×

Rush Limbaugh

For a better experience,
download and use our app!

The Rush Limbaugh Show Main Menu

RUSH: Yesterday Barack Obama went to the Chamber of Commerce to make a big speech. There were two applause lines in 40 minutes. Barack Obama was lecturing the private sector on proper business practices, expansion, investment, profitability, without a hint much experience much less a track record of success in the private sector and with policies that he signed into law becoming president. Michelle Obama is out lecturing parents and schools and grocery stores and restaurants on matters of nutrition and healthy eating — without a degree, without any past success or knowledge, much less a track record of success regarding anything outside of maintaining toned triceps. Oh, and working in a hospital.

Listening to accomplished losers lecture on how to ‘win the future’ walks a fine line between humor and boredom, but such is power of the presidency. This country, economically, you’d have to go back quite a while to find a time where we have been in worse shape — and that’s mostly due to giving Obama the benefit of the doubt on his absurd theories of ‘winning the future’ via massive surges in private sector regulations and spending and all that; lining the pockets of public sector unions, the phony ‘green’ technology companies, crony capitalism with companies such as GE. We’ve tried every way, we’ve tried every Obama way, we’ve tried every Obama idea, and we’ve lost. We have listened to every idea that he has, every philosophy. The future will be won by defeating Obama at the ballot box. Yet there he is out there lecturing everybody at the Chamber of Commerce, and the State-Controlled Media said that his speech was just like JFK. We have a media montage of them just going bananas over Obama’s speech at the Chamber.

E.J. DIONNE: (b-roll noise) It was a John F. Kennedy sort of ‘ask, uh, what you can do for your country’ speech!

CONNELL McSHANE: (music under) A JFK moment…

LARRY KUDLOW: …stealing a page from JFK.

JOHN HARWOOD: A JFK-style challenge to businesses…

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: …a Kennedy-like call to action!

MARK CRUMPTON: …hearken back to President Kennedy!

CHRISTINE ROMANS: …sounded like JFK!

RUSH: Isn’t it amazing, folks? Here we have media all over the country saying, ‘Wow, it sounded just like JFK! Just like JFK.’ Meanwhile, Obama is gonna double the unemployment insurance tax on employers. Double it! He didn’t mention that to Chamber of Commerce, but he’s gonna double it. He’s also gonna bail the states out. That’s already started. He helped them with their indebtedness over unemployment compensation benefits, in addition to doubling the unemployment insurance tax on employers. He doesn’t tell them that. No, we’ve got a JFK moment. As in, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ We’ve gotta redistribute wealth! We have to share corporate profits with the ‘workers.’ Good old totalitarian language: Share the profits with the workers. Not enough of that’s been good guy. Not enough profit-sharing with the workers has been going on. Well, what did JFK have to say about economics? Let’s go back. December 14th, 1962, New York City, New York Economic Club, John F. Kennedy. We have some sound bites of this speech.

JOHN F. KENNEDY: This administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963. I am not talking about a quickie or a temporary tax cut which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent. Nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm to ease some temporary complaint. The federal government’s most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures.

RUSH: Folks, is your mouth open here? Is your mouth open in utter awe? John F. Kennedy. They just told us told us that Obama had a JFK moment. Here’s John F. Kennedy in 1962: ‘Do not raise expenditures in a recession. Do not rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures in a recession; expand incentives and opportunities for private expenditures.’ He wanted ‘an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes; not something quickie, not something temporary. Tax cuts would be appropriate if a recession were imminent, and even more so if we were in one.’ There’s not one, folks, similarity between JFK’s economic recipe in 1962 and Obama’s enactment of economic policies in 2009 to the present. They have nothing in common, other than they’re both Democrats.

This is how the left, this is how the media excels at history revision. Take an inaugural speech, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,’ and tell that to a bunch of CEOs as though they are stealing the country blind when you are at president. When you are stealing the country blind, when you’re spending it into oblivion, you blame it on these guys and then claim it was Kennedyesque! Well, there’s a problem. You just heard the first of a few sound bites we have of JFK talking about what to do in similar economic circumstances to today, and it is the exact opposite of what Obama is doing. Here’s JFK even admitting here — and he knows about these things. He wasn’t talking about a quickie. JFK knew about those things, as we all well know. More Kennedy sound bites, just to illustrate for you the totally fraudulent attempt to link Obama and JFK in this regard.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Barack Hussein Obama of the regime and his absurd admonitions to the US Chamber of Commerce. I don’t know what this is. Is this giving the left some love before the big corporate tax cut? Is that what this speech was? Is there a big corporate tax cut coming? Is this sort of like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna sell the Huffington Post, and it’s so wildly popular, we’re gonna get $315 million! Oh, you people on the left, look at how big we are! We’re selling this thing for $315 million. Zsa Zsa is gonna get 18 to 20 of it, and, by the way, we’re moving to the center because…it didn’t sell,’ and this $315 million is just the left circling the wagons to try to create the impression it’s big and happening. They’ll pay anything to protect their reputations.

They’ll spend any price to create the impression that they’re not failing. I mean, for crying out loud, folks, a JFK moment? Obama raising taxes, increasing regulations, wild federal spending, a JFK moment? It’s more like a Bill Clinton moment with the media playing the role of Monica Lewinsky, and it just never stops! They just keep going. Here’s more. This s is JFK December 14,1962 explaining trickle-down… (interruption) (sigh) Yes. ‘It’s a Bill Clinton moment with the media playing the role of Monica Lewinsky.’ Yes, you heard me right. Do you realize it takes away the humor, Snerdley, if I have to say things twice? (sigh) I’m trying to maintain the rhythm here, speaking of Clinton and Lewinsky. JFK, this is December 14th, 1962, Economic Club, New York.

JOHN F. KENNEDY: When consumers purchase more goods, plants use more of their capacity, men are hired instead of laid off, investment increases and profits are higher. Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. The government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate the modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment.

RUSH: So, as you hear, there’s nothing JFKesque about any policy Obama has had so far. So I’m just wondering if he’s not setting the stage here for a corporate tax reduction proposal that might be coming down the pike. I have to tell you, folks: Obama lecturing America’s businesses about how to direct their profits? (chuckles) How do we sit here with a straight face? His ‘stimulus’ plan was a massive failure. It drove up the deficit to unpayable levels. Obamacare is one of many elements that will… (snorts) I don’t know. If it is fully implemented it is going to destroy the US private sector as we know it. Health care premiums will go up, trillions will be added to the deficit, with unemployment far higher than the reported and unacceptable nine 9% level here — and this guy, the architect of all of this goes out and lectures the Chamber of Commerce about how to direct their profits! This is so absurd.

‘But Mr. Limbaugh, he’s the president of the United States!’

I know, that’s the real shame of it. How did that happen, Mr. New Castrati? People like you. I mean, it is so open to ridicule it makes me wonder if this is red meat to the left before some cold water gets poured on ’em. Like the sale of AOL, that’s red meat to the left before they figure out that it was in the dumper. Obama has said he is open to lowering the corporate tax rate, and that will more than likely happen. I think that may be one of the reasons why the media has been given marching orders to go out there and compare Obama to JFK. So I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that’s next to come: He proposes a cut in the corporate tax rate (which would be fine, by the way) and then they’ll play these Kennedy bites and say, ‘See? It’s Kennedyesque.’

So I think Obama may be in that speech yesterday giving some rhetoric to the left before he signs up for supply-side stimulation in anticipation of the 2012 election. I’m just guessing. I might be wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised. But the point is Obama cannot abandon the left, and yet he has to do what he can to try to drive down unemployment, even if it’s for show. He’s gotta show a kinder, gentler side to independents. His reelection hinges on somehow getting them back from the Republicans, and if Obama takes real steps to help the private sector, he has to make increasingly absurd and hypocritical speeches to let the left know that Obama hasn’t really embraced Reagan; he’s just saying this stuff.

He’s gotta give ’em a wink here and say, ‘Okay, you guys understand here for the good of the movement I gotta say this stuff. I gotta do some of this stuff to get reelected, then we’ll drop the hammer on them again.’ That’s the wink and nod. He’s gotta rely on the sophistication of the left, and if he can’t rely on that he’ll rely on the media to secretly and publicly get that message out to the lunatic fringe. Well, look what’s happening here. Obamacare is under assault. The Blue Dogs are abandoning the party. There are real cuts, deficit cuts being demanded. I’ve got a story here in the stack: ‘A New Dem Threat to Health Care Law — A handful of moderate Senate Democrats are looking for ways to roll’ it back as part of their reelection bid.

Claire McCaskill is one. Joe Manchin in West Virginia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska are the others. You got that, and then you’ve got a story here from TheHill.com: ‘Blue Dogs Mull Budget Defection — Blue Dog Democrats might support a plan from House Republicans to cut $32 billion in discretionary spending this year.’ The bottom line is the Blue Dog Democrats in the House have no power unless they caucus with Republicans. Zilch zero nada. Nancy Pelosi’s got nothing. Nancy Pelosi can’t scare the Heath Shulers of the world anymore. Nancy Pelosi cannot scare these people. I mean, she can try to tell ’em, ‘We’re gonna get back in office in two years and if you don’t want support me now you’re toast,’ but in the meantime they have no power unless they caucus with the Republicans.

So the Blue Dogs, they are abandoning the Democrat Party, they’re abandoning Pelosi. There probably are gonna be significant spending cuts here, which puts the regime in a bit of a tough spot. ‘Cause Obama wants to get unemployment down to under 8% (or reported under 8%), and if he wants to be seen as being reasonable on the deficit, if he wants to get beyond the failures of Obamacare, he has to go out and spew boilerplate populism. He has to go out and talk about class warfare and straw men lies to offset any Reaganesque steps he may be forced to take or accept, and he may have to do these things. He may have to go out and make it look like he’s moving to the center and articulate this stuff while giving a wink and a nod to his leftist fringe base.

By the way, Pelosi hadn’t even talked to the Blue Dogs since the election. So there’s a schism, schism there. Obama’s fully aware of all this, and they’re trying to make some hay out of this Egypt business, and now lecturing the Chamber of Commerce. The architect of all of this economic failure is lecturing these people on what to do with their profits. What these people know is the longer this guy’s in office there aren’t gonna be any profits — and whatever profits there are, he’s gonna take and redistribute himself. There’s one more JFK bite from his speech at the New York Economic Club in December of 1962. And again, playing these for you because the media template here that Obama’s speech to the Chamber was Kennedyesque.

KENNEDY: Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions. And any new recession would break all deficit records. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low — and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.

RUSH: Now, they’re out there comparing this to Obama — or I should say Obama to that — and it ain’t true. There is no comparison. So they’re either setting this up as Obama’s gonna do some stuff that sounds like this or else they’re just trying to pull the wool over our eyes knowing full well that (outside of this program) nobody’s gonna know that JFK said anything like this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One thing here. We talked about Obama, Kennedy, taxes and so forth. AP with a story yesterday: ‘By One Measure, Federal Taxes Lowest Since 1950.’ They start out by asking: ‘Taxes too high? Actually, as a share of the nation’s economy, Uncle Sam’s take this year will be the lowest since 1950, when the Korean War was just getting under way.’ What they’re basically saying is tax revenue is down. Uncle Sam is not getting his fair share. Tax revenue is down, thanks to the recession, which has been going on over 19 months. Tax revenue is down because 17% of the population isn’t working! Tax revenue’s down because a whole bunch of people have no jobs and aren’t paying any taxes. But they want you to think taxes are down because our rates are too low.

AP is running a piece here that basically says we need to raise federal income taxes. ‘The poor economy is largely to blame, with corporate profits down and unemployment up. But so is a tax code that grows each year with new deductions, credits and exemptions.’ This is the truth. AP is just an arm of Obama. You have the president out saying one thing to the Chamber of Commerce. Here’s AP wringing its hands, ‘Oh, tax revenue to the federal government.’ Imagine that. When is the last time AP ran a story on, ‘Oh, my gosh, how hard is it for people to live when they’re fired and have no income.’ No, when it’s a Democrat president we got stories about the new discoveries of life that await you on the unemployment line, new togetherness with your family, new togetherness with your children, a new purpose in life. Republican president, you’re unemployed, you may as well go commit suicide. Poor old Uncle Sam getting the short end of the stick. Right. Because of Obama. If you want to look at it that way.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Ben in Brooklyn. You’re next, sir, on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, sir. I just wanted to point out that Mr. Obama is the opposite of JFK. JFK said, ‘Ask what you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you.’ And here he’s telling everybody to demand health care from their country. He goes into a room and speaks to a handful of corporations. Corporations are not people. The 43% of the country who are not paying taxes, who are giving nothing to their country and taking, United Auto Workers who are being bailed out by their fellow citizens and are not contributing the way that everybody’s expected to. Those are the people he’s supposed to address.

RUSH: Well, we were told, now, don’t forget at the passing of Senator Kennedy, we were told that Obama was the last of the Kennedy brothers. Bill Clinton was the first black president and Obama’s the last of the Kennedy brothers. And you’re right, I mean if the Obama presidency had a subtitle, it would be, ‘Line up here for your benefits.’

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: Trying to invoke JFK. Thanks, Ben, appreciate it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Steve in Germantown, welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Rush, thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet, sir.

CALLER: I don’t want to say I’ve been waiting long, but I wanted to comment on the recent tragic shooting of the president at Ford’s theater. Anyway, hard to follow Buck, but I wanted to comment, when I was listening to you talk about the media the way they are hoisting Obama up on the shoulders of JFK and they’ve been doing it with Reagan, and there’s references to other presidents, it just occurs to me, who is Barack Obama? All he is is a caricature of some other president.

RUSH: Exactly right. Whoever he is, they can’t tell us that. When it’s reelection time, Obama is either Reagan, now he’s JFK, but he can’t be Obama. Wouldn’t put up with that.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This