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March 22, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:42
March 22, 2013, Friday, Hour #3
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Radon, right on, right on.
Here we are.
Open Line Friday, Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, where we have more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, while at the same time meeting and surpassing all audience expectations.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday.
And you are listening to the father, probably safe to say, the father of chop and screw.
A music mix inadvertently invented here.
We're figuring the timeline.
It may be just the case.
Could well be.
It's going to be close.
Great to have you here, folks.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882.
And the email address, LRushbo at EIBNet.com.
On Tuesday, Debbie Blabbermouth shows.
Oh, oh, the numbers from the bakery.
There's a New York Times story on healthcare.
Two or three of these stories today.
Wall Street Journal, New York Times, all about what's coming in 2014.
I have to say, as an aside, everybody in the news business writing these stories knew three years ago this was going to happen.
They're writing these stories as though this is newly discovered information.
But everybody knew, I mean, because there were debates about this.
I mean, within the media, I know there's some ignorance and some willing blindness in the media, but for the most part, with exceptions, they knew everything in this healthcare plan that was reason to oppose it.
They knew it.
So all these stories that are appearing, like today, there's a bunch of them on all the surprises coming in Obamacare.
They knew, such as you realize that companies, what is it, with fewer than 50 employees or with employees who work 30 hours a week or less don't have to provide health insurance for their employees.
Did you know that?
This has been known since before the bill was signed into law.
It has been known certainly since the bill was signed into law.
Trades knew it.
Businesses knew it.
Health insurance companies knew it.
The media knew it.
Everybody knew it.
It's just being reported today as though it's been discovered just today or yesterday.
So the stories are appearing.
And on the insurance side, there's a Wall Street Journal story and another publication about how premiums are going to go up anywhere from 20 to 100% next year, starting in January.
The New York Times has a story about a bakery that, after Obamacare fully implements, will eat up over half of its profit.
Just a single bakery.
And here are the numbers of this bakery in the New York Times story.
The premiums to cover their employees will cost $108,000 more a year than what they're paying now.
Stop and think of that.
$108,000 additional dollars they've got to come up with in January to comply with Obamacare.
Their profit, according to the New York Times, the bakery profit is $200,000 a year.
So on one hand, what they make every year on average, a couple hundred grand, starting in January, their health care insurance costs go up $108,000.
So over half of their profit gone to comply with Obamacare.
Now they could opt to pay the fine.
It's a little different for individuals choosing to pay the fine.
If you're not covered by an employer plan, your fine will be much less than the price of a policy.
But that isn't true for a business because they have a lot of employees, and if they choose to pay the fines for each employee instead of coverage, it still adds up.
In the case of this bakery in the New York Times, if they opted to go the fine route, $130,000 additional dollars, which is even worse.
Or the third option that they have is to fire a number of employees to get below the 50 employee threshold, and in so doing, maintain their profit and keep their business.
So there's three options this bakery has that wouldn't exist were it not for Obamacare.
Obamacare, full implementation means this bakery can't stay in business for very long.
Not when its profit is 200 grand, its health care expenses are an additional $108,000 or a fine for not providing the coverage is $130,000.
Third option, fire a bunch of people, get under the 50 employee limit and not be subject to Obamacare.
What do you think they're going to do?
My guess is they're going to choose door number three.
And you know what?
They're going to hate it.
Because contrary to what most people think, most businesses do not hate their employees, particularly small businesses.
Most small businesses appreciate, really appreciate their employees.
Small businesses couldn't get by without them.
There is no free time in a small business.
But they're probably going to choose door number three because that door keeps them in business.
But they're going to lay off a lot of people.
They are going to cause economic distress for a lot of people.
None of it would happen were it not for Obamacare.
And I'm sure the people at the bakery, having convinced the New York Times the truth of this, will tell their employees the truth.
And the employees of this bakery will know that it's not the bakery laying them off.
It's not the bakery being a bunch of cheapskates.
It's the federal government and its mandate in this entitlement that's making it cost prohibitive to stay in business.
And in the process, what's going to end up being proved here is that the purpose of a business is not to provide jobs and health care for people.
Contrary to what many low-information voters believe, a purpose of a business is to provide people jobs in health care.
No, it's not.
And this instance is going to prove it.
The bakery now has 95 employees.
They would have to fire almost half of their employees to get under the 50-employee threshold.
So now the question becomes: will they even be able to stay in business with just half of their workforce?
Will they be able to maintain the same level of business?
Will they be able to bake as much, produce as much, output as much if they get rid of over half of their workforce or about half their workforce?
So even if they do that, their business is going to shrink, and then the profit is going to shrink because their sales are going to shrink.
Now, what's most amazing about this is the New York Times tells the truth about this situation.
This is not a story ripping the bakery, the ownership management.
None of that.
It's not sympathetic either, but it is pretty much informative.
And this is what's in store for so many businesses.
And as I say, the New York Times knew this three years ago.
Everybody reporting this story today knew that this was coming.
But they didn't dare tell anybody before an election.
They didn't dare tell anybody during the time health care was being debated.
They didn't dare put this information.
And people who made these claims, people who had read Obamacare and were trying to tell people that this was what's in the bill, were called scaremongers and extremists and people that just had it in for Obama.
And no matter what he does, they're not going to agree with it, that kind of take.
So the people that were telling people the truth about this or reporting it were impugned and criticized and ridiculed.
In fact, it was even worse.
They were selling Obamacare as a way to save small business because that's what Obama was doing.
Obama was saying it's going to lower the deficit.
It's going to expand health insurance and treatment.
It's going to lower costs.
It's going to bring down the deficit.
None of it was true.
And everybody that was passing on what Obama was saying knew what he was saying wasn't true.
But since their job any longer is not to be suspicious or questioning of what people in power say, it's simply to convey it.
We're going to come to January of next year and there is going to be a literal explosion from people who have no clue any of this is coming.
And when it hits, they're not going to know who to blame.
They're going to blame the business probably, or they're going to blame the insurance company.
Sure, you know that's going to happen.
You know the insurance company is going to take the main hit on that.
And the media will be right in there promoting that.
Even though they're today reporting the insurance companies have no choice.
So Obamacare sold as a way to save small business, lower the deficit.
None of it was true.
Plus, folks, it's going to be so complicated and so inexplicable that it may well be, and I'm not predicting this, but it may well be that this thing is so complicated, so filled with dead weight, it may be bureaucratically impossible to fully implement this thing.
Let me ask you a question.
I watched a fascinating show the other night.
The BBC produced a 90-minute mini-doc docudrama.
I think it starred William Hurt, about the presidential commission investigating the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.
And it was fascinating.
There was nothing in it that we don't now know, but the program has not aired in this country.
But there was an attempt to cover up what really happened.
And to boil it down to its essence, there was testing data that said do not launch below 40 degrees or 50 degrees, whatever it was.
It was 32 or 28 when they launched.
Do not launch because the O-rings in the solid rocket boosters become brittle.
They will not expand to fill gaps as the material in the solid rocket boosters expand.
The gaps will not be filled.
Gases, so forth, and the explosion will happen.
There were people at Morton Thiacol who had told NASA this, but NASA had convinced the government to drop the Air Force from launching spy satellites.
NASA said, we'll do it for you.
You pay us.
This will justify the shuttle program.
And we'll guarantee you, they did two launches a month.
And we'll get all your secret spy satellites up there.
And what happened was the reason they tried to cover it up was, remember, this is the middle of Cold War.
They didn't dare want to admit to the Soviets that we couldn't launch anything.
We couldn't launch a rocket of any kind below 40 degrees.
They just couldn't have that information came out.
Well, anyway, it was brought out.
It did get brought out during public hearings thanks to a physicist named Richard Feynman.
And he is the lead character in the docudrama.
Now, I just took the time to explain what it's about.
It's not relevant to what I'm talking about.
At one point, Feynman and an Air Force general ally of his who's trying to steer him to the truth.
He's also on the commission, but he can't say so because his source for the O-ring problem was Sally Ride, the astronaut, but she had to be protected too.
So they were desperately trying to get Feynman steered into the right direction.
They knew what the problem was, but they needed an independent member of the commission to find it, make it public.
So they take him to the Pentagon, and something struck me.
I don't know why, but they're driving in the Pentagon, massive building.
And I started asking myself, I wonder if there's one person who knows everything going on in the Pentagon at any given moment.
And I said to myself, that's not possible.
The Pentagon's a Department of Defense, but there's not one person who knows everything going on in there.
Now, I don't mean that rogue things are going on in there.
I mean, there's so much happening.
All the military branches are in there.
All the secret stuff is in there.
All kinds of things, there are five different rings, all kinds of different levels of security.
It's impossible for anyone, even the Secretary of Defense does not know.
I once asked a former CIA director: Does the director of Central Intelligence know everything going on in the CIA?
He says, No way.
Well, my point is, I'm telling you, this Obamacare is so massive, there isn't going to be one person who'll be able to tell you what should happen and what shouldn't happen, what's legal and what isn't legal.
It's too massive.
It's too complicated.
It leaves too much.
There are already 800 new pages of regulations that got written in one day a couple of weeks ago.
That's how open-ended this is.
There's nobody that can really tell you how this is going to manifest itself.
And my point is it's going to end up being so big and so unwieldy that it may be impossible to fully implement.
But the danger there is in that circumstance, then some out-of-control bureaucrat can just do anything with it, which is the problem, one of many, of letting the federal government have control over something like this.
Now, the free market is the best place to take care of this, but it's been aced out.
So I'm telling you, folks, there's going to be hell to pay starting next January in ways that we cannot even imagine.
Back to the phones we go here, folks.
Where are we headed?
Let's see what I want to pick.
Rosie in Lake Havasu, Arizona.
It's great to have you here.
Hi.
Hi.
I just wanted to start off by saying that I'm 16.
I'm in the 11th grade.
I'm also a freshman in college.
And I just wanted to start off in saying thank you for helping me.
In one of my college classes, my teacher likes to bring up current events and have us debate on certain things like immigration, national debt, unemployment, and my favorite Obamacare.
And it's really refreshing to go home and listen to you and realize, no, I'm not crazy because in a class full of liberals, when they all just look at you like you're crazy, because you think Obama is a terrible president, Rosie, my heart's skipping a couple beats here.
Let me make sure I heard you correctly.
You are 16 in the 11th grade and also doing college freshman-level work?
Yes, sir.
Wow.
And this program has assisted you?
It has helped you?
Absolutely.
Wow.
I can't tell you how flattered I am.
That is so cool.
I appreciate that very much.
Oh, no, it's fine.
I love this program.
I watch it whenever I can.
It's amazing.
The next thing I wanted to ask you, like, what your favorite tech blogs were, because I've been looking at a few, but oh, wow.
My favorite tech blogs.
I read about 30 tech blogs.
Oh, man, to pick one of these.
They're all different.
What is your interest, your specific tech interest?
Do you have a specific tech that would help me narrow it down?
Not really.
I'm still just trying to find general things like topics.
I've been poking through a few, but sorry.
I don't know.
I read there's like an unofficial Apple one, and I was looking at Apple.
There's all kinds of Apple ones.
I'll take you keep your radio on.
I've got a commercial, but you keep your radio on, and I'll give you a couple names on the air when we come back from the break, okay?
Okay.
Yeah, thanks for the call, Rosie.
This is great.
We'll be back.
Hi, how are you?
Welcome back.
Great to have you.
Okay, Rosie, in Lake Havasu.
I went to my RSS feeder and a reader.
And look there, this is really tough because I've never mentioned any of these before.
And I can't mention them all.
But since you said Apple, that helps narrow it down.
In no particular order, here they are: imore.com, I-M-O-R-E.com.
That's run by a guy named Renee Ritchie.
I think he's out of Canada.
But this site, in addition to keeping you up to speed on everything happening with Apple, will offer you excellent tips on using Apple products, both the mobile and desktop.
MacDailyNews.com is also fabulous.
AppleInsider.com is great.
World of Apple is okay.
And there are a couple of others that are not specifically Apple, but they are Apple-centric, but they cover a lot more than that.
One of them is called The Loop.com, and the other is DaringFireball.com.
And we'll link to all of these at rushlimbaugh.com on our website.
Rosie, if you weren't able to write them all down, they'll be on our website and you'll be able to find them all.
But there are tons of them.
I mean, they're all over the place out there.
One of them, Cultamac.
I give you Cultamac.com, but they've got people on that one, very snarky, who rip Apple to shreds at the same time.
So if you're interested in that, if you want people who do that too, then that's a site that you might want to check out now and then.
Who's next?
Susan in Oxnard, California.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi.
Super mega Dittos, Rush.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Yesterday, you said the left wants to eliminate judging people on accomplishments in order to judge them on surface things.
But I say that wasn't quite correct.
I say what they're doing is building their monetary system where merit and effort don't matter, but being a good person and caring are what matters, and that's how people earn stuff.
They're swapping those and changing the perception and the expectations of the youngsters.
So that caring and being a good person matters more than earning things?
Right.
When they get rid of all the judging and the levels so that all the kids are the same, it doesn't, the high achievers, they put them right down there with the lower achievers.
They're all the same.
So when they get to the out-of-school level and they go to get a job, they don't understand why they're not making just as much as the higher achievers.
Well, I'm a good person, too.
I deserve just as much.
Well, I know exactly what you're saying.
And on the surface, your point is flawless, but there is, well, no, it's good, but it's got a couple flaws in it.
And what you're basically saying is that all that really matters being a good party member.
You know, be a good Apparatchik and we'll take care of it.
Problem is, there are lots of really good people who are conservatives that these people hate.
Right, right.
But they hate them because they don't see their good person-ness.
For example, I'm going to use you if you don't mind.
They don't see you as a good person because they don't see you doing the caring stuff.
You take things factual, step by step.
If you want to get to a goal, you figure out what the steps are and you go one by one by one.
They don't see you doing the, well, I care, I'm a good person.
I believe in global warming.
You're out there marching with them.
You're out there giving other liberals, you're a good person.
No, you're a good person.
No, you're a good liberal.
You're a good liberal.
They don't see you doing that stuff because you're doing the steps.
So you're not a good person.
But wait a minute.
Now, this is intriguing because there's no question you're on to something here.
But I do do good stuff and frequently on this program.
I mean, I don't tout the stuff that I do, but some of the stuff that I do here, I do do publicly.
Absolutely.
I agree.
You are a super good, super duper good person, and you deserve even more money than you have if we're measuring by the liberal system.
But the liberals, they can't see it that way.
See, I stumble onto this because I was beat into submission of being a liberal when I was in school.
I was beat down.
I was a high achiever, and I was punished for that.
I was taxed in one class, and I kept not understanding, you know, what am I doing wrong?
You know, and I was making the other children feel bad.
Stop making them feel bad.
Exactly.
You were humiliating the others because they weren't doing nearly as well as you were.
Correct.
Correct.
So it took me a, I mean, I can remember the exact minute when I figured out what the teachers wanted me to do.
They wanted me to dumb myself down and be weaker and be with the other kids.
So then I was a good person, and then they told me, okay, now you're a good person, and now you are going to get.
Now you will be able to build a life.
Now you will be able to do things.
When I was doing it the other way, I wasn't a good person.
I was never going to get anywhere because I was always going to step on people and I was always going to be pushed down and everything.
They explain it different, and they drill it in there to the point that it sort of sticks.
I mean, if you listen to any of the things that you're doing.
I know they put all kinds of, look, peer pressure, societal pressure, toe-the-party line kind of pressure on you because everybody wants to be loved.
That's what they prey on.
Right, right.
And the people nowadays believe it.
You watch reality TV and you'll see them.
You know, what's wrong with me?
I'm a good person.
Or I'm a good person.
I deserve to win.
You actually hear them saying that.
Oh, that's right.
I deserve to win because I'm a good person, not because I'm any good at anything.
I deserve to win because I'm a good person.
I care.
You're awesome, Rush.
They expect that talent and experience, none of that matters.
It shouldn't matter.
Shouldn't matter.
Shouldn't.
Of course it does in the real world, and that's why people get shocked and surprised as you're describing this.
Correct.
And it's also why when it doesn't work that way, they get angry and frustrated, and you see the liberal temper tantrum.
Okay, Susan, how old were you when you figured this out?
Which one?
I figured out what the liberals wanted me to do when I was in fourth grade.
I figured this what the system.
I call it the liberal GPS.
Okay, well, what grade are you in now?
Oh, I'm almost as old as you are.
No, no.
No, no, no.
I thought you were another 17 or 18-year-old.
No, no.
No, no, no.
No.
I'm.
Don't be insulted.
No, I'm actually honored.
You have no idea.
I am probably your biggest fan, Grush.
I give your key as gifts.
I send it to liberals all the time.
Yeah.
But this system, I think, I have to.
Look, I've got the constraints of time here that I have to deal with.
I have to run.
But let me reciprocate.
Would you, I don't know what you would prefer, but let me give you an item list to choose from.
iPad, iPhone, iPad Mini, Retina MacBook Pro.
How about the iPad and your signature?
And can I send you, can I type an email and you'll just read it if I write the rest of this for you?
Sure.
Okay, I will send it.
I'm a 24-7 member, and I'll type it up.
And I think you'll find it interesting.
Okay, now look, to make sure that I see it, and if I tell you what to put in a subject line, everybody will do that.
I know.
Mr. Snerdley can tell me that.
So, okay, have Snerdley, well, I'll give Snerdley a code.
So you want a signature iPad.
Yeah, you're awesome.
All right.
I just love the heck out of you.
Okay.
Well, I appreciate it.
Susan, thank you so much.
Well, you hang on, so Snerdley gets your head.
Are you sure you want the signature 10-inch iPad?
I want you to send me whatever you choose.
That's actually what I really want.
Honestly, I don't know what most of them are.
All right.
Well, then that's what you specified, so that's what you'll get.
You're a signature.
That's a state-of-the-art.
Now, hang on so we get your address, and I'll give Snerdley the code for the subject line on the email, so don't hang up, okay?
All right, thanks much.
Wow, that was two brainiacs in a row taking me to school.
Well, you know, Rush, you're partially right, but there's something you're not getting.
I love it.
I absolutely love it.
You know, this guy from Idaho, we got a guy in Idaho on the phone.
His name is Jason, and he's right.
This thing in Beyoncé, this chop and screw thing is bad for her no matter which way it goes.
If she's doing a 180 on feminist setting, cool.
But if she's also doing this Queen Bee thing and saying to young female singers, you better bow down to me because I'm the top dog.
Well, that's not cool either.
It's not a win-win for Bay, as they say.
Here's Steven State College, Pennsylvania.
Hi, Steve.
Rush, good afternoon.
I feel I should be apologizing to Mr. Snerdley for catching him off guard.
He didn't know about the comments the president made during his press conference with a boss yesterday, in one breath talking about rockets coming through Israeli homes with kids sleeping inside.
And in the next breath, comparing the situation over there to relations between the United States and Canada.
My history lessons, if I remember correctly, I think the last time we lobbed shots across the border was 200 years ago.
Yeah, I was going to say, when's the last time the Canadians launched rockets on us?
That was about 200 years ago.
I didn't hear that either.
I frankly, Obama is becoming less and less interesting to me.
Did he really make that comparison?
He did.
He did, indeed.
And, of course, the mainstream media didn't pick up on it.
Well, they don't know the difference.
Well, that is true.
And even if they did know the difference, they wouldn't acknowledge it.
Absolutely not.
But yes, he did.
It's on the usual news.
Well, try this.
King Abdullah today, I did hear this.
King Abdullah, it had a joint press conference over there, King Abdullah Jordan, complaining that it's costing him $500 billion now to absorb the Syrian refugees, and $500 million might go all the way up to $1 billion.
And Obama said, well, all right, we'll pick up $200 million of it to help you.
We're in a sequester.
So we got Biden with a half a million dollars for one night in Paris.
And, okay, here's a couple hundred mil, but we're on the cusp of the Easter egg roll and the White House tours.
But we'll give these guys $200 million to help the Syrian refugees.
You know, my question for King Abdullah Jordan, why don't you take the Palestinians?
If the Palestinians want a homeland, it's Jordan.
It's right there.
Oh, no.
Nobody wants the Palestinians.
Nobody wants that solved either, by the way, folks.
Nobody wants that.
Arafat was offered everything he asked for by Slick Willie, and he turned it down.
Just like Obama was offered everything he wanted by Boehner at one point and turned it down.
Before the fiscal cliff or some such thing.
Hey, folks, have a great weekend.
Just have fun.
Do what you can to indulge yourself as best you can.
And then we'll be back here Monday, revved up and ready to tackle it all again.
Whatever it is that happens between now and then, we'll be on top of it.
Thanks so much for being with us.
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