore the Democrats have big hearts and are compassion.
And at which point you say, but Professor, none of what you said is true.
And you are committing a veritable educational malpractice by lying to us, your students.
Because you are not telling us the truth about what happened in American history, and as such, we're leaving this place filled with lies.
We're leaving this class and your course believing things which are not true.
You are not teaching us.
Now, you can be guaranteed to get an F if you're allowed to stay in course in a class.
Obviously, you're not going to do any of this.
I'm just telling you this for your own knowledge and your own education.
You understand it instinctively anyway, because you came from a place like this.
Yes.
I saw it firsthand, and I know it doesn't work.
And I I I know about the 80s because my father started his business in the eighties, and I from what he told me and I know.
Well, good.
Excellent.
I know it works.
And and I How old are you?
Uh I'm 25 years old.
25.
Yes, sir.
Well, spread the word.
Need every one of you we can get.
I I'm trying, Rush, and you know it's hard.
It's hard when you have these these people that are supposed to educate the people and I know.
It's frustrating.
Welcome to the club.
It's going to be frustrating your whole life.
That is why at the ballot box P8th row, people like that have to be defeated.
You're you're you're not going to change your professor's mind, and you're not going to get him to change the way he teaches the class, sadly.
Um it just isn't going to happen.
But you can help other students resist the lies that are being quote unquote taught to them.
You can tell this guy, hey prof, hey prof, you know the uh great society was enacted 47 years ago, the war on poverty, 47, 50 years ago.
Prof, why isn't we still have great Democrat plan, LBJ, great guy.
War on poverty, great society.
Where is it, prof?
Ask him to prove it.
Make these people prove this crap they teach.
I told you, I told you we were not going to be distracted by this Afghanistan trick.
It's probably the only show in America that hasn't played any sound bites of our dear brave, courageous leader uh in Afghanistan, dodging bullets and snipper fire while announcing the end of terrorism and making a deal with the Taliban.
Hey, come on.
Just renounce everything you he said, renounce everything you believe.
Join us.
And he said, by the way, I'm I'm not telling you you have to have a country like America.
What big surprise.
First president in our history that does not believe in the concept of the United States of America as a solution to the world's problems, Barack Obama.
Thank you, sir.
The first president who makes it clear.
We have the sound bite next hour.
I'm not trying to force America on you.
Oh What's America?
The land of the free, the home of the brave.
What's so bad about it?
Hell, we even got Sharia law, some parts of it.
Pretty soon you're gonna be able to make love to your dead wife for six hours.
Won't have to go to Egypt for that.
Obama already thinks that too many countries like America.
It's a problem.
We got to fix them all, including us.
Anyway, the Taliban they do killed seven people in Kabul after Obama left.
That's how inspiring he is.
Went over there and talked to Taliban.
Well, he was talking to you, American voter.
But here we are, almost two hours in the program, and that's the first substantive comments on Afghanistan.
And by the way, when we do talk about it here, we're not going to be like most of the liberal media here and just absorbed in how wonderful and great it is and wonderful and hang on a minute.
Lighting a cigar.
Good cigar waits for nothing.
Who's next?
Judy in San Antonio.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey there, Megadiddos.
Thank you.
Hey, I want to comment on Obama's uh failed economic policies because I am now a statistic.
I was laid off yesterday.
I work in construction.
Uh we have a huge backlog of projects, but everyone is afraid to spend money.
Our clients have money.
They're just afraid to expand or invest.
And we've gone through um the last uh two months.
They've laid off at least two.
And how frustrating is that.
Here you are at a construction company.
You have a backlog of sites.
You've got clients who want things built, and they've what do they apparently put their projects on hold because they just afraid to spend what they've got right now?
Yes.
Yes.
And it's a crying shame, it's a huge disappointment.
Um I just cannot believe what a chokehold Obama has on uh growth in this country.
There are companies with money, but they're terrified to invest and expand because they don't know what the federal government is gonna do to them next.
And I'm a believer in free markets and capitalism, and I know that markets are inherently risky, but for the love of God, we shouldn't be afraid of our own government.
Wait a minute.
Markets, of course, well, everything's risky, but the government's riskier.
Well, it shouldn't be that way.
People are free.
You've nailed it.
Uh uh, Judy, people are afraid of the government.
Not not just what is in store for them uh financially with the for example health care and what real new taxes and expenses are coming with that.
It's 2700 pages.
They can tell us anything's in it that they want to, and it probably is.
But it's not just that that people are afraid to say certain things in certain places.
They're afraid it might be overheard, afraid it might be reported.
Look at uh the TSA problems people have.
Um, I you say chokehold uh foot on the throat of uh of American businesses, but you're you're absolutely right.
And it's um it's not conducive to any kind of growth or expansion.
Plus, look at the attitude it creates in people.
Fear, timidity.
Uh you know, having having uh a risk-taking entrepreneurial attitude is necessary, and that's being squeezed out.
What what was this uh your construction company do houses or commercial buildings?
Uh commercial exclusively.
Oh, geez.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, commercial I'm not a call, but it's all I can say is, you know, it's a low-down, dirty shame that's a good thing.
Hang in there.
Hang in there, maybe become an illegal immigrant.
I I've heard they're doing pretty well.
Well, no, they're leaving too.
I don't know what to tell you.
Okay, when we get back, first thing, top of the hour.
We'll do some Obama sound bites from Afghanistan with appropriate commentary and analysis.
And then get to the rest of the show prep stack.
I have not done but one thing I prepared for on this show today.
Everything else has been improv, which is cool.
Fine.
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