All Episodes
Previous Next
Feb. 5, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:56
February 5, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
It is the fastest three weeks in media, fastest three hours in media, fastest week two, already into our final busy broadcast hour here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I am your guiding light, L. Rushbow, the all-knowing, all-caring, all sensing, all feeling, all concern, Maha Rushy.
Our telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882.
This next story, this this I just marvel.
I literally marvel at the alliance that there is between the Democrat Party and the drive-by media.
This is a story in the New York Times.
The headline really says it all, but I'll give you some details.
Waiting times at ballot box draws scrutiny.
With studies suggesting that long lines at voting places cost Democrats hundreds of thousands of votes in November, party leaders are beginning a push to make voting and voter registration easier, setting up a likely new conflict with Republicans over a deeply polarizing issue.
So, long lines at your polling place.
That's just not fair to Democrats.
That is making it harder for Democrats to get votes.
Those long lines cost the Democrats hundreds of thousands of votes.
Why, if there hadn't been long lines, why the Democrats might have won this by an additional two percentage points.
Oh yeah, the long lines are all Democrat voters.
There aren't any Republicans in there.
The people really, really desirous to vote, the people that show up and wait in line a long time, obviously they're voting for Democrats.
Nobody would do that to vote for a Republican.
If there were long lines for Republicans to vote, the New York Times would have a story on how we can make the lines longer.
Now this article, this article is motivated by three things.
First, and this is the key, and remember it's the New York Times, so there's always an agenda behind this stuff.
This is not news.
This is the I guess the biggest thing anybody can learn.
Stories in the New York Times today are not news.
They are related to the achievement of the next phase of the Obama agenda.
They are every story for the most part, particularly domestic political stories, are nothing more than telltale indicators of what it is Obama wants next.
In other words, here we are on February 5th, and we get a story in the New York Times about long lines at the polling place.
Well, why don't we get this story two days after the election?
If long lines at polling places is a problem, why now?
Why February 5th?
There isn't an election anytime soon.
So what what is this all about?
Well, you have come to the right place.
This article is motivated by three things.
First, the Supreme Court is about to rule on the voting rights act in a few weeks.
So the New York Times is leaning on them.
The New York Times knows that the justices of the Supreme Court value the opinion of reporters and editors at the New York Times.
And so the Times is getting its marker down on what it wants the court to do in relationship to this voting rights act case that's coming up.
And without getting into specifics, what they want the justices to do is find it find it possible, make it possible for more Democrats to vote, make it easier for more Democrats to vote.
Notice there's nothing here about Republicans being in these long lines.
The whole premise of the story long lines equal long waits equals people leaving the line and going home and not voting, which equals lost votes for the Democrats, which equals we can't have that.
And so the voting rights act case, without getting into specifics of it, the New York Times is putting down a marker for the justices.
So that they can keep in mind what's really important about the voting rights act, and that is to do whatever is necessary in their ruling to make it possible for fraud to continue, to make it possible for registration and voting, maybe on the second day, a same day, same place to take place, to happen.
Whatever is necessary to facilitate Democrats winning elections.
The second thing involved in this story, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat New York is sponsoring a Senate voting bill at the behest of Obama, which will address the problems of access to voting.
Kirsten Gillibrand has determined somehow that many Democrats are finding it more difficult than ever to vote.
So she has a piece of legislation to make it easier for them to vote.
That story or this story is about, well, but there is an access problem.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be long lines, don't you see?
There's a total.
Plus, the Republicans keep making noise about photo ID, and we need to settle that once and for all.
And we need to settle that in the Voting Rights Act.
We need to make sure there's never, ever going to be anything like a photo ID requirement.
Never, ever going to make sure there's a federal photo ID requirement to vote.
Lastly, this is all part of the Democrats'push to allow more ballot stuffing by extending Election Day for weeks and doing away with the voter ID requirement in general.
And if Congress will not do these things, then Obama will have to bypass Congress and do away with these restrictions by executive order.
Now, in this story, the New York Times cites a professor who says, quote, Voting is one of the most sacred rights you have.
They should make it as painless as possible.
Implying that it's really painful now to vote.
It's really hard.
It's too hard.
The Republicans are out there demanding everybody have a picture.
The Republicans are demanding that everybody who vote actually be a citizen.
The Republicans are demanding that everybody who vote actually be registered.
That's too hard.
And it's undemocratic.
And the justices have got to sweep all these restrictions away.
Now is voting any more of a sacred right than owning a gun?
Because these same people want to make that as painful as possible.
Same people, same people want to make owning a gun as painful as they can make it.
voting as painless as they can make it.
With studies suggesting that long lines at the polls cost Democrats hundreds of thousands of votes last November, Democrat Party leaders are beginning a push to make voting and voter registration easier, setting up a likely new conflict with Republicans.
Now what does voter registration have to do with long lines to vote?
Voter registration doesn't have anything to do with election day.
But it will, because if they get their way, you're going to be able to do both.
On the spot, on the spot registry, you register, then you go vote.
Same thing, same time.
Yep, that's the next phase.
I thought also the last two presidential elections had pretty close to record turnout.
Am I wrong about that?
I am wrong about that.
Well, the last was lowered in the first one, but but but relative to other elections is pretty high.
my point is that I don't I are you aware of people not being able to vote who wanted to vote?
I'm not either.
I didn't hear any stories about that.
That's my whole point.
Why we get this story now?
February 5th?
Long lines hurt the Democrat.
This is all about existing legislat well, proposed legislation by uh Senator Gillibrand and the Supreme Court decision and same day registration and voting.
White House officials have told congressional leaders the president plans to press for action on Capitol Hill.
The Democrats say they expect him to highlight the issue in the State of the Union show this week, or next week.
The Democrats in the House and Senate have already introduced bills that would require states to provide online voter registration and allow at least 15 days of early voting.
So that's why we have this story.
Now Obama went out today, as I mentioned earlier, had a little press availability at the White House.
The upshot of this, the upshot of his appearance, I've had a chance to study it now, read some of the reporting on it.
The upshot of his TV appearance today in the White House press room was to blame the fear of the sequester for the as the reason the economy contracted in the last quarter.
That's primarily what he was out there to do.
You know, the economy contracted at 0.1 tenth of a percent.
The economy shrank.
Shrunk, got smaller, didn't grow.
So Obama went out there, and his point today was to blame the fear of the sequester for that.
I guess blaming Republican spending cuts didn't fly.
And they threw that out there as a trial balloon.
I guess that didn't work because Obama had to go out there today and blame it on everybody being afraid of the sequester as the reason for the economy contracting.
Never mind that Obama told us in the last debate that he had with Romney that there wouldn't be a sequester.
He told us that.
Here's some uh sound bites from Obama's press availability.
Number one, here is uh this is Obama calling on Congress to deliver a plan of spending cuts to avoid the sequester.
This is what he blamed for the economic contraction.
Economists and business leaders from across the spectrum have said that our economy is poised for progress in 2013.
And we've seen signs of this progress over the last several weeks.
Uh home prices uh continue to climb.
Car sales that are a five-year high.
Manufacturing has been strong, and we've created more than six million jobs in the last 35 months.
Whoa.
But we've also seen the effects that political dysfunction can have on our economic progress.
I didn't know any of that.
Drawn out process for resolving the fiscal cliff hurt consumer confidence.
I didn't know any of that.
I d I honestly, I did not know that economists and business leaders across the spectrum have said we're poised for growth.
You know, he always does that.
He says uh economists from across the spectrum agree, or uh experts from all sides agree.
I haven't heard that.
Uh I haven't seen that uh car sales at an all-time high or five-year high?
I didn't see that.
Have you seen that?
Seriously, have you I haven't seen have you have you seen that manufacturing has been struck?
I haven't I did not see that story.
And I this we created six million jobs in the last 35 months.
That's three years.
We have six million jobs.
What what I know is that we've lost eight and a half million jobs since he took office.
What do you mean that's that's one way what difference does it make?
What what what I know is when Obama took office to now, there are eight and a half million fewer jobs in the country to get.
There are fewer the eight and a half million jobs just vanished over the first four years.
I haven't seen anywhere where we've created six million jobs the last three years.
I haven't seen any of this.
I didn't know any of that.
But now the low information voters know it.
He said it, they'll hear it.
And any see any now the Republicans, if they dare stand up and oppose anything, what are they opposing?
A robust economy, a robust housing market, robust job creation.
The Republicans want to just stop progress everywhere.
It's just it's amazing how mean these guys are.
He uh paused here and actually posed for the photographers at this session.
These reforms would reduce our government's bill.
What's up, cameraman?
Come on, guys.
They're breaking my flow all the time.
He actually stopped in mid-appearance to pose for the cameras.
And this is his line about our inability to cut our way to prosperity.
We've been reminded that while it's critical for us to cut wasteful spending, we can't just cut our way to prosperity.
Deep, indiscriminate cuts to things like education and training, energy, and national security will cost us jobs.
And it will slow down our recovery.
It's not the right thing to do for the economy.
See, all those massive spending cuts that the Republicans are proposed.
We've got we got this great recovery going on, this massive growth taking place, folks.
Like point 0.1%.
We contract it.
But no, we've got robust economic growth going on out there, and the Republicans are going to cost us jobs if they keep proposing these spending cuts, i.e.
the sequester.
So that's what all this was about.
He paints this rosy picture.
Any of it's happening.
And then positions the Republicans as standing in the way.
This is look at the the best illustration of what I said in the last hour.
The Republicans aren't opposing anything.
But Obama goes out every day and accuses them of it.
The Republicans are laying low.
The Republicans are trying not to get noticed.
And when they do speak up, it's all about we need to reach across the aisle.
We need to make Hispanics love us.
Obama comes out and says they're trying to take all the goodies away from people.
Let's take a brief time out.
Don't go away, be back right after this.
To Austin, Texas, and Natalie.
Natalie, welcome to the EIAB network.
Great to have you here.
Hi.
Hi, Russ.
Thank you for calling.
I'm a second generation listener.
Um my question was something you had touched on yesterday.
It bothered me all night, and I couldn't really sleep.
You said that it was gonna cost a family of four, roughly $20,000 a year for Obamacare.
My husband and I have four children, so that would cost us about 24,000 a year if I did the math right.
If my husband only makes twenty-five thousand dollars a year, what are we supposed to do?
Does that mean that my children don't deserve health insurance because we can't afford it?
Uh no, you pay the fine.
So we That's not next year.
That's gonna take that these are IRS numbers, and that I'd it sounded incredible to me too.
It it it works out to about four thousand dollars per family member.
It's sixteen to twenty thousand dollars a year, family four, family five.
Uh and I think after a certain number of I think it's by twenty twenty, uh, after this thing fully implements, it gets going for a while, and the the fine mechanism has evened out with the um with the coverage, but the but but that the IRS said that is the average cost of the lowest plan, Natalie.
That that's that's the bronze plan.
What you are supposed to do at that point is to say to hell with getting your own insurance and get on the government plan.
That's the purpose of that is to drive you out of the private sector health insurance market, including any insurance provided by you or your husband's employer.
Well, I mean, we were on TICARE until my husband was medically discharged, and then when that happened in March, we lost all of our insurance.
So I don't have insurance.
My husband gets his care through the VA and my kids, unfortunately right now have to be on Medicaid to get their checkups and stuff.
Well, you're covered then.
The $20,000 is for people that currently get their insurance via their employer, and that's what it's going to end up costing the employer or you.
And the whole purpose of that high expense is to drive you out of that market and force you in to a state exchange or a a government run program of some kind.
It's it's it's designed to propel the government as the place you have to end up going to get insurance.
So if you don't want that, then you can just pay the fine.
Well, but if you're see if you make less than 200 percent of the poverty rate, you get a subsidy.
I mean your neighbors will help you pay for it.
So you're at your income level, you are gonna be subsidized out the Wazoo because your income level is is uh beyond or beneath uh 200 percent of the poverty rate.
So it won't cost you that much money.
It'll cost the rest of us.
Ladies and gentlemen, a slight correction.
And I must admit the correction we need to make here is the mistake, somewhat understandable because I when the IRS put these numbers out that the cheapest health care coverage for a family of four would be twenty thousand dollars a year.
My reaction to that was that that can't be possible.
Because nobody can afford that.
That simply cannot be possible.
And that's the cheapest.
There's bronze, silver, gold, and then platinum premium, but the cheapest.
And the mistake I made is in telling our previous caller that that's the cost that Obamacare will require private sector insurance companies to charge.
My mistake is it's not private sector price.
That's the Obamacare price.
That is the cost of insurance, the bronze plan, 20 grand.
Well, for a family four to be sixteen, it's it's it's basically four thousand dollars person.
Family five, twenty grand.
That's the Obamacare price.
After Obamacare is fully implemented, that's what it's going to cost.
Now, obviously people can't pay that.
So there are exemptions in the first couple three years, there's a fine option.
You can pay a penalty.
And that starts at twenty-four hundred dollars.
But then you don't have insurance.
But you're also legal.
One way or the other, Obamacare is going to cost you.
You're either going to buy insurance and pay what it costs, or you're going to pay the fine.
Now, the first couple three years of Obamacare after full implementation, the fine relative to the cost of the insurance is cheap.
$2,400 instead of $16,000 is cheap.
But you still have to come up with the $2,400.
It's going to have i there's going to be a line item on your tax return for it.
You are that's why there are 16,000 new IRS agents as part of Obamacare.
They are there to make sure that you either have insurance and can prove it, or that you've paid the fine.
They will, if you can't pay the fine, if you're working, they will deduct it.
It'll be an additional deduction from your paycheck, just like FICA and your income tax deduction, it'll be a new deduction.
It's not as though you'll have to write a check for 2400, they'll just take it from what you earn over the course of twelve months.
If that's what you choose, you'll have the choice to pay the fine or buy the policy.
Now, after a short number of years, the fine gets larger than the policy.
The purpose of the fine is to obliterate private sector insurance.
If people don't buy insurance because it's so expensive, and instead pay the fine, then the private sector health insurance companies are losing customers, obviously.
And the more customers they lose, the greater the odds are going to go out of business.
But after a while, that $20,000 is the Obamacare price.
It is not the private sector price, and that's the correction I need to make.
Now, if your annual income is less than 200% of the poverty rate, and figure 80 grand, if your annual income is less than $80,000, then you will get a subsidy.
I don't know how much, but it's calculated, and you will get a subsidy on the $20,000 that you owe.
And you'll have to pay the balance.
There's no way around this, folks.
I don't think there's any stopping Obamacare now.
It's done.
The states are doing what they can when it comes to the exchanges and things like that.
But I got a story here.
This is from the politico, the federal health care law.
Here, brace yourself.
The federal health care law could nearly triple premiums for some young adults and healthy men, according to a forthcoming survey of insurers that singles out a group that might become a major public opinion battleground in the Obamacare wars.
The survey fielded by the Conservative American Action Forum made available to Politico found that if Obamacare's insurance rules were in force right now, the premium for a bare bones policy for a 27-year-old man, non-smoker, on the individual market would be 190% higher than what it is today.
If Obamacare's insurance rules were in force today, the coming rules that will be enforced, if they were in force right now, the insurance premium for a bare bones, bare minimum policy, 27-year-old guy who doesn't smoke in the individual market would be nearly a hundred and ninety percent higher.
Now the headline here is uh American conservative action forum premium sticker shock could fuel foes.
The headline here, they're saying that this study is going to fuel opposition to Obamacare.
And the final paragraphs of the story tell us why the politico wrote this thing in the first place.
What this is, what the politico story is, is really an effort to head off any criticism about the premiums for young people tripling.
What we're told here, we need to look at the big picture.
Older people won't have to pay as much.
Never mind that in the article they note that on average premiums for individual policies for young and healthy people, small businesses that employ them would jump 169%.
But costs would fall for older people.
The point of this story is that you shouldn't complain.
And they're worried that this could cause opposition, but You shouldn't.
It's an effort to head off any criticism.
I don't care where you look, folks, if you're young bare bones policy, or if a family and you're the health insurance costs are are are gonna you can't imagine.
Without question, next to your house the most expensive thing in your life, maybe your car.
In this case, a fine if you don't have it.
So whether you have insurance or not, the federal government is going to be collecting thousands of additional dollars that you at present are not paying.
Ow.
Everybody was told this.
About Obamacare before it was signed into law, passed everybody was told all these things about about before the election last year.
It's I don't know how many obviously people didn't listen didn't believe it or what have you, but there's no avoiding this.
There's no avoiding paying thousands of dollars that you are not at present paying.
Once this thing is fully implemented in a couple of years.
It's amazing how expensive health care is once it's free.
I'm telling you, people have no idea what's headed their way.
Even people who are moderately informed about this really don't have any idea what is headed their way.
Here's uh here's Donna, Southern California.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi there, Rush.
Um you know, Rush, I've been in meetings for probably the last month with business owners out here in Southern California, and most of them are you know, they're non union companies, uh all Republicans who are business owners.
And everybody is looking at each other with dough in the headlight look because we really believed that Barack Obama was not going to get reelected, so this Obamacare was gonna be repealed, and we would not have to deal with it in our business.
And so now by 2014, it has to be implemented in your business.
And if you have employees that have worked, you know, under forty hours a week, you've never had to give them insurance.
Now, of course you do.
And uh it's not gonna happen.
So that implosion that you talked about earlier.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
What do you mean it's not gonna happen?
Well, uh I I mean how how could it happen when business can't afford it?
We can't afford to to insure these people because you are supposed to forego your profit.
Well, right.
And then we're whatever we do do is gonna go to the consumer who no longer will be able to afford the product.
And if you forego your profit, maybe he can.
Well, right, but we're not gonna forego any profit.
We already have we're existing now.
Any long-term business has been in business just for the employees' sake, not because there's any great profit.
Well, that's the reason you're there in the f you are you exist to provide health care and jobs for the community.
That's you're not supposed to make a profit.
And that's what you're gonna learn.
That's what Obama's here to teach everybody, and you're gonna learn that.
Well, you said it.
You just said earlier people have no idea how bad this is going to really get.
And and it it really is.
Uh I mean, it's gonna be across this nation.
Companies closing.
That's why the economy is shrinking, is because companies are actually closing.
So it's uh we're like they're closing in advance of Obamacare implementation, that's true.
Absolutely.
Because they know But you see, you need to be more like Amazon.
You need to sit there lose money, your stock price goes up, uh, and everybody loves you.
Right.
Well, that's not how it works.
That's not the reality.
That's not the real world.
And meanwhile, we have the GOP fighting one another, uh, you know, Carl Rove and then the conservatives instead of all of us coming together.
Where is this in I don't understand look what for all all this desire, Republicans have to wipe out conservatives?
Where is the same desire to wipe out the Democrats?
How do these people get elected?
They run against Democrats in their elections.
How the hell do they get elected if they don't fight and oppose them?
You you're look at you're exactly right.
You've hit the nail on the head on practically practically everything.
I um I appreciate it.
In fact, Donna, I want you to hang on.
Let me bring her back up.
Would you like a new iPad?
Yes, I would.
All right.
All right, I'm gonna have some in not too long.
I'll have one of these great 128 gigabyte storage.
I don't know, you may not know what that means.
It's the best one.
That's all you need to know.
So hang on so Mr. Snerdley, get your address.
We'll give you this for when you close your business, and you'll have something to do.
It's fun, you'll love the thing, and you'll find a way to be productive on it, too.
Thank you, Rush.
God bless.
Thank you, Donna, very much.
Quick timeout.
Back to wrap it up after this.
Don't go anywhere.
Jay Carney just admitted it at the White House press briefing, defended the use of drones to kill Americans abroad.
Suspected of terror activity, but at the same time they're in favor of killing Americans.
They're still against the use of waterboarding during interrogations.
That's the latest from the White House, and we'll see you tomorrow, folks.
Thanks for being with us today.
▲
Export Selection