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Feb. 21, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:28
February 21, 2013, Thursday, Hour #2
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Time Text
The views expressed by the host on this program documented to be almost always right 99.7% of the time.
No change.
From the latest opinion audit from the Sullivan Group now in Southern California.
Documented to be almost always right, 99.7% of the time.
Phone number, if you want to be on the program 800 two eight two eight eight two and the email address, L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
Here is that Reagan quote.
This is October 27, 1964.
This comes from a speech that Reagan delivered in support of Barry Goldwater.
Title of speech, a time for choosing.
And here is the actual Reagan quote that I was mentioning to Mindy on the phone mere moments ago.
So now we declare war on poverty.
Do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add one billion dollars to the 45 billion we're spending, one more program to the 30 odd we have, and remember this new program doesn't replace any, it just duplicates existing programs.
Do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic?
Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian gold.
They say we're always against things.
We're never for anything.
Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant.
It's just that they know so much that isn't so.
You know, somebody just said to me, Rush, remember now what we're doing here.
We're talking at all information voters.
And frankly, folks, I have to keep that in mind because I know the the bulk of this audience is not low information.
You are not low information people.
You are you're to head at a class.
But there are low information people out there to whom 44 billion dollars sounds much larger than the 3.7 trillion.
And if you just if you stop and think about it, remember now, low information voters.
That could be true.
That 3.7 trillion sounds smaller than 44 billion.
So when I say, are you kidding me?
We got a budget of 3.7 trillion, we're not going to spend 44 billion and there's a panic that's going to ensue.
Low information voter might go, yeah, it sounds like it's a big deal of me.
Okay, here's the proper context.
Reagan just made the point here.
He says, we're gonna add a billion dollars to the 45 billion barriers.
By the way, isn't that interesting?
1964.
We're spending 45 billion dollars on the war on poverty.
And LBJ and the boys are coming back and they wanted a billion dollars more to wipe out poverty.
And Reagan's point was, well, wait a minute.
If we've spent 45 billion and we haven't wiped it out, you think another billion is gonna wipe it out.
But even then, I know inflation, and I know 64 is a long, long time ago, but do you know what we're spending in poverty today?
And we haven't wiped it out.
And the percentages of people in poverty is the same as it was in 64.
So here's a better way of expressing it.
Do you, to the low information voter, do you really think that if we're gonna spend thirty seven hundred billion dollars, that not spending forty-four billion is gonna make a difference?
Three point seven trillion is three thousand seven hundred billion.
Three thousand seven hundred billion dollars versus forty-four billion.
Now that may be a way of making a point, if it if it even matters.
But we must explore all possible persuasive techniques from the Hill.com.
Who's afraid of the sequester's acts, not us, say Republican lawmakers.
House Republican lawmakers say they don't fear political blowback if Congress fails to prevent $85 billion in automatic spending cuts from triggering in two weeks.
Now, by the way, um it's not again $85 billion.
That's two years.
It's actually this year, $44 billion is what we're talking about.
And that's total.
And again, half of that would be defense, the other half social.
But the point is the Hill says that Republicans, they're not worried about political blowback.
The cuts known as the sequester, almost certain to hit the Pentagon and non defense discretionary spending on March the first.
Congressional Republicans of the White House are focused more now on avoiding blame for the cuts than preventing them.
That creates a challenging environment for House Republicans, given Obama's use of the bully pulpit, which he used to build pressure on them during last year's fight over the fiscal cliff.
Yes.
Already the White House is warning the cuts will reduce loan guarantees to small businesses.
The cuts will end head start funding for 70,000 children.
And the cuts will leave 373,000 seriously mentally ill people without treatment.
That's I'm sorry, folks, I have to stop.
That's where I think we're being played for suckers.
Really, this is where I think our intelligence is being insulted, and we're being played for fools.
I'm all of this is going to happen and more.
We haven't even talked about the 700, 800,000 civilian Pentagon furloughs.
But now no loan guarantees to small businesses, head start funding for 70,000 children.
The Head Start program doesn't work.
There was just a story I had on the stack this week I didn't get to it about what an utter failure head start is, no matter how you measure it.
The kids in Head Start don't end up educationally, intellectually ahead of anybody.
Don't tell me it is not, it was not positioned as a babysitting program.
I know that's what it is, but head start, people think, their kids think they get their kids into it that they're two or three years ahead of the learning curve.
And this story proved that that doesn't happen.
Head start daycare what?
You think they're one and the same?
All right.
Well, anyway, 70,000 children.
No head start funding.
What is the head start school close?
If you if you take $70,000 away from or no, take it back.
If if you take funding for 70,000 children with head start, then what happens?
Where do they go?
Where do they not go?
What door gets closed?
I don't know.
Where do you do head start?
Seriously.
Don, you have children.
Snerdley doesn't.
Bryant's too young.
Community centers and church basements.
Church, okay, but I know you're not trying to insult the church by saying basement, but I know what you I did church socials in the basements and so forth.
I don't know what that means.
What what that what happens in there?
The kid.
Really?
Okay.
So the kids go in there, they eat breakfast, and they color, and uh they learn how to socialize.
They learn shapes and numbers.
And uh they learn to respect transgender people.
And um they learn how to conflict resolve and stuff like that.
Babysitting.
Speaking of which, where's that story?
Ah.
Here it is, right here, my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
Get this one.
This is from uh Fox News Radio.
Todd Starnes.
Parents across Massachusetts, are upset over new rules that would not allow.
I'm sorry.
This is printed out very small.
Parents across Massachusetts are upset over new rules that Would not only allow transgender students to use the restrooms of their choice, but it would punish students who refuse to affirm or support their transgender classmates.
Last week, the Massachusetts Department of Education issued directives for handling transgender students, including allowing them to use the bathrooms of their choice or to play on sports teams that correspond to the gender with which they identify that day.
The 11-page directive also urged schools to eliminate gender-based clothing and gender-based activities, like having boys and girls line up separately to leave the classroom.
The schools will now be required to accept a student's gender identity on face value.
The guidelines were issued at the request of the State Board of Education to help the scrubs follow the 2011 anti-discrimination law protecting transgender students.
The state takes students to task who do not acknowledge the transgender students.
It notes their discomfort, and it's not a reason to deny access to the transgender student.
For example, a fifth-grade girl might feel uncomfortable using the restroom if there's an eighth-grade transgendered boy in the next stall under the...
Under the state guidelines, the girl would have no recourse.
I'm not making this up.
This is in Massachusetts.
We have kids, folks, who cannot read or do basic math, who get frustrated and drop out, and we wonder why.
So it says right here.
You know what I mean?
What this boils down to is that it's a bugaboo I've always had.
If somebody is offended, whatever offends them must stop.
In a group of a thousand people, if one person's offended, the 999 other people have to stop doing it.
And so the state takes those students to task, noting their discomfort is not a reason to deny access to the transgender student.
What that means is in a bathroom where boys and girls are allowed to go at the same time because one of them's transgender.
The non-transgender student is not allowed to be discomforted by the presence of the transgendered student, and thus it's not a reason to deny access to the transgender student.
So what this means, the transgender student can be offended, and the non-transgender student will then be forced to accept.
But the non-transgender student cannot be offended and must accept the transgendered student.
For example, a fifth grade girl might feel uncomfortable using the restroom if there's an eighth grade transgendered boy in the next stall.
Under the state guidelines, the girl would have no recourse.
If she's offended, too bad, she's not transgendered.
Only the transgendered students are allowed to be offended by somebody not accepting them.
And the people that don't accept them must shut up and accept them.
A boy can say he's transgendered and end up in a girl's bathroom.
Well, I assume locker room.
I don't know.
The point is here, there's...
There's not a whole lot in the story about how you go about establishing that you are transgender beyond just saying so.
Last week, Massachusetts Department of Education issued directives for handling transgender students, including allowing them to use the bathrooms of their choice or to play on sports teams that correspond to the gender with which they identify.
That day!
You know, transgender, you can change day to day, can you not?
Depends on how you feel.
Well, if you an overnight trips, we got a field trips that involve an overnight, right?
Let's say a field trip educational trip to Scotland to learn how they make scotch.
So you got some 15 and 16-year-olds on a trip to a distillery, and obviously if you go to Scotland, it's an overnight.
And because schools don't have a lot of money to put two or three students in one room.
Uh, and I guess a transgendered guy could say, I want to sleep with a two girls, it's okay, I'm I'm a girl in my mind.
And you have to let it happen.
If the school is part of the Massachusetts screw district.
If the girl, now wait a minute now, if the girl that we just example, fifth grade girl might feel uncomfortable using the restroom if there is an eighth grade transgendered boy the next stall and understate guidelines, the girl would have no recourse.
If the girl continued to complain, she could be subjected to discipline for not affirming that student's gender identity choice.
So in this one instance, the non-transgendered, I don't dare say normal.
The non-transgendered student, if offended, can't do anything about what offends her.
But if the transgendered student is offended by lack of acceptance, then the student who doesn't do the accepting can be disciplined.
State of Mass.
And we wonder why the dropout rate.
And we wonder why they're not learning math.
Or why they can't read.
Oh, did I lose my place on the sequester?
No way, folks, of course not.
We got all kinds of stuff remaining.
Sit tight, we'll be back.
And we're back.
El Rushball.
Half my brains hide behind my back just to make it fair.
Let's go to the phones.
This is uh Lynette in Charlotte, Michigan.
It's great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi, thank you for everything you do, Rush, from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
The other thing is, you know, weekends get kind of long without you.
Um I uh really appreciate that.
I uh I do more than you know.
Well, I've got a question, and it has to do with sequestration.
Um we know the country's in trouble.
We're overspending, we're overregulated, things are kind of falling apart, and somewhere down the road it's gonna get worse.
Do you think Obama can get away with them saying, well, it all started with sequestration.
And you know that was the Republican thing.
Um actually the sequestration was an Obama idea, but are you asking me if he can get away successfully with blaming the Republicans?
Um saying the sequestration was the start of all the trouble.
Um I'm missing the sequestration is the start of all the trouble.
Who's Obama saying that?
Maybe maybe a year or two down the road, things get worse.
Oh, oh, oh, I see.
So you're you're talking about down the road when the collapse happens, when it just it can't go on anymore.
You think Obama might say this all started with sequestration and it's a Republican's fault.
Yes.
And will he get away with it?
Yes.
Um as long as he has the media the way uh where he has them, he'll get away with anything he wants.
I mean, then the safe answer to your question is the Republicans are going to get blamed regardless.
This is why, Lynette, I have wished, I have urged, cajoled the Republicans to do the right thing anyway, because no matter what happens with Obama in the White House, who is not governing, The Republicans are seen as the focus of evil.
The Republicans are seen as the as the instigators of all this trouble, and Obama is seen as simply fighting it.
He's an outsider seen as trying to fight this mess that got started long before he got to Washington, and he's working as hard as he can, and it's working.
He's got a job approval number 55%.
And in the same poll, his agenda has no relationship to the mess the country's in.
So, yeah, he's going to be able to blame the Republicans and will.
That isn't new, actually.
That's been going on for decades.
Go back to Reagan's speech in 1964.
You change the numbers, and it's identical to what we're talking about today.
It's this is actually profound.
Grab Trump, somebody 22.
Well, not time to get it all in here.
But it's he said, so now they declare war on poverty.
They honestly expect us to believe if we add one billion to the 45 billion we're spending.
They believe poverty will disappear.
What they're telling us now is we're spending 3,000, 700 billion.
This year we might spend 22 billion less.
And the sun isn't going to rise, the moon isn't going to rise, the sea levels will rise.
We're going to be flooded.
There won't be any airplanes because air traffic control shut down.
There won't be the military because all the people put out of work.
It's identical.
1964, it's the same argument that the left is using, and the same villains, the Republicans, the anti-big government people.
I don't want to violate one of my own policies, and I'm going to talk about numbers here because if I can pull this off, it's fascinating.
Ronaldus Magnus back in 1964 said that we're spending 45 billion dollars on poverty.
That was a year.
Now, in 1964, 45 billion dollars was the equivalent of 326 billion.
Actually, let's round it up.
45 billion in 64 is about 327 billion dollars in today's money.
A year.
Now, according to the Cato Institute, which is a libertarian think tank, in 2012, the federal government spent more than $668 billion to fight poverty.
So we have doubled.
Remember now the equivalent, 1964 we're spending $327 billion.
In 2012, we spent $668 billion, so we have doubled the amount of money we spend on poverty since 1964.
And yet, as a percentage, more people are living in poverty today than in 1964 when the Great War on Poverty began.
But let me close the loop on this.
All told, we have spent sixteen thousand billion on the war on poverty since nineteen sixty-four.
Sixteen trillion dollars of wealth has been redistributed.
Sixteen trillion dollars has been taxed and then redistributed to people in poverty.
Sixteen thousand billion.
And yet poverty is still winning.
In fact, we haven't even made a dent in it.
So So sixteen thousand billion this year, this year, six hundred sixty-eight billion to fight poverty.
And instead of six hundred and sixty-eight billion, it's gonna be six hundred and forty-eight billion if the sequester happens.
Now, seriously, folks, does spending $648 billion instead of $668 billion sound like it's going to make a major difference to you?
I have here a graph.
Let me turn off the ditto cam while I do the appropriate zooming in here.
Zoom in tight so that you can see this.
What this is is a chart federal spending without and with the sequester cuts.
If you're watching on the ditto cam, the blue line, as you're going to see here in a moment, the blue line is spending without the sequester.
The red line is spending with the sequester.
And I'm turning it on.
You can barely separate the two lines.
On an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper, they are separated by a 16th of an inch.
Again, the blue line is spending without the sequester.
The red line is with it.
And I'm telling you, there's no difference.
There certainly is not a crisis looming.
There certainly is not Armageddon looming over this.
And this is what I mean about I've just turned the ditto cam off because it's zoomed in real tight.
I'll zoom out here just a second.
This is all part of how we are being played.
And we've been played since 1964 on this.
Now I know you're you're you're all shouting at me.
Okay, so what do we do about it?
My thought all along since I started this program has been informing people.
Simply having a more educated and more informed group of people who would instinctively know when they're being played, and who wouldn't buy it, who wouldn't fall for it.
But the left has not been silent while we have been informing and educating.
What the left has been doing is continuing to wage war on the private sector, and they've been creating more need, more dependency among people.
And now today there are more people than ever before who need, not want, who need benefits from the government in order to survive.
And so they don't care about any of this.
All they care about is that not one penny of it be taken away.
That's all they care about.
No matter what else they know.
And so while we've been informing more and more people, they, with the real power, because they control the money, they have been creating more and more dependents.
So even though we've ramped up the knowledge base, even though we've ramped up the universe of knowledgeable people, they have been ramping up the numbers of people who can't and do not provide for themselves.
And they have made themselves, the left has, the Democrats have made themselves totally needed by an increasing number of millions of people.
Here's uh here's William in Dallas.
William, I'm glad you waited.
It's great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hey, good afternoon, Rush.
Appreciate you having me on the show.
Thank you, sir, for calling.
Yeah, I had uh I'm we listen to your show a lot, my in-laws and my wife and everything, and and uh we really enjoy the program, but uh one thing I gotta say is uh you gotta stop the employee bashing, federal employee bashing, because uh you know what?
It's uh not there's not not everybody makes a hundred thousand dollars a year in the federal government.
And uh anyway.
Um When was the last time I bashed a federal employee and what did I say?
Uh y you know, it it seemed like uh earlier on the program you're just talking about the uh federal employees, but uh um Well, what did I say?
You know, I I wish I could go back and tell you exactly, but you know, like I said, I listen to the program I I do hear every now and then where you're you're kind of bashing the the employees a little bit and and uh Well, but you know you can say that, but then you can't tell me what I said.
Right.
And I and I apologize for that.
I I I should have written it down or something, and and uh because you know, you're the second guy in a in a row.
You had you you you had a guy yesterday called and said, Look, they don't all make a hundred thousand dollars, and I don't remember ever saying they do.
One out of five do.
I think one out of five federal employees make more than a hundred grand.
But and there's a lot of people that don't, but I I guess my point is is that you know, um the sequester, yeah, it's it's gonna hurt federal employees.
Uh I'm for it, actually.
I was for the pay freeze because we feel a lot of us feel that we're very blessed to even have a job because the whole you know U.S. economy is hurting.
And um anyway, there's a lot of people that are emergency essential personnel, so like when you were talking about you know the federal government's gonna keep on going even though the sequestration is gonna come through.
That's actually true because you know, there's emergency essential employees that work for the federal government, and no matter what, you still have to come in and do your job, whether or not you get paid or not.
You have to wait, what w what wait.
You if the sequester happens and you happen to be one of the jobs that's sequestered, you still have to come in and do it even though they're not paying you.
If you're if you're an emergency essential employee, yes you do.
You just can't say, well, I'm done being uh uh an employee.
It's it's kind of like in the military back in the was it the eighties.
Um I was uh military back then and and there was a period of time where wouldn't it with Reagan where the government shut down and and uh no one was getting paid?
Well, you know, military just can't you know hang up their boots and say, Well, I'm a civilian right now, I'm not getting paid.
Well, the Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta said eight hundred thousand civilian Pentagon employees will be laid off and will not be working.
Yep.
Yep.
Because they're probably not considered emergency.
Which I I'm frankly, I don't I don't believe.
I can't it can't not with this amount of money that we're talking about.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you um do you get in step in grade increases as a federal employee?
Um under the freeze, will you get an in step in grade increase?
Uh right now, uh that is true.
There there are in step increases.
Well, then um even even during even during a freeze, even under a freeze, you will get your in step in grade increases, right?
And and and right, and and you know what a lot of us feel like I said, we feel very blessed, you know, that we even have a job because uh so much so many people out there are unemployed.
And a lot of people feel that, hey, look, you know, freeze it.
It's okay.
W we need to do our part.
Well, but don't you always don't you haven't you always gotten your back pay any time there's been a freeze?
Hadn't that pay always been made up to you, though?
Uh later on, yeah, that happens, but there's a lot of So there's no freeze at the end of the day, there really isn't a freeze.
It's just like during the so-called government shutdown in ninety-five, all those federal workers ended up getting their turkeys at Christmas.
That they didn't get it, Thanksgiving.
They did get their turkeys.
Right.
They they ended up those people that were furloughed, they ended up getting back pay.
Right.
But but as far as like the the the quality step increases, if if if your time comes and it passes, um, you know, it you may not get it.
There's no guarantee that you're gonna get it.
There's no guarantee that when you're furloughed that the federal employee owes you that money.
But you're actually going into work with just but you know, every freeze.
Every time there's been a furlough or a freeze, the back pay has eventually found its way to the employee.
And that is true.
Well that is true, but there's never technically a freeze.
There's just you anyway.
Well, look, we don't bash federal employees.
I don't know where you're the second guy in a row who called here today.
There must be something on some website that says, I am saying every employee makes over 100 grand a federal employee.
And I've never said anything of the sort.
So there must be some site out there that's feeding data to federal employees who are then founding finding themselves offended and want to call here and set me straight.
All I've ever said is and it's my source, by the way, is an economics professor who wrote a book recently, five hundred thousand federal employees do make over a hundred grand.
It comes out to about one out of um one out of every five.
And as you've said, in a freezer furlough, you get your back pay.
And I learned this during the government shutdown in 1995.
I learned that Clinton went to the federal employees union guys, they struck a deal.
Go ahead.
Look, you know you're gonna get your back pay.
You're gonna get your Thanksgiving turkey.
So when the government shutdown hands happens, when Gingra shuts it down, I want you to go on TV and wail and moan and whine about how you're gonna not have to be a Thanksgiving because you don't have any money to buy your turkey because of the Republican shutting down.
And they did, and they went out and they whined and moaned about it.
And CNN had them out there.
Oh my God, no, there was no Fox News here in 1995.
During that budget shut there was just me.
There was no Fox News, there was nothing.
And they're out there, and the federal employees are whining and moaning on TV about how they're not gonna have Thanksgiving because the government shutdowns robbed them of their of their turkey and the money and so forth, and then we learned it.
They got is this bashing federal employees?
That's what I'm bashing federal employees by explaining what they did in 1995.
Oh, okay.
All right.
I guess you're right.
I guess that this is what might make people not listening, think I'm bashing federal employees.
But all everything I said is true.
Yeah, everything happened.
Okay.
All right, then let's move on.
Let's move on.
Uh a photo was taken of Brittany Spears coming out of a grocery store.
ABC News has it.
She was holding in her left hand a copy of her grocery list.
Her grocery shopping list has gone viral on the internet.
It says here, ABC News, it seems that Brittany Spears, like a lot of us, needs a list for the grocery store.
But her list from her shopping trip last weekend has become a trending topic on Twitter.
Curious about what's on the list?
Yep, it's been tweeted.
The 31-year-old mother of two included ginger ale, tomatoes, lunchables, ham, orange juice, 2% milk, bread, and chicken.
Right there it is.
That's right on her shopping list.
Now I bashed Britney.
Change the subject.
You know, on this business of bashing federal workers, I don't I don't think I don't bash any job.
You know who's out there bashing certain kind of jobs is Barack Obama.
And it was Michelle Obama in the campaign of 2008.
She's in Steubenville or someplace in Ohio.
She said, Don't go to hedge funds and don't go to Wall Street.
You know, stay here as a nurse, stay here in public service.
The Obamas have bashed all kinds of work.
They bash Wall Street work, they bash hedge funds.
I want you to listen to this.
This is Cake TV in Wichita, KAKE's uh correspondent Susan Peters, interviewed President Obama.
And he's not talking to the White House press corps, but he's doing local media.
So this is Wichita Television, and she said, What do you say, Mr. President, to Kansas workers in the aviation industry who've been laid off or maybe laid off in the future?
Now, this is about Obama, shortly after he became president, said, You just don't get on your corporate plan and go to Vegas anymore.
Those days are over.
So he did damage to the corporate jet market, and this economy is doing damage to corporate jet market, and they have a lot of Cessna, for example, is in Wichita, among others.
And so she wants to know what the president would say to aviation industry employees who have been laid off or who might be laid off.
Now listen to this.
What we don't want to do is to give somebody who's buying a corporate jet an extra tax break that ordinary people can't get because they don't need it.
And that's not the reason that they buy a corporate jet.
I promise you, I haven't gone through an airport in a long time.
And the reason people buy corporate jets is it's extremely convenient, and they can afford it.
And they don't need an extra tax break, especially at a time when we're trying to reduce the deficit.
Something's got to give.
How how dead blamed insensitive can you get?
He doesn't even, he doesn't even answer her question about employees in the aviation industry.
He basically tells her and the employees listening, you know, I don't care.
What I'm out to do is punish the private jet owner.
They got more than they need.
They don't need a tax break, especially with our deficit the way it is.
We gotta bring the deficit down.
I th run into a lot of these people.
They're not buying these corporate jets because of tax.
Have you ever heard of depreciation, Mr. President?
If you don't, he doesn't know.
He doesn't, and you know, more than he doesn't care.
He just doesn't, he just playing class envy here.
He's gonna make sure that everybody knows that he's got it in for these people flying on corporate jets.
He's got it in for the people who have enough money to buy one.
That's what he wants.
Why why are these federal employees calling me anyway?
I don't have anything to say about what happens to them.
Obama runs them.
I don't it's like Joe Scarborough said something truly idiotic.
He said, I am one for six in presidential elections, and therefore people ought to stop listening to me.
I don't know what I'm talking about.
I'm a bad influence.
I'm only one for I don't pick these nominees.
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