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July 5, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:41
July 5, 2012, Thursday, Hour #3
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That's absolutely right, Johnny Donovan, Walter Williams filling in for Rush, and Rush will be back on Monday.
Who's in for tomorrow?
Okay, Mark Belling is in tomorrow, and you can be on with us today by calling 800-282-2882.
Now, you know, there's a lot of controversy about whether Mitt Romney is calling the Obamacare mandate a penalty or a tax.
I don't think it's any different, any mix, any difference, whatever they call it.
It's a massive, unprecedented government expansion on our liberties, or it's saying that, well, the government has no limits.
I mean, for example, as I was telling you a little earlier on why I'm in such great shape, is because I'm a member of a fitness club.
And I go there, I'd lift weights four, five times, six times a week.
And what if Congress said, look, lifting weights like Williams and exercising like Williams cuts down health care costs.
So we want, we mandate that everybody get a gym membership.
And if you don't, we're going to tax you.
What do you think about that?
You think that would be good?
I mean, even liberals, I mean, or progressives, as Thomas Sowell and I were talking about a while ago, do you think they would go for that?
Well, I don't know.
I don't know.
But anyway, getting back to Mitt Romney, what do you think if Romney had some good ideas for his campaign?
And suppose he said, you know, he hasn't revealed all of his campaign strategy yet, but what do you think if he launched a campaign and said, whites for Mitt Romney in a movement to get out the white vote?
What would you think about that?
I bet there'd be a media-led outcry.
But what do you think about this?
This month we're announcing the 2012 launch of African Americans for Obama.
I don't think there's a better time than African American History Month to consider the tremendous progress we've made through the sacrifices of so many.
Now, that was Obama.
And he's launching his campaign.
He did it in February.
He's launched it, but he's launched his political campaign, Afro-Afro-African-Americans for Obama.
He could do it both ways.
He could have whites for Obama and African Americans for Obama.
But here's the question, though.
I think that that is divisive and despicable.
Now, how come you, I bet most of the people in this audience haven't heard that.
Play it again.
You'll get it.
This month we're announcing the 2012 launch of African Americans for Obama.
I don't think there's a better time than African American History Month to consider the tremendous progress we've made through the sacrifices of so many.
Now the very fact, the very fact that there's no uproar, no media-led uproar against Obama for this kind of racial divisiveness, what is suggesting is that there are two standards for civilized conduct.
That is, there's one standard that we hold whites up to, and another standard that we hold blacks up to, which is lower.
In other words, as a matter of fact, I wrote a column about this.
I wrote it on June 20th this year.
In other words, in the name of justice and fair play, people are saying that blacks should not be held accountable for the same standards that whites are, and they should not be criticized for conduct that we would deem disgusting and racist if done by whites.
I mean, if Obama, I mean, if Mitt Romney started, launched a campaign saying whites for Obama, no, I mean, whites for Romney, everybody would say, boy, that is really bad.
That's racist.
But why would they not say the same about Obama?
Now, liberals, they don't actually come out and say that criticism of Obama is in and of itself racist, but they come pretty close.
I mean, that is, if people were to criticize Obama, well, they're suggesting that they're racist.
For example, former Jimmy Carter, President Jimmy Carter, said that criticism of Obama shows that there's an inherent feeling in America that a black man should not be president.
That is stupid of Jimmy Carter to say that.
Because who in the world elected Obama to the presidency?
It was mostly whites.
Now, how can he possibly say that there's an inherent feeling in America that a black man should not be president?
Chris Matthews, loudmouth Chris Matthews of MSNBC's hardball, he said that critics of Obama are crackers.
Morgan Freeman said that the campaign to see that Obama serves just one term is a racist thing.
That is all you people who are trying to make sure that Obama has just one term, according to Freeman, it's a racist thing.
Then there was Obama's czar, Van Jones, said that the Romney's campaign sign that said Obama isn't working implies that Obama is lazy, incompetent, affirmative action baby.
Now, for all you people, for all you people out there who voted for Obama, and I know many of you in this audience voted for Obama, you thought that this would be ushering in an era of, I don't know, getting rid of the ideas or getting rid of the divisiveness of race in our country.
But you were sadly mistaken.
And I might also point to something else, that these racial double standards also apply to how crime is reported in our country.
For example, I'm betting, I'm betting that if mobs of white youths were going about severely beating and robbing blacks at random and preying on black businesses, it would be a major news story.
Matter of fact, news anchors, you can just hear Peter Jennings or one of those guys.
Tonight, we report on the most recent wave of racist whites organizing unprovoked attacks on innocent black people and their businesses.
And indeed, if there were white thugs actually doing that, politicians would be demanding answers.
But these random attacks by black thugs, you know, it doesn't bring much media attention at all.
Matter of fact, it's kind of interesting.
On St. Patrick's Day, a 19-year-old white guy was viciously attacked by a mob, and they beat him up, took all of his belongings, and Baltimore County delegate,
Pat McDonough, demanded that the governor of Maryland send in Maryland state police to control what he called roving mobs of black youths at Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
That's what he said.
Then Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and other activists demanded that Madonna apologize for talking about black youths, roving mobs of black youths.
And I mean, racial double standards is not, they're not restricted to political arena, crime reporting.
We see it on college campuses.
We see it in the workplace.
And I think, I think, before I get to you calls, get to a break first, some make some money.
I think that black people ought to be offended by the idea that we are held accountable to lower standards of conduct and achievement.
And white people ought to be ashamed for permitting and fostering racial double standards that have effects that are in some ways worse than the cruel racism of yesteryear.
We'll be back with calls after this.
Walter Williams sitting in for Vacationing Rush, and Mark Belling will be on tomorrow, and Rush will be back on Monday.
And there seems to be a lot of interest in this Social Security issue.
And let's talk to, shall we go to Mary Jane?
Welcome to the show, Mary Jane.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
My problem with your comments on Social Security, Social Security was set up to be self-supporting, and it was self-supporting until Congress saw it as a cash cow and started taking the money out of it and filling the trust fund full of IOUs.
But what is it now?
Sir.
What is it now?
Well, it's not self-supporting, is it?
That's because they raided it.
Know more money was being taken in and what was being taken out.
And also, it wasn't drawing the interest that it should have been drawing because they took it all out.
So, Congress should be required to repay all the IOUs and all the interest that would have been accruing for it, and Social Security would be solvent.
Where it was set up to be instead of Congress raiding it.
Mary Ann, but where is Congress going to get the money from?
I don't know.
You mean after they raided Social Security and there was no more money there, then they started borrowing from China.
I know, but where are they going to get the money to do what you say they ought to do?
I mean, they have to.
I don't know where they're going to go.
Well, no, wait, no, I'm telling you where they're going to go.
They're going to get it from.
They're going to force somebody who is 25 or 30 or 40 years old to fork up the money.
And I'm asking that, are they, is some young person in the labor force, are they responsible for what Congress did?
Well, my husband.
No, no, no.
No, I'm not going to let you go.
Marianne, I asked you a question.
Is a 25-year-old responsible for what Congress did?
And if he's not responsible, why then should he have to pay?
Well, all the years that we were paying to support the older people was money that we were putting in that was supporting older people because Congress had taken the money around.
So we've paid, we paid in to finance the older people, and it's young people now to pay in like we did.
Wait a minute, Marianne.
It's musical chairs.
Look, the money will not be there in 2030.
That is, the unfunded liability of Social Security and Medicare comes to $106 trillion.
And unfunded liability means, Mary Ann, all you people out there, means these are the obligations that Congress has.
Now, in order for Congress to meet these unfunded liabilities, they would have to put $6 trillion in the bank today, earning about a 5% rate of interest.
Do you think Congress is going to do that?
Well, they need to cut out all their freeloaders like Solyndron and all that that Obama finance so that his big buddies could take the money and run with it and outsource those jobs.
You know what?
Marianne, you know, and I mean this all due respect to you and anybody else out there, but Congress loves people like you who believe that Congress should be using its power to take what people belong to other people and give it to other people.
This is what Congress thrives on.
They thrive or thrive on.
People think that they have something coming to them and Congress ought to do whatever is necessary.
See, one of the tragedies is, see, and one of the tragedies is that thieves.
Now, I'm not calling Marianne, I'm not calling you a thief, but I'm just giving you an example.
Thieves, all they care about is enjoying something.
They don't care who has to pay.
Forget who has to pay.
But do we want to be a nation like that?
Do we want to be a nation of thieves where we say, no, I'm saying, no, I'm saying that, no, she's not a crook.
I mean, I'm saying that people need to tell Congress: look, we've been doing the wrong thing for too long.
Start getting out of it.
And I've suggested a little bit earlier that what we need to do is to say to young people or to anybody in Social Security, begin to shut the system down so that there's some hope at some time that we'll be out from underneath this elephant.
Right now, we're going to be out from underneath Social Security, but we're going to be out through a means of economic disorder and economic collapse because the system cannot sustain itself.
Snerdley says, so you want to take away Social Security from all?
No.
No, what we did, look, it's like dope addicts.
I mean, like, if somebody's addicted, you don't go cold turkey on it.
You try to find some way to ease them out of it.
You try to find some way to compassionately ease people out of these, out of this program.
That's a disaster for young people.
But see, the problem is, is that many people who are around who are recipients of Social Security, they won't like for me to say this.
But look, when the collapse comes, when the chaos comes in 2030, 2040, somebody receiving Social Security, do they have to worry about that?
They're going to be dead.
I mean, some congressman, I mean, what's he had to do?
Why should he worry about 2040?
He's going to be dead.
But however, that congressman better worry about 2012.
He better worry about 2014.
Because these people who are receiving all these government stuff, they're alive and they're going to run him out of town on the rail.
But he don't have, why worry about 2040?
There's nothing in it for him.
Bo Snerdly is trying to mess up the program.
He's trying to say.
He's trying to say that I'm saying that people who are in Social Security are drug addicts and thieves.
No, I'm saying that the conduct, that the conduct that people unwittingly are engaging in, is very much like that of a thief.
Very much like that of a thief.
So look, ladies and gentlemen, what I'm trying to say, what we need to realize is to try to find some compassionate way out of it or those people who don't want to do anything about Social Security, are they willing to stand on record and say, we don't give a damn about our great-grandchildren.
We don't care about what happens in 2040 and 2050 to this great nation of ours.
Because even the Social Security Administration says that in order to maintain the same benefits, the Social Security tax will have to be 30 or 35% to maintain the same level of benefits.
And I don't think that's going to fly in 2030 or 2040.
And I'd like for somebody to call the show and think, say, oh, Williams, oh, there's people around 2030, they'll be willing.
They won't.
Okay, it's Walter Williams sitting in for a rush.
By the way, we've been talking about politics today.
And that's what the show would talk about a lot.
Anyway, and there's an excellent, in terms of what kind of president do we want, there's an excellent article.
It's in the July, August 2012 issue of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education.
It's based in New York.
Anyway, there's an excellent article written by Lawrence Reed, and it's called Cleveland Passed the Test of Character and Statesmanship.
And a caller earlier mentioned Grover Cleveland as being one of our great presidents.
And of course, as the caller pointed out, he vetoed an appropriation to help drought-stricken farmers in Texas.
And he said, quote, as I believe the caller said this, though the people support the government, it is not the duty of the government to support the people.
Can you imagine a politician saying that today?
He'd be run out of Tamil Nario.
Now, and also, during Cleveland's day, there were budget surpluses.
Now, while some thought that the surpluses should be spent, what did Grover Cleveland think?
He says, he thought that a surplus, a budget surplus, was evidence that taxes were too high.
When more of the people's sustenance is extracted through the form of taxation than is necessary, then it should be cut.
Let me look at one endorsement.
This is an excellent article by Larry Reed.
Once again, it's the Freeman's put out by the Foundation for Economic Education.
Sometimes they call it FEE.
A biographer, Brody put it, a biographer of Cleveland, said that Cleveland was the rarest of political animals who believed his ultimate allegiance was to the nation, not to the party.
And Cleveland was a Democrat, by the way.
And a New York newspaper endorsed Cleveland for the presidency in 1884 by declaring three reasons for voting for him.
The first reason, he is an honest man.
The second reason, he is an honest man.
And the third reason, he is an honest man.
And that's, can you imagine anybody saying that about any president of recent times, except perhaps Ronald Reagan?
And something else that you people should consider when people say, well, what should be done about the economy?
Well, in 1837, see, you know, one of the things about not understanding history by not being taught history in our schools is that people just don't know.
They just don't know what kind of country we were.
All they're taught in school are the mistakes that we made.
You'll find every book, you'll find stuff about slavery, about the Indian wars, but they won't talk about the very distinguished men that we had at the helm.
In 1837, when faced with a massive panic and recession, Martin Van Buren declared, when people are saying, do something, the government got to do something.
He declared that he had neither the constitutional authority nor was it sound economic policy for the government to ramp up spending.
Matter of fact, this is in The Future of Freedom Foundation in this article by William Anderson.
And he says, this article says, and 80 years later, Warren Harding, Warren Harding, told conferees who met to discuss government action during the panic of 1921.
What do you think President Harding told them to do?
He says that the best thing government could do was do nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
And I think doing nothing has a very, very nice record.
For example, between 1787 and 1930, there were panics, recessions, depressions, and nobody thought the government ought to do something.
And these depressions, they lasted three, four, and they're over.
In 1930, you had President Hoover and then later President Roosevelt.
They said, well, you ought to do something.
And they did something.
And they created the longest depression in our history.
The depression went on for 12 years.
And so if you ask me, well, which has the better record, doing nothing or doing something?
I would say doing nothing.
And speaking of presidents, you know, this one thing is really irritating me.
And I meant to say this much earlier.
People are saying, people send me email, and they're saying, Williams, did you write this column about it's impossible for Obama to lose?
And I say, no, it's a fake column.
It's a fake column.
Somebody made that up.
And you can check it on my website, waltewilliams.com, and the people who printed it apologize.
And speaking again, something about the presidency, a lot of people are saying, well, particularly Republicans and conservatives, they're saying, well, it's going to be hard for Obama to win with this high unemployment.
Well, that's just plain nonsense.
President Roosevelt, he won two elections when unemployment was in the double digits.
Matter of fact, in 1939 or 38, unemployment was around 20%.
And he is doing very, very well.
So do not rely on the state of the economy as some kind of a guarantee that Obama will not be re-elected.
Let's go to phones.
Let's go to Bill in Dayton, Ohio.
Welcome to the show, Bill.
Yes, how are you doing, Water?
Okay.
I think I can solve two problems we have.
Number one, if you're making over a million dollars and collecting Social Security, that should stop.
Should you pay into it?
Sure.
Should a person have paid into it, Social Security?
Yes, even though it's paid into it.
Somebody has to sacrifice someplace.
And so you're a millionaire.
Okay, big deal.
What's that $1,000 mean to you?
Nothing.
Okay, well, okay, okay, you got one.
Okay, now what's the other?
Yeah, okay.
The other thing is on this racial issue, I spent 30 years in the Army, and the only color I see is OD green.
And that's the only color I see.
There ain't no black and white.
Well, you must have some kind of eyesight problems.
You know, everybody's the same.
Black, white, it don't matter.
No, no, no, look.
I'm looking out into the engineer booth, and I see one black person and two white people, and one is a white woman.
I don't see O.D. Green.
So I know what you're trying to say, you know, but I think that's a bad way of saying.
You know, I've had black guys pull me off the field, and I've pulled black guys off the field, and they're all wearing the same uniform.
Yeah, right.
It wasn't no black and white.
Okay, okay.
Well, thanks a lot for your suggestions.
Let's go to Marcus in San Diego, California.
Welcome to the show, Marcus.
Hello, sir.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
I just had a question about Social Security.
I wanted to know why can't it be privatized?
Why is that not a good idea?
And if it can't, you know, who would be the groups of people that would stop that?
You know, I'm 28 years old.
I'm active duty Navy, and we do what we call a thrift savings plan.
And, you know, money is taken out of our paychecks automatically and put into a similar to a 401k retirement fund.
The money that we're paying into Social Security, why can't that go into a similar fund specifically for us?
So if you don't work, you don't get that retirement.
Marcus, I think that's very mean of you because if you were listening to the show, the people who are 65 years old and over, they need your money.
Now, if you put your money into a 401k, where are they going to get their money?
Well, I'm assuming.
I mean, don't you feel badly about that?
They can track taxes and whatnot.
They should be able to tell how much these people have made throughout their lifetime.
I know.
You lost them that amount of money.
Marcus, you're an honorable person.
You're defending our country.
But if you don't send your money to Washington, how are these people going to live?
See, it's your responsibility.
It's your responsibility to take care of these older people.
And if you're trying to shirk your responsibility, and I'm embarrassed and I'm ashamed of you, Marcus.
I'm sorry that you feel that way, sir.
Don't feel badly.
Thanks for the work you're doing for our country.
Let's take a break.
We'll be back at this.
Okay, we're back.
Walt Williams filling in for Rush.
And trying to sell.
It's a pretty hard job.
Trying to sell my fellow Americans on the moral superiority of personal liberty and its limited and its main ingredient, which is limited government.
Bo Snerdley was saying the fellow in the Navy took me seriously.
Look, look, let me tell the fellow in the Navy, I was pulling your leg.
And I was pulling your leg in the way to kind of illustrate to many of the people who are on, who are receiving Social Security, Medicare, and all kinds, and all kinds of government handouts.
And I was trying to say, well, his name is Marcus, wasn't it?
Okay, is Marcus responsible for you?
I mean, what obligation does he have to someone who is 80 years old or 70 years?
He has an obligation to his mother and his father, who are retirees.
And matter of fact, that's one of the problems in our country.
The biblical admonition is to honor thy mother and father.
Well, people don't honor their mother and father much anymore.
You know why?
Because they can get me through the tax code to honor their mother and father.
That's what they can get others through the tax code to honor their mother and father.
And this is an ongoing tragedy for most of our history.
Where did old people die?
They died in the homes of their children.
Many old people today die in little green rooms by themselves, sick or whatever.
And because of the welfare state, I think it has a whole lot to do with it.
Let's go to Doug.
Welcome to the show, Doug.
Dr. Williams.
Thank you for holding, Doug.
Yeah, I have a question for you that I need a perspective from an economist.
You know, Barack Obama is out on the campaign trail making the claim that he's raised spending less than any president in the last 30 to 40 years.
What I believe he's doing, I think he's telling the truth.
But I think what he's done is taken the TARP payments, which was supposed to be a one-time stimulus, and rolled that into the baseline, increased that by 8% each year.
Then he took his stimulus, which was almost another trillion dollars, and rolled it into the baseline and increased it 8% each year.
Am I far off the bait?
That's off the track.
Is this how he's getting his percentage increase?
Well, I think he's lying about the percentage increases.
I think it's just plain untrue.
But however, look, one of the things that you said, my ears always perk up when someone says that the president is spending.
Well, in the Constitution, only the United States Congress can appropriate money.
Only the United States Congress can make expenditures.
So if the Congress does not appropriate something, then the President cannot spend it.
And so this is one of the ways that we make a serious mistake in our country by blaming the president for everything.
When it's, I mean, for big spending, all this spending, when it's the Congress, the president cannot spend anything that the Congress does not first appropriate.
So I think it's misleading.
It's misleading us in our struggle for smaller and constitutional and limited government.
It's misleading us to say, oh, it's the president.
Oh, it's not the House of Representatives or the Senate.
It's the president.
And the big spenders like that.
They love that.
They love that when we're able to cast attention away from them and blame somebody else.
I think it's not the best strategy.
Let's take a break and we'll be back to some more calls.
Okay, folks, this is a final segment.
And I'm looking at RushLimbaugh.com.
And you know what these people have put up there at the top of this very handsome set of photos here of me?
They put that the only difference, actually they put what I said, the only difference between 1992 and today is that I was wearing a brown tie in 1992.
Well, that's right.
And matter of fact, it's kind of interesting.
We're celebrating my 20th anniversary as Rush Limbaugh's fill-in host.
And you know, one of the good things about doing the show, it's kind of selfish because I've benefited a lot from the audience.
I mean, I've learned many things.
Then people say, well, Walter, you know, not quite this way.
Did you think of this?
Back in my day, we did it this way.
And so it's been a great benefit for me.
And I kind of look forward to just kind of sitting back with my big classroom, pushing back the frontiers of ignorance.
It's a lot of fun.
And I get some nice cooperation sometimes from the engineer and sometimes from Snerdley.
And Allie's treating me much nicer.
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