RUSH: This poor guy has been on hold since the show started, two hours and 20 minutes, Wichita, Kansas. Tom, thanks for your patience, great to have you with us. Hello.
CALLER: Thanks very much, Rush, for letting me be on your show. I guess my point, I just want to go right into it, I don’t want to waste your time, my point is, I was in the military in the early eighties, served eight years, part of that with the 82nd Airborne. I got out because the economy had turned around and there were some pretty good jobs out there in the civilian market. Back in February, I got laid off. I’ve been on unemployment ever since. I’m married, I have two children, and I’m actually getting ready to go back into the Army at 43 years old. My main concern is this administration is rushing so many things down the pike that they’re forgetting about the basic need for employment. Without employment, we can’t spend any money. I guess I just wanted to let you know that, let your listeners know that as an average American, I mean, I’m just average, I’m scared to death.
RUSH: There are nine-and-a-half to ten percent of the working population or work-able population in your shoes, and, if I were you, I would be livid. This administration not only is not focusing on jobs and the economy at the expense of health care, it is doing everything it can to prevent this economy from rebounding. I don’t care who you voted for, doesn’t matter to me who you voted for, I would be livid when you look at these economic policies. All of this stimulus that was supposed to create all these jobs, shovel-ready projects, infrastructure —
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: There’s none of that going on, and most of the stimulus money doesn’t start getting spent —
CALLER: I did a little bit of research, just a minimum amount of research and looked at some of the numbers. I went onto the administration website. In the state of Kansas, there was less than one-third of 1% of the bailout money spent on shovel-ready projects.
RUSH: Yeah. You know where it’s gone? Most of it’s gone to state governments to help with their deficits.
CALLER: But in the meantime, I’m unemployed, I’m on unemployment, it’s getting ready to run out. And I’m scared to death. Thank goodness I’m very blessed that my wife is a strong working woman.
RUSH: You want to work.
CALLER: I do.
RUSH: You want to work. You don’t want to sit around.
CALLER: No. Rush, and I gotta say, the only good thing that has come out of this, the only good thing that has come out of this is I’ve had the opportunity to spend the summer with my children. That’s it. We’ve had to cut back on every single aspect of our lives. I mean the next thing to go is the cable. And then after that we’re into the red zone. I mean we’re cutting essentials: food, you know, laundry, clothing, shoes, we’re going to start cutting that once unemployment runs out.
RUSH: This is why, folks, I get so agitated when talking about the policies of this administration because the circumstances that you are in, Tom, are shared by millions. Two million Americans since this man took office have lost their jobs.
CALLER: And I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not a whiner. I’m an able-bodied young man — I consider myself at 43 a young man — that has many more years of work left. I sent over a hundred resumes. I’ve had one call back.
RUSH: Well, businesses are in the same situation you are but in a different perspective of they’re just trying to survive.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: They’re not hiring anybody. There’s no expansion going on out there. There’s no economic activity that’s on the plus side. There are pockets of it, certain businesses, you know, Apple is doing well and so forth, but unemployment is way up, probably much higher than nine-and-a-half percent when you get into the people not even trying to find work anymore.
CALLER: They’ve given up.
RUSH: So, I didn’t hear you as whining. I hear you as mad.
CALLER: Yeah. You know, and I worked for a company that actually had a green product. But here’s the problem: It was an-energy-saving product, not an energy-using or new energy technology, but energy savings. And you can’t control that, if they’re not using energy, you can’t control what they’re not using. And so there was no help — I mean I actually e-mailed the administration, I want to say five or six times. And I even made the comment in my e-mail that with help just enforcing the rules and regulations that currently exist, our company would boom, and I actually used the word ‘boom,’ trying to get noticed, trying to get it flagged in the e-mail system.
RUSH: Well, Obama’s only reading mail from people who are sick and want his health care plan right now. And that’s why we gotta do it so fast.
CALLER: And here’s the kicker. My wife works for a major state, you know, US-based courier company. And we have great health care through her. I mean the best health care. We pay 20 dollars every time if we go to the doctor —
RUSH: Not for long.
CALLER: Well, no. And that’s the thing. I was just thinking about the scenario. If I was to join the military and she was to take me off of her health care plan, at that point she changed her health care plan, so then she is no longer eligible, according to these new rules, she will no longer be eligible for the insurance provided by the company she works for.
RUSH: Right. She’ll have to go public option.
CALLER: Have to.
RUSH: Have to.
CALLER: Because she changed it.
RUSH: Yep. Obama is out there denying that, by the way. Well, look, I don’t hear you as being a whiner at all. You’re a little embarrassed, actually. You don’t want to be on unemployment.
CALLER: My wife and I have had this conversation and one of the biggest things — and she recognizes it and she sees it — my self-esteem is right now at its lowest that I’ve ever had it. I’m almost getting choked up right now talking about this.
RUSH: I know, I’ve been there.
CALLER: I can’t provide for my family, Rush. Under the current system, all these changes and this hope that we had, and now I can’t even provide for my family? Is that working? Is that making our country better? Like I said, it scares me to death. My dad was killed in Vietnam. And I’m getting ready to go to Afghanistan with that thought in my mind that I was orphaned and now there’s a possibility that I could orphan my children.
RUSH: You know something. You sit there, you talk about your self-esteem but you’re doing what you have to do.
CALLER: Exactly. That’s what I told my wife, we have to do what we have to do.
RUSH: You’ve explored options, you’ve sent out a hundred resumes.
CALLER: Over a hundred. The one job that I called back for —
RUSH: What?
CALLER: — they called back 25 people, and they were paying $12.50 an hour. They got over a hundred resumes, they got over a hundred responses. They interviewed 25 people. And when I walked in, the guy told me, he said, ‘I just want to let you know right off the bat –‘ I mean, because I came in there dressed for an interview: suit, tie, my briefcase, my notebook laptop. I was ready to go. I was there to present my portfolio, to show my work history, and the first thing this guy tells me is, ‘We’re only paying $12.50 an hour.’ Well, 12, 12:50, something like that. I can’t even — literally, I can’t even leave the house for a price like that. I don’t know, Rush, I thank you so much for taking my call. Again, I don’t want to come across as a whiner or somebody who’s asking for sympathy because I’m not. I’m just venting my frustration and hopefully other listeners, maybe — because I know the left listens to your radio program. It’s obvious they listen to it. But I’m hoping that somebody out there, this will resonate with them. And, you know, we can maybe hear an audible pop as they pull their head out of their butt and realize that we need to stimulate this economy not by taxing people but by using a proven method.
RUSH: If they were going to do that, Tom, they would have done it by now. It is not their intention. That’s what makes me livid about this. These Democrats that are all upset about these town hall meetings taking place out there, they have, like I said, they have no clue the feeling that is bubbling up. The public is becoming increasingly active about their own futures and anxious about their own futures, and all you get is contempt from the people in Washington. When the economy was roaring, they wanted you to feel this way about the Bush economy. When the economy was roaring, they tried to make you think we’re in a recession. Now we’re in one, they’ve given it to us, and they don’t care.