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RUSH:  Edward in Atlanta.  Thank you for waiting, Edward.  Glad to have you on the EIB Network. 

CALLER:  How you doing, Rush? 

RUSH:  Just fine, sir.  Thank you. 

CALLER:  Listen, I want to say as an African-American male, I think that I’ve had the ability to be able to kind of like hear you for myself over this past election to kind of like really hear your words.  And I know a lot of times I think you have been given a bad rap over the years, ’cause I think that, I guess, in my opinion, people are not being intellectually honest.  

There are some things that people may not like about what you say to some degree, but is there value in it, you know, is it legitimate.  And I think often time in this election cycle, it really, in my opinion, brought out that the lack of intellectual intelligence.  And I think that, you know, what I do admire, you give your “why” to what you say.  And it’s not about “I hope you feel the same way,” you give your why, and that gives the ability to use critical thinking. You know, is one plus one, two, or is one plus one 14?  And I think that how you do it, I think you do a very good job of it.  

And I think that, the thing for me, and I’ll say this, and one of the I think reasons why Hillary left the night of the election, ’cause she did not have a concession speech.  I bet that’s why she had to wait until the next day to create one, because everything was just so in the bag and I think that even as I talk to people over the months, you know, anybody should have a problem with how the media handled this election. Whether you like Trump or not, you have to be intellectually honest that they weren’t fair and biased with the guy.  

And I think sometimes, you know, to me what concerns is that you gonna have many people who still will not understand some of these fundamental things that occurred.  And one of the big things, “Well, he has no experience.”  Well, Barack didn’t have any.  They gonna have a support team, don’t care what president, what you know or not. 

RUSH:  Exactly right.  Edward, my time is dwindling here.  But I want to thank you.  If I understand, you said that you listen to me for the past year and you’ve — 

CALLER:  Yes. 

RUSH:  — discovered that what’s said about me is not true and the thing — 

CALLER:  No. 

RUSH:  — that you learned was that when I tell you what I think, I tell you why and — 

CALLER:  Yes. 

RUSH:  — you think I get a bad rap. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you saying that because that’s one of my objectives is explaining why I think what I think as a means of persuasion, because that’s what this is all about.  Nobody’s purpose is served by lying to ’em, at least my purposes are not advanced.  But look, I have to take a break.  Can you hang on here through the bottom-of-the-hour break?  It won’t be much longer. 

CALLER:  Sure. 

RUSH:  Okay, good.  It’s Edward in Atlanta.  And we’ll be right back.  Don’t go anywhere.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  We’re back to Edward in Atlanta, who is interesting.  Edward is African-American, and he said that he’d been misled about who I am.  He finally listened to the program during the campaign and came to a completely different conclusion about me and thinks that I don’t get a fair shake in the Drive-By Media.  You’re right.  I appreciate your observation about that, and I also appreciate your observation that when I tell you what I think and what’s going on, I give you the “why” which gives people… You called it critical thinking, and I appreciate that.  

As to your reason that Hillary did not concede that night is because she didn’t have a concession speech, you may be right, because I’ve talked to people who I trust who say that inside Hillary’s hotel suite and camp that there was total chaos, that they were blindsided. They thought, Edward, as late at nine or 9:30 they were still gonna win, and she was just out of control, angry and throwing things.  I don’t know about that, but I can believe the chaos and not having a concession speech ready to go.  I can totally believe that.  And that’s just part of the arrogance and condescending attitude that those people have for everybody.  I think you’re right about that. 

CALLER:  But, Rush… You know, Rush, I would also say this, and I think that… I remember, like, when she ran against Barack, how her and Bill handled him, but now that everybody buddy-buddy. It’s also politics.  And I think even with Trump, you see the same situation. They’re not giving him a fair shake.  And one of the examples that I use sometimes because it’s kind of the challenging to have just an honest conversation about politics. I say when you look at Economics 101, the more of anything lessens the value of it, right?  

So I remember, like, when Obama created the $780 billion out of thin air.  So my question is, “What did that do to the value of money that’s already out there now?” It lessens the value; you can’t argue that.  But then you got somebody like Trump, he’s gonna come through. Let’s lower the tax structure. Now you still… You still see the need for the money to be into the system, but now this is money that’s already in existence. 

RUSH:  You are so right, Edward. Edward, you are so shrewd!  You have a base… You talk about Econ 101. You’ve got it. You are so close to the truth, particularly on the stimulus, that you are going to give me the inspiration to re-explain that, because you are so right about it. Look, I have to go, but I need to ask you. I want to give you a brand-new iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus if you’d like one.  All you have to do is tell me what size you want and what carrier you have. 

CALLER:  7 plus, the shiny black one, and AT&T. 

RUSH:  There you go.  All right.  So let me tell you what’s gonna happen.  I’m not sure what I got back there so you’re gonna get one of two. You’re gonna get a shiny black Plus that is either exclusive to AT&T or you’re going to get one with no SIM card that will work on any carrier.  In fact, I’ll send you that just to be sure to.  It will work on AT&T. It’ll work on Verizon.  It’s unlocked. What kind of phone do you have now? 

CALLER:  I got the Note, the Note Edge 4. 

RUSH:  Oh, okay. So you’ll have to take this to the AT&T Store. 

CALLER:  That’s fine. 

RUSH:  Okay. This is very important.  I’m gonna… To make that easier, I’m gonna try to find the AT&T exclusive phone back there.  I don’t think I got one.  I’m gonna have to send you… It’s from Apple. It’s sim-free, no SIM card. It’s unlocked. You tell ’em at AT&T it’s a gift, that it’s sim-free from Apple, and will work on AT&T, and they’ll set you right up. Okay? 

CALLER:  Got it. 

RUSH:  You got it.     

CALLER:  Thank you. 

RUSH:  No, no.  You’re welcome.  Don’t hang up, and Mr. Snerdley will get your address so we can get it out to you today.  His point about the stimulus is so right on that I need to mention this again.  Barack Obama — and this is instructive and it’s relevant to what Trump is doing now as he also astutely compared.  The Obama stimulus in 2009 was not a stimulus. That was just rhetoric, and it was designed to fool people, low-information voters and others into thinking that $780 billion… 

Let’s use the term a trillion because that’s what it actually ended up being.  Obama created the notion, and the media helped, that a trillion dollars from somewhere was gonna be plugged into the private sector economy, and that that trillion dollars was gonna provide such a stimulus. New jobs! Economic growth! It was gonna be great; it was gonna be an automatic recovery mechanism from the Great Depression or Recession of 2008.  But there wasn’t a trillion dollars sitting somewhere unused.  We were, at the time, about, oh, 11 or $12 trillion in debt.  

So where does Obama get that trillion dollars to put into the private sector?  He doesn’t have it.  We are in debt.  He had one of two options.  He could order the money printed, or he could get it from the private sector.  In either case, that’s where it came from.  The government does not produce anything.  So Obama stimulating the U.S. economy with a trillion dollars is no stimulus at all because before Obama can get it… Well, more correctly said, before Obama can insert it into the economy, he has to take it from the economy.  

So he gets a trillion dollars from the economy and then puts it back?  There’s no stimulus.  There’s no growth.  There’s no additional money floating around, unless they printed it.  And that’s his point.  If they printed the trillion dollars, then they vastly increased the supply of dollars, which reduced the value of dollars, but there wasn’t a trillion dollars lying around someplace unused that we could put into the economy and have that trillion dollars added, because it had to come out. 

Even if you’re printing it, or borrowing it, it’s still coming from the private sector and being put right back there. It’s nothing more… It was a scam.  But it was a bigger scam than that because of where Obama stimulated.  He stimulated unions!  Seventy-five percent of that trillion dollars went to unions and union jobs to keep them employed during this recession.  Why?  Because union workers pay dues.  They don’t pay dues when they’re unemployed.  When they’re employed, they’re paying dues.  The dues go to the union.  

What does the union do with the dues?  A lot of that money is donated back to the Democrat Party, which is used for campaign commercials, campaign elections and so forth.  It’s used to elect Democrats.  In one sense, it was a circuitous money-laundering scheme.  Go get a trillion dollars from the Treasury, stimulate unions by giving it to public employee unions and teacher unions — and you go state by state, and you’ll find out where the money went.  In Wisconsin, most of it went to teachers unions.  In California, a mixture of teachers and public works unions.  

And a portion of that is gonna be donated right back to the Democrat Party.  So Obama can’t go to the Treasury and withdraw a trillion dollars for the Democrat Party, but this was the next best thing.  But the bottom line is nothing was stimulated.  There wasn’t an additional trillion dollars added to the economy.  And even with what was stimulated, there was… I mean, you’re stimulating teachers’ jobs and so forth.  There was no economic growth, and none happened.  So people are saying, “Well, Trump’s got his own infrastructure deal, and Trump’s gonna be spending a trillion dollars on roads and bridges and airports.” 

Yeah, and both philosophically and theoretically you could make the same argument that Trump is pulling the same scam as Obama, except for one thing.  You know what this actually reminds me of, if this happens?  Three initials:  FDR.  Let’s just play a little game here.  Let’s pretend that Trump actually does follow through on his plan to rebuild airports and schools and roads and bridges.  It’s exactly what happened in the 1930s.  

We built — ready for this? — in a span of five to seven years, we built the Golden Gate Bridge, we built the Bay Bridge connecting Oakland to San Francisco, and the Hoover Dam, in the Depression.  That money actually produced things.  There were actual results from it, which created tax paying jobs, which created tax-creating incentives, expanded the tax base, and increased productivity by enabling people in California to get to and from a massive number of new jobs much sooner and easier with those bridges.  

If Trump is going to modernize airports with this money, and if Trump is gonna modernize whatever he’s gonna modernize. In other words, the Obama stimulus was never a stimulus.  It was a payoff to unions.  There wasn’t one bridge rebuilt.  There wasn’t one road rebuilt.  There wasn’t one school rebuilt like Obama kept promising.  

In fact, all during the eight years of Obama we kept hearing about the need for infrastructure spending.  It worked so well the first time they kept going back to it to convince people we needed to spend even more money, but all during this time not one new school was built.  Not with Obama money.  There might have been existing bond issues.  There were roads repairs, part of original prior budgets, but new schools, new bridges, new repairs, none it happened with Obama.  

There hasn’t been any upgrading.  There hasn’t been any modernizing whatsoever, ’cause that’s not where Obama put the money.  Now, if Trump actually follows through on this trillion dollars to modernize airports, you’re gonna have conservative arguments against it claiming this is not how it works. This is still federal spending, it’s still budget busting, it’s still massively expanding the government.  

However, there will be tangible results that will result in improved and modernized airports which will make them more economically booming, which they will be able to attract more traffic, more landings and takeoffs, which include fees, more cargo being moved back and forth through them.  It’s gonna be an interesting philosophical argument, the idea of conservatism and smaller government, less government.  

On the other hand, the projects we’re talking about, who builds them?  I mean, the federal government built the Interstate Highway System.  It was a federal government expense.  Same thing with those two bridges.  They did it in connection with the states.  I mean, there was a lot of cooperation on all of these efforts, Hoover Dam in Nevada and so forth, and there were other things.  And don’t forget even prior to that we did the Panama Canal even prior to the 1930s.  

originalThe point is, in the past, with a much smaller economy and a much lower standard of living, we have been far more productive. We have built many more projects at a much faster rate before all the environmental impact studies were necessary and all this.  And if Trump does this and if there are demonstrable results of modernization at airports, you’re gonna be hard-pressed to get people to find a problem with it.  

What are you frowning at me for?  Well, of course it could backfire.  But, on the other hand, don’t forget my three initials: FDR.  FDR doing all this stuff gave the Democrat Party a 50-year guaranteed majority.  Well, that was his dream.  It didn’t actually work out to 50 years, but he made the Democrat Party a majority party.  Remember, Trump’s not a conservative.  So small government, less government, that’s not how he sees things.  And I’ve tried to tell people this from the beginning of the campaign.  

He does things and says things that sound conservative and he’s gonna do things that sound conservative.  He’s gonna also do things that are not gonna look conservative ’cause he’s not an ideologue.  He’s a results guy and get things done. And he’ll look at that trillion dollars as an investment and he’ll tabulate a way of showing that it paid off, even though the philosophical, theoretical discussion will argue against it.  I’ll tell you, the way he’s behaving with the State Department, this Taiwan business, is just classic.  The State Department, the Obama State Department is convinced that we are now a nation at great risk because this dunderhead Trump doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s doing.  

I mean, he’s taking calls from the leader of Taiwan. He’s sidling up to Putin. He’s ripping into Castro. He’s doing all of these things the U.S. government just doesn’t do.  He’s doing all these undiplomatic things.  So the Obama State Department is offering its assistance, and Trump is telling them to pound sand.  He really is.  He’s telling them, “Thanks, but I got it. I don’t need your help.”  And that’s ticking them off even more.  And it’s gonna happen a lot.  They’re gonna be think tanks offering assistance, “Mr. Trump, this trillion-dollar stimulus may not have a –” 

“I don’t care what you think, I’m gonna do it.”  So, folks, just buckle up because we’re headed places that we haven’t been politically in quite a while.  It’s gonna be exciting. It’s gonna be maddening to some people, exhilarating to others, but I think on balance it’s gonna be enjoyable in one sense ’cause the media and the Democrats are not gonna know what hit ’em day after day after day, and they’re gonna continue to be on defense not knowing how to stop the guy.

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