All Episodes
Previous Next
Feb. 5, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:40
February 5, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
And greetings to you.
Music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plain, Rush Limbaugh, an outpost of sanity and reasonableness in a world increasingly gone mad.
Happy to be here, folks.
Our telephone number, if you want to be on the program, is 800-282-2882.
And the email address, lrushbow at eibnet.com.
Look, folks, I really don't like being a CEO.
I told you so.
I mean, I know I do it a lot because it happens a lot.
And I used to even have a little jingle with it.
See, I told you so.
Because it used to be somewhat unique.
Now it's not difficult at all.
I just, it is important, however, I do, when relevant, like to remind you of things that you've heard in the past on this program that you may have forgotten, things that I've said.
Here's a story that leads into my point.
Washington Examiner, the headline, Kasich's Cave on Obamacare, shows how hard it is to beat big government.
Ohio Governor John Kasich, who campaigned as a limited government Republican and used to be a big-time limited government Republican, when he was a member of the House 1994 freshman class, he presided over the budget committee that actually did balance the budget one time.
Kasich has walked the walk as well as talked the talk.
But here now is this story.
Ohio Governor Kasich on Monday announced that he would implement one of the costliest, most expensive provisions of Obamacare by expanding Ohio's Medicaid program.
His decision, which is a huge victory for the White House that'll provide cover for more Republicans to do the same, serves as a great case study on how difficult it is to impede the growth of government.
When Obamacare was making its way through Congress in 2009 and 2010, the proposed expansion of Medicaid was one of its most controversial elements.
As things stood, the program was crushing state budgets, so governors in both parties feared that expanding it to 15 million to 18 million beneficiaries, the so-called uninsured, would be unsustainable.
Then Senator Ben Nelson was infamously given the Cornhusker kickback, expanded federal funding for Medicaid to Nebraska to help secure his vote, the 60th vote, to get Obamacare through the Senate.
Now, there was a big backlash against the Cornhusker kickback.
It cemented the idea in the public consciousness that the process used to pass Obamacare was corrupt.
And as you recall, that helped elect Scott Brown to the Senate in Massachusetts.
And that also added fuel to the Tea Party.
And then ultimately, members of Congress substituted the special Medicaid treatment for Nebraska in favor of increased federal funding for all states instead.
So under the law, the federal government will pay 100% of the cost of the Medicaid expansion at first, then 90% after 2020.
This comes at a cost to federal taxpayers, $932 billion over 10 years.
It's going to be more than that.
So, to be clear, that's if all states participate.
But last year, 26 states, just to give you a little history on this to remind you, last year, 26 states, led by Florida, won a lawsuit challenging the federal government for coercing states into the Medicaid expansion.
And the Supreme Court left states with the option of rejecting it.
And that takes us back to Kasich.
Now, again, to refresh your memory, remember Obamacare has a bunch of cuts.
Medicare, $700 billion, Medicaid.
And the way, see, they had to bring Obamacare in under a trillion dollars.
They didn't have to, but they wanted to as a means of telling voters it wasn't going to cost anything.
The Iraq war, remember these numbers?
The Iraq war cost us a trillion dollars.
And so we're going to end the Iraq war and we're going to do health care.
So it's a network in terms of money at present being spent.
There's no new money.
This is what they said.
But in order for them to be able to say that, with a wink and a nod, the number as scored by the CBO had to come in under a trillion dollars.
Well, the way this was achieved in part was the federal government via Obamacare makes the states pick up all these Medicaid expenses, all of it.
That was the only way that the states can't print money like the federal government can.
They have to come up with the money.
They have to raise taxes or try to borrow it or whatever, but they can't print money like the federal government can.
And this was a huge expense that Obamacare just shoveled right through their front door.
So we get to the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare, and the court said that states cannot be compelled to incur this Medicaid expense.
They can opt out if they want to.
So a lot of states decided to opt out.
Kasich has decided to opt in, but he's not the first.
There are five of them now: governors of Ohio, New Mexico, North Dakota, Arizona, Nevada, have all the word is cave in the story, so that's what I'll use.
They've all caved and said they will cover the expenses of Medicaid.
They'll take over the expense from the federal government, in effect, which helps Obama in terms of the paperwork, keeping the so-called costs of Obamacare artificially lower than what they really are.
Now, this is a disappointing situation to a lot of people.
But there is a practical political reality to explain it, which doesn't make it easier to swallow, but there is a political reality.
We lost the election.
We lost the state of Ohio, and Kasich is up for reelection, and he wants to win.
And he is simply judging where the people of his state are.
And I think this is happening in a number of other places.
The 2012 election Is going to prove to be the most devastating election result in ways that we haven't even contemplated yet.
But every week, there is new evidence of this.
The CI Told You So is not specifically that governors like this were going to cave, but that resistance to Obama was going to become practically nil.
There isn't any resistance to Obama anywhere.
And it's going to get worse even from this point.
There's no political impetus.
There's no perceived upside on the part of Republicans for standing in the way of Obama.
The perception is that the people of this country love Obama.
I mean, cult figure love this guy.
This is the perception in the Republican Party, and that there's nothing that's going to change that.
And so they have to bite the bullet, gnash their teeth, and go along with all this so as not to be hated.
It is a purely defensive posture, but it's also a concession to what they believe the political realities today are.
And that's the wrong button.
And this election result is causing a mindset in the Republican Party that is as devastating.
This is worse than the mindset and the realities after Watergate.
And it's not just because the Republicans thought they were going to win.
It's not just because they thought Romney was going to win.
It is because of who Obama is and what his policies are and the perception that the American people massively support it all.
And that's why Cantor is saying we're going to have to do a better job of explaining who we are.
We need to do a better job explaining why we're doing what we're doing.
That's, I think, though, that epitomizes how lost they all feel.
And right now, folks, there is no fight.
There's no desire for it.
There's no fight mentality.
There is no desire for any opposition of any kind at this point in time.
That's what all of this means.
It's a direct outcome of the 2012 election.
It is Santa Claus trumping freedom, Santa Claus trumping everything.
Santa Claus beats fiscal responsibility.
Santa Claus beats individual liberty.
Santa Claus beats individual responsibility.
Santa Claus trumps all of this.
It's no more complicated than that.
But that's exactly what all of this means.
Santa Claus trumps everything.
Santa Claus trumps working.
Everybody loves Santa Claus.
That bugs them.
They think there's nothing in it.
There's no upside to opposing anything that's happening in the country right now.
And it's going to get even worse as issues come up and more Republicans throw in the towel.
That is going to happen.
And I have no idea what's going to arrest it.
At some point, it'll stop, and somebody's going to reverse it.
So I don't know what it's going to be when.
I haven't the slightest idea.
But Kasich's up for re-election.
He lost.
The state of Ohio went Obama.
It went Democrat.
He's reading tea leaves.
Other governors are doing the same thing.
There's some holdouts.
I mean, it's not every Republican is throwing in the towel.
But for the most part, the overarching philosophy right now is, or theory, there's nothing to be gained in opposing Obama.
The media is going to come out and destroy you.
The American people love Santa Claus and don't want to hear any opposition.
That's just going to be categorized as mean-spiritedness, extremism, racism, what have you.
So you have to bite the bullet for a while.
Let this play out because there's nothing that's going to stop this.
Nothing foreseen that's going to stop it.
Something will, but I don't know what or when, but something will arrest this because it always happens.
I got to take a brief time out.
We'll come back.
We'll continue with your phone calls after this.
Do not go away.
So Obama's at the White House saying something.
You ever notice that all of his press appearances, his announcements, his campaign appear, whatever you call them, they always happen while this program is on.
They always do.
And it was Obama who said to the new republic that Fox News and Rush Lindborn, they're standing in the way of progress.
Now, I didn't, of course, hear the whole thing.
I listened to a little bit of it during the break.
And he just said, the President of the United States just said, we can't just cut our way to prosperity.
Of course we can't.
Of course we can't.
And of course, there aren't any cuts apart from DOD.
Apart from the defense budget, there haven't been any cuts.
And Obama then said that his policies are resulting in economic growth, a reduction in the deficit by $2.5 trillion.
Why, he's painting a picture of absolute utopia that's taking place in America.
You would never know.
If you just landed here from Mars, why, these are the solid days.
This has never had it better in this country.
We've never had a more responsible president.
We've had never had a more responsible budget process.
And Obama is protecting the people of this country from budget cutters who happen to be the Republicans, by the way.
We can't just cut our way to prosperity.
We need a balanced approach as we move to prosperity.
And of course, that really gets to the nub of it.
What is the source of prosperity?
In the United States, what has always been the source of prosperity?
It doesn't matter what has always been.
Because today, the source of prosperity is the government, Santa Claus.
Government is the source of prosperity.
And the Republicans are out there trying to cut people's prosperity.
Now, they're actually not cutting anything, and the Republicans haven't proposed any cuts.
Nobody ever does.
There are never any real cuts proposed.
The federal budget is not getting smaller.
Projected budgets are not getting smaller.
And yet, every week we hear about these massive draconian cuts.
Now, you in this audience know how that works.
If a budget item doesn't grow as rapidly as projected, that equals a cut, but at the end of the day, it still grows.
But he's out there, he's warning the low-information people of this country via the media.
He's warning the low-information voters that these Republicans want to cut their prosperity.
And he's telling you, you can't cut your way to prosperity.
You can't.
Now, we can tax our way to prosperity.
Did you know that?
We can do that, but we can't cut our way to prosperity.
So, what this all adds up to is that Republican officeholders right now are in a holding pattern.
And they're trying not to alienate people that didn't vote for them.
They're not so much concerned about those of you who did vote for them because they figure you're going to always be there because of your fear and dislike for the current regime.
But they don't want to do anything that would irritate the people who didn't vote for them.
So, they're in a holding pattern.
And they're trying to hold on until the situation hits the fan.
They don't know what that situation is going to be, and they don't know when it's going to happen, but it will.
It always does.
The only question really is: how far gone is the country going to be when the situation hits the fan?
That's the only question.
And what is going to be required to get it back?
But there's no fight right now.
The Republican office holders don't want to oppose any of this.
They don't want to be seen opposing it.
They don't want to say anything that could be interpreted as opposing it.
Oh, you think I'm wrong?
Where is it?
Where is the opposition?
When's the last time you heard any opposition to what Obama's doing?
Tell me.
You know, the only time you hear opposition to what Obama's doing is when Obama claims it exists.
Well, other than here, I'm talking about the Republican Party.
There isn't any opportunity.
We agree with him.
We want immigration.
We want to relax our attitudes on the social issues.
Abortion, not talked about yet, but it's coming.
Congress, immigration, all these things that we got to reach out to all these people that hate us.
The only real opposition is that which Obama claims exists, like these Republican budget cutters.
If you listen to Obama talk, this is my point.
If you pay attention to Obama and that's all you do, and if you pay attention to the media reporting on Obama and that's all you do, you'll finish the busy news day thinking that the Republicans are out there trying to undermine him at every turn.
The Republicans are trying to undermine him, our precious young president, every turn, along with Fox News and me.
If you pay attention to the news, you won't hear any Republicans opposing Obama or trying to undermine him.
But if you listen to him talk about it, you'll think they exist.
The Republicans are being accused of things that Obama knows they want, but they're not stating.
I find it really interesting.
Obama goes on TV and savages these Republicans, trying to do all this damage.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are actually in the process of caving to Obama.
He knows that he needs to have an enemy.
He knows he needs to demonize his opposition.
Santa Claus needs an enemy.
So he creates it every day.
We'll be back.
We will get to your phone calls next.
Hang in there.
We'll get to the phones here in just a second.
One more news item.
Before we do that, this is from NBC News.
A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the United States government, i.e. President Obama, can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be senior operational leaders of al-Qaeda or an associated force,
even if there isn't any intelligence indicating that they're engaged in an active plot to attack the United States.
It is kind of open-ended.
So American citizens can be killed simply based upon suspicions.
A belief not even based on intelligence.
That's what I just read here.
Read it again.
Confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government, i.e. Obama, can indeed order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be senior operational leaders of al-Qaeda or an associated force, even if there's no intelligence indicating that they are engaged in an active plot.
Well, that's not just open-ended.
That's a pretty big net.
That is casting a really wide net because it almost sounds like you don't even have to be a senior operational leader of al-Qaeda or an associated.
Well, actually, an associated force is interesting.
If this provision had been in place back in the 70s, does this mean that Nixon could have assassinated the weathermen?
Does this mean that Nixon could have taken out Bill Gates?
Does this mean that Richard Nixon could have taken out the new Black Panther Party?
It doesn't mean that.
Well, senior operational leaders of Al-Qaeda or an associated force, even if there is no intel indicating that those people are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S. 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details obtained by NBC News.
It means the administration gave it to him.
Provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the regime's most secretive and controversial policies.
Its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaeda suspects, including those aimed at American citizens.
Yeah, I remember all the grief that George Bush got for warrantless wiretaps on phone calls.
Do you remember that?
I remember when Bush was president, the American left was literally having conniption fits.
Bill Ayers, did I say Gates?
Bill Ayers.
Does that mean Nixon could have killed Bill Ayers?
It does mean that.
Bill Ayers of the weatherman, he had an active plot against the U.S., bombed the Pentagon.
That means if Nixon had assumed the kind of power that Obama's assuming, he could have sent a commando team out to wipe out Bill Ayers.
You can't kill rogue leaders.
No, you cannot.
By law, we cannot assassinate foreign leaders.
We can now kill Americans as long as we say they are related to al-Qaeda somehow.
And that link isn't too tough.
Al-Qaeda hates America.
All you have to do is hate America.
It could be said that you are an associated force.
Remember all of the anger that the left had over waterboarding.
And look at this now.
I think I have this right.
Constitutional scholar Barack Obama is demanding the right to kill American citizens without making his case to a judge as long as he thinks the American in question is in an upper tier of operations of al-Qaeda or a related group, but he can't waterboard the guy.
He can kill him, but we can't waterboard him.
We can kill the son of a, but we can't torture him.
Have I got this right?
I think I do.
I thought you should know.
Back to the phones as promised.
Steve in Grand Terrace, California.
Hi, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
First thing I want to say is thanks for all the time she's made me laugh out loud while listening to you.
Well, I appreciate that, sir.
I really do.
Thank you very much.
I want to talk to you about something, but you just mentioned something.
Can I bring up something about her name, if I pronounce her name right, is Rachel Mathow, the lady that's on TV?
She's kind of on the left side.
Let me think.
Can you bring up the inspiration?
Well, you know, we don't talk about MSNBC on this program much.
And it's not Friday.
Okay.
No, I'll tell you what.
I'm going to go ahead and give you an exemption in honor of the seminar caller because we're interested in balance.
So I'll go ahead and let you, what is it you want to say about Rachel Maddow?
Well, I was listening because I joined this teaparty.org and she was, a little thing was on there and she was playing what Obama said from his own mouth.
And he said, he's going to create a panel and this panel will have the authority to, let's say, say me, they didn't like what I'm saying and I pose a danger to the government.
Even if that danger is 10 years from now, if they think 10 years from now I pose a danger, they can come and get me for an indefinite period of time.
And she was like going out of her head and she's on the left.
She couldn't believe what he was saying.
And if you ever get an opportunity, you ought to check that out because that's some things he's saying.
I haven't heard this.
You mean if you just say something that Obama doesn't like, he come get you?
Basically, he was saying if he considered, if that panel, he said no one man should have the right, but we know if he created.
Wait, wait a minute.
Hold it.
What panel?
He wants to create a panel of people.
And this panel will have the right to say this individual could be a danger to our threat to the government in 10 years so they can go pick him up and keep him from a definite period of time.
That's out of his own mouth.
And she was just like in shock.
She said, that's the worst thing I've heard in my history of doing this for a living.
I have honest, honestly here, Steve, I don't have any idea about this.
I've never heard of this.
I don't know what it is you're talking about.
Well, if you get an opportunity, but I apologize for switching gears here, but when you were talking about that, it made me think about that.
But the main thing is.
The only thing I know, Steve, is if you produce a video that causes riots, say in Libya, they can put you in jail.
Yes, that's for sure.
Aside from that, I don't know of a panel that will put you in jail or get rid of you for what you're thinking.
Well, you check it out when you can, and you'll find out that's his, that's he's opened his own mouth and said that's what he's planning on doing.
As scary and as shocking as that is, it's real.
Well, I don't know.
Well, Check, what is it you're really called about?
Okay, what I'm really called about is, you know, I just started a Tea Party group called the Desert Rats.
Just me just started it.
But one of the things I wanted to tell everybody is quit trying to create a third party.
Just get a bunch of Tea Party people together, get them elected, and just control, take over the Republican Party and make it like it should be, not the mess it is today.
You know, get rid of the Carl, get rid of the Boehners, the McCains, the Lindsey Grahams, et cetera, and replace them with good people.
I just want to give you a little helpful hint, a little warning.
You better be very careful who you say that kind of stuff to, or McCain might come and put you in jail.
Wait, wait, let me grab this next car.
Look, we're bombing out on the phone, Sonetic.
You and I can both all agree it has been an absolute disaster on the phones.
I'm still looking to salvage that portion of the program.
Let me try again.
In the famous words of Frank Sinatra, Mike, Pompado Beach, Florida, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
A lot of pressure on you, Mike.
I don't mean to do that for you.
You really set the table for me.
First of all, amen.
My prayers have been answered.
I've wanted to talk to you on this issue for a long time.
And in the age of the new information, or the low information voter, why is it that the policies of Kasich towards Medicare, Medicaid, or any of this stuff is actually going to play into voters' decisions?
We keep giving up and caving for a purported benefit at the polls, which the low information doesn't even know about.
So why do we keep tailoring our governance?
Okay, first of all.
Let me stop because I'm ecstatic.
You have salvaged the disaster.
That was the phone portion of the program.
It's a great question.
And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
In fact, would you like an iPad?
My goodness.
I could not believe that's actually happening to me.
I listen to you every day give those three.
In fact, you know what?
I happen to have, I happen to, you could be among the first to have one of the new iPads just came out today with 128 gigabytes of storage.
If you would like one, this is the Retina Display fourth generation iPad, 128 gigabytes storage.
Would you like it?
I would love it.
Okay.
I would absolutely love it.
Then hang on at the end of the phone call for Snerdley to pick up and get your address so that we can FedEx the thing out to you, okay?
Santastic.
Now, can I just add to this just one little bit?
Don't ruin it.
It's a great question.
Don't.
Okay, go ahead.
I'll roll the dice.
I promise I won't ruin it.
I promise.
You can take away the iPod if I ruin it.
But the point then is we need a whole marketing campaign towards Mindshare.
Stop worrying about policy and ideas and start getting marketing out there.
We don't have that.
And that's what's needed.
Okay.
We'll deal with that in just a second.
Your question, as I understand it, your question is, Kasich caved because of the Medicaid expense.
He caved to the premise that the states will pick up the Medicaid expense.
Your question is: why is he caving?
Because low-information voters do not vote on policy.
They're not informed enough to be voting on policy.
So why are we caving on policy?
You want to know, if I got you right, why the Republicans keep giving away their core beliefs?
Absolutely.
And especially when they give them away, it makes it even harder for us to get elected.
So they need to fight tooth and nail.
These guys fought us tooth and nail when they were in the minority.
We need to fight.
And I can see it anywhere.
Here's why I think it's happening.
I don't think that Kasich and the boys are looking at this as policy.
I think that they are perceiving, they're assuming that voters are looking at Obama as Santa Claus, as the giving away of benefits and things.
And if they oppose Obama, they are afraid these voters are going to think the Republicans don't want them to have stuff.
You're right.
It isn't about policy with the low-information voters.
It's not that they care about who is paying for Medicaid, the states or the federal government.
That is no interest to them.
They're not aware of it at all.
It's not all they want when they go to the hospital, they want to get treated and they want to think somebody else is paying for it.
And that's what they think of Obama.
That's what they think of the Democrats.
And if the Republicans oppose that, what these people hear is that they might have to pay for it themselves because the Republicans don't want them to have that.
This is what I think Kasich and the boys are thinking.
I agree with you, but I think we can actually even out Santa Claus them.
We should be giving away school vouchers.
Give people $20,000 cash.
We should giving away health care insurance.
I mean, the amount of money we could give away to make things more conservative in America by giving away giving away limited government type things that will move the country in a limited government direction.
You can still be Santa Claus.
And then we can win those low-information voters.
Okay, how do we give away health care?
Well, what if I don't even know what the cost is?
It's got to be less than Obamacare.
But what if we gave everybody Obamacare is the law of the land.
Can't do anything about that.
How do we give that gift?
Let's give school vouchers.
That's a big one.
I don't like people going to these indoctrination camps.
Okay.
Stop right there.
Stop right there.
In their defense, the Republicans have been doing school vouchers.
They've been promoting it.
They stand for it.
Obama took them away in Washington, D.C., at Sidwell Friends, and every other school at a special school where low-income people were the beneficiary.
He took it away.
Federal vouchers and big money.
And let me hear him talk about it because I haven't heard him talk about it in a while.
I think they're placating us.
I feel like they're all betraying us.
I think they think that that's too complicated.
Oh, please.
You talk about money for people?
Okay, let's look at it.
Wait, don't interrupt me.
On the one hand, you're the low-information voter, okay?
On the one hand, you've got Obama.
You think Obama is giving you education, giving you student loan, giving you this, giving you that.
On the other hand, the Republicans are saying that they're going to give you the money, and then you got to go spend it, and you have to go shop for the best deal.
Then you get to keep what's left over.
What's easier?
Just take the freebie.
No, because you get to go to a private school that's even better, and you probably end up with five grand cash extra every year.
I don't know.
At least put it out there.
I'd rather have the cash.
But then again, I'm not a low-information voter.
But I don't know.
I just feel like we, first of all, your first idea that we're dealing with a low-information voter is huge.
Now we've got to figure out how to sell it.
And then we've got to put together marketing campaigns that sell it.
And talking about policy and saying Obama's a great guy, but his policies are misinformation.
All I'm telling you is that in the low-information voter mindset, vouchers are work.
Low-information voters really don't care about education.
They just go to school, get school breakfast, school lunch.
I mean, that's it.
They're still going to school in the ghetto.
They still don't like their schools.
We should be in there making inroads into low-income areas and saying, listen, we're going to get you the private schools that they're going to.
No more than free hot lunch.
Mike.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
Mike, how old are you?
I'm 43, Rush.
43.
I actually wrote a book about this and stuffed it in my top drawer because I don't want to publish it.
No, no, no.
My point is that you're young enough not to know that the Republicans have been doing this all of my life.
They have been talking about it.
They've been proposing it.
They have even implemented it in places like Wisconsin.
It gets torn down by courts.
It gets ripped away by Democrat activists because it does work.
It does exactly what you think.
This is the nature of the beast, the nature of the battle that we face.
And that is until we need an accompanying mindset, not just to win the minds and hearts of these people like you're talking about, we've got to also amp up to defeat the Democrat Party.
And that's what does not exist right now.
There's a two-pronged stool, if you will, and we've only got one prong, and that is trying to reach the voters.
The Democrats, we got to wipe out too.
Just as stated again, Obama killed a voucher program in Washington, D.C. in his first month in office in 2009.
And it was a wildly successful voucher program for low-income minorities.
And he just ripped it out from under them.
▲
Export Selection