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Jan. 8, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:31
January 8, 2014, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Still unbelievable.
Twenty point seven trillion dollars effectively spent on the war on poverty.
But it's where that money came from.
Twenty, just round it off, twenty trillion dollars.
That's more than the national debt, folks.
National debt 17 trillion.
Twenty trillion dollars to wipe out poverty.
And of course, it hasn't wiped out poverty.
That money has been transferred, redistributed via taxes from producers to nonproducers.
And it still hasn't made any difference.
What they actually do is grow government.
What they're really interested in is expanding government, not helping people.
Conservatives literally factually want to help people.
You ever noticed?
Sure you have, may not have registered, but when I point it out to you, you'll go, oh yeah.
The American left, the Democrat Party, is this close to claiming the war on drugs is a failure.
And there are many elements of the Democrat Party.
Come on, we're making it worse with what we're doing.
The war on drugs is just making it worse.
We're creating this mysque.
We're making criminals out of people.
It's an absolute disaster.
We gotta stop this war on drugs.
It's an absolute failure.
Where's that thinking in the war on poverty?
Interesting, isn't it?
I think it is.
By the way, one thing on this before I get to the Ronaldo's Magnus sound bites from also from 1964.
You just heard LBJ, and you heard his view of the country, which is identical to the Democrat Party's view of America today.
They look out and they see a decrepit education system that they have been running for all of these years.
It's amazing.
You listen to LBJ, and it's the same language.
We need to increase our education spending.
We need affordable housing.
We need job training.
We need health care improvement.
We need what it's the same stuff they're saying today.
And it's they who've been in charge for most of these years trying to fix all this stuff.
What are we up to now?
20 grand a student in New Jersey.
Let me for 20 grand a student.
You know what you could do?
You can hire the best professors wherever you found them at whatever university you wanted to hire the best professors for every class.
You could hire limousines to take every kid to and from school every day, and you can take the kid across the bridge to 21 for lunch in Manhattan for what we're spending per student on education in New Jersey or New York.
You look at New York, the dropout rate, New York City, 50%, folks.
Washington, D.C. did a look at the amount of money we're and you of course you mentioned this to the left.
Well, you can't look at it that way.
It's a that's not a correct picture, the amount of money per student.
That doesn't tell you anything.
What the hell it doesn't tell us anything?
It sure as hell does.
What's it buying?
It certainly isn't buying improved education, test scores, what have you.
It's propping up a bunch of union people in jobs is what it's doing.
It's not being spent on education.
It's being used to pay off unions for their loyal support of the Democrat Party in large measure.
But anyway, this goes back actually yesterday to the unemployment compensation extension that the Senate had their test vote on yesterday.
Obama brought in some of his own victims to stand behind him while he made his speech on extending unemployment benefits.
Aloysius Hogan writing in USA Today.
Wrong one.
This is Ah, Robert Costa, this is the one I meant.
Excuse me, Robert Costa.
It used to be at National Review, might still be for all I know.
But this blog post was at the Washington Post.
House Republican leaders sent a memo this week to the entire Republican conference with talking points designed to help rank and file Republicans show compassion for the unemployed and to explain the Republican position on unemployment benefits in the memo, which was obtained by the Washington Post.
House Republicans are urged to be empathetic toward the unemployed.
Understand how unemployment is a personal crisis for individuals and families.
The memo asks Republicans to reiterate that the House will give proper consideration to an extension of long-term insurance as long as the Democrats are willing to support spending or regulatory reforms.
So there was a memo that went out.
This is classic.
This this is it in a nutshell.
The Republicans know exactly what's being done to them.
And rather than push back and make their case, they send the memo out.
Now look, they're going to be saying about us that we don't care about the unemployed.
So you make sure that you show compassion for the unemployed.
Don't go out there and inadvertently attack these people.
This is the call it the Todd Aiken memo.
Just whatever you do, shut up, is basically what the memo from leadership is.
Just don't say anything about it.
Just leave it to us.
We don't want you guys going off the reservation out there and saying what you might think about extending unemployment benefits, because we know it's going to come off as though you don't care about the unemployed.
And we Republicans don't want it thought that we don't care about the unemployed.
So rather than have a cogent policy response, an alternative, if you will, to never-ending unemployment benefits, the memo went out.
Just shut up.
Don't say anything.
It doesn't matter what the Republicans do, don't do, say, or don't say.
The media and the Democrats are still going to say they're heartless, inconsiderate, mean-spirited, extremist, cold-hearted bigots.
They're going to say it no matter what they do.
Anyway, let's listen to Reagan.
Just as a contrast to LBJ, this is October 1927, uh, 27, 1964.
The speech that Reagan gave for um Goldwater, right before the election in 64.
We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one.
So they're going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning.
Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer, and they've had almost 30 years of it, shouldn't we expect government to read the score to us once in a while?
Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help, the reduction in the need for public housing?
But the reverse is true.
Each year the need grows greater.
The program grows greater.
Exactly right.
They can't tell us how the program is working, because it isn't work.
You know, that's Jack Kemp is the first I heard say this, and I've assumed it was original to him, but it's exactly right.
We conservatives define compassion not by how many people are receiving assistance.
We define compassion by counting a number of people who no longer need it.
That's real compassion.
And that's what the great Ronaldus Magnus was saying here.
Well, okay, we've been doing this for 30 years.
How's it working?
What's the score?
Can you give us the stats on how many people are no longer in poverty?
Can you give us the numbers on how many people now no longer need government housing?
And not only do those numbers not are they never made public because they can't, the numbers never reduce.
In fact, the numbers grow.
More people in poverty, more people in public housing.
Then the Democrats blame that on Republicans.
And then they say, see, we need even more help.
We need to be even bigger.
We need even bigger government.
Here's more Reagan.
We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night.
Well, that was probably true.
They were all on a diet.
But now we're told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty stricken on the basis of earning less than $3,000 a year.
Welfare spending ten times greater than it was in the dark depths of the depression.
We're spending 45 billion dollars on welfare.
Now do a little arithmetic, and you'll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those nine million poor families, we'd be able to give each family 4600 a year.
And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty.
Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running about $600 per family.
It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.
And that led to the discovery of a startling statistic.
Do you know what the administrative cost?
This is 20-year-old data.
It's got to be higher now.
Twenty years ago, the administrative cost of one dollar of welfare was 72 cents.
Meaning, ladies and gentlemen, for it 20 years ago, every dollar allocated for welfare spending, 28 cents ended up with a welfare recipient.
72% ended up somewhere in the administration, in the bureaucracies that were distributing the aid.
Wow.
And that's what Reagan meant by overhead.
A charity today would be hauled into jail for that.
72 cents of every dollar did not get to an intended recipient.
Twenty years ago.
This is Reagan's famous line about liberals in Confederate.
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 goals.
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.
And he was being charitable with that.
They know what they don't know.
They know what they're doing.
They know they're running a scam, and they're getting away with it gloriously.
The scam is they have the compassion.
The scam is they are the humanitarians.
The scam is they're the ones who care.
A brief timeout, my friends, and then we resume back to your phone calls after this.
Have you seen the the Gallup story today that talks about this vast increase in the number of uh people that that uh say they're independents?
You haven't seen that in I mean, what is it uh forty-two percent of Americans?
Record high.
Gallup this morning, 42% of Americans identify as independents.
That's a record high.
Now, for that to be, something had to change.
What do you think it was?
Apparently so, Snerdley.
Apparently, a lot of Tea Party people have stopped calling themselves Republicans and are instead saying they're they're they're independents.
Republican identification in the Gallup survey is the lowest in 25 years.
Now, Gallup last year did the same survey, but instead of political parties, they asked you to identify conservative liberal moderate.
Forty percent conservative.
Twenty percent liberal.
Thirty some odd percent was moderate, and the rest didn't want to answer or didn't know.
Put those two together.
Last year, 40% of Americans said they're conservative.
Forty-two percent a year later say that they are independence.
The Republican number don't have it right in front of me, but it's the lowest in 25 years.
So how is that Republican outreach to Hispanics working out for them?
And how is this this memo we learned that went around?
When they learned that Obama is going to be talking about extending unemployment benefits.
This is a memo goes that don't say anything to disparage the unemployed.
Republican memo from the leadership.
Don't say anything.
What what would have been so hard about devising a policy response focused on how the Republican Party wants to create jobs.
Well, Mr. Lumbaugh, they can't do that because when you start talking about jobs, you are impugning the unemployed.
How does that work, Mr. New Castradi?
What do you mean when you start talking about jobs, you're impugning the unemployed?
Well, it's easy for you to say, Mr. Limbaugh, go out and get a job, but a job is not that easy to find it.
You think the solution of somebody's problem is to go to work.
Well, that's easy for you to say, but that's not the way.
And this is where we are.
It is considered insulting, or the Republicans are afraid it is to come up with a jobs creation policy or proposal in response to extending unemployment benefits.
Because the theory is, well, then you don't really care about them.
Because extending unemployment benefit, we could do that tomorrow.
You can't get them a job tomorrow.
Well, maybe not, because Obama's in office.
You have a point.
But anyway, there are reasons why the fewest Americans in 25 years identify as Republicans.
Here is Tammy, Central California.
Great to have you.
Thank you for waving.
You're up next.
Hello.
Well, thanks, Russ.
It's nice to talk to you.
Thank you.
Um I was just gonna bring up the point that I'm 25 years old.
My husband and I are fourth generation farmers in the Central Valley of California.
And we've grown up conservative and come we're very conservative.
I've um just identified strongly with the conservative views.
And immigration is something that we kind of ride the fence on because in our industry, our labor depends on immigration.
So when we start talking about reform, a lot of other farmers in the area start getting nervous just knowing that our labor force could take a major hit.
So I just wanted to bring up the point that there could be some Republicans out there that just are just nervous about immigration reform because I honestly believe that our food system depends on it.
We depend on having uh migrant workers coming and doing this work because the average American is not gonna go stand out there in hundred degree weather and pick peaches.
Yeah.
I've heard that.
I've heard it.
Well we've seen it here.
I've heard it for a long time that uh certain jobs and certain work Americans won't do.
Nope.
Right.
So uh the solution is to what?
That's something I don't know.
Make a worker program maybe that is easy to I don't know.
It just the application process just takes too long.
It needs to be simpler.
So you s but you said earlier that your industry, the farming requires or depends on, I think.
Yeah.
You said immigration, but you meant migrant workers.
You meant illegals.
You you meant.
I mean, we know that a lot of them could be illegal.
But yet they're the only ones who'll do the work.
Absolutely.
Hmm.
And since we're talking about agriculture, we're talking about people eating.
And so you're saying my point, yeah.
So essentially the only way you as a farmer can feed people is if you have people willing to do jobs that most people won't do, and why won't they do those jobs?
Why won't Americans do why won't Americans work on your farm?
Well, they think they need to be paid $15 an hour working at McDonald's.
We can't pay them $15 an hour picking peaches for a business, too, you know.
We have to make money as well, or we can't eat.
Right.
Right.
Okay.
I got it, but I can't say it.
And it's a good thing I just ran out of time.
Okay, let's stay with our last caller.
I mean, she's gone, but let's stay with what she was saying.
Conservative, 25 years old, family is into farming in the Central Valley of California, which, folks, uh the Central Valley of California is so fertile it it feeds the world in a lot of categories.
And she said that the reason Americans won't do the work that they have on their farm is that they will not work for what they can afford to pay, wage-wise.
Okay.
Well, now that's admittedly a problem.
But my question, why is the solution?
Never-ending amnesty for everybody who wants to come here, which is going to turn them into automatic Democrats.
Whatever happened to seasonal permitted green card immigration to come in, seasonal immigration, which we've supported in the past, not not immigration, but seasonal work permits for people to come in during the growing season, the picking season, whatever it's called, and when the work is done, then they leave.
Why isn't that a solution?
Why do why why do we have to?
My point is, and many other people said that this is not really about amnesty.
It's not about humanitarian cause.
The people pushing this are just seeking new voters who will remain in a permanent need of government assistance.
There is a there's a desire, the Democrat Party for a permanent underclass.
Now they say, and the Republicans say who support this, that what they're trying to do is service the needs of businesses like these farmers who cannot afford to pay full-fledged citizens or full-fledged Americans.
They won't work for that money.
So we need this influx of people from around the world who come from such poverty that the money they will be paid is humongous to them.
Okay, I understand the business needs of farms in this circumstance, but the solution does not have to be amnesty for 20 million people who are going to become, you know, 15 percent of them or 50, 15 million of them going to become voting Democrats.
Um about another solution?
This is an idea.
If the farms cannot pay enough to attract American workers, then how about tax credits to allow them to?
Tax credits to let them raise their wage.
What about exempting them from the corporate tax rate, for example?
Uh what about what about exempting them from all kinds of federal taxation so that they will not have money to spend to the government, they'll have it to spend on employees.
My my point is there are all kinds of potential solutions to this that do not involve amnesty for 20 million twelve, whatever the number is.
Seasonal migration, which we used to do, and which we've supported.
We understand economics.
My My point, folks, is that the people behind the immigration reform movement might want you to think that they're trying to help that woman who called and her farm.
But that's not what they're into.
Just like we learned from Bob Gates in his book that Obama and Hillary oppose the Iraq war on purely political grounds.
Well, that's not news to you or me because we know who Obama and Hillary are, and everything they do is political.
But the same people who put a political calculation on war, and here's Gates telling us that Obama, he doesn't even like hanging around with military people, and he's not even really into this Afghanistan thing.
He doesn't, he's just doing this because he was handed it, and he doesn't want to be saddled with defeat, but he's not really behind it.
Yet he is sending people into harm's way for something he's not even really committed to.
But if we didn't have Gates' book, all we would know is Obama's speeches talking about how much he does want victory and how committed he is to it.
But we know he's not.
Okay, well, the same kind of people, and the same thinking here on immigration.
It is nothing more than a giant voter registration drive to them.
But they make it sound like they are concerned about farmers and migrant workers and the other itinerate or attached humanitarian causes.
But that's a smokescring, because there are solutions that are much less damaging to the culture, to the society, and to the overall economy.
Not to mention the sanctity of law.
Our immigration law is worthless.
People are allowed to break it, and very few are ever held accountable.
Our immigration we don't need immigration reform.
All we need to is enforce the laws that are already on the books.
And why don't we do that?
The reason we don't do that is because these bodies are desired.
They are seen by both parties as potential voters.
So we have this woman, Central Valley of California.
She's conservative.
You can hear the trepidation in her voice.
She's conservative.
But she needs, she can't pay very much for the work she has done.
There are certain people who will do it for what she can afford to pay, but they're not Americans.
And she needs the work done.
Her family needs the work.
Okay, how do you solve that problem?
Well, the problem can be solved without granting amnesty to 20 million people.
Now, only point.
Well, I know that's the point.
Well, they would have, except we stopped.
Snerdley just said the problem with that is Rush, that the seasonal people are not going to leave when the season's over.
Because they're going to like living here so much more than where they came from, they're not going to leave.
Well, free of schools, free medical, free health care.
But we're not telling they can bring their families.
Now, wait a second.
Under my idea, and the way it was done in the past, they didn't bring their families, and they weren't ending up on wealth.
And when the season ended, they were sent home.
It was it was up to the employer to produce it and police.
It's been done before.
No, we're not breaking up families.
How wrong?
How many American fathers go over to Saudi Arabia to work in the oil fields?
Well, mom and dad and stay here.
We're not breaking up families.
We're supporting families.
We're letting people come here who want to work.
There's work here that only they will do, supposedly.
I'm just accepting that as part of the theory, part of the equation.
My look at my overall point here, I'm probably not expressing it well because Snerdley keeps arguing with me.
My only point is that there are much more effective, smaller solutions specifically tailored to a specific need than what is being proposed.
Nobody wants farms to go out of business.
Nobody wants farms to close down.
Nobody wants anybody to go hungry.
That's not the case here.
But what we all know, what we all understand is that the people that are behind massive, as McCain said, comprehensive.
Meaningful, comprehensive immigration.
It's just a voter registration drive to them.
Let them be honest about that.
Let them tell us that that's what they're doing.
See how it flies.
But I got to take another time out.
Don't go away, folks.
Be right back.
I've got so many problems with all of this.
This this business, there are jobs Americans won't do.
I've I've had problems with that ever since I first heard that from an economist friend who tried to explain it to me.
He believed it, thought it was rational.
I've had I've had problems with it instinctively.
From the first time I heard, well, there are certain jobs Americans won't do.
We have surpassed Americans' job expectations have gone way past picking lettuce.
Okay, fine.
We've got 90 million Americans not working.
Almost 91 million Americans not working.
That is more people than live in Germany.
So as you well know, if the unemployment rate actually counted people who had no no longer were looking for work, who've given up, the real unemployment rate would be 11 point something percent.
With 90 million Americans not working, uh can there be jobs Americans won't do?
And yet it's probably true.
And the reason is how much we're paying people not to work.
That's why there are jobs Americans won't do, is because how much we're paying them not to work.
Pure and simple, folks.
Okay, so we've got an overcrowding problem in our prisons in California.
How about letting them out pick lettuce, pick peaches?
And pay them whatever the going rate would be that you pay it illegal.
My only point is there are all kinds of solutions here that do not involve massive comprehensive amnesty or immigration reform.
Reduce the corporate tax rate that these farms are paying.
Reduce what they have to give to the government so they can pay a higher wage, so that the jobs will become those Americans will do.
But Rush Americans are not going to go to the fields and sweat.
Okay, I got a solution for that.
If it's backbreaking work, and we're told it's really tough, I mean it is hard back breaking work, then that's what you do for college and pro football players.
You send them there instead of summer training camp.
You get them in shape, there's no concussions, there's no blown knees, no sprained ankles, just a bunch of people sweating in the hot sun, getting ready for football season.
Now that's a bit I know it's a stretch.
I'm just giving you examples here.
There are all kinds of solutions to this.
But I mean, we're look at the the real reason we're look at how much we're paying people not to work.
That's why there are jobs Americans won't do.
And then factor in, we don't have the money we are paying people not to work.
I've got a story here.
The actual amount of money we are spending per family on welfare is $60,000 per family.
Now, Reagan's example in that sound bite we played 4,600 in 1964, we were spending 4,600 a family.
He said, give that to every family and you'd wipe out poverty.
Well, give every family the $60,000 in cash that we are spending per family, and you'd wipe out poverty.
Problem is we don't have the money for that either.
Now, arguably you could do that one time.
Then you're back where you started.
But I better be quiet.
Democrats might actually, you mean just minimum wage, 60 grand, family four, just pay everybody 60 grand?
Well, let's do it.
Wipe out poverty.
Win the war on poverty.
Shh.
Some people might think that could be a solution rather than an illustration of just how bastardized all of this has become.
Gotta go, folks.
This is Wednesday already, right?
It's unbelievable.
So Thursday is tomorrow, and we will see you then.
And we'll continue this.
We just started scratching the surface on this stuff, so be here tomorrow.
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