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July 29, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:07
July 29, 2013, Monday, Hour #3
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Hi, how are you?
Folks, stay right where you are.
Do not go anywhere for a couple of minutes.
Actually, I know that you don't anyway.
But I finally, I said, to hell with this discretionary versus non-discretionary spending stuff.
I wanted to find out exactly, because this is what's being said in Washington.
Well, that's so much of that is built in that we can't get rid of that spending in Obamacare.
It's not discretionary spending.
And I asked myself, well, then why is anybody even talking about it?
If we can't defund it, why is anybody talking about it?
There has to be a reason people are talking about it.
If it can't be done, nobody would be talking about repealing it, but people are.
And we've gotten to a point here where capitulation is now strategic wisdom.
Strategic wisdom and political victory.
Capitulation.
Let the Democrats have what they want, and the American people will see.
Obamacare is going to implode.
So let it implode and let the Democrats own it.
Okay, so we surrender before we even take a stand was my point to the caller.
We got an opportunity here to tell people who we are.
There is a future in this country.
There are additional elections.
Hopefully we want to win them.
And we want to win them not by hoping the Democrats end up in disfavor with the American people.
Why do we have to sit around and wait for that to happen when there isn't much evidence that it does happen?
The Democrats don't end up in disfavor.
We do.
And why?
Because there is a bunch of lies about us and we never counter them.
We get afraid of the lies and then we start trying to change our behavior to prove that we're being lied about and it never works.
So the strategery now capitulate and that's wisdom and that's how we win.
We let them have it.
We let them own it and it'll implode and the American people will see and then we win big.
I don't like that way of winning.
We just hope and pray that the people get fed up with Democrats and turn to us because there isn't anybody else.
Why don't we go out and make the case for ourselves?
Well, look, I know why we don't, because the Republican Party doesn't want to be conservative.
And that's why it doesn't.
And that's why it's not contrasting itself with the Democrats.
They want to trade their base in.
They want a new base, folks.
They don't like us.
They're embarrassed, whatever the reason.
They want a new base.
They want a new base.
Even if that means losing a couple of elections.
But I don't understand why you don't even make the case.
Five it.
The American people already don't like it.
Let's align ourselves with them rather than sitting around and hoping that happens.
Capitulation is now strategic wisdom and political victory.
We surrender before we even make our case.
Amnesty, Obamacare, you name it.
And there are a lot of Republicans in Washington peddling this because they're not conservative.
And I think one of the realities is there are a lot of Republicans who really don't have a problem with Obamacare.
It's government, and government's okay.
It's government.
Government's good.
It's governments.
The latest thing government's done, and the people's representatives passed it, and that's the way it is.
Enough said.
They really don't have a big problem.
I mean, if they do, I don't see the evidence.
This is my point in remembering after Obamacare's passed, all these Republicans, I mean, a lot of them, they're wanting to get on this repeal bandwagon really fast, and they're promising it, and they're assuring us, and they're telling us.
And they even had some votes in the House.
What, 30-some-odd votes to defund it?
Went through the motions.
The Supreme Court makes the case, but anybody comes out like a Ted Cruz is on Fox right now, any Republican comes out and speaks out against it.
What does Republican establishment do?
Not just Republican.
The D.C. establishment tears them down.
Stand up in opposition to what Washington is doing, and Washington stands up and tries to mow you down.
Here's an opportunity to make the case.
Explain to people who we are.
Contrast to never a greater opportunity to do that than now.
Anyway, I went to Heritage, the Trusty Heritage Foundation.
Heritage Action for America.
And this goes back to July the 12th.
This is 17 days ago.
Isn't defunding Obamacare impossible because most of the funding is mandatory or on autopilot and can't be amended via the annual appropriation process?
Heritage Foundation says no.
Defunding Obamacare is not impossible for the reasons that you've heard.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the Department of Health and Human Services and the IRS will incur substantial administrative costs to implement the law's private insurance reforms and its changes to the federal health care programs.
And while Obamacare provided $1 billion in mandatory implementation funding when it was enacted, Health and Human Services projects that that is largely already spent.
According to the Congressional Research Service, Obamacare's administrative costs will have to be funded through the annual discretionary appropriations.
Can I translate this for you?
What the Heritage Foundation is saying is that the implementation money has already been spent, and they haven't done very much with it, obviously.
And according to the Congressional Research Service, Obamacare's administrative costs will have to be funded through the annual, that means every year, discretionary, means don't have to spend it, appropriations.
So the idea that the funding is mandatory and therefore can't be funded isn't true.
We can defund the administrative costs by not allocating the money.
And if they can't administrate it, then what?
Furthermore, says Heritage, annual appropriations bills routinely carry funding limitations to block all sorts of activities, like the Hyde Amendment is an example that they give here.
As well, make changes to mandatory spending.
These latter provisions are called changes in mandatory program spending, and there's even an acronym for it, CHIMPS, C-H-I-M-P-S.
Even if these writers were not so commonplace, the stakes of so many provisions of Obamacare are scheduled to take effect would present grounds for an exception.
Now, this is part of a frequently asked questions page or piece that Heritage posted on July the 12th.
And one of the questions was, isn't defunding Obamacare impossible?
Because the funding is mandatory.
And their answer here is no.
There's a lot of discretionary funding here.
But Washington, not just the Democrats or Republicans, but the entire place, Washington is putting out the news that we can't touch it.
It's written in a law.
It's mandatory.
You can't take it back, just like you couldn't stop Social Security spending with a budget.
You couldn't do it.
You couldn't do it.
Well, it turns out you can, according to the Heritage Foundation.
It just means that Washington doesn't want to, folks.
That's all it means.
Washington doesn't want to.
Now, in addition, I haven't had a chance to listen to these.
Mike Lee from Utah, Republican senator from Utah, is the guy leading the defunding effort.
And I spoke with him last week about his strategery.
He was on Fox News Sunday yesterday with Chris Wallace.
Chris Wallace said, five Senate Republicans who originally signed on to your effort, no government funding unless you stop funding Obamacare.
That's the continuing resolution the government should have done.
He says those five senators now dropped out of your effort.
And one of your Senate Republican colleagues is calling it one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard.
This is yet another instance of Washington versus everyone else.
And we've got to stop Washington from dividing the American people.
We've got to stop Washington from hurting the American people.
That's what's happening here.
The fact is that Americans, by a margin of about two to one, believe that this law will make their health care situation worse, not better.
Only 12% support the individual mandate.
Businesses don't like it.
Individuals hate it.
Union leaders say it'll be bad for workers.
And even the law's principal author in the Senate describes it as a train wreck.
The law's bad.
The law is certainly not ready to implement, and we shouldn't fund it.
Chris Wallace then says, but Republican leaders make this point.
They say a funding bill funding the government is only going to last for a year or even less.
So even if you got what you wanted, you wouldn't kill Obamacare.
You'd simply delay it for a year.
And they also say that if we were to follow your logic and end up either with a government shutdown or if you tied it to an increase in the debt limit, that it's precisely the kind of action that you heard from Karl Rove.
It's going to make it hard for Republicans to keep control of the House and have any chance of winning the Senate.
I understand that there are some in the Washington establishment, some from both political parties, who aren't happy with me over this.
And in this instance, I'm going to take that as a compliment, an indication that I'm doing something right.
The fact is that we can delay this bill.
Maybe we can't repeal it right now, but we can delay its funding.
And if we can delay it, we can stop its consequences, at least for now.
And we have to do that.
There were many of us who were elected specifically with this mandate in mind, that we've got to stop this law.
Washington does not want it stopped, folks.
Washington does not have a problem with Obamacare.
It's government, after all.
And they like government.
They like process.
I never forget an interview I saw with the loser, my affectionate nickname for Michael Dukakis, the Democrat nominee in 1988.
And somebody was asking him the usual question: why do you want to be president?
And he was in his office in Brookline or wherever it is, and his sleeves are rolled up.
He says, I love process.
I just love process.
I just love the process.
So, what is the world?
He's talking, he likes the process of government.
He likes the deal making.
He likes the back and forth.
He likes government being the center of the universe.
He likes government being the center of everybody's universe.
And of course, people in Washington do.
Washington is a government town, everybody there.
I used to think it was just liberals.
But there are too many Republicans now peddling this capitulation as strategy and political victory because they really don't have a problem with government.
McCain's one of them.
I have a problem with government.
Loves it, in fact.
And whatever government does is fine.
It might have an incidental disagreement with a little thing here over there, but in general, under the big umbrella government, it's all good.
And most everybody in that town is the same way.
By the way, folks, this is why Obama tries to make himself appear not to be part of that town.
That's why he does the Limbaugh theorem.
He knows.
It's why he's making it look like those people in Washington are out of control.
They're doing this stuff, and I'm trying to stop them.
There's a.
Look.
Folks, I'm sorry.
What about what?
Yeah.
Yeah, Snergly's reminding me of a question I once asked.
The American people want to watch a woman age in the Oval Office and so forth.
And there was just a picture of that very phenomenon up there, and it stopped us all cold.
I have to tell you that.
Sorry.
And we go back to the phones.
This is Jelene in Phoenix, Arizona.
It's great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi, thank you.
I'm honored.
Love your show.
So about Mr. Hunter, we need to bring in some common sense of a woman here.
That would be Hunter Mayhan, the professional golfer who abandoned a two-stroke lead to be with his wife for the birth of his baby.
You're up.
Go ahead.
She hung up.
Either she hung up or it was a bad cell connection.
Well, what was she going to say?
She was going to say that men aren't necessary at birth.
Don't have to be there.
It was Jolene from Phoenix.
Jolene, it didn't matter.
Men don't have to.
Should have stayed in a golf course.
That's what she was going to say.
Should have stayed in a golf course and should have won the money.
Doesn't have to be there.
It didn't a big deal.
Well, that would have been provocative.
By the way, the guy who did win this thing, what did I do with the sound bite?
Hang on a second.
Yeah, he said that the baby can expect a present.
Brent Snedeker.
Brent Snedeker, I think, was the winner.
And he said that the baby can expect he didn't specify what.
I think it was Snedeker.
I had the soundbite here.
I just don't know what I ended up doing with it because I've got by this time in the program, I don't know what's where in terms of the stacks, but I think that's who it was.
Whoever won the thing said he's going to take care of the baby.
And of course, that's Swoon City too.
That's cool.
Here's Greg in Nashua, New Hampshire.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Yeah, hi, Rush.
Based on what you're saying about the Republican Party really abandoning a large chunk of the American population, including conservatives, or even being any real opposition to the Democrats on Obamacare and apparently everything else.
I'm wondering whether Sarah Palin's recent gambit that at the GOP, I think she called them the GOP brainiacs on the Greta Show, if the GOP is indeed abandoning her as well as a large swath of American voters, she's going independent.
And Palin is a prominent Republican, even beyond what Ted Cruz or Mike Lee has said.
She's broached the topic of going outside the GOP of NEEB.
And maybe she's right on target there.
Maybe she can lead the way out of this conundrum of the Dems and the GOP apparently being joined at the hip, at least on Obamacare, and probably a lot more.
You mean by going third party?
Yeah, or saying if they don't turn the party over to her, she'll go third party.
Now, wait a minute, I think I might have missed something.
Nobody's going to turn the party over.
Well, what I mean is she's saying that if they don't give the party to the conservatives to run this, then the GOP is going to run it to another disaster like they did with Romney, like they did with McCain, like they did with Bob Dole.
And that basically this is a time she's laying down the gambit now saying that she'll go third party.
She'll go independent.
And maybe this is a time when an independent third party run can win.
Oh, oh, I see.
We're back to that.
There is no evidence that a third party wins.
Rush, can I tell you something?
Maybe don't call it a third party.
Call it the new second party.
Just like when the Republican Party was born, when the old party went the way of the Whigs, that basically the conservatives, what you really got here is you know what that is?
That would be taking over the Republican Party, which is what has to happen.
That's what I was saying initially.
In other words, you really got Washington, the establishment against the American people, and the current Republican establishment is tied at the hip with the Democrats.
So basically, you've got a new second party really forming around what Sarah Palin is saying, and she could be the titular leader.
She's the head of it.
So you're excited about Sarah Palin maybe providing the impetus and the leadership, at least titular, for a new Republican Party.
I think she's the most prominent one.
I think if she gets out there, like when she was on the Greta show the other day talking about it, she can get out there.
I think, I mean, obviously she provokes a lot of emotion in people, pro and con, but if she can get out there and get her message across, I think they're afraid of her.
Washington.
Well, I don't doubt that.
The Republicans and Democrats are afraid of her.
But they're not going to cede C-E-D-E anything to her, or to anybody else for that matter.
Grab audio soundbite number three and maybe grab soundbite number for you.
David Rodham Gergen was on Face the Nation and during the political panel.
This is a show that Bob Schieffer said that what Weiner did is sickening.
Anyway, Schieffer was talking to David Rodham Gergen about Obama's speeches last week on the economy.
Schieffer said, all of a sudden, we're talking about the economy again, Mr. Rodham Gergen.
The president's going out to make these speeches about jobs and all of that, and apparently he's going to sort of de-emphasize deficit reduction now and move back towards jobs.
David, what do you make of that?
What I objected to in his speech was him saying Washington has taken its eye off the ball.
He said that repeatedly in the last few days.
He has the biggest spotlight in Washington.
As president, he's the one who can set the agenda.
You know, the president speaks on something, we talk about it, right?
We're followers in that sense.
And so I don't think Washington, I think he took his eye off the ball.
I'm glad he's getting back to it.
He didn't have much fresh to say, but he's lining up his forces.
That's smart.
Lining up his forces?
Anyway, Mr. Rodham Gergen here basically is aghast by the Limbaugh theorem.
He quite rightly says Obama is Washington.
And to run out and say that Washington took its eye off the ball on the economy, not even Rodham Gergen could swallow that one.
So, you know, none of them will say it.
None of them will say it.
They're all describing the Limbaugh theorem here, but none of them will say it.
The kids don't know why I call him Rodham Gergen?
What kids?
What?
Oh.
Snurdley went to a conservative retreat in Denver over the weekend.
Did you need a visa to get in there?
Because that's a very liberal state.
And there are a lot of young people out there, and they were all rush babies.
He came in this morning going on and on and on about how they all are profoundly, hugely conservative because of this program.
They grew up as rush babies.
Now, he's saying that some of those people he spoke to may not know why we call David Gergen David Rodham Gergen.
Doesn't it sort of speak for his, I mean, Hillary's middle name is Rodham, and she was Hillary Clinton until Clinton was elected.
Then she became Hillary Rodham Clinton, so as not to be confused with Bill.
Didn't want to be lumped in.
And David Gergen is just, I mean, he is.
If you want to know what Washington conventional wisdom is, listen to David Gergen.
We just affectionately call him David Rodham Gergen because he's in the club.
Sometimes they call Hillary Hillary Rodham Rodham.
You know, just to make the point of what she's trying to do.
Anyway, Mark Maxie Shields is next.
And he's a little confused here about this Obama building an economy from the middle out.
He just doesn't quite understand that.
He was on the news hour, formerly with Jim O'Lara on Friday night.
And Judy Woodruff said, okay, so Obama's now kicking off a campaign to refocus attention on the economy, talking about how many people still don't have jobs.
Republicans immediately jumped on it, said it isn't real.
How do you interpret what he's trying to do, Maxie?
There wasn't anything as fresh and new and cosmic, perhaps, as you would have hoped.
I have to be honest, from the middle out is an uninspiring slogan.
I mean, power to the people, the people versus privilege, common ground for common sense.
There's a lot of things you keep the big boys on us, but building from the middle out sounded like a personal trainer.
Building from the middle out.
I know what Obama's trying to do.
He's trying to forge a commonality or common ground with the middle class and making them think that they make it all happen.
Making them think that it all starts with them.
It's a cheap solidarity ploy.
And Maxie Shields here realizes that's not how it happens.
But that doesn't matter.
Obama's never about how it really happens.
He is simply about myth-making.
Now, I don't even care about that.
I've got a pull quote from an Obama New York Times interview, but it's not even worth it.
It might dovetail with this, though.
This AP story, four out of five U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty, or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.
Survey data, exclusive to the administration press, points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.
No, those are not reasons for the trend.
The reason for the trend is Barack Obama.
The sole reason for the plight of the middle class is Barack Obama, 9 million fewer jobs.
An assault on the private sector where jobs are created.
The downsizing of the private sector.
I mean, it has to get downsized.
He's claiming more and more of it and putting it under government control.
He's increasing the costs and the regulations and the taxes on business so they have less discretionary income to pay people with or to hire people with.
The value of people home, people's homes have plummeted.
Wages aren't going up.
Discretionary income is shrinking.
Reliance on some sort of government welfare is on the rise at a rapid rate.
All of this, the result of focused policies the last four and a half years, authored by Barack Obama and the Democrats.
Now, this is a long story.
There's much more to it than just the two paragraphs I read there.
And I think if you read the whole story, you would conclude that there is a real attempt in this story to widen the divide between rich and poor and to widen and the resentment and the widen the divide between whites and blacks.
If you read the story, one of the reasons four out of five face near poverty, it is poor whites and blacks.
And it is said that this is going to create even more friction.
Here's a pull quote.
By race, non-whites still have a higher risk of being economically insecure at 90%.
But compared with the official poverty rate, some of the biggest jumps under the newer measures are among whites, with more than 76% enduring periods of joblessness, life on welfare, or near poverty.
Let's go to that Obama because given what I just shared with you, here is a pull quote.
Obama did an interview with the New York Times.
And in this interview, now we've just read the AP story where the gap between people in poverty and not is widening.
The gap between black and white is widening.
And I think the purpose of the story is to enhance that.
Now, here's the pull quote from Obama.
He said to the New York Times over the weekend, and racial tensions won't get any better.
Racial tensions may get worse, in fact, the president said, because people will feel as if they've got to compete with some other group to get scraps from a shrinking pot.
Can I define that for you?
He's talking about welfare here.
He's talking about scraps from government.
He's talking about the racial tensions may get worse because people will feel as if they've got to compete with some other group to get scraps from a shrinking pot.
I'm going to define this for you exactly how he means it.
What this means is that up till now, African Americans have had almost an exclusive hold on the word minority and everything comes with it.
Minority being discriminated against, minority being outnumbered big time by the majority, and therefore they have been the primary recipients of government benefits.
Now Obama is saying racial tensions might get worse because non-whites are moving in now because they're getting poorer and they're going to be making a play for federal benefits.
Whereas the old minorities used to have what they thought was an exclusive claim on it.
Now the whites are moving in there.
And this is going to exacerbate tensions.
This is what he's saying from a shrinking pot.
Now the shrinking pot that he's talking about is not the private sector, although it is shrinking.
He's talking about the universe of benefits.
We've got debt at the wazoo.
The benefits, they can't get appreciably bigger.
More people are making a claim on the benefits pie.
So pieces of the benefits pie are going to get smaller.
And the people who used to have an exclusive claim on it are going to get mad now.
That's African Americans.
It's stunning that he would say this.
And there's something else incumbent here.
For 25 years on this program, I've been pointing out that when liberals see inequity in society, they don't ever try to elevate those at the bottom and improve their lives.
They punish people at the top.
They like to bring people down to a certain level so that everybody is so-called equal or fair.
They never elevate.
They never come up with policies designed to help people out of dire consequences.
They come up with policies to help people subsist in those consequences and then punish people so that more people will be in those consequences.
They want to bring people at the top down so that everybody is equally miserable.
And Obama just confirming it here.
Racial tensions won't get better.
They may get worse.
Can you imagine a president of the United States predicting worsening racial tensions because the benefits pie is going to be cut up into smaller pieces?
Then he said this.
But if the economy is growing, everybody feels invested.
Everybody feels as if we're rolling in the same direction.
And so a lot of the other issues that we're talking about, whether it's climate change or immigration or how we manage our trade relations, all of those are eased if we've got our economic act together.
Really?
Climate change, immigration, trade relations?
That's relevant to what we're talking about here?
The benefits pie?
You get the economy rolling.
We get everything growing.
Everybody rolling in the same direction with climate change.
This is bad, folks.
This is not good.
Chris in Nashville.
It's great to have you on the program.
Hello, sir.
Hello, Rush.
Tomorrow, I understand the president will be in Chattanooga to visit the Amazon Fulfillment Center as part of his jobs tour, where, as a side note, they employ thousands of part-time temp workers that make a living wage.
I also noticed when I get your tea delivered to me that it comes from a distribution center in Chattanooga.
So, putting two and two together, I was kind of wondering if the president might be dropping in on your distribution center or maybe you guys have a secret meeting set up for tomorrow where you can have something fresh.
No, this is as cosmic as that.
It's really very, very shrewd of you to notice such a thing.
I can assure you that the two-if-by-tea distribution and fulfillment does not come from Amazon.
So, the president will not be at our fulfillment center.
That's disappointing.
There's time to arrange that meeting.
You've been trying to get that together.
No, don't think so.
Off to a rousing start.
A brand new busy broadcast week.
I didn't get a chance to talk much about NBC and the Hillary Clinton mini-series that they're planning, and they're not the only one.
Maybe I'll move this, save this, set it aside for tomorrow and deal with that whatever else happens between now and then.
Thank you, as always, folks, for being with us.
It's always a pleasure, and I look forward being right back here with you same time tomorrow.
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