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Jan. 26, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:32
January 26, 2015, Monday, Hour #2
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The views expressed by the host of this show documented to be almost always right, 99.7% of the time.
Great to have you here, my friends, Rush Limbaugh and the EIB Network.
The telephone number, if you want to be on the programs, 800-282-2882.
And email address, lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
Mike, Reb Reb Audio Soundbites 16, 17, and 18.
Scott Walker, let me jump to that right now.
And I'm going to do my best to squeeze all this stuff in here in the two hours of the program that we have here, folks, remaining.
But there was this thing in Iowa.
Oh, hang on, just a second.
Here we go.
All right.
I was looking for pictures during the break and it's a stupid photo amp.
Anyway, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker delivered a fiery speech in Iowa Saturday, wowing, this is thehill.com, the conservative crowd with a passionate argument for small government and a passionate argument for his own lengthy resume.
Now, we're constantly told, the drive-by media and even some of the Republican establishment try to portray Scott Walker as a totally colorless guy when he's not.
But that's the image that's been set forth.
Make no mistake.
It's so frustrating in a sense, folks.
Scott Walker has shown the Republican Party how to beat the left.
Scott Walker has the blueprint for winning and winning consistently and winning big in a blue state with conservative principles that are offered with absolutely no excuses.
They threw the left, the Democrat Party, threw everything at Scott Walker trying to destroy him.
They did everything they could.
He not only withstood it all, he survived and triumphed over all of it.
They broke rules.
They got close to breaking laws.
They were threatening his family personally.
And he remained undeterred.
You know, there's a companion story to Scott Walker's success, and it is how union membership in America is at an all-time low.
But even more importantly than that, the amount of money being raised by unions from dues is also plummeting.
And that has the Democrat Party in a little bit of a panic because that is so much, that such a great percentage of their campaign spending is union dues, which make up significant union contributions.
And Scott Walker is one of the men who has shown everybody how to defeat the unions and their policies.
And it's always been amazing to me that he's, in terms of the party, basically been operating in a bit of a bubble all by himself.
So to those of us who know him, to those of us who've heard him speak, to those of us who have studied his career and know how fearless he is and how successful he's been, showing up in Iowa and giving a gangbuster performance is not a surprise.
But it's a shock.
It's an absolute shock to the media.
And it's an absolute shock to some even in the Republican establishment, so much so that they're running around saying, where'd this guy go to get a charisma transplant?
Because they thought he was so dull.
They thought he was so colorless that he has to have had a charisma transplant or bypass or something.
The Wisconsin governor in rolled up shirt sleeves paced the stage as he blasted big government and touted a long list of conservative reforms that he has pushed in blue, Wisconsin.
The governor also showed a rhetorical flourish that's largely been absent from his previous campaigns, drawing the crowd to his feet multiple times.
He said, there's a reason we take a day off to celebrate the 4th of July and not the 15th of April.
He was yelling at some points to the point of getting hoarse.
Because in America, we value our independence from the government, not our dependence on it.
And here, even in the Hill.com, he says, Walker's speech had something for every element of the activist crowd.
When was the last time you heard the Hill call the audience at a liberal event an activist crowd?
But yet here we are in Iowa.
Cokie Roberts, Cokie Roberts thought this thing was so bad that she thinks the Republicans just ought to stay out of Iowa.
Republicans should never do, no hawkeye cauckey, no primaries, no going in there to get your feet wet and sample the political waters.
You know why?
Because something happens to Republicans when they go to Iowa and they become these fervent lunatic right-wingers.
And nobody's going to ever win as a lunatic right-winger.
This is what Cokie Roberts is.
Everybody knows that conservatives are going to, I mean, they can't possibly win.
Meanwhile, if you look at Republican presidential victories and losses in recent years, you find that it is only Republican candidates who ran as conservative or who were that won.
The moderate, maybe even quasi-liberal Republican from the Northeast, from New England, they don't have a prayer.
They never even come close.
Or if they happen to be from Arizona, but they never even come close.
And yet the word on the street is Republicans better stay out of Iowa because, man, something happens to them.
They go into Iowa and they become these extreme lunatic right-wingers.
Here's some sound bites, Scott Walker, from his remarks Saturday.
It was the Iowa Freedom Summit.
That's the name of it.
I should have mentioned that at first.
And we have three soundbites.
Here is number one.
We weren't afraid to go big and to go bold.
Maybe that's why I've won the race for governor three times in the last four years.
Three times, mind you, in a state that hasn't gone Republican for president since I was in high school more than 30 years ago.
You see, I think that sends a powerful message to Republicans in Washington and around the country.
If you're not afraid to go big and go bold, you can actually get results.
You know, there's a column today at one of the new conservative websites, Conservative Review, I believe it is, Daniel Horowitz.
And he's got a piece that makes all the sense in the world.
It's just common sense.
We talk about it all the time here.
How do you expect to fight something when you don't believe in it?
And his examples are, well, let's take amnesty, Obama's executive amnesty.
We conservatives are out there, and we're expecting the Republicans in the House and in the Senate to stand up to Obama.
It's what the election results are all about, stop Obama and to fight for and be opposed to amnesty for illegals.
And he says, but we're stupid.
Well, I'm not stupid, but we're short-sighted to think that they're not going to fight it because they don't believe it.
And it leads to the rhetorical question, how can you fight anything if you don't believe it?
Well, Scott Walker believes in it.
That's his point about going bold.
That is his point about going big.
You believe it.
You're passionate about it.
You go for it.
And you get results.
But if you're just going through the motions to try to convince voters or others that you really care about it, but you really don't, it's going to show, and it is showing.
Now, here's another, this is a great bite because other Republicans are out there trying.
You know this as well as I do.
A lot of Republicans are trying to speak the language of the left because they think that's the language that people want to hear.
So they talk about income inequality.
But Scott Walker unabashedly makes the case for tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, and doesn't even try to sound like a moderate, doesn't even try to sound like a Democrat or a liberal.
We've cut taxes.
We reduce taxes by $2 billion in the hardworking taxpayers of our state.
In fact, we lower taxes on employers, on individuals, on property.
Our property taxes are lower today in Wisconsin than they were four years ago.
How many governors can say that?
We're going to keep lowering taxes because we understand it's the people's money, not the government's money.
That's the difference between the Wisconsin way and the Washington way.
In Washington, they keep trying to find ways to take more of your money.
In Wisconsin, we want to find ways to give more of the money back to the people who earned it.
Yeah, you know, something he realizes here.
I have, as you know, I mean, I've struggled on the air with you, thinking out loud, speaking while thinking out loud.
Why is it that people do not see government failure?
Maybe not the best example, but here you have this thing with the Patriots, whatever it is.
People think they cheated.
And they're just outraged about it.
And they want something done now, and they want the NFL to investigate it.
And it's such a big story.
The network newscasts give it a combined 11 minutes.
But yet, when a particular party cheats all the time on voter fraud or violates the Constitution, it's met with a ho-hum.
No big deal.
Government comes along, claims to want to fix a problem.
They tackle the problem and may make it worse.
They make it so much worse, it needs to be fixed again.
Same people come along and say we're going to fix it.
Same people who broke it.
Nobody has any outrage.
They give government the benefit of the doubt.
One of the reasons why is that government is seen as part of the community, which of course it isn't.
But government for so many people has it's just as much a part of the community as the 7-Eleven store down on the corner.
And of course, the people in government who have succeeded in creating that impression milk it for all it's worth.
Convince everybody that they're out for them when it's just the exact opposite.
Scott Walker is exactly right here.
Washington has no intention of getting smaller.
They have no intention of letting you keeping more of your money.
They have every intention of taking as much of your money as they can.
There's no interest whatsoever in government shrinking.
There's no interest whatsoever in anything other than government growing.
It just what happens to people in the establishment there.
And if it's become part of the community, why what's wrong with it at all?
And if it gets bigger, it's fine.
We want government to be part of our community, but it's not.
Government is not part of the community.
Wasn't designed to be part of the community, and it isn't part of the community.
And I'm talking about the way people perceive it.
And Walker here, the way he's addressing all of this, makes it clear.
Now, this is not a new Scott Walker.
This is who he's always been.
But he's appearing to be a surprise because there hasn't been a whole lot of reporting on the guy outside of the state of Wisconsin.
One more sound bite here from him.
In America, it's one of the few places left in the world where it doesn't matter what class you were born into.
It doesn't matter what your parents did for a living.
In America, the opportunity is equal for each and every one of us.
But in America, the ultimate outcome is up to each and every one of us individually.
You see, there's a reason.
There's a reason why in America we take a day off to celebrate the 4th of July and not the 15th of April, because in America, we value our independence from the government, not our dependence on it.
Now, what you need to know is, I mean, and he raised the roof in Iowa, and he came out and is in many people's lists even now.
Walker is said to have the greatest odds of getting the Republican nominee.
Can you imagine how people like Jeb Bush and Chris Christie and the people who have been pretty much well, they've already been coronated, in a sense, as nominee, serious nominee contenders.
They've already been coronated.
Well, it's Jeff of the Ed team and maybe Romney is going to.
Scott Walker's name has not even come up other than on this program.
We've interviewed him on a newsletter.
We've had him on the air here a couple of times.
And I, again, I have to remind you, I can't tell you how many times I have openly expressed my incredulity here that the Republican Party has not, as a national enterprise, attempted to incorporate Scott Walker's blueprint.
He's shown how to beat the left.
He has shown how to beat the unions.
He has shown how to revive a state's economy.
He's shown how to cut taxes and increase economic output.
He has shown how to increase employment in the middle of an Obama economy.
He has done all of this in a state like Wisconsin, big blue state.
And it's always been curious to me that Scott Walker has not been, I mean, he's big at the Heritage Foundation.
He's big in some other conservative groups.
But as far as the Republican Party establishment itself, second tier.
Looked on a second tier.
I mean, they speak of him with respect and reference.
He's one of their governors, but in terms of presidential politics, you never hear his name bandied about.
But I'm going to tell you the Democrats in Wisconsin are near hysterical over this.
They're near hysterical over what he's done to them.
They're near hysterical over the accolades he's getting as a result of his appearance in Iowa over the weekend on Saturday.
I mean, I really think that Scott Walker is the kind of guy the Republicans need to hoist on one of those chairs they used to take Caesar through the crowds with.
What he's done in the state of Wisconsin is phenomenal.
And nobody knows about it other than you in this audience.
Let me take a brief time out.
We'll come back and resume right after this, folks.
Don't go away.
Let me grab a quick phone call here, ladies and gentlemen.
We roll on with today's excursion and a broadcast excellence.
This is Randy in Eastern Iowa.
Great to have you on the program, Randy.
Hi.
Well, hello, Alex.
Honor to be with you first time.
I'm a caller and honored to be here.
Your guy told me to get right to the point, so I'm going to do that.
I was at the Freedom Summit on Saturday.
My wife and I both were.
And I'm going to tell you that all of them are basically getting it wrong.
Governor Walker was definitely a star at the Summit.
There's no doubt about that.
Definitely a star.
But the one person they're completely ignoring is Ben Carson.
He brought the House down like no other in the summit.
You know, he always does.
That's an excellent thing.
Ben Carson always brings doubt wherever he goes.
And he's just as big a threat to them as Scott Walker is going to become.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
There's no doubt.
And I talked to, you know, just, you know, dozens of people there.
And I'm friends with Jeff Topman, of the Iowa RT tournament here in Iowa.
And I tell you, everybody, Ben Carson was on their lips with everyone.
Everyone was talking about Ben Carson.
Well, I'm going to tell you, there's a lot, not just Ben Carson.
There's a one of the points I was going to, and thanks, Randy, for the phone call.
One of the points I was going to make about American Sniper.
American Sniper took in another, I can't, I don't have it in front of me right here.
The amount, did I say $64 billion or million that it took in?
I've got too many pieces of paper.
I'm looking for one particular thing and I can't find it.
And so I see all these things as I'm going through it.
Anyway, American Sniper, the second big week, and it's confounding everybody.
And of course, the left is now having concoct some of the most hateful stuff in order to tear it down.
Such a near $200 million in just in two weeks.
And this is just, it's blowing everything out of the water.
And so the left is coming along with reality.
Well, it's just America celebrating a psychopath murderer.
There's nothing heroic about a psychopath murderer and so forth.
And I'll tell you what it is, folks.
I think the success of American Sniper, there's a whole lot of things rolled into it.
I think people are going to this movie in the same way they showed up to vote in November.
And I think the box office for American Sniper is an extension of the November elections.
I think it is the American people continuing to express two things.
Their utter outrage at what is happening in Washington and the inattention Washington is paying to the health and the goodness of the country.
And the second thing that they are doing is enforcing what they believe to be good old tradition, American values and everything wrapped up in it.
And they want people to know that they are out there in huge numbers and that they are not going away.
Your guiding light, Rush Schlimbaugh, with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
One other thing about Scott Walker, there's a story in the Milwaukee Urinal Sentinel out of Madison.
And the headline, Walker budget to bar drug users from food stamps and Medicaid.
And the Democrats in Wisconsin are just, they're hysterical over this.
And this is my exact point about Scott Walker.
He takes these people on right between the eyes.
You know, for every one of you who wish Boehner or McConnell would do X, Y, or Z, Scott Walker's doing it.
Scott Walker has done it.
He's been doing it for years.
And this is not an endorsement.
I don't want anybody to think it's an endorsement.
I'm just presenting you with information, fact-based information about who the guy is.
I have been singing his praises for a long time.
I've met him once at a Heritage Foundation.
I don't know him.
I've talked to him on the phone.
I've interviewed him for the most widely read political newsletter of all time, Limbaugh Letter.
But he's not a friend.
I haven't met him in a social setting at all.
I look at what's happened in Wisconsin.
I looked at the opposition.
I looked at everything they tried to do.
Everything the Republican Party is afraid that will happen to them has actually happened to Scott Walker.
And he took it on and he skunked them.
Scott Walker shows that it can be done.
Scott Walker demonstrates that you can win and win big by presenting a stark contrast between yourself and the American left.
He has demonstrated you can beat them, win, and win big by being the exact opposite of what they are, which is in fact who we are.
We are the exact opposite of the American left.
He has not tried to be a little bit like them.
He has not tried to steal some of their language and incorporate it so he'd be less offensive.
He just took them on right between the eyes and beat them back.
He has been fearless.
And he has, again, it's important to emphasize, he has been treated by the media in Wisconsin and the Democrat Party established and everybody associated with it.
He has been treated exactly as the Republicans in Washington are afraid they will be treated.
And you might be, well, what about the donors rush?
What about the I don't know about what a Chamber of Commerce was with the guy, but I'm telling you, he triumphed.
And he won on principle, core belief, principally, he won on the issues to the point everybody's running around saying, well, where'd this guy go get a charisma?
Can you go shop for a charisma like that and pick one up where he did?
I want to know where you do that.
And I think he's always had one.
Here's the story on union membership from the Daily Signal.
Union membership rate falls to a 100-year low.
By the way, and this, it's a companion story to Scott Walker.
It's one reason that Walker, what he did in Wisconsin to the unions is so awesome.
This story is a story in part because of Walker's success in Wisconsin.
This is a huge pot of money, folks, that used to be used against the GOP.
Well, still is.
New information from the federal government suggests that workers' interest in unions continues to plummet, with union membership reaching its lowest rate in 100 years.
According to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a Goodman Agency, union membership rate fell to 11.1%, only 14.5 million wage and salaried workers maintaining membership.
So 11.1% of the workforce is unionized.
14.5 million people.
And yet look at the clout.
Look at the clout they have with the Democrat Party.
And that clout is simply because of money.
And with fewer members, there is less dues money to go around, siphoned and used to fund Democrat campaigns.
Rate of union membership's been on a steady decline over the past 30 years.
And in the last six years, it has experienced a rapid decline.
Now, right along with this story is this.
And this is from none other than the New York Times.
Middle class shrinks further as more fall out instead of climbing up.
This is, it's a long story.
He's got lots of charts which are worthless to me.
I can't read a chart to you or show a chart to you.
I describe a chart to you, but it's full of them.
And the pictures are of sad, very sad middle class people.
Now, here's the thing about this story.
Who's been the president the past six years?
Non-dude seven is Barack Hussein.
Oh, right.
And here in this story about the shrinking middle class and people falling out of it instead of climbing up in it, there's no connection made whatsoever between Obama economics and this New York Times story about the sad plight of the middle class.
You know what this story is about?
This story is about the New York Times being so happy Obama's talking about it.
But there's nothing in this story that would associate Obama and his policies with what's happening in the middle class.
You get 93 million Americans not in the workforce any longer.
And that number has, again, skyrocketed in the last six years.
It's directly traceable to Obama policies.
But Obama's now talking about the middle class and raising the middle class up and doing things.
He's going to lower his income inequality gap, right?
How's he going to do it?
Well, he's going to tax the rich again.
That's really going to help.
Okay, so income inequality, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is disappearing.
So the solution is to do what?
Tax the rich and then do what with the money?
How does taxing the rich help somebody in the middle class raise up?
Could somebody explain this to me?
I'm serious.
No, no.
I'm serious.
I'm not trying to be facetious.
I want to know how raising taxes, just pick a name.
You're going to raise taxes on Trump.
You're going to raise taxes on Bill Gates.
You're going to raise taxes on, pick your favorite rich guy.
You're going to raise taxes on that.
Perfect.
Somebody tell me how.
John Q. Public in Des Moines, Iowa is raised up in the middle class because Bill Gates is paying more taxes.
I want to know how this happened because Obama, that's what he's saying he's going to do.
You're going to create a new government program that's somehow going to benefit you.
What government program is going to raise you up in the middle class?
What government program is going to do it?
What government program is going to give you more economic independence, which is more money in your pocket, more disposable income, more money to spend?
That's economic freedom.
Economic freedom is more of your own money to do with whatever you want.
Economic freedom is not some government program that's going to give you a tax credit for some silly behavior you have to engage in.
That doesn't raise the middle class.
It doesn't do anything.
It doesn't make government bigger.
But let's take a look at a government program that was designed to actually give the middle class more money.
It's called a 529 program.
Many of you may have put money into it.
The 529 program is to education what a medical savings account is to healthcare.
The 529 program is to education what a 401k is to your overall budget.
If you have children, you're going to be someday sending them to school.
You can donate money off the top of your salary before it's been taxed into your 529 account.
The money that's in your 529 account is there before it's been taxed, so it's tax-free.
And you are free and able to withdraw that money to use for your children's education.
At no time will you be taxed on it.
It's entirely tax-free.
And it was set up as an incentive to promote education and to give people a break because they think educating their kids is of paramount importance.
So it's a program that's designed to inspire people to put away some money, not pay any tax on it, for their kids' education.
All fine and dandy.
And the usual penalties.
If you decide to withdraw some money from that 529 account for anything other than your kids' education, you pay a penalty on it, i.e. you'll finally pay the tax on it.
If you withdraw money from that 529 account to go out and buy a new car, you get taxed on it.
If you draw money out of that 529 to do anything other than educate your kids, you will pay tax on it.
Obama has proposed a change to the 529 program.
Would you like to hear what it is?
Obama now wants, as part of his plan to tax the rich, if you withdraw money from your 529 account for your children's education, you will now pay a tax on it.
In other words, you have been lied to.
You will have to report the money that you withdraw from your 529 account on your tax form as income.
So if I just use money, just use round numbers, let's say $5,000 in your account, and it's time for your kids, you know, you're pay for them to go to some school.
I don't know what school's qualified, if it's private school, if it's college only, but let's say it's Juco time.
I can't use Joco because that is now free.
Let's say you want to send your kid to a private school and high school, and let's say it's going to cost $2,500.
Well, do you think I've got that?
I've got $5,000 right there in my 529 account.
And it's tax-free, so I'll just go get the money there, pay the tuition, I'm home-free.
Not anymore.
If Obama gets his way, the $2,500 you take out, you must add to your gross income and pay income tax on it.
Obama's theory is that you got an unfair break by not being taxed on that money in the first place.
Now, the irony of this is, of course, this is a middle-class program designed to help the middle class educate their kids.
Obama comes along and says he's going to raise taxes on the rich.
And everybody goes, yeah, bud, you raise taxes on those rich.
We hate the rich movement.
You suck it to them up in there.
Fine.
But you're not the rich.
You're the middle class.
You've got 529 money over there and you would draw some of it to educate your kid.
And all of a sudden, HR block, whoever is going to tell you, whatever you take out of there, you've got to pay income tax on.
Ladies and gentlemen, don't doubt me on this.
Glenn Reynolds, a law professor.
We talked about this last week.
Glenn Reynolds, a professor of law at University of Tennessee, is a big USA Today column on this.
And it's just more of the same.
This is Democrats and liberals doing the exact opposite of what they are claiming to do, what they're promising to do.
This is Obama claiming to be for the middle class as he proposes to raid your 529 savings account to pay for this crack-brained, utopian, free community college.
That's all they're going to pay for it.
You're going to pay for free community college by taxing you on your 529 account and whatever else they need to pay for.
Remember, dear old Margaret Thatcher?
Problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money.
So now Obama's moving on.
He's moving on to the money in the middle class.
The people that he and Hillary are going to be concentrating on for votes, the people that he claims he's got their back.
He's going to make sure the rich pay their fair share.
He's going to tax money that was saved with the promise it would not be taxed.
And you're going to have to pay income tax on it the minute you withdraw, even if it's for the express purpose you put it away.
And Snerdley's looking, how can that be?
Because they lie.
That's how it can be.
What are you going to do?
He's going to change this.
Unilather is going to become the law.
What are you going to do?
They devised a program, the 529 program, much like any 401k or medical savings.
You put the money for your kid education away and will not charge you any tax on it.
You take it off the top of your salary every two weeks, month, however, you get it.
You put it in there.
There's a maximum you can contribute.
If you take it out for any other reason, you pay tax on it.
Take it out early, you pay tax on it.
But if you wait and only withdraw money from the 529 account to educate your kid, no tax.
Now you're going to pay tax when you withdraw the money.
Because Obama's promising other people free community college, and who knows whatever the heck else.
Back to the phones we go.
This is Kevin in Leonard, Michigan.
Kevin, welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you.
Hi.
Good afternoon, Rush.
Pleasure to talk to you today.
Thank you, sir.
The reason I'm calling is I have a comment on the American sniper movie and how people like Michael Moore and the left are attacking and denigrating our snipers and people in that line of work while at the same time insisting with our rules of engagement, our use of precision-guided munitions and things of that nature to minimize civilian casualties and innocent casualties, where a sniper is essentially the human version of that weapon.
They engage just the target.
It doesn't require large infantry assaults or mass artillery strikes, anything like that.
So you think with the left's logic the way it is, they would be applauding people like snipers who are engaging just the target that needs to be attacked.
Why would you think that?
Why would you think the left would be logical and would want to find a reason to praise snipe?
They know what's happening here.
The reason they're all upset is because nobody cares to see Michael Moore's latest documentary on how Cuba's health care system is the best in the world.
Nobody cares what Michael Moore thinks, says, or does about anything.
And nobody cares what half these other liberal commentators think.
Here comes Clint Eastwood, American sniper, about a guy from Texas, a devoted American patriot, who happened to properly characterize the enemy as people he wanted to kill.
And they see how popular it is, and that alone, the jealousy, the envy, and then the fear, when they see this movie earned 200 million and their latest little arts and croissant crowd movie, whatever it might be, drawing 15 or 20 million, they are reminded again they are the real minority in this country.
They are reminded again, don't believe.
Michael Moore knows he's an oddball.
Michael Moore knows he's a freak.
But when he wins the palm d'Or in con or gets a standing O at Hollywood, he feels normal for a couple of minutes, whatever.
But he knows, and all of this stuff happening, these election returns, this movie and its box office is sending a signal, is this country sending a signal how fed up they are with the Michael Moores of the world and everybody like him, not just him.
All these other, if we had to depend on them, we could depend on Chris Kyle.
We could totally depend on Chris Kyle to protect us.
Nobody could depend on Michael Moore, and he knows it.
So they're not going to look at this logically and try to find a way to praising it because it does exactly what their policies advocate, doesn't it?
That's it for this exciting, busy broadcast hour, folks.
We have one more remaining, and we've got a break here at the top, and we'll get right to it as soon as we get back.
Sit tight and be patient.
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