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Aug. 13, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:41
August 13, 2012, Monday, Hour #2
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Greetings, my friends.
Welcome back.
Great to have you, Rush Limbaud documented to be almost always right 99.7% of the time here serving humanity.
Executing assigned host duties flawlessly with zero mistakes.
Telephone number 800 28282, the email address L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
All right, folks.
I just saw during the break at the top of the hour, a story that says that every Democrat congressional race this November will now be run against Paul Ryan.
Do you remember I think it was uh New York 26?
Kathy Hockwell, the Democrat who won that race.
I think it was New York 26.
The number doesn't matter.
It's a New York House race, and it was a Republican district since the dinosaur days.
And the Democrat won the race.
County clerk, Kathy Hockey, all she did was tell people that Paul Ryan's budget cut Medicare.
That's all that was her entire message.
The Republicans up there took for granted that they were going to win the district, win the race, and they didn't know how to react to it, typically because they weren't focused on the problem and the ideas of it all, and they they just assumed that this woman had no prayers to county clerk.
She ended up winning, and so the Democrats now think.
And this is why the conventional wisdom crowd is afraid of Ryan.
The Democrats now think that all they have to do is tie Paul Ryan to ending Medicare, just like Kathy Hockey did, and they win every congressional race.
That's what they're that's what they're planning on doing.
Here are this from James Pethacukis, our old buddy at the American Enterprise Institute.
Three things every voter needs to know about Paul Ryan's Medicare reform plan in one hundred words.
Number one, no one over the age of fifty-five would be affected in any way.
Did you know that?
You knew that.
I'm asking you, Sterling, because you think this is a guaranteed win for the Democrats.
You are sitting there scared to death that all they gotta do is bring up Ryan's Medicare budget, and that's it for us.
Well, no reason to be on the defensive over this.
That's my point.
Just stick with me.
I got these sound bites and meet the press coming up.
Number one, no one this is my whole point about why we need ideology in the campaign on the ticket rather than nebulous smears and how to fight them and so forth.
Uh just it's always frustrated me.
We've got facts on our side.
Ryan's budget doesn't destroy Medicare.
There's no excuse for the Republican Party ever to allow that to be believed in a congressional race, in a presidential race, or anywhere else.
No excuse whatsoever, because it doesn't.
Ryan does not destroy Medicare.
Obama is destroying everything.
But specifically to Ryan's budget and its effect on Medicare.
The is his his reform, which is designed to save the damn program.
I don't know if you know this.
Medicare is the number one spending item in the federal budget.
Not Social Security.
Not the defense budget, Medicare is what's going to run us into insolvency.
It has to be reformed and fixed.
And not the way Washington always does it by kicking the can down the road and supposedly coming up with new taxes or tax schemes to fund it for a few more years.
And that's what Ryan does.
Anyway, number one, no one over the age of 55 would be affected in any way.
Number two, traditional Medicare fee for service would remain available for everybody.
Premium support, that is government funding of private insurance plans chosen by individuals is an option for people who choose it.
No seasoned citizen would be forced out of the traditional Medicare program against his will.
Did you know that?
You didn't know that.
Well, the reason you don't know it is because the Republicans aren't good enough at getting the truth out.
I know what we're up against, media and all that.
To me, it's no excuse.
Because it is what it is.
If we can't overcome that, all this is academic anyway.
I don't like the idea of built-in excuses for things not working.
It's not who we are.
So no one over the age of 55 would be affected in any way.
So if if you're over 55, you can forget it.
You don't have to even be worried.
If Medicare is the most important thing in your life and you're over 55, Paul Ryan, let's you keep it as it is forever.
That's it.
Nothing happens to you.
Zip zero.
Nada.
If Obama and Obamacare are fully implemented, you are up the creek.
Because hello death panels, hello cutbacks, hello, all kinds of changes.
Hello, bankruptcy.
Number two, again, traditional Medicare fee for service would remain available for all.
Premium support, that is government funding of private insurance plans chosen by individuals is an option for those who want it.
No seasoned citizen would be forced out of the traditional Medicare program against his or her will.
Number three, overall funding for Medicare under the Ryan plan is scheduled to grow at the same rate as under Obama's proposals.
How is that gutting Medicare and ending Medicare as we know it?
In reality, it's the market giving seniors cheaper, higher quality choices they can take if they wish.
The way it's going to work, existing Medicare stays as it is.
But there now becomes a choice.
Where if you want, as a seasoned citizen, you can go out, you can abandon the current plan and join up in a plan run in the private sector essentially, essentially, that will be cheaper.
And you'll have more choices, but you will have to make them.
You don't have to, but if you want to opt out of the current Medicare plan and choose something that will end up being cheaper and have more day-to-day management of it yourself than just sitting there...
It's an option you can do it.
The fundamental point of the Ryan Medicare plan is that it deals with people who are not yet getting any benefit from it.
They're young.
The point of Ryan's Medicare reform is to change the status quo for people who are in their 20s and 30s.
Give them the choice now so that the plan remains solvent when they get to be 55.
That's the focus of change in the Ryan plan.
It's no different than what the entire voucher program was going to be for health care overall.
I don't know what's so hard to explain about this.
I don't know what's so hard.
Tell me if you're over 55, uh, nothing changes.
And if nothing changes, how is that ending Medicare as we know it?
How is that gutting Medicare?
It isn't.
Well, the Democrats, the Democrats don't think choice is good.
You're not competent to make the choice.
The Democrats are trying to scare you into believing that what's going to end up is so complex that you won't know what you're choosing, you won't know how to choose, you're going to mess up, you're going to have the right plan, you're going to die.
They don't want you to have a choice.
They want you totally dependent on them.
Ryan's plan puts you in charge of your Medicare.
And ultimately your Social Security.
Although I don't want to muddy the waters with that.
Forget I meant that don't want to scare people with that, but that's eventually what's going to happen with Social Security, too, if we aren't fix it.
Now that's it.
What I just told you is it.
That's Ryan's Medicare reform.
And as far as people over 55 are concerned, the same dollars are spent by Ryan's plan as at present.
Same dollars.
Nothing is cut in Medicare spending for people over 55.
One of the problems is in fact the criticism of the Ryan budget on the right is that it takes too long to balance.
It's 30 years.
It doesn't balance until you get to 2040.
And the reason for that is gradual.
Get on the right track is all that needs to happen.
Like Ryan and Romney winning the election.
I guarantee you, if Ryan and Romney win this election, you're going to see a stock market go through the roof.
You're going to see small businesses start to hire.
It's going to happen so fast you won't believe it.
The moment it's known that Obama's out of office.
I don't know.
One of the reasons why the evolution of the Ryan plan is as long as it is, is to keep people from panicking and getting frightened.
This is actually a plan that deals with people who aren't going to be accessing this program for 30 years.
And you get right down to it.
Now let's go to Meet the Press yesterday.
Rachel Maddow, who is the left trumpets her as the smartest, the most able, most articulate, the most brilliant shining star.
Pundits on the left.
Oh, Rachel Maddow.
She was on Meet the Press with uh Rich Lowry, who is the editor of National Review.
And they were talking about, and Dan Balls, who's uh Washington Post uh columnist or reporter, you'll hear him in the two sound bites coming up.
They were talking about Medicare and Medicare cuts.
And Lowry starts it all off.
This whole idea of the Obama campaign and Democrats have been pushing that Romney, because he hasn't said what deductions and loopholes specifically he's going to close, which no presidential campaign ever does.
Therefore he's going to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for a lowering rates is an utterly uh a fantasy made out of utter whole.
Paul Ryan was on the Simpson Bulls Commission and dissented from it because it did raise revenue.
He dropped out.
He blew that up.
He blew up the gang of six.
He got zero Democratic votes for any of his budget.
Right.
And that's the key thing.
Even President Obama, who's cut $700 billion from Medicare, which I guess you support Paul Ryan.
Do you support $700 billion in cuts in Medicare over the next 10 years?
I'm not running for president.
Paul Ryan's right.
I'm not running for anything.
Paul Ryan is vice president.
So you can't answer.
That's right.
She couldn't answer.
She's paid for her opinion.
She's paid to have an opinion on this stuff.
She's paid to have a far left-wing extreme socialist opinion on it.
I'm not running.
I'm not ready, Paul Ryan.
It's up to him to explain.
No, I'm asking you.
Do you support Obama's $700 billion cuts in Medicare?
Not Ryan's, not Romney's, Obama's.
Obama cut $700 billion in Medicare.
Do you support?
I'm not running.
Paul Ryan.
I'm not running.
Paul Ryan.
No, no, no, no.
What do you think?
I'm not running.
Paul Ryan's running up.
See, you can't answer.
And it continued.
Lowry kept going.
This goes to the.
Democrats have cut 700 billion.
Defend it.
Defend it.
Is it is it going to support it?
It will be.
Just support it.
You can't answer.
But wait, why are you asking me if I'm not sure what you're saying?
Wait, because you're an opinion maker who is supposed to give us your opinion.
And you will not tell us what your opinion is.
What I want to know is the logic of Democrats cannot defend that.
Uh you know one thing missing in that.
Neither Dan Balls nor Rachel Maddow denied that Obama cut $700 billion out of Medicare.
Now, I know what the conventional wisdom is about the Ryan budget that it cuts Medicare, that it uh uh ends Medicare as we know it.
I'm sorry, it's Obamacare that does that and not just ends Medicare as we know it, it ends America as we know it.
Ryan saves it.
Now, you want to have an argument whether it should be saved or not, that's for another day, but just within the context of this.
A prime to throw balls in there.
Two prime defenders of Obama, prime defenders of the regime, did not even try to refute that Obamacare cuts $700 billion out of Medicare.
Not Ryan, Obama.
We'll take a break, let you hear some Paul Ryan sound bites, and mix in your phone calls all next when we get back.
Let me give you an example of what I mean.
Say that it's great that we have a campaign now that's going to be based on ideas, ideology.
Let's go to Norfolk Saturday morning at the uh retired battleship USS Wisconsin.
That's how can we use a museum now?
This is the introductory moment for Paul Ryan, and we've got three sound bites.
America is more than just a place, though.
America is an idea.
It's the only country founded on an idea.
Our rights come from nature and God, not from governments.
We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.
And this idea was founded on the principles of liberty, freedom, free enterprise, self-determination, and government by consent of the government.
This idea is under assault.
Now, to you, some of you that may be ho hum, what's special about that?
When's the last time you heard a Republican say those things?
When is the last time you heard a Republican say who's not on the radio?
Our rights come from God, not from government.
When's the last time you heard somebody talking about equal opportunity, not equal outcomes?
Principles of liberty free.
When is the last time you heard we talk about it every day.
Amongst ourselves, we talk about it on this radio program practically every day.
So it's nothing new to you.
But it's not often stated nationally by many people in the Republican Party.
Here's the next bite.
So we have a critical decision to make as a nation.
We are on an unsustainable path that is robbing America of our freedom and security.
It doesn't have to be this way.
The commitment Mitt Romney and I make to you is this.
We won't duck the tough issues, we will lead.
We won't blame others.
We will take responsibility.
And we won't replace our founding principles.
We will reapply them.
We will not transform anything.
And then there was this.
I hear some people say that this is just the new normal.
Higher unemployment, declining incomes, and crushing debt is not a new normal.
It is the result of misguided policies.
And next January, our economy will begin a comeback with the Romney plan for a stronger middle class that will lead to more jobs and more take-home pay for working Americans.
I'm proud to stand with a man who understands what it takes to foster job creation in our economy.
Someone who knows from experience that if you have a small business, you did build that.
Saturday morning uh Fox News Channel's special coverage of Romney's announcement that Ryan was his running mate, Brett Baer turned to Charles Krauthammer about the announcement.
He said, as you look at the imagery, uh, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan in Norfolk, your thoughts and what this ticket really symbolizes.
The shift in grounds, the dynamic of the debate, the argument from stewardship from who can do a better job to ideas.
He wants to make the debate about the philosophy of government and the policies that then follow it.
They're now running on what is essentially an argument no to the status quo.
It's a complete reversal of 2008.
Obama in 2008 was hope and change.
You don't like status quo.
We've got ideas.
Change is now on the side of the Republicans.
That's one way of uh of looking at it.
And here's let's let's let's squeeze Obama in here from yesterday in Chicago at a fundraiser.
Yesterday morning, my opponent chose his running mate, the ideological leader of the Republicans in Congress, Mr. Paul Ryan.
And I want to congratulate No, no, no, no.
Look, I want to congratulate Congressman Ryan.
I know him.
I welcome him to the race.
Congressman Ryan is a decent man.
He is a family man.
He is an articulate spokesman for Governor Romney's vision.
But it's a vision that I fundamentally disagree with.
They have tried this before.
They have tried to sell us this trickle-down fairy dust before.
And guess what?
It did not work.
It did.
It did not work.
It did work.
It works every time it's tried.
What isn't working, sir, is you.
And your ideas, your ideas are not fairy dust.
Your ideas are garbage.
Okay, let's go back to the phones and to Manitowak, Wisconsin, and Jeannie.
Jeannie, I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Oh, thanks, Rush.
It's a real pleasure and an honor.
I'm so excited to talk to you.
Thanks for calling.
I appreciate it.
Well, I just wanted to let you know that um this pick is a home run.
This is uh I couldn't believe it when I heard it.
I just that's the first thing I said, it's a home run.
He uh Paul Ryan is a man of integrity, he is honest, he says he's gonna do something, and he does it, and the best thing about him is he's a very humble man, so when the lame stream media tries to attack him, he's not full of himself, so he's just gonna come back and say, nope, this is what's going on, and this is how he fix it, and this is how we get America back on the right track.
Well, but you some might say that you're a little biased.
I mean, you're from Wisconsin.
Well, I would just have to tell them that look at Wisconsin.
For after Scott Walker got elected for two years, our media kept telling us he's gonna ruin this state.
He is going to ruin our schools, and he did his reforms, but it was two years before they recalled him.
And uh, guess what?
Even my Democratic family goes, Oh my gosh, this is working.
And they voted for him.
So I agree with you.
I think that the media is not an excuse.
What they have to do, and Paul Ryan can do it, is they have to continue to say, nope, we are we are running off the rails here, and this is how we get back on, and this is how we're gonna do it.
And America's gonna be great again, and that man can do it.
It is gonna be funny to listen to them.
Ryan essentially, and that sound bite we played from Obama when he was in Iowa, uh Council Bluffs, I think it was.
When he called him a decent guy and a family man, I mean, that's that's an endorsement.
So Obama has called Ryan, he's a decent guy.
He's a family man, his audience started booing and Obama.
No, no, no, no, no.
So when Obama's packs now set out after Ryan, and they will.
You know they will.
That's all they know how to do.
They're already doing it.
I mean, I've got sound bites here from Candy Crowley and and Axelrod.
Uh that's all they have.
And it's a point that Ryan is making ever since Saturday.
They don't have anything.
He made it last night with the that uh Bob Schiefer On CBS.
They don't have anything they can say about their record.
So they have to distract.
They have to use the Bain Capital stuff.
They have to use Romney killed my wife.
They have to come up with all of these personal uh smears and insults.
And they're they're I'd be real surprised if they're able to make any of them stick uh against Paul Ryan.
You know, his wife.
His wife is 40.
Ryan is 42.
His wife is college educated.
His wife is uh uh every bit, I mean, they have a lot in common.
His wife's every bit the political thinker that he is.
You know, she chose motherhood.
In her own words, she wanted to be a mother, and she is.
They've got three kids.
Well, that's the kind of thing a Democrats have to demagogue.
Oh, yeah, they're so fake.
She shows motherhood, that's not modern feminism.
That's I mean, look at the position that they're in.
I mean, you you you couldn't have, as far as you and I folks are concerned, uh last Boy Scout is a is a traditional American man.
And somehow they're gonna try to paint that as out of touch or extreme.
Um, or, well, of course she can be a mother because Ryan is is a rich Republican who's benefited from top knowledge of bankers, it's this kind of stuff that they're gonna have to uh uh try to hit him with, and they will.
Um, I don't I don't think the uh the media is never going to tell the truth about Ryan's Medicare plan.
But that's something that we know going in.
Uh, let's see, who are we gonna who's next?
Uh this is Mark in Fort Worth, Texas.
Hey Mark, I'm glad you called.
Welcome to the program.
Thank you, Rush Didto from the uh great state.
Thank you.
Uh I just wanted to to call and confirm what you said about Romney's choice of uh of Ryan in terms of this is a this is a choice for governance.
Uh you know, the the history of nominees is they pick VPs for a lot of different reasons, whether it's to balance the tick ticket geographically or ideologically or to try to charge up their base or whatever.
This guy is a policy guy.
He knows exactly what he's doing.
He's done battle in the trenches with these with the liberal Democrats, and this is a this is a governance choice.
And he and I'll tell you, he's gonna be a great spokesman on this Medicare stuff because the age that he is, he's a little bit younger than I am.
And for all of our adult lives, we have heard Democrats say that if you elect Republicans, they're gonna kill Medicare and they're gonna kill Social Security.
They've been saying that for 30 years.
And it hasn't happened.
And the people who are targeted by that kind of line, you know, folks who are in their 60s and 70s, they've been hearing that since they were 30 and 40 and 50 years old.
And it that line doesn't work anymore.
It worked on my grandmother when she heard it when she was, you know, when in 1980, when she heard it and she was 75 years old, first time she had ever had her Social Security and Medicare threatened, and it worked on her.
But the people that that message is targeted at now have been hearing it for 30 years, and they see from experience it doesn't work.
This is uh this is an excellent point.
It is one that I have made.
There have been, you know, we've had Reagan for eight years, we had uh Bush for four, then Bush for eight.
Uh we've had the Republicans running the House.
There's been ample opportunity for Republicans to kick seniors out of their houses.
Hadn't happened.
There's been ample opportunity for the Republicans to cut and eliminate Social Security.
Hadn't happened.
Plenty of opportunity for Republicans to wipe out Medicaid.
It hasn't happened.
So people who are paying attention know full well that none of these allegations ever come true.
It never now, in the in the case of certain seasoned citizens, the way it works is if that's all they've got, if that social security check is all they've got, or if their Medicare assist is all they've got, and some Democrat comes along and says somebody's gonna take it away from them, they in an understandable way.
They can't risk it.
Especially if they're not day-to-day involved, informed, if that's all they've got, they can't risk not voting for the guy who says he's gonna save it for them.
It I mean the Democrat.
That's how it's always worked.
But what you say is true.
Now we got 30 years of actual life experience where none of this ever happens.
In fact, what we now face is the hard cold reality that nobody's going to have to cut them.
They will not survive on their own if we don't reverse the direction Obama's taking this country.
It's not a question of cutting them.
It's a question of the whole country imploding.
It's a question of the whole country defaulting.
It's a question of the whole country not having the money for anything.
If we don't stop the direction we're going, it's just by attrition, these things are going to run out of money.
Now, the current national debt is $16 trillion.
Obama's budget, which has not secured one vote, projects that it will be $26 trillion in 10 years.
And his budget assumes tax increases on the rich.
Sorry, folks, we can't that that that's not uh doable.
That that's we we can't we can't survive that.
But the Democrats have nothing else, Mark, as you know.
So they're going to keep launching these threats and making these allegations.
And that's why I think the Ryan choice is good, because there's somebody on the ticket now who can refute this ideologically, factually, policy, anyway it needs to be refuted.
I'll tell you something else about this pick.
You you made me think about something.
Vice presidential choices, for the most part, are made because of some assistance they bring to the election of the nominee, such as a state.
Maybe the vice president can help the nominee win a state, secure that state's electoral votes.
Well, the conventional wisdom is the Republicans don't have a prayer of winning Wisconsin.
And so if you look and expose yourself to the pessimists on our side about the pick of Ryan, you will read that Ryan brings nothing.
He doesn't bring a state, he doesn't bring any electoral votes, he doesn't help with women, he doesn't help with this group, he doesn't help with that group.
Uh it's a wasted pick.
This is from people who look at all of this through the traditional lens of political conventional wisdom.
Romney has gone outside that in making this pick.
And I think it's commendable.
The and as you said, he's made in addition to everything else a governance pick.
Now I happen to think that Wisconsin is in play.
I happen to think we can win Wisconsin.
Paul Ryan, Scott Walker are best buddies.
Scott Walker, the governor, was said not to have a chance.
There were two recalls, one for the Senate, one for Walker.
They both lost.
I think the Republicans can win Wisconsin.
And if they do, guess what else happens?
Romney wins the White House.
If they win with that's so out of the realm of possibility, there's no way.
I mean, Wisconsin is the California of the upper Midwest.
There's no way the Republicans can win Wisconsin.
I don't believe that.
But again, I have to stress, folks.
I don't hang around political people, and I don't think the way they do.
I know that the presidential election is 50 state elections.
And I know that in the polling, you get swing states and you get states where the electoral votes are already committed.
We already know California, New York, for example, automatically got to give them to Obama.
I know that, I can see that.
But I just I don't only look at all of this that way.
I I think the entire dynamic involved here involves much more.
I could be a polyamor.
I could be whistling dixie.
I could be so naive about all this that you'd be better advised not to listen to me on it.
Who knows?
But I um you know I I I happen to pay very little attention to polls right now.
I don't let them get me down or up.
I don't think it matters right now.
The election's not today.
Uh I don't believe, like conventional wisdom, if the election were today, Romney would lose.
I don't believe that.
Uh I I'm not I'm not a pessimist.
I'm not prepared right now to concede anything.
Because it hasn't even really begun.
Stall kinds of fireworks left to happen here.
Uh there's some odds makers out there, for example, now if Romney winning Wisconsin, the odds are three to one that he's going to win Wisconsin.
The political conventional wisdom is you'd have a prayer of winning Wisconsin.
Even with Ryan.
Anyway, Mark, I appreciate it.
I got to run, folks, a brief obscene profit timeout.
We'll be right back.
Don't go away.
How come we never hear that the Ryan budget is a bipartisan budget?
It's the Ryan Wyden budget.
It's the Ryan Ron Wyden, far left liberal guy from Oregon, Ron Wyden, Senator.
The Ryan budget was approved with over 200 votes in the House of Representatives.
It's Obama's budget that's never gotten even a single vote.
The Ryan budget's bipartisan.
And I thought bipartisanship is what everybody wanted.
And he never mentioned that Ryan's plan is bipartisan.
He wrote it with Democrat Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon.
We never hear that.
And how come how come Wyden?
Or how can yeah, Wyden?
How come the media not piling all over this poor guy?
For cutting Medicare.
For gutting Medicare.
A Democrat senator is a partner in crime here.
Never gets mentioned.
Bunch of media jerks.
But I mean, folks, there's nothing we can do about it.
It's only going to get worse.
And if you think that our success can only happen when the media starts agreeing with us, forget it.
It ain't gonna happen.
Now more than ever, the media is as animated and committed to destroying us as Obama is.
They are one in the same.
Looking for angry Mitchell, NBC News in Washington.
Andrea Mitchell, NBC News in Washington, on Saturday, immediately proclaimed that this selection of Paul Ryan was a signal that Romney was not interested in the women vote.
The more you really stop and analyze what these people say, the more ridiculous it all is and ought not be that difficult to overcome.
I continually stunned and amazed at how lacking in honest substance the arguments the left has.
I just I lose the women's vote with the selection of Paul Ryan?
It's nonsense.
Anyway, I'm up against it on time, folks.
Sit tight.
We'll be right back.
Okay, folks, that's it.
Another hour of broadcast excellence.
Sadly, in the can, but available for perpetuity at rushlimb.com when we update the site soon to reflect the contents of today's program.
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