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Dec. 6, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:30
December 6, 2012, Thursday, Hour #2
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Welcome back, my friends.
Great to have you here.
It is Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence and Broadcasting Network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program 800 28282 and the email address L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
A promise we will get to your phone calls.
I think the the way to look at this.
I I think what what Obama is actually aiming for when all is said and done.
I mean, I would do this if I were him, if I were the Democrats, and if I were in their position, I would go for the total wipeout.
I would go in for the kill.
Why, the way poor old Obama's been treated by people of this country for four years, I wouldn't expect him to be magnanimous or nice.
I mean, it's payback time now.
And here's what I think he's up to.
I think Obama wants a confession.
And I don't mean a Republican standing up and saying anything.
I think at the end of this deal with the Republicans, and remember there is no common ground.
I know a lot of people want bipartisanship compromise.
Both sides giving a loop.
There isn't any.
There's there's no common ground.
Let me some of you may not agree with me here, as I want to try to expand on it just a little bit, because you have to look at what both parties want here.
And in that process, you'll get what they ostensibly stand for.
So the Republicans want entitlement reform.
They're in no position to get it, by the way.
The Republicans are in no position to win anything.
They can hold out, uh, but they can't get what they want.
There's no re why would Obama give the Republicans anything they want?
Why would he?
Only we do that.
No, there's Obama doesn't compromise.
Community organizers and so forth don't compromise.
He'd be happy with the illusion of compromise, bipartisanship, but there isn't any.
The Republicans, if they stay true to form, recognize that what we have here totally is a spending problem.
When Jay Carney says that we can't afford to extend the current tax rates, that is a profound statement.
What the president's spokesman is saying that the nation cannot afford for people making over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to keep what they're keeping.
It is entirely their fault.
Our our deficit and debt problem is entirely due to the fact that high earners aren't paying enough of what they earn to fund the government.
There's no compromise on that.
As far as Obama the Democrats are concerned, there should be no limit on spending.
In fact, you heard Geithner say that one of his demands in the deal is that the president gets to lift the debt limit singularly and arbitrarily.
He wants to take the whole notion of a debt limit off the table.
There won't be one.
He wants total control over it.
So the fault here is not that the government is too big.
The fault is not that there's too much spending.
The problem is not that we're wasting money.
The problem is entirely that the people able to are not paying enough for it.
And that's got to change.
And that means that the only people with any money left are going to have to fork over more of it.
Now the Republicans think that it's entirely the opposite spending problem.
Government's too big and spending money and borrowing money doesn't have.
Entitlements have gotten too big and they can't be sustained at the current level of spending and taxation.
And they haven't been sustainable for quite a while.
So what the Republicans want To do is reform entitlement, such as raising the eligibility for social security or eliminating it, you know, means testing it for certain people at certain income levels, because we can't afford it.
Democrat, what do you mean take it away from people?
There's no way.
There is absolutely we're entitlement reform, they don't want they they want more money to expand it.
There is no common ground, folks.
There simply is no middle ground here at all.
There it compromise is impossible.
All that can happen and all that will happen is one side will concede.
And what Obama wants is a confession.
And when this is all said and done, Obama wants it understood that this problem was caused by George Bush.
That the Republicans are responsible for the debt.
The Republicans are responsible for the deficit.
The Republicans are responsible for the entitlements, maybe not being able to pay what their promises are, because Bush didn't take enough money from people who can afford it.
Bush instituted tax cuts twice, 2001 and 2003, that we couldn't afford.
So at the end of the day, you know, Obama spent four years blaming George W. Bush.
We all laughed.
We all said, man up.
We all said, come on, man, you've added six trillion dollars all by yourself.
This is not leadership.
This is not even manly.
This is not even manhood.
This this isn't even this isn't even courageous.
Well, not only did he do it, but a majority of voters also blame George Bush.
Saw it in the exit polls.
So what I think Obama is aiming for is essentially a confession from the Republicans that this is their fault.
And in getting it, in getting that confession, Obama seeks to ensure that there will never ever be tax cuts again.
Because look what they led to.
And when or if the Republicans concede, that will be the story.
That all of this, the seeds have been planted, the sprouts are growing and they're soon to bloom.
Bush did it.
Bush and the Republicans did this.
And the founders to Bush did this.
This country was founded improperly and unjustly and immorally and unfairly.
And we finally reached a tipping point where those guys they couldn't live off their illusion.
And now 230 years have been a mistake, and now we're fixing it.
And at the end of all this, the Republicans will end up admitting that Obama is right.
Now Boehner's not going to call a press conference and say any of this.
That's not, he won't have to.
The media will take care of this for Obama.
A confession.
Republicans admit that if there had been higher taxes for the past decade, there wouldn't be a deficit, and the national debt would not have grown.
The budget would have been balanced.
In fact, we'd still have a surplus.
We would still have the Clinton surplus if Bush hadn't cut those taxes.
Tax cuts are to blame.
The single lesson learned when this is over.
Tax cuts caused this.
And 98% of the American people will be told that tax cuts for 2% cause this, and they will accept that.
They will believe that.
So that down the road, the next time what are the Republican Party, what is that what are they singularly known for?
Cutting taxes.
So ten years from now, five years from now, a Republicans back in the White House, maybe, proposes tax cuts.
Oh, we can't do that.
Look what happened the last time we did it with Bush.
Look what happened.
And Obama will be removed from the equation.
In fact, Obama's involvement in the equation will be as the fixer.
Obama will be the savior.
He will be the solution.
He will have identified the problem.
He will have persuaded the country of the problem, and he will have beaten back the Republicans into admitting that they were the problem.
He doesn't want the Republicans crying uncle.
He wants them crying Bush.
That's where this is headed.
That's why if the money doesn't matter, that's why all of this is smoke and mirrors.
All this talk about $800 billion to pay for this, reduce the deficit here.
CBO says all of that is a distraction.
It is smoke in mirrors.
It's entirely irrelevant.
In fact, Obama has demonstrated in his first four years he doesn't care about them.
In fact, running up this debt and annual deficits of over a trillion dollars have been done purposely so that we arrive at this point.
So that it can all be blamed on tax cuts.
You think that sounds too simplistic?
That it's got to be more complicated than that?
Well, it is there are a lot of intric intricacies in it, but remember that no less a personage than Dr. Claudemmer has suggested that Obama wants to decimate the Republican Party.
And it's true.
Decimate the Republican Party and create a civil war within the party, particularly in the House.
Well, if you take away from a political party, it's top identity.
In the Republicans' case, it's tax cuts equal economic growth.
If you destroy that, you've destroyed the Republican Party.
You destroy that for a generation of people, low information voters who believe that tax cuts caused all this, tax cuts is why they can't get a job.
Tax cuts is why their home is underwater.
Tax cuts is why their student loan debt is so high.
That's what the objective is here.
The end result, of course, has more objectives.
That is, all this money ends up in government.
The Democrats are in perpetual power.
The government is consistently growing and is in charge of much more of everybody's life.
That of course is the ultimate aim, too.
I'm not saying that's not part of it, but the icing on the cake, the cherry on top, the angel on the Christmas tree, the order of fries to complete the happy meal, whatever, is the Republicans admitting that Bush did it, that tax cuts caused all these problems.
And Obama, God bless him, is just he risked his political career to fix it.
He risked his presidency, but he did what needed to be done after 230 years of what was basically fraud.
The Alinsky way.
And now, a brief timeout.
We'll be back and continue after this.
Don't go away.
When your grandchildren start grade school in a few years, what will they be taught?
Tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and tax cuts in the 1980s led to the Great Recession.
Of 2007 through 2009.
It's it's gonna be in the history books.
That's what Obama is aiming for here, and an entire generation of students will grow up learning this, and thus believing it.
And that's the objective.
Make no mistake about this.
That is entirely, it's been, and it's I think it's been the why I said Obama was doing all this on purpose.
From the get-go.
Remember telling Chris Wallace I did an interview for Fox News Sunday.
Some years ago now, and I said, I think it's all on purpose.
And he could tell that he thought I was a little bit off my rocker, but he likes me, so he didn't he didn't say, come on, you're nuts.
He said, Rush.
You really I do, Chris, I really nobody can convince me otherwise.
This is this is not just standard ordinary everyday run of the mill Democrat versus Republican political battle that we think of politics as.
This is moving in for the kill of the Republican Party.
What'll happen if that if that does happen?
Of course, Tea Party gets born, and it's uh uh a a whole new generation of uh energized opponents to all this rather than mealy mouths who want to compromise with it, which is where we are now.
So it will be opposed, don't misunderstand, and it'll have righteous opposition from a lot of Americans.
But it will not involve any of the current uh establishment of the Republican Party.
Here's Steve in Rochester, New Hampshire as we start on the phones.
Welcome, sir.
Great to have you here.
Uh thank you, Rosh.
It's an honor to talk to you.
I've been listening to you since I was in high school back in the late 1980s.
Uh appreciate that.
Thank you.
Uh I am a retired or former history teacher up here in New Hampshire, and uh I just want to say first of all that I completely agree with everything you've said regarding taxes in the Democratic Party um since the beginning of your show.
Um of the cases that I always taught and we always taught the students was McCulloch versus Maryland, which occurred in 1819.
The federal government that charted the Bank of the United States.
It was a federally chartered bank, and the Federally Chartered Bank of the United States tried to open a branch in Maryland.
Maryland wanted nothing to do with it, so they put a huge tax on it to try to get rid of it.
It went to court, and the chief justice of the time, John Marshall, ruled in part that the power to tax is the power to destroy.
And they they toss the case out.
Um and that's something that I think that a lot of people just aren't picking up on as far as what the Democrats are saying.
No, I just want the money.
I must respectfully disagree to an extent.
I think the low information voters we talk about in their own way are very sophisticated.
I think we're gonna have to grow up.
We're gonna have to admit to ourselves that they do indeed understand the power to tax is the power to destroy, and that's what they're supporting.
That's what they're voting for.
They are voting to raise taxes on the rich because they want them punished.
Yes.
Therefore, they believe they can be punished by raising tests.
So it's safe to say that they do want um uh the the power to destroy.
Exactly.
And th I think they fully realize and fully the Democrats fully understand that the that the taxing power is a power to destroy if they want to use it as such, which they do.
Yes.
Uh and they're uh by the way, this is not new to Obama.
No.
Bill Clinton.
Every Democrat since FDR has been running against tax cuts, has been running on class envy against the rich.
We are you and I just happen to be alive at that moment in time where it has finally broken true.
And a majority of people who vote will vote for that and agree with it.
I mean, it it certainly is something that people obviously need to be re-educated about.
The Frowning Father certainly understood that that they were so fearful of the taxing power.
I mean, if you look at the arguments that went on before the civil war over the over tariffs, whether we should raise tariffs or lower tariffs.
Never before, though, never before in American history has an elected government sought to impoverish its citizens for the advancement of its political objectives.
We now live in a moment in time where that's happened.
An elected administration has the policy sought to impoverish millions of citizens and then support them.
Absolutely.
For the express purpose of maintaining their base.
Exactly.
Mm-hmm.
May maintain the and growing it.
Yes.
And then inflicting harm on the Republic, growing government, empowering themselves, all of that.
And and of course, these are the people about whom it is said the most compassionate and the most tolerant, and the most loving and the most understanding.
They in fact are the most uh damaging to get right down to it.
Uh And that's exactly what they they have succeeded in teaching people that the power to tax is the power to destroy, and they now have people voting for them on the premise that they want the Democrats they're electing to do that.
Not destroyed a punish.
It's their fault.
It's their fault that there's a recession.
It's their fault that we're in debt, and it's also their fault.
They've got too much money.
They've got more than they need.
This is this has been said and repeated by millions of Democrats for decades now.
The whole premise that you've got more than you need.
And it's again, folks, again, it is why people like Bill Gates.
For the longest time I've had people say, well, how come Bill Gates and Warren Buffett vote Democrat?
Very simple.
If you have the kind of money they do, or if you have the money a Hollywood mogul does, you don't want people beaten down your door to get your money.
So you state publicly that you think you've got too much.
You state publicly that it's how the Kennedys did it.
You state publicly that you think the rich have had too big a ride.
It's that the rich are benefiting from a from a rigged game, a stack deck.
Uh there need to be higher taxes.
It just needs to be.
It's just it's unfair.
Uh and the process you uh inoculate yourself from becoming a target because you're on the side of the oppressed, and you are not blamed for taking money that they would have had.
You are permitted to have your money as long as you are perceived to be on their side.
And that's what these wise, smart liberal business people learned some time ago.
Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, is on the cover of Time Magazine this week.
And in the story on Goodell, there is a an idea presented, a replacement for the kickoff.
As you know, people get hurt.
They injure their heads, and then they shoot people.
And the NFL wants to stop this.
The game is violent, and there are too many head injuries that are the result of many things, including high-speed collisions.
And so for the uh decent number of uh months this year, the kickoff has been looked at as maybe something to be eliminated in the National Football League.
Because you've got big behemoth players, bigger and faster than ever, approaching each other at speeds that are faster than ever, and something has to give when they collide.
And uh concussions happen and other bodily harm, uh, injuries involving broken ankles and pulled muscles, and then the league uh wants to eliminate as much of this as they can.
So eliminating a kickoff has been tossed around.
Greg Chavo, the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has proposed an idea which is ostensibly being considered to replace the kickoff, and it is this.
The team that would kick off, i.e., a team that loses the coin toss, would get the ball at their own 30-yard line.
It would be automatically fourth down in 15.
The game starts with a team on offense facing fourth and fifteen from their own 30.
They can either punt or go for it.
Going for it would replace the onside kick.
You see, there would no longer be an onside kick either because it wouldn't be a kickoff.
So the theory is that most teams would punt rather than go for it, fourth and 15, from their own 30.
And since the ball is punted very high and since it doesn't go as far as a kickoff, the speeds at which players would collide would not be as great.
And the chance for great bodily harm and perhaps concussion leading to murder would be reduced.
And it's being seriously considered.
The punt, considered to be...
Uh much less dangerous than a kickoff.
Because the team receiving the punt has to run backwards to form blocking protection for the player fielding the punt.
And many punts end up in a fair catch, and which there are very few collisions.
So the game is safer.
So the game would start fourth and fifteen on the team's 30-yard line with a punt.
Or if they're gutsy, they can go for it.
That is the uh that is the rule.
And Goodell in the article says that the idea came from it's Greg Shano, by the way, I said Shabo.
Greg Shano, who is the coach at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
And uh the fact that Goodell mentioned it in the Time Magazine cover story is seen as a sign that the league is considering it.
I don't know if you've heard about this.
In California, there is an old folks' home where controversy has erupted over a Christmas tree.
The old folks who live in the happy home love their tree.
The people that own happy home want to take the tree out because it's too religious.
Residents in a New Hall senior apartment complex are protesting an order for management to remove their Christmas tree from the community room because they were told it's a religious symbol.
On Tuesday, Tarzan, California based JB Partners Group sent a memo to the staff at the Willows Happy Home.
It's a senior apartment building, actually.
Sent a memo to the staff demanding they take down the Christmas tree and all the menorahs in communal areas.
The company has owned the happy home for four years.
This is the first time and it's given such a directive to staff.
Now there's no indication anywhere in the story that the happy home is a government institution, and I can't find anywhere in the story that anybody's complained.
Now you know in Little Rock, you had one malcontent, I'm sorry, one concerned parent who wanted to cancel a Charlie Brown Christmas play because that was too religious.
But on Wednesday, yesterday, 24 residents of the 75 resident happy home gathered in the lobby, and they placed a neon green sign on the tree, said please save our tree.
And there's a phone of the residents at a happy home here surrounding their tree.
It's a beautifully decorated tree.
Big sign, please save our tree.
Fern Shield, who has lived at the complex for nearly two years, said we're all angry.
We want that tree.
Where's our freedom?
This is ridiculous.
You can tell these are really old people, because they're talking about freedom.
That's how you know that they're very old.
Right, because they're talking about freedom.
That's that's the I mean, if you didn't have a picture of the residents of a happy home around their tree, but then you heard that they were talking about this in context their freedom, you would realize they have to be very old to be concerned about something like that.
I mean, to have that be a factor in this.
You you know you're you're dealing with people probably World War II era vets uh.
At any rate, another resident, Edna Johnson, said that uh one of the supervisors told her tree had to be taken down because it's religious symbol.
Uh she said, Look, we could this is Edna Johnson.
We we could put out Easter baskets, we could have turkey for Thanksgiving, but no tree for Christmas because it has Christ's name in it.
Frances Schaefer, who's Jewish, said she doesn't understand the property management company's stance.
This tree's a symbol of reverence that we can all enjoy Regardless of our religious beliefs.
I can't find anywhere in here that anybody complained.
Now, probably it's there's 75 residents of the happy home, and 24 are raising a ruckus over this.
So it's probably the case that somebody did complain.
The odds are that one of the malcontent gummers, a residents, complained about it and is being protected by not being identified.
Oh, and then there's this uh from Reuters.
The Internal Revenue Service yesterday released final rules for a new tax on medical devices.
Products ranging from surgical sutures to knee replacement implants that start next year as part of Obamacare.
The 2.3% tax must be paid effective after December 31st by device makers on their gross sales.
This tax expected to raise $29 billion in government revenue through 2022.
Companies like Boston Scientific Corp, 3M, Kemberley Clark have been lobbying Congress for a repeal of the tax, but that will not happen.
Medical devices include medical devices sold over the counter include eyeglasses, contact lenses, hearing aids.
Now they are exempt.
The tax applies mostly to devices used and implanted by medical professionals.
But it will encompass a lot of things that you have never thought of as a medical device.
And the tax so earlier this week, the IRS announced the rules for was a 3.8%.
I've even forgotten what it's and then there was the 1% income tax surcharge, the 3.8% surcharge on that capital capital gains for health care, right?
And so yeah, capital on your house and anything it's a capital gain.
3.8% surcharge on any capital gain added to whatever the new capital gains rate is.
The 1% tax is 0.9, but the 1% additional income tax rate, and now the 2.3% tax on medical devices.
And there will be other IRS rules announced as we get closer to the end of the month, and thus the end of the year.
As the Obamacare taxes continue to mount up.
And we'll chronicle them all as they happen, so that you know.
Somebody just asked me if condoms are on the medical device list.
I can't find them.
And I'm kind of surprised at that.
And I said, well, somebody said, well, they're not on the list because they're disposable, so are thermometers now.
So it can't be that condoms are disposable as to why they're not on the uh medical device list for new taxes.
But look, uh condom is deployed and then it's implanted.
I mean, that's one of the things that said here that taxes on medical devices which are implanted, condom certainly is that.
And then after that it's it's it's tossed.
So I don't know, I don't know why it isn't on the list.
As somebody, well, uh how does raising taxes on medical devices help?
I don't know how it helps, but all it is that's the point, see, it does all it does is further the notion that we haven't been taxed enough, and that that's why we're in the problem that we're in.
A reason why health care costs are so high is that people haven't been taxed enough.
That's really what all this is about.
As far as the NFL kickoff, I have an alternative idea.
When I worked at the Kansas City Royals, the Chiefs were right across parking lot M. M is a parking lot between Arrowhead Stadium and now Kaufman Stadium.
And I knew some friends over in the Chiefs PR office.
So we played uh touch football with the Chief's front office when baseball season ended every Thursday afternoon.
So I would go back and forth and and I saw some of the posters that the league at now this is this is uh early 80s, just a little time ago, but I saw some of the posters the league sent out to help teams market and sell tickets.
And one of the posters, I'll never forget this, one of the posters said this.
If you know that more people bowl in a week than attend NFL games in a season, then you know America.
Now the NFL is trying to tell its member teams that there's a whole bunch of people out there to sell tickets to that you haven't marketed, and bowling was held out as the and of course, you know the tomb of the unknown bowler is in Raytown, Missouri, right?
Right outside, not very far from Arrowhead Stadium.
I was once asked to place a wreath at the tomb of the unknown bowler.
Uh when I when I lived in Kansas City.
I never had a chance to go.
But here's my idea.
Instead of this fourth and fifteen stuff, I mean, you still got contact.
You get you if you start the game fourth and fifteen on the 30, you still punt.
There's still contact.
There's still possibility for concussion and then murder and suicide.
And we want to eliminate that.
So I think what the NFL ought to do is put portable bowling alleys on the sideline at every game.
And then have the team captain, or whoever's the best bowler on the team, throw one ball, bowl one ball, and you get three points for every pen knocked down.
So team captain goes out there and rolls one ball down the bowling lane.
If you knock down seven pins, you start at the 21-yard line.
No contact.
And there and you have you you have given a whole new reason for bowlers to attend NFL games.
And imagine the excitement.
Something you couldn't capture at home, even on high definition.
The excitement of the team captain in full uniform bowling to kick the and at and after every touchdown, the team captain would bowl again to find out where the team starts from.
And you've saved lives.
You've saved lives.
You've saved countless lives with this.
And you'd still, if if you bowl a strike, three points per pin, you're starting at the 30.
If you gutter ball, you're starting at your own, you know, one inch line.
Maybe throw a gutter ball, you uh safety and you do it all over again.
Who knows?
But think of the lives saved.
And think of the think of the careers that will be extended and prolonged.
You know what else?
USA Today has a story about sp today, specifically NBA and NFL players, and how after they've quit two to three years after they've retired, they're bankrupt and broke, and they have nothing.
Well, no, Snerdley, be patient.
There is a reason for this.
And we're working on it, but as of now, uh, many of the rookies that end up in the NFL E NBA come from backgrounds where they have never had money and they don't know how to deal with it.
It's not their fault that they lose it.
Uh it's not their fault that it's taken make bad deals, uh, get you know, shyster agents and managements and so that and and so it I think what what could happen, I think if if we are to be consistent, what's happening, take a like the United Auto workers.
We pay them after they retire.
We pay their health care, we pay them a pension.
I think in order to solve this terrible societal problem, which is NBA and NFL players being bankrupt and broke two years after they retire, I think the owners should continue to pay them, even after they retire.
If it's good enough for the UAW, it's good enough for the players union in the NFL and the NBA, Lifetime health care and a lifetime pension.
That's, you know, 80, 90% of your salary after you played three, four years, the average time that a player in the NFL lasts.
Of course, with the rules changes, that lifespan will go up because there'll be less contact and less danger and less injury.
But start doing the NFL and the NBA and Major League Baseball.
What we do elsewhere.
Just continue to pay people after they quit working.
Why not?
Why not?
Give me a good reason why not.
Bankrupt the league?
Oh, the legal go on.
The legal never run out of money.
What are you talking about?
Welcome back, folks.
It's a delight to have you with us.
Most Americans, the Brightbort Breitbart story here.
Most Americans like to think of themselves as patriots and advocates for American values, but according to a new study, the very definition of American values has changed dramatically thanks to Obama.
It's a Pew Research Center report.
49% of Americans, a minority, say that our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior.
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