RUSH: Let’s move on to this pay czar business. I know a lot of you have mixed emotions about this. I’ll explain what I think your mixed emotions are. Here you have a bunch of Wall Street types and they’ve already got a bad image, I mean these are the fat cats paying themselves gazillion dollar bonuses and salaries and nobody likes that and, meanwhile, they’re getting rich, everybody else got poor, the subprime crisis, all the fraud that was there. So these guys, to save themselves, sign up for the TARP bailout and they accept all this bailout money, and they probably all voted for Obama, or the vast majority of them did and now all of a sudden out of the blue here comes a pay czar saying, 
‘Guess what, we’re gonna cut your pay by 90%.’ Some of you are going, ‘Well, good, about time that happened. These guys ripped us off, they stole, and everything, and now they’re taking federal bailout money.’ Okay, if you get in bed with a snake you gotta expect the snake to be a snake. In this case the government’s the snake, you get in bed with the government, you let the government bail you out, you are opening yourself up to letting government tell you how to run your business.
That’s exactly what’s happened, and I know that a lot you probably think that’s pretty good. It’s just like when you see taxes go up on cigarette smokers, ‘Yeah, smoking kills, secondhand smoke kills, raise taxes on those filthy people!’ Yeah, you say that until it starts to happen to you. When everybody else starts to get the shaft but you don’t and you think everybody who’s getting the shaft deserves it, then you sign onto it. What happened yesterday with this pay czar, regardless of your emotions on this issue, is simply outrageous. The secret to presidential success, ladies and gentlemen, is deniability. That is one of the major secrets to any president’s success. ‘I didn’t know that was going on.’ Bill Clinton, (doing Clinton impression) ‘Ha-ha, Waco invasion, why, you better go talk to the attorney general, I had no clue about that.’ So now it is said that Obama had no idea that his pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, had come up with this figure of 90% cuts in pay. He didn’t know. Stands by the decision now but he didn’t know about it.
If that’s true, these czars have even more power, there’s even more reason for an investigation to be called. We got people who are not confirmed by the Senate, not accountable to anybody except Obama and he doesn’t know what they’re doing, his own administration says, running around basically taking over the private sector under the guise of bailing it out and helping it. You can look at General Motors and Chrysler and say, ‘Hey, that’s going well, isn’t it?’ We learned yesterday that all that bailout money, guess what? The taxpayers will not get it back. Really? Government investments in these things are not going to pay off. Big shock. Whoever thought they were?
‘It will go down in history as one of Barack Obama’s signature decisions on the economy, a dramatic move to slash corporate pay at bailed-out banks and automakers. But on Wednesday night, administration officials said that the president of the United States didn’t have all that much to do with a decision that will, in many ways, come to define his relationship with Wall Street. In fact, sources within the administration say the decision to cap corporate pay was Kenneth Feinberg’s, and his alone. … Feinberg’s decision rocked Wall Street – where many otherwise media friendly executives avoided phone calls and deleted e-mails from reporters Wednesday night. Many issued outright “no comment” statements rather than react to the pay-cut news in the first hours after the news broke. Very few executives thought a pay cut of this magnitude was in the offing.’
Where to start with this, folks? This is a level 10 BS alert, Barbra Streisand alert. First we are supposed to believe that little old Barry Obama had no idea that his pay czar was out acting like a fascist, and other czars have and do. Barry was clueless that some rogue czar in his administration was out dictating pay for financial firms? It’s like Barry had no idea that Anita Dunn idolizes Mao Tse-tung? Barry had no idea that Ron Bloom idolizes Mao Tse-tung? Barry had no idea that Van Jones was an avowed Marxist and communist? Barry had no idea of any of this? You see the wall of deniability the press is trying to build up? He didn’t know about any of this. He’s Mr. Perfect. He’s Mr. Clean. He’s Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected. He’s reworking the American economy so what’s happening now doesn’t ever happen again. The only way that can happen is if what’s happening now becomes permanent. Let’s go there. Has there ever been a more compelling case, I ask you, for Congress to get rid of every so-called czar there is, has there ever been a bigger bucket of crap poured on Americans and American businesses than this administration and this so-called pay czar who’s acting unilaterally without old Barry’s knowledge?
Is there no one in Congress to stand up and say, ‘What’s going on? We’re going to investigate this.’ You’ve got people acting without the president’s knowledge, interfering in the private sector, capping executive pay. The problem is, the Democrats in Congress are all for this, and Barney Frank, in case you’ve forgotten, wants Congress to go further than even the pay czar has gone. Barney Frank wants the government to regulate pay of every business in the country whether they’ve received bailout money or not. So it’s no wonder Obama is out there attacking me and Fox News. Who else will report this? That’s what’s really going on here. The people who are reporting the truth in this country are the targets of this administration. Fox News, talk radio, me in particular. That’s what’s going on. The American Thinker has a piece today. There was a hearing yesterday. Joe Lieberman, whatever his Senate health committee is, Lieberman had three administration officials up to talk about the shortage of the H1N1 flu vaccine.
Have you seen any news stories on that? Did you know it happened other than me telling you? If there were a shortage of flu vaccine in the Bush administration and a Senator had called three members of the administration up to explain it, that’s all you’d be hearing about because they’d be trying to create a panic that Bush is incompetent, his administration is so incompetent it’s going to lead to people dying. There was one news agency that reported the results, the story at all. It was Fox News. You can go to Google, you can go to AOL, you can go to any search engine you want and try to find any mainstream story of Lieberman and a hearing with three administration officials on the shortage of H1N1 and it’s not there. They didn’t report it. Only Fox did. And in this way, some people are saying maybe the administration’s plan to marginalize Fox is working. Fox reports something, you simply let it stay with Fox, it doesn’t go anywhere else, and only the Fox audience will know about it. There is definitely collusion, because there’s no difference between Barack Obama and Chris Matthews, Barack Obama or anybody else in the Drive-By Media, they are on the same team, they are doing the same things, just from different locations.
I think everything about this story, this pay czar, is blockbuster. It’s late-night comedy gold. Everything about the story is a lie. Everything about the story, this is in The Politico, but it’s all over the place, it’s at FoxNews.com, every detail about this story has to be a lie. I refuse to believe that Obama didn’t know what Feinberg was doing. In fact, the truth probably is Feinberg’s following orders. Feinberg is following orders, and I guaran-damn-tee you, Obama said you get up there and you rape ’em and you make ’em poor and you make ’em pay and you let ’em know. Just don’t tell ’em that I knew anything about it. You go out there and you’re on your own and I’ll back you up.
I don’t believe for a moment that Obama had no idea what his pay czar was doing when he announced these kinds of cuts. ‘One official told Fox News that Feinberg from the start had the independent authority to work with companies and make such a call. Obama was never required to sign off before final decisions were made.’ Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, WTF, who the hell is going to believe this? Sign me up for the Ten Million Man March, folks. This is so much worse than Clinton hiding behind Janet Reno’s skirt after the Waco invasion, it isn’t even funny. Obama didn’t sign off? What the hell else has he turned over to his czars? I mean it’s all a lie.
Here’s another headline from Fox News: ‘White House Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg Did Not Seek Obama’s Approval.’ I don’t believe it for a minute. I believe that Feinberg could not have acted without Obama’s instructions. Make no mistake, Obama is not an innocent bystander, he’s not Mr. Perfect, this guy’s got a chip on his shoulder and he’s going after everybody that he thinks is responsible for this nation’s immorality and unjustness and unfairness, and those people happen to be those who achieve. I would really like to ask everybody, because I know there are a lot of people happy about this, this is what’s scary, there are a lot of people happy that these guys have been raped this way. That’s why I started the subject saying ‘I know you’ve got mixed emotions.’ But I want to ask you a question, I want to ask you how is your life better now that the pay czar is in control? Okay, these Wall Street guys got 90% of their salaries cut. I want to know how that’s improved your life. If all you’re doing is sitting around saying, ‘Yeah, man, yeah, man, you screw ’em,’ is your life any better for that? You want to live on vengeance? Is vengeance your diet? Is vengeance your meal? Show me the calories. Show me the nutritional value of it.
Just like when the rich get tax increases, ‘Yeah, man, yeah, man, soak ’em,’ does it make your life any better? So Wall Street execs are gonna lose 90% of their compensation. How is that job search coming for you, by the way? So you gonna get a new job now because of this? You gonna get more money? You going to have a better life because Wall Street got screwed? Cut salaries of a hotshot Wall Street guy, no problem, I’m not a Wall Street guy, you go ahead and cut ’em. Go ahead and raise taxes on cigarettes. I’m not one of the cigarette smokers. Ripple effect. It’s all coming. It’s going to affect all of us. It’s right out in the open, we can all see it. By the way, in the Associated Press story on this, is this little paragraph: ‘Elsewhere, Freddie Mac –‘ a supposed private sector business, it’s a government-run mortgage house ‘– Freddie Mac is giving its chief financial officer compensation worth as much as five-and-a-half million dollars, including a $2 million signing bonus. The government-controlled mortgage finance company doesn’t have to follow the executive compensation rules because it’s being paid outside the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.’ So you work for the government and you get paid whatever you want. Five-and-a-half million to the Freddie Mac CEO, Wall Street guys get canned, get raped. And Barry Obama had no clue. Do you believe that?
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RUSH: John in Houston. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush! Mega dittos from the great state of Texas. Listened to you for many years, and it’s so funny I get through on a day that I disagree with you on this one issue.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: I’m open… I’m I will open to your ideas and changing me. The only thing I would like that B.O. has done so far is given those Navy SEALs the authorization to shoot the pirates. So I’m not a supporter of his. BUT the pay czar is limiting the compensation of the CEOs who have received my tax dollars. So I understand the overall principle you’re saying, that it’s a bad thing for the government to get into this business of regulating who can make what. I don’t agree with that overall. But in these specifics instances, what’s wrong with it?
RUSH: Well, there’s a practical reality to all of this, and that is: Despite what you think of these people, they are the best and brightest at what they do and they’re going to go elsewhere. They’re going to elsewhere. They’re going to leave the country to find jobs elsewhere. They’re not going to sit and put up with this. You know, we can go on and on and on about ‘my tax dollars bailed them out.’ You know, 1.4 trillion of our tax dollars don’t even exist and they’re spending it! Look, I understand the mixed feelings. Central Planning fascists shouldn’t have anything to say about private sector compensation. That’s a given. But these firms took money from central planners. (I really would like to know how many of them voted for Obama.)
But here’s the thing. Every business in the country can now see what happens when you make a deal with the devil, when you get in bed with the snake. You end up selling your soul. These companies are now screwed, John! They are screwed, which is the design here. The Obama administration… This is fascism: They’re still private owned but they’re being run by who? Not even Obama, we’re told. The freaking pay czar, who doesn’t even have to tell Obama what he’s doing! So he doesn’t have to stop at the execs. He can limit the pay of the janitors. He can limit the pay of anybody he wants — and pretty soon, it’s going to spread beyond companies that took TARP money. These people who put their companies on the hook are gonna get the hell out, and the second-teamers will step in and run things into the ground in partnership with the government that intends to take over these businesses.
The unintended consequences here are things that you need to look at. It’s tempting to say, ‘Those are my tax dollars. They took my tax dollars and they paid themselves big bonuses! It’s about time we got the tax dollars back!’ You’re not going to get the tax dollars, pal. Obama is taking them back, Obama is stealing people’s work. Go talk to Ken Lewis who runs Bank of America. They are retracting; they are taking back his entire 2009 salary, the whole thing! Not 90%. All $2.3 million of 
it. Now, class envy has been practiced so well by the Democrats and a lot of the country is cheering about this. But it’s not helping anybody’s life. It’s not improving anybody’s circumstance. I’ll tell you who I feel for here, John. There are shareholders of these companies. People like you who have invested in these companies, not with your tax dollars but with your after-tax dollars. Our government has taken advantage of a financial crisis they created. They’re destroying firms, they’re destroying jobs, destroying wealth, and they don’t need to be applauded for it!
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RUSH: Look, folks, I’m going to have a lot more to say about this as soon as we get back in the monologue segment of the next hour. But would you people please stop and think what you’re saying? So you pay taxes and you think you can dictate pay for firms? You pay taxes, and that allows you to support people who want to take over private business? Do you get to tell Walmart how much it pays people simply because you go in there and buy a damn pair of flip-flops every other day? Folks, you gotta wake up here. This is absurd.