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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: Did you see what the Treasury secretary did today? Folks, we’re bailing out everybody. We are bailing out credit card companies. You are going to be paying for people’s dinners that they are not paying their credit card companies for enjoying. 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com. I don’t care. I don’t care what Henry Paulson does, nobody can complain about this. You can complain, but it isn’t going to get you anywhere. Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, was empowered to do whatever the hell he wanted to do. Can I read this to you again (shuffling papers), the bailout bill. Barney Frank’s even mad. Barney Frank is throwing a tantrum up there at his congressional hearing today. (doing Barney Frank impression) ‘This is not what the money was for. It’s my food! (sputtering)

They took my food away! It’s my money (muttering) money.’ Nobody’s happy here. Paulson this morning apologized to the world for causing this worldwide financial collapse. But here, short title section 1, Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, Section 2, Purposes: ‘Provides authority to the Treasury secretary to restore liquidity and stability to the US financial system and to ensure the economic well-being of Americans.’

Folks, he is a singular person with the power to do whatever he wants with this $700 billion, and everything that’s happened we predicted here. You instinctively knew it. When we said we’re going to bail out the banks, we’re going to buy some of the troubled assets — and, by the way, we’re not doing that. Paulson said, (paraphrasing) ‘Never mind, never mind, the $700 billion, we’re not going to use it as originally planned. We’re not going to buy up some of that bad paper.’ So now credit card companies want their share. Big Auto wants its share. It isn’t going to be long before Big Media asks for a bailout.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday the $700 billion government rescue program will not be used to purchase troubled assets as originally planned. He said the administration will continue to use $250 billion of the program to purchase stock in banks as a way to bolster their balance sheets and encourage them to resume more normal lending.’ Let’s go to the audio sound bites. In fact, let’s go back to me on my own program, October 3rd. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I said.

RUSH ARCHIVE: One of the things the president said was that this is now going to enable the banks to start lending money again. Now, they tried this in Europe earlier this week. Some banks said, ‘We need some liquidity,’ so the central banking organization over there blew in $150 billion, and the banks did not lend it. They deposited it. They invested it, holding it for when times improve. I will be interested to see if indeed the banks start lending money after all of this.

RUSH: Well, let’s go to the Treasury secretary who spoke to the nation and the world this morning. And you be the judge here what he’s doing.

PAULSON: Although this program’s primary purpose is stabilizing our financial systems, banks must also continue lending. During times like these with a slowing economy and some deterioration in credit conditions, even the healthiest banks tend to become more risk-averse and restrain lending and regulators actions have reinforced this lending restraint in the past. With a stronger capital base, our banks will be more confident and better positioned to play their necessary role to support economic activities.

RUSH: If you listen to the whole thing, he’s pretty much begging the banks to start lending. They’re not lending. Can I take you back, dare I remind you, this was so severe, this was such a crisis, that if we didn’t do this in 24 hours, why, buildings would collapse, streets would buckle, the oceans would rise and flood oceanside estates. We had to do this. Even the Drive-Bys: ‘We can’t wait! This is such a crisis, we can’t wait.’ Now all of a sudden the original purpose we’ve broomed and now the banks are not lending. And he’s begging the banks to lend. It was all predictable. That was the October Surprise. I’m convinced that going out there, ‘We’ve got this crisis. We cannot wait; it cannot wait; we cannot wait; we cannot wait a day; we cannot wait an hour; we’ve got to have action.’ And remember when the Republicans in the House voted down the bailout, all hell broke loose then. So now it’s November and the plan has changed, the plan has changed, the October Surprise has become the November Surprise and the Obama transition team is now capitalizing on the opportunity to make news every day, and now everything is different, everything is different. And get this. I don’t know who wrote this for Paulson, but it had to be somebody from the Obama administration.

PAULSON: We in the US are well aware and humbled by our own failings and recognize our special responsibility to the global economy. The US housing correction exposed gaping shortcomings of the outdated US regulatory system, shortcomings in other regulatory regimes, and excesses in US and European financial institutions.

RUSH: Well, he’s on the same page as Barack Obama. Right there, folks, right in line with the new feel of the Obama years, basically apologizing to the world for his own country, apologizing to the world for the United States of America. Welcome to the Obama years. Speaking of the Obama years, gay marriage is now legal in Connecticut because a judge says so. So this judge is like the Treasury secretary and they’re going to start performing gay marriages in Connecticut pretty soon. This is only the beginning, folks. Wait until Obama appoints hundreds more like this judge. The American people voted for this. They may not realize yet that they voted for this, but they did. The power of the individual is threatened in this country as we see with all of these bailouts. Just let ’em go under, just let bankruptcy take its course for some of these outfits. Now we’re bailing out credit card companies. Oh, by the way, you might have seen the other day that the Treasury, meaning Paulson who is an emperor, he has, by law, total power, solitary, unitary power to use this 700 billion — that’s a joke, too. It’s easily up over a trillion now — however he wishes.

So American Express — and I have an American Express card, and folks, I pay my bills on time — I have never missed one. I have never missed an American Express bill. But there are a lot of deadbeat American Express customers that say, ‘The hell with it. I’m not paying.’ And more and more Americans are going to figure this out. To hell with it, don’t pay. Don’t pay your mortgage, don’t pay your credit card, ’cause look what’s happening? Look, people respond to behavior. Why should people who are paying everything they owe on time be the ones to bail out those who don’t? So American Express asked to be named an actual bank holding company, wanted to become a bank, and the Treasury said, ‘Okay, fine, you’re now a bank.’ The reason that they did that, the sole reason, is so that American Express — watch ’em cancel me now — so that American Express could get their hands on the $700 billion. That was the sole reason why they had to be changed to a bank holding company or whatever the structure was.

So now we are paying for other people’s dinners. What the hell is this? When and where does this stop? This has moved to a whole new level today with Paulson’s speech, and listen to what experts are saying. ‘US government could be entering a bottomless pit of bailouts if it starts propping up failing companies outside the financial sector, including the struggling auto industry, economists say.’ But, see, I think this is exactly by design, and everybody’s getting mad, and I think this is a circumstance that the Obama people like. Confusion. Chaos. And the only solution is DC. The only solution is a, quote, unquote, strong government, just in time for Barack Obama.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So Paulson… Can you believe this? I still can’t believe this. Paulson goes out and apologies to the world for the United States of America causing the worldwide financial crisis that we are in. Now, forget for a second that this is right out of the Barack Obama school. ‘We are well aware in the United States and we are humbled by our own failings. We recognize our special responsibility to the global economy.’ Let me tell you, some of these tinhorn, Third World potbellied dictators out there, they hear something like that and the first thing they’re going to do is stick their hand out and say, ‘Pay us back! Make good on the damage you have caused,’ and we’re going to have a guy in the White House who says, ‘Fine and dandy. I already got a global end-poverty program going through the UN. I think we should make it good for these countries that we have destroyed with capitalism.’

American Express. They do make you pay the full balance in 30 days, and I’ll tell you, there have been occasions where my check got lost in the mail. That seldom happens to the bill. Do you realize how odd that is, too? You know, I always get the bill. The bill never gets lost in the mail, but sometimes my check has gotten lost and of course they didn’t get it in time by the due date, and I missed just one payment, and here come the threatening notices, the threats to call lawyers, a collection agency. ‘We’re going to destroy your credit rating,’ and so forth, even after a 40- or 30-year track record. I’m wondering, ‘How do people get away with still having their cards without paying the balance?’ I mean… (interruption) Well, yeah, I know they offer a Blue Card and so forth, but you pay off whatever you want to pay off every month. Yeah, they finally had to do that to compete with the other guys in that way. But still. (sigh) So, anyway, what we’re doing now, folks, is we are paying for other people’s dinners. The thing is we’re not getting anything for it. This has an upside however. When you pay for other people’s dinners and get nothing for it, there is an upside. This is a teaching moment. Women can finally learn how men feel many times on dates.

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