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April 9, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
29:19
April 9, 2014, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
No, I'm playing around with my maps app in here.
You know what I just did?
I put our current location and it told me it would take me two minutes to get where I am.
Is that not funny?
Take me two minutes to get where I am.
No, it's not Apple.
No, no, no, no, no, not Apple Matt.
Maybe to the street, you're saying maybe it's two minutes to get to maybe walking.
That could be.
Anyway, folks, great to have you back.
We move on here fastest.
Three hours in media, Rush Limbaugh at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882.
Look, one more thing on Obamacare, and I want to move on because I have some other things that I want to get into, like this amazing New York Times op-ed today by a couple of global warming believers who chastise their friends for being so over the top in their scare tactics that they're being counterproductive.
They're right, but I'm surprised that I actually stop and think about it.
I'm not surprised.
They're invested in this and they're trending.
They're chiding these nuts, these loco weed wackos that are one of the things they do is say, well, you can't take a snowstorm or a cold wave and tell people that's because of global warming.
They're not going to believe you.
I'll tell you, the main reason we don't believe it is because nobody can predict 100 years in the future on anything.
But look at being repetitive.
Get to it in just a second.
Jim Angle at Fox News.
Latest Obamacare surprise.
Most will not be able to buy health insurance until the end of the year.
Now, when I saw that headline, I said, can that possibly be?
Have they now put so many delays in that if you don't have health insurance, you can't get any until the end of the year?
That's seven more months?
What if you get sick in those seven months and you can't buy insurance?
So I read this thing.
And here's how it starts.
There's yet another Obamacare surprise waiting for consumers from now until next open enrollment at the end of this year.
Most people will simply not be able to buy any health insurance at all, even outside the exchanges.
It's all closed down.
You cannot buy a policy that is a qualified policy for the purposes of Obamacare until next year on January 1st, says John DeVito, the president of Flex Benefit, which has 2,500 brokers.
John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas adds people are not going to be able to buy individual and family policies until next year, and that's part of Obamacare.
And what makes it so surprising is the whole point of Obamacare was to encourage people to get insurance.
Now the market's been completely closed down for the next seven months.
That means, with few exceptions, tens of millions of people will be locked out of the health insurance market for the rest of the year.
Now, this Goodman guy explains they fear that the only people who will try to buy are people who are sick, and they're going to be expensive.
So, it's built into the screwy logic of the whole Obamacare system.
The reason that the sales of health insurance were crammed into short enrollment periods was so that insurance companies would have some certainty about who would be in the risk pool, allowing them to set their rates accordingly.
They needed like a short window so the insurance company have some idea what group rates and so forth would be.
So, if you allow that group to form over the cost over the course of a year, for example, you don't have anywhere near an indication of how many you're actually going to be insuring.
So, you can't set a fair market price or any kind of price.
So, they set a short enrollment period.
But there's a little thing in the law, so you don't have to.
It's been delayed, it's been waived, and then there's the penalty.
So, now the enrollment periods shut down.
If you don't have insurance, you can't get any till next January.
Now, we had the AP's version of this news last week.
This is Jim Angle at Fox News in his story.
We had the AP version of this last week, but I didn't get to it.
This is a more straightforward piece than the AP piece was.
I think the reason I think the AP piece was so convoluted, in fact, I thought it was BS.
So I kind of set it off to the side and didn't get it.
But it's amazing how little coverage this has gotten.
And, of course, it got no mention of this problem at all before Obamacare became unrepealable.
So, this was never, ever explained in any way.
This was never part of the rollout of Obamacare.
We were never told if you don't sign up by March 31st, you're out.
We were just told there's a March 31st deadline, right?
And everybody figured, well, this regime doesn't know what it's doing anyway, so they'll take us whenever we get there.
So, if you don't have health insurance right now, it's tough toenails for you.
And if you want it, and they're worried now that the only people it's not a laughing matter, it actually is they're worried now that the only people that are actually going to sign up are those who get sick.
And here comes the old pre-existing condition thing: my house is on fire, I want homeowners' insurance, and they can't sell it.
And for some reason, people feel safer.
Louis Gomert, one of our all-time favorite members of the House of Representatives.
He's from Texas.
And Louie, I have to say this: one of the reasons that Louie, he's a judge, he's a former judge.
One of the reasons that he wanted to get elected to Congress was he was driving around one day between cases.
He heard me explain baseline budgeting, and it infuriated him.
It literally infuriated him.
And of course, I explained it in such a way to make it simple.
It was easy to understand, and he didn't have to call me and say, what did you mean?
What is it?
He understood it.
And so he's been in Congress for a while.
And there were hearings yesterday on the budget, a number of things.
And this was also a hearing where Eric Holder, the AG, came up.
And Louie went after him on Fast and Furious.
And the Attorney General, Eric Holder, said, I'd be very careful.
You don't want to go there, buddy.
You don't want to go there, buddy.
In Holder's mind, he's untouchable.
You can't get anywhere.
He's the Attorney General.
You are, you just human debris.
You're just a gnat.
I'm the Attorney General.
You asking me fast and furious?
You don't want to go there, buddy.
But you can't scare Louis Gomert.
So let's go to the first, the floor of the House, yesterday afternoon, where Louis Gohmert from Texas is speaking about the federal budget.
In the 1990s, I heard what apparently was a lovable old fuzzball, turned out to be Rush Limbaugh, talking about the absurdity of the United States government doing something that no person, no family, no business, no charity in all of America could do.
Show me a business, show me a family, show me an individual, show me a charity that has an automatic increase in every year's budget.
Because America can't do that.
And I was shocked that this was going on.
So was everybody else.
The baseline budgeting technique goes back to the Watergate era or thereabouts, not tied to Watergate.
There was something else that happened, but that's how fairly recently it is.
And baseline budgeting, the baseline every year is what the government spends that year and gets an automatic, depending on the department, 8% to 10% increase, no matter what.
And anything that expands that baseline therefore expands government spending.
It's a dream come true.
This is why the Agriculture Department advertises at the end of the year for more food stamps.
They want the money spent because that way, 8 to 10% of that baseline, what was spent, bam, just keeps growing and growing.
Whether it's needed or not, whether the previous year's budget was spent, whether it was too much or not enough, it doesn't matter.
Baseline budgeting is just an automatic increase without any other factor.
The budget is never put together in such a way: okay, you look at, let's take agriculture.
Okay, what did we spend last year?
Did we need all that?
No.
Okay, well, we can cut it by X.
And baseline budgeting is also how a cut is actually an increase.
Here's how that works.
If your department is scheduled for an 8% increase in spending from one year to the next, and then when the new budget comes out, you're only given 4%, you run around like a chicken with your head cut off and you start complaining that your budget's been cut 4%.
But it hasn't.
Your budget is going up 4% in the example I've given you.
But since it was supposed to go up 8%, it's a cut.
And that's how everything in Washington is a cut when it isn't.
There are no cuts.
But yet, Democrats run around every day talking about draconian budget cuts that the Republicans want.
There aren't any.
You ever seen the budget get smaller?
Is the national debt going down?
Deficit going down?
Are we spending less?
No.
So how could there be any cuts?
There aren't any.
There are only reductions in the rate of growth, which the Democrats now are permitted to call cuts.
Now, the Democrats, for the longest time, didn't have a response to this.
Their strategy was: leave it alone, it's too complicated, nobody's going to understand it.
And as long as it's people like Limbaugh, we can deal with it.
But now they've had to come up with an answer to it.
Chris Van Holland responded to Louie yesterday on a floor of the House.
And if I have this right, what the Democrats' response is, their defense of baseline budget is that baseline budgeting, these automatic increases, protect the government from inflation so that the value of government benefit dollars remain constant or increase to the recipient.
So if we guarantee an 8% to 10% increase every year, Mr. Limbaugh, we are protecting the people from inflation.
And that's how they've structured their response or their defense to baseline budgeting.
Now, Louie then said, when he got to Congress, he found out, because he thought listening to this, this is going to be easy.
This is so stupid.
This is simple common sense.
We can't budget this way.
He thought it would be not easy, but he thought he would have an easy time explaining this to people and changing it.
And he found out the opposite.
He found out how hard it was.
In 05 and 06, the Republican chair of the budget committee said we have to do the automatic increases.
And I said, why?
He said, because it's the law.
I was shocked.
We make the law.
We can change the law.
And then, of course, our friends across the aisle took the majority.
And for four years, there was no chance of eliminating the automatic increase in every federal department's budgets.
But then we got the majority back.
Speaker Boehner agreed that if Paul Ryan passed a zero baseline budget, ending the automatic increases out of committee, then he would bring it to the floor.
And that's they're trying to get this done.
They're trying to get it done.
Now, they know Obama would veto it.
They know the current Senate would never pass it.
But they're making a statement.
The House Republicans are actually, Louis' leading the effort here to actually do something about this, which is more than anybody else has ever done on this, besides talk about it.
Now, I mentioned Louis had his run-in with his buddy, Eric Holder, yesterday.
Now, this is during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Department of Justice.
Holder testified, and here it is with Louis Gobert.
I've read you what your department promised, and it is inadequate.
And I realize that contempt is not a big deal to our Attorney General, but it is important that we have proper oversight.
So you don't want to go there, okay?
I don't want to go there.
No.
About the contempt?
You should not assume that that is not a big deal to me.
I think that it was inappropriate.
I think it was unjust.
But never think that that was not a big deal to me.
Don't ever think that.
There have been no indications that it was a big deal because your department has still not been forthcoming in producing the documents that were the subject of the contempt.
Oh, folks, you don't talk that way to people in this regime.
You just don't do that.
Hip hip hooray for Louis Goebert.
This isn't done.
Here, you get they kind of cross-talk, and you really can't hear.
Holder said, you don't want to go there, buddy, but it comes like this is a 40-second bite.
This is the first 10 seconds, so play this again.
It's worth hearing again, but listen to the, very closely here, to the open.
I've read you what your department promised, and it is inadequate.
And I realize that contempt is not a big deal to our attorney general, but it is important that we have proper oversight.
You don't want to go there, okay?
I don't want to go there about the contempt.
You should not assume that that is not a big deal to me.
I think that it was inappropriate.
I think it was unjust, but never think that that was not a big deal to me.
Don't ever think that.
There have been no indications that it was a big deal because your department has still not been forthcoming in producing.
That's just fearless.
Well, there's no indication.
It's not a big deal.
You can sit there and say it ain't a big deal to you, it is a big deal, but there's no indication because you still haven't given us what we ask for.
We've been trying to get to the bottom of Fast and Furious, where people died, where at least a couple hundred Mexicans died, and we can't get the information to get to the bottom of that.
So I don't need lectures from you about contempt.
And I don't think it's very difficult to deal with asking questions.
As a former judge, I'd never have asked questions of someone who's been held in contempt.
And we'll be back.
Don't go away.
Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
Rush Limbaugh in a middle of the week Wednesday afternoon and back to the funds to Paris, Kentucky.
This is Dennis.
Thank you for waiting, sir.
Great to have you here on the program.
Hey, Rush, it's great to be on there with you.
I've been listening to you since 89, man.
I've been through a lot of different things since then.
Wow, you're almost a lifer.
Yeah, I'm about four years older than you.
I had a business.
It was a photography business years ago, and I know what being in business is like.
But the main reason I called is I had diabetic retinopathy and had to have surgery in 2004 by a retina surgeon.
And he earned every penny he made because I was blind in my right eye, and I have 20-20 vision there now.
You can't do that without spending a lot of money on education, a lot of time, and being very skilled.
His charge was $26,000 for about an hour-long surgery.
And he told me it was equivalent to taking a wet tissue off of a piece of scotch tape to pull that scar tissue off your retina.
And anybody that has the skill to do that?
Hang on, just lady.
Just a second.
I want you to go over a piece of scotch tape and wet a piece of toilet tissue and see how long it takes me to, because I like if you get 26 grand for that.
I'm kidding.
I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
I'm in kind of a light-hearted, free-spirit mood here today.
Now, your point is, well, these guys have spent, these people spent a lot of money being educated.
They've gone into great debt.
They have offices that they have to run.
People they have to pay.
What's your eyesight worth?
Is what I'm saying.
You know, like you're hearing.
What was your hearing worth?
Exactly.
It's worth it.
To you, it was worth it because you're talking about your eyesight.
Can I say one more thing really quick?
Yeah, of course.
I was in the military for nine years, three years active Army and six years in the reserves.
And it was during the early 70s, which wasn't a good time to be in the military, to be honest with you, in this country.
But I spent a lot of time the winter, 71, 72, standing on the border with East and West Germany.
I was at Checkpoint Charlie two or three times, and I saw the difference between what communists do and what capitalists do then.
That's when I was changed from a liberal to a conservative.
And I'm telling you, I saw people come across that border through Checkpoint Charlie that were the saddest people in the world.
And when they got on the other side, they were happy.
But when they had to go back at night, they were back.
Their frayons were down and they were making money.
But they had to make sure they were back or they would have come and got them.
And I'm afraid that we're in that situation today in this country.
We're getting close to what those people were dealing with because my heart's breaking, man.
I'm telling you.
My nine years of service.
I feel like we went over there and, you know, I lost part of the skin on my feet from frostbite from being out on guard duty over and over again.
And I'm hurting.
I'll be honest with you.
I'm hurting.
I look at our leadership, including the Republicans, and our news media, which is, I call the Joseph Goebbels, Joseph Goebbels arm of the Progressive Party.
They don't, they're propagandists.
They don't care anymore.
They don't care whether we care, whether we are served or not.
They're not statesmen.
I'm hurting, man.
I'll just be honest with you.
This country has gone a long way downhill since I was in the military.
A lot of people agree with you.
A lot of people are afraid that it's headed where you think it's already gotten to.
But there are a lot of people, and they feel powerless to do anything about it because of what you said about the absence of leadership.
You are a beacon.
Well, you know, one of the big differences, Dennis, is that people don't fear communism.
You've seen it.
People don't fear it.
I grew up fearing.
I grew up frightened of communism.
Today, people grow up afraid of freedom.
I agree with you.
I am on Social Security.
If I didn't have to take it, I wouldn't.
I didn't go to the VA.
I could have probably gotten some money there.
But I feel like I'm getting enough.
Like I said, I had a business.
I was a photographer for 11 years, professional.
I was a very good photographer, but I wasn't a very good businessman, to be honest with you.
That's the reason I lost my business.
But I started over at 53, went to work in something I knew, working in steel.
And I worked there for 10 years, and then I retired.
But it's just, you know, it's heartbreaking that now that I'm retired and I've saved some toward my retirement so that Social Security, I won't starve to death without it, they're taxing that money again because it was an annuity.
Look, I know how you feel.
You've worked hard.
You've got a little bit there in your retirement nest egg, and you want people around you to be happy.
You want to be happy.
You want the country to be functioning and so forth.
Especially if even if you, you may not be doing as well as you'd like, but you're doing okay, but you're not enjoying it as much because you don't see a lot of other people enjoying it.
And I need to go back and ask you specifically.
You think the country, I forget your exact words, but it's over or finished or whatever.
Why do you say that?
What has happened that makes you think we've reached a tipping point?
2012.
2012.
It bothers me a lot.
So it's the people.
It's the people.
It's not Obama.
It's not the Democrats.
No, no.
It's how he got so many votes.
And sometimes, maybe I shouldn't say this.
I wonder about Cleveland and Philadelphia where there were precincts and places up there that Romney didn't get one vote.
That goes against logic.
I'm sorry.
It just does.
There's something funny.
It worries me for 2014.
I know from having a party boss, a Democratic Party boss as an uncle back in the early, back in the late 60s, that they will do things to win.
Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky, you know, you watch Justified?
I'm not Boyd Crowder or anybody like that, but I'm telling you, there are people here who would do whatever they have to do to win.
And it bothers me.
You know, I'm not just picking on the Democrats, but really I am because my whole family are Democrats.
I can't go to Thanksgiving.
The thing about the Democrats is, this took me a long time to understand, because I'm naive.
Even now, at my age, I'm still naive.
And I still, my instinct is to assume the best of everybody.
And if I don't get it, I assume they're making a mistake.
But I've had to learn that that's not true when talking about the current Democrat Party.
They are perfectly content.
As long as it will mean they have power over it, they are perfectly content for the country to be in the condition it's in.
As long as they've got power over it, that's what matters most to them.
If people's job prospects are dismal, and if they can't really explore a career, if their college degrees are work, that's fine.
As long as the Democrats have power to deal with it.
And the more people miserable, the better off the Democrats are, the more they like it.
That's more people in need.
It's really hideous.
And for the longest time, I've beaten my head against the wall saying, why doesn't this party care about what's happening to the country?
Because I can't imagine not caring about what's happening to the country.
I can't imagine not caring about how lives are being destroyed, families being split up.
I can't imagine not caring about that.
And they tell us, oh, it's a new norm.
92 million Americans not working.
It's a new norm.
Price got to pay because the way America was with Phony, it never was that good, legitimately.
Is this a bunch of people stole things from everybody else around the world?
It's about time we found out what it's really like to be a citizen of the world.
And that's what's happening here.
No exceptionalism in America, nothing special about it.
That is why, again, folks, that I have embarked on this children's book effort of mine, because I think they have succeeded by propagandizing young people, particularly at an age when they have no way of knowing any better.
And if they're in school taught how this country's racist and sexist and bigoted and stole things and was mean to the people who were here when we got here, they're going to grow up believing it.
And so that's why I have my little mission with the Rush Revere time travel adventures with American history books.
And it's rewarding to do it.
It's rewarding to get the feedback, but it's still, on one hand, it's depressing to know that it's needed, but it is.
I understand exactly how you feel and where you're coming from.
But I'm a little bit more optimistic than you are.
But you've lived it.
You've seen it.
And you see, you're four years older than I am.
I'm not going to try to disagree with you, but I think there's still time to reverse all this.
At least we're trying.
I appreciate the call, Dennis.
Thanks much.
And no way, no way are you Boyd Crowder.
I know your wife's not in prison.
No way.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network.
Quickly, John, in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, I've got about a minute, but I wanted to get to you.
Hello, sir.
Yes, Rush, great show.
I have a question that requires your expert analysis.
What do you think is going to happen to the doctors in the hospitals when the patients fail to pay these high deductibles that will be required?
Okay, now, the first part of the question, hospitals have closed because of this.
Oh, no, hospitals have, well, in the ER particularly, if they're flooded with illegal immigrants who don't have insurance and any money, the law says they got to be treated.
They've walked in there.
There are 11 at one count.
This is years old information, 11 ERs at hospitals in California, Southern California, that just closed and shut down.
So if people refuse to pay because they can't afford it, at some point, the providers are not going to be able to provide.
That's what happens.
If the doctors get fed up, they'll leave the system.
If the system doesn't pay them fairly or at all, they'll find other patients to make money and to eke out a living.
I mean, what happens to any business where the customers don't pay?
I mean, that's how you answer that.
As to the guy, the previous caller's question about deductible, a lot of doctors are demanding deductibles get paid up front.
Don't be surprised if you encounter that.
It's open season on everybody.
And we'll see you tomorrow, folks.
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