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July 23, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:35
July 23, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have I am Rush Limbo, this the EIB network.
And the Limbo Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Great to have you here.
By the way, if you are if you are on hold on the phones, I want you to hang in there be tough.
We're going to get to the phones in this half hour.
I promise.
Somebody, we got it, we got a gal from Draper, Virginia named Tina.
Oh no, and she has a fabulous question.
I'm almost want to steal it.
Her eye Dia is her observation is so good.
I don't often hear anything I want to steal from anybody, but in fact, let me let me get it now.
Other because if I if I don't take the call, I'm gonna steal it from her, and then we go to her, she's gonna accuse me of stealing her thunder, and she'd be right.
So here's here's Tina Draper, Virginia.
Tina, what is your observation about the poll that says that eight out of the uh eight out of nine or ten illegals would not vote Republican?
I was just curious if they can find them to poll them or to survey them.
That that doesn't make sense to me.
It kind of confuses me because I thought they were saying that to get them out of the shadows and to find them, we first had to legalize them.
Exactly right.
That's a I didn't even think of this.
I got so caught up in the substance of the story that that I this is again I normally catch.
That's what I kept waiting for you to say.
Yeah, I know.
You were gonna say it.
Don't tell me you were let down.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
No.
Good.
But it's a great point.
Okay, so they've got a poll out, the Pew Research Center, and it basically says that illegals would vote Democrat by an eight to one margin.
Well, how do they know?
We think the illegals are in the shadows, and we're gonna have to do amnesty to drag them out of the shadows, and they're in the shadows.
We don't know who they are, but the Pew people apparently found them.
Excellent, excellent point.
Tina, thanks much.
I'm I'm I'm I'm glad you got in.
I'm glad you made it through with that.
Thank you very much.
Tina from Draper, Virginia.
So we'll have more on that as the as the program unfolds.
I want to stick now for just a little while longer on Obama's campaign to focus your attention and my attention and the media's attention on the economy.
Uh even the president himself said, We just played the soundbite to one of his uh website groups last night.
He said he's gonna start this this multi-week campaign, actually several months, several months of trying to get Washington and the press to refocus on the economy.
As though I I folks, uh as HR said, you've got to be really stupid to believe all this.
Here again, the Washington Post, uh uh uh uh the first of two New York Times stories, President Obama restarting.
What is this restarting?
This guy has been actively destroying U.S. economy since he took office.
Anyway, President Obama restarting a major effort this week to focus public attention on the American economy, a strategy aimed at giving him credit for the improving job market and lifting his rhetoric beyond the beltway squabbles that have often consumed his presidency.
In a moment when I first read that, HR shouted in the IFB, who's gonna be stupid enough to believe that.
Well, who would be stupid enough to buy Obama and what he's done for any of the last five years.
But up until recent polling data showing his approval rating in decline, people have believed it.
Whatever he said they have believed, at least a majority of Americans have.
This is what's been so puzzling.
I know he was underwater on the economy for a long time, but his approval numbers look it.
It's not just the economy.
If you ask the American people issue by issue by issue, a majority of the American people oppose Every agenda item.
Obamacare, amnesty, you name it, a majority oppose it.
And yet his approval numbers were sky high.
The American people in polling data would say they disagreed with the direction of the country, that they disagreed with his agenda.
But his job performance numbers were sky high, which meant that people did not associate Obama with what was happening.
They didn't associate his policies with his agenda.
And that gave birth to the limbaugh theorem to explain it.
So what Obama has now done is admit the limbaugh theorem last night, not by name, of course.
But he's now going to start a multi-month campaign to get Washington press refocused on the economy.
And as I said, folks, this is going to be the most cynical wrinkle in his use of the Limbaugh theorem yet.
He is going to pretend that the economy has rebounded tremendously.
This whole bit of refocus on the economy, that's all most people have been focused on.
Everybody's hurting.
Everybody's worried about their chances for prosperity in the future and for their kids and their grandkids.
Everybody has been focused on the economy and only the economy.
All these other things have been distractions.
Designed to try to get people to not think about the economy while Obama is wrecking his damage on it.
So he's going to pretend in the upcoming months that the economy is rebounded tremendously and that his response policies are responsible for it.
And while he's claiming this, he's going to say that high unemployment or low economic growth is due to the Republicans blocking his policies by way of gridlock.
It's going to be one of his biggest lies yet.
He's going to say that the economy is in its dire straits because the Republicans won't work with him.
The Republicans won't help him.
Republicans are going to get the total blame for this.
And that's when that's when HR started showing.
Who's going to be stupid enough to believe that?
And I look, I said, well, the country's made up of a lot of stupid people who have believed it.
Now the contravening theory to this would be wait a minute, they're not going to believe it because they're living it.
If you see, this is this is the rub.
Yeah, they're living a rotten economy.
But they haven't blamed Obama for it yet.
That's what he's been, that's why he's perpetually campaigning.
In most people's eyes, Obama is just as upset about it as they are, and he's working hard to fix it, but there are powerful forces standing in his way.
And that's why the perpetual campaign is to create the perception that he's not of Washington, that he's not in Washington, that he's not even governing, that it's other people doing this, and that he's joined forces with all of us and trying to fix this.
And people have bought that.
The polling data proves this.
So you say, well, Russia's not going to get away with it because people are living this.
I mean, he's president, then how come he got re-elected?
Despite Benghazi, despite Obamacare, despite every one of his policies being supported by a minority of the population, why did he get re-elected?
Okay, let's talk.
Republicans' lousy campaign didn't know how to get their base out.
Whatever he still got elected.
In the midst of all this, he still got re-elected.
George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush lost with an economy much better than this that the press and the Clintons were saying was the worst in 50 years.
The perception of a bad economy when it wasn't killed George H. W. Bush.
An actual plunging bad economy after five years or four years of Obama running it did not prevent him from being re-elected.
so you say, well, people know that they're still hurting financially.
Yeah.
They haven't blamed Obama yet.
People know that gas prices just surged again.
It's not being reported, but gas prices are going up.
Yeah, but none of this attaches to Obama.
People know that their hours at work are being cut back.
Some know that it's because of Obamacare, some don't, but they're not blaming Obama for it, they're blaming their bosses.
People know the housing market isn't booming, even though it's improved somewhat little pockets out there, but the housing market's not improving.
None of this has attached itself to Obama yet.
Why is it going to now?
Seriously, why do all you people think it's because let me tell you what?
Because he's saying it's good now, so people are going to say, no, it's not.
He's going to run out and say in the midst of bad news that it's good news, and I did it, and people are going to say, you're lying.
That's not what's going to happen.
Let me remind you of something.
Back in the period 2006, 2007, unemployment 4.7%, economic growth at 4%, 4.5%, media every day saying there's a recession.
People are losing their jobs left and right.
Do a poll on it, and people said, yep, the economy's in bad news.
Why?
Media said so.
You go talk to somebody in the neighborhood.
Are you doing okay?
Yeah, I'm fine, but I heard on the news my neighbor's not.
It's bad out there.
So while they were living a good economy, snurdly, they were made to believe that it was in bad shape and getting worse.
While people were living in a boom, 4.7% unemployment, 4.5% economic growth, a majority of people were convinced the economy was plunging.
And then that debacle in 2008 happened, and it confirmed in their minds everything the press had been telling them for two years.
The press had been trying to create, along with the Democrat Party, the idea that the economy is disintegrating, and people bought it.
So here the economy is reported to be coming back.
Obama's gonna go out and take credit for it.
The guy at home says, well, it's not happening for me, but it must be happening for others, because they're saying it is, and so my time is coming.
That's the peril.
The peril for Republicans that people are going to believe Obama on everything he says, including that it's their fault.
Why people aren't doing better.
That's the history.
Intelligence guided by experience.
Our experience is the press can convince people living in a boom economy that they're not.
Then it stands to reason they can convince people in a recession that they're living in a boom economy.
You think they can't because they aren't living in one and there isn't one.
They can be made to believe it's coming because the president of the United States says it's getting better, just like the men the Democrats and the future president 2006 said it's getting worse, they believe that.
I'm telling you, if this stuff were going to attach itself to Obama negatively, it would have done so by now.
I'm telling you, if this stuff were going to attach itself to Obama negatively, it would have done so by now.
Now people know their health care costs have gone up.
Yeah.
That's because of evil health care industry and evil bosses and evil insurance and evil drug companies and so forth.
People know the economy still sucks despite what Obama says, but he's out there trying to fix it now.
He's been trying to fix it for five years.
It's these Republicans that won't let it happen.
Because they're trying to protect the rich.
They don't want anybody else to get money.
The new effort, which begins with a major address Wednesday, followed by as many as six economic themed speeches over the next two months, reflects how often world events, his political adversaries, and his own competing agenda have conspired to knock him off that subject.
That's the New York Times.
But if you read the whole story, they admit that it's a very dangerous approach for him to take for the very reasons that you all might suppose, but who in the news media is going to call him out on this?
Never mind more than four years since the end of the remember the recession ended in 2009, folks.
That's the official end.
We're still stuck at 7.6% unemployment, 1.8% growth rate in the economy, and that 7.6 unemployment rate is totally misleading.
Now here's the next New York Times story.
This one, this one.
Well, this one is unbelievable.
It's by Anne Lowry, Annie Lowry.
President Obama says that prosperity does not trickle down, and that a rising tide does not lift all boats.
The conservative policies predicated on those ideas, Obama maintains, amount to a you're on your own economics.
When what the country really needs is a we're in this together approach.
In short, what Obama is gonna say in these speeches, I want you to look at me, I want you to hear this so that you know what's coming, because when the press amplifies this and applauds it, you are going to become enraged.
The president is going to say that prosperity comes from the middle out.
Prosperity needs to come from the middle out rather than the top down.
Never mind that this has never, not once worked.
It has never succeeded.
This formula of the middle class leading the economic rebound.
It's not possible.
The middle class benefits from it.
But an economic recovery is not caused by the middle class.
An economic expansion is not caused by the middle class.
The middle class by and large are consumers.
In order for the middle class to consume to the level that economic growth takes place, they must be paid a lot of money.
And in order for that to happen, the businesses where they work must grow.
The places where they are employed must do well.
They must be making more.
They must have more customers they're servicing whatever the enterprise is, it has to grow.
So that people working there earn more, get raises, get more benefits, and so that new people get hired.
This idea that the economy bubbles up from below is absurd.
That's what Obama's gonna sell, though.
Obama's gonna sell, we've got to take more money from the rich.
And we've got to raise taxes on businesses, and we gotta get that money to the middle class where it will cause the economy to grow.
That's not how this happens.
You start taking money away, just like the government takes from the private sector to private sector shrinks.
You take money away from the rich and business owners and entrepreneurs, you get less of what they do, including employment.
I've got to take a break.
Be right back, don't go.
Anyone remember who it was who said a rising tide lifts all boats.
That's right, it was John F. Kennedy at a speech at the economic club of New York in 19, I think, 62 or 63.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
President Obama has just said that's a bunch of conservatism that doesn't work.
And this whole notion that a rising tide lifts all boats, all that is is a you're on your own economy.
And we don't need a you're on your own economy.
We need a we're in this together approach.
We need socialism, he says.
We're going to have prosperity result from growth from the middle out.
Not possible, folks.
Obama's, and he knows this, by the way, He knows this is BS.
This is aimed at the vast majority of people who are not wealthy.
It's to make them think that they're the engine to make them think that they call the shots to make them think they're the ones that are important in this.
And I'm not saying they're not.
Please don't misunderstand.
But consumers alone cannot grow an economy.
There has to happen.
Many things have to happen first before the consumption begins.
Anyway, I'll walk through it a little bit more explanatory way when we get back.
Okay, if you're on hold, folks, just hang in there be tough.
We're getting to you El Quico.
But I just want to walk through this one more time because you're going to be hearing this for the next what, six speeches over two months, and it's going to enrage you.
And he's going to say this, and the media is going to applaud it, and they're going to find people in the audience who go, yeah, yeah, and cheer it.
And what he's doing is it's simply the shotgun approach.
He's not aiming at a small niche.
He's aiming at a large group of people who are not rich, and he's going to tell them that the future of the country depends on them working with each other, and he's going to point to the Republicans and say they don't want you to succeed, and they don't want you to work with them, and they don't want to work with me, and they don't want you to be rich or have prosperity or any of that's what's coming.
And it's all part of an effort to make sure that the real dire straits of this economy do not attach to him or his policies.
He is going to say that the conservative policies of a rising tide lifts all boats.
This notion of trickle down doesn't work.
It never has worked.
That's conservatism predicated on a your on your own economy.
You just take care of yourself and that's it.
You don't have to worry about anybody else.
You don't have to have compassion.
You don't have to have understanding.
You don't have to be nice to anybody.
All you got to do is care about yourself.
That's all a Republicans care about.
Instead, he's going to say, we need an economy where we're all in this together.
And I guarantee you, Hollywood and every damn leftist in this country is going to wilt and melt and start crying over that, folks.
I'm just telling you.
It takes a village, a commune.
We're all just alike, and we're all going to work together in love.
I mean, they're smoking pot, folks.
This is a bunch of people sitting around smoking pot, dreaming up theories.
Because they have no experience, no knowledge, no ability whatsoever to accomplish what it is they claim to want.
He is going to say that prosperity needs to come from the middle out.
Now, I want to be very clear when I say this again, because I don't mean this in any way.
As insulting or denigrating, put down any of that.
Because the people, you know, I I even say it myself.
The people who make this country work are people who get up every day, they play by the rules, they work hard, they do everything they can, they're the backbone of this country.
And Obama's gonna try to make you think that he thinks the same way.
But he's going to be dishonest with you.
He is going to tell you that this economy can only grow if you in the middle class make it happen.
But that's not how an economy grows.
This whole notion of trickle down, it's exactly what does happen.
In fact, there was an AP story back in 2010.
Let me let me start with this explanation using this story.
As spending by the wealthy weakens, so does the economy.
From this AP article, wealthy Americans aren't spending so freely anymore, and the rest of us are feeling the squeeze.
The answer may not be clear for months, but their cutbacks help explain why the rebound could be stalling.
And stalling in 2010 meant a 2.4% growth rate in the economy.
It's 1.8% now, and he claims we're in a recovery.
In 2010, the economy was growing at 2.4%.
And at that rate, the rich stopped consuming, and that hurt everybody.
Here's more from the AP.
The wealthy may be keeping some money on the sidelines due to uncertainty over whether or not they'll soon face higher taxes.
Think of the wealthy as the main engine of the economy.
When they buy more, the economy hums.
When they cut back its butters, the rest of us are mainly going along for the ride.
That's the way to look at this.
This is not to say they're better than anybody else in the middle class.
It's just the way it's it's it's it's it's it's the it's it's money like water.
It's the way it flows, folks.
Water does not come up from the faucet unless you got a bad flood going on.
This whole notion of trickle down is exactly what happens, and the AP story from 2010 proves it.
Now Obama wants you to believe that the economy will grow from the middle out.
It's a catchphrase that the White House is settled on to signal both the diagnosis of the problems that have ailed the economy since long before the recession, and the liberal policies that might act as an antidote.
Right, from the same people that killed Detroit.
From the same people that killed Detroit, the same kind of people that killed Detroit, we're now going to hear how to fix the U.S. economy.
And they're going to do the exact same things they did in Detroit.
My friends, the middle class grows and prospers because the places they work grow and prosper.
And what must come first in this equation is the places they work growing and prospering.
As the places they work grow and prosper, they're able to pay higher salaries, they are able to hire more people, and they are able to grow and re and produce a higher profit, and all of that permits the people that work there to do better.
Now, leftists right now are shouting at their radio, you don't share that profit, they keep the profit and they buy themselves yachts and jets.
This is it's all bo hunk.
The history of this country proves otherwise.
The only way the middle class can grow is if the places they work grow.
Or if there happen to be some entrepreneurs in the middle class who start their own businesses, but they're not employees then.
They become employers, self-employed, or maybe they hire a couple of people along the way as they grow.
If the middle class were responsible for growth, you would be building the SUV that's in your garage.
If the middle class was responsible for growth, you'd be building the house you live in.
But you don't.
You don't build your car.
You go to a dealership and buy it.
How did it get there?
A manufacturer put it together.
If the place that builds the cars is not doing well, they're going to build fewer.
They're going to have fewer people working there, and the people that work there are going to be paid less, and it all trickles down.
If businesses do not have opportunity to growth if they do not have customers, if they don't have customers with money, if they don't have uh people willing to buy their service or whatever it is, they're not going to grow and they're not going to hire people, and there will not be increased profit, there will be not be increased uh uh economic activity.
There's no such thing as middle out.
When was the last time, and I look at I know this is gonna be turned around and it's gonna be reported to people not listening to this program in the wrong way, but I'm sorry I can't be held back by that.
When was the last time?
No, I'm you know I'm not even gonna go there because it's it's it's too ripe for being misunderstood, and I don't need it.
I've been clear enough on this the way it is.
Uh one other thing I want to say there's nothing wrong with a you're on your own.
That's called liberty.
That's called freedom.
And you know what?
Everybody looking out for themselves rather than waiting for somebody else to look out for them.
Everybody looking out for themselves is gonna do better than people waiting for somebody else to look out for them.
Frankly, I don't need anybody looking out for me.
I do that.
I don't want to have to depend on somebody else, because there isn't anybody else that's gonna care as much about me and my life and my wants and needs as much as I do.
So why should I turn all that over to them?
I don't.
You shouldn't either.
And I know you and this audience don't.
But Obama's gonna try to say that you're on your own, it's selfishness, mean spirited.
And it isn't.
Self-interest is a beautiful thing.
Self-interest is what every responsible parent engages in.
A man and wife interested in the improvement of the lives of their children, are engaging in self-interest.
And as they engage in activity that improves their lives, it improves the lives of their children, and there are ancillary effects.
As people in a neighborhood do better, the neighborhood does better.
As people in a town do better, the town does better.
As people in a city do better, the city does better.
And it's the reverse.
See Detroit.
When people in the country do well, the country does better.
And there's nothing wrong with people taking care of themselves, and that's all you're on your own means, taking care of yourself.
You're gonna do a much better job of it than somebody else, because nobody's gonna care as much about you as you do.
Nobody's gonna care as much about your children as you do.
Nobody's gonna care about your job, your career, your future, your life as you do.
There's no reason in the world you shouldn't be interested in yourself.
There's no reason in the world you should not want to better yourself.
There's no reason in the world, and there's no reason to feel guilty over it.
And yet liberalism contains never-ending guilt trips for people who do happen to do very well for themselves.
That's called selfishness.
That's that's what this man is all about is destroying self-interest, self-reliance, individual achievement.
This man abhors that.
Self-reliance and achievement equal people that do not need Barack Obama or the Democrat Party.
And if you don't need them, you are their enemy.
And that's why Obama is trying to promote this notion that you should turn everything over to his policies and not yourself.
Scary thing is there's gonna be a lot of people that buy this, folks.
There are gonna be a lot of people that buy it because of fairness.
The word that's done more damage to this country than and our culture than anything I can imagine.
I know abortion, but I've the whole concept of fairness and what it means to people has led to more messes.
Obama used to say, if you recall, Obama used to say that the economy wasn't growing because rich people were sitting on their money.
Remember that?
Obama was criticizing rich people for hoarding.
He said the economy wasn't growing because rich people were sitting on their money.
Now all of a sudden he's throwing that away and coming up with this new concoction that is designed not to grow the economy and not to improve your life but to make you think that he thinks you are important.
That's all this policy is.
All right, that's enough.
I mean I I could go on with this for the rest of the program.
And frankly, folks, it's a sad commentary that this kind of basic economic explanation is even necessary.
But because of the success the Democrat Party has had in destroying the whole notion of capitalism, these kind of things are necessary now and then I've got to take a break.
We'll get to your phones when we get back, I promise don't go away and to Elizabeth Lake Forest Illinois.
I'm glad you waited I really appreciate your patience.
Great to have you on the program hi.
Hi Rush, thank you.
I wanted to uh read two two quotes that Mr Obama made recently one is in reaction to the verdict of the Zimmerman verdict and he said and I quote I think it's important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away.
About a month ago he was in Northern Ireland visiting Belfast and talking to a mixture of school children, both Protestant and Catholics and during that meeting he said in front of the children if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs if we can't see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden that too encourages division and discourages cooperation.
So I guess my somewhat rhetorical question for you is how I don't understand how this man is allowed to get away with this kind of double speak where he encourages divisiveness with regards to race but he he tries to you know uh dismiss it with rela with relationship to religion I don't know about you but to me religion is far more important than race.
Well it's a fascinating question um he's divisive on both counts he's trying to rip the Catholic church apart.
Absolutely and I'm a proud Catholic he's trying to rip the Catholic church apart and he's trying to rip racism.
He's not trying to unify anything here.
Right.
He talks this game of uh unification togetherness and so forth but clearly this man harbors big chip on his shoulder about a lot of things.
He's um he harbors a lot of resentments and his ego is such that the things he really resents are the things that resist him and because he wants to be universally accepted and dominant and the people that do not because of their loyalty to other traditions and institutions thus become targets.
Now how does he get away with it?
Yes.
Well he gets away with it by virtue of his appearance he appears nice, soft spoken, comes across as very smart, and he's uh got a slavish media which presents what he says in a non-threatening in fact very productive and cooperating way.
And so the actual Message that he imparts is uh, I don't know, it it's camouflaged or uh or masked, as are the actions he takes that result from his remarks.
His remarks are not just static.
They're not just words that vanish in the ether.
There are always policies or actions that result, and I try to put into play what his words mean.
Hey, folks, did uh did Obama tell Joe the Plumber that the economy works from the middle out?
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