RUSH: Now, I have ten snippets of stories here; ten snippets of news stories from today highlighting the economic crisis, government waste, and fraud and mismanagement that cannot be spun. Beijing, November 18th, Reuters: ‘President [Barack] Obama gave his sternest warning yet about the need to contain rising US deficits, saying on Wednesday that if government debt were to pile up too much, it could lead to a double-dip recession.’ I know it’s schizophrenic but there are two reasons for this. The ChiComs are laying into him. The ChiComs are laying into him about the cost of health care, about the deficits. The ChiComs are laying into him. They are saying, ‘We want you to pay back your loans. We want to get paid! We own your debt! You have got to start paying us. You are running your country into the ground. If you run your country into the ground, our debt is worthless to us, and you’re worthless to us and you don’t want that.’
Plus, on the political side, this sets up massive tax increases. My friends, coming up later in the program an explanation of how we might be looking at $3 trillion in new tax increases from every American. Now, of course it won’t add up to three trillion because these tax increases are going to further hamper economic activity and they score all these tax increases by… It would involve repealing every Bush tax cut, not just the ones that expire in 2011. There are the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, and let both of those go and then add more, and they score these things in a static way; they don’t score them dynamically — they never do — and that’s why they’re always shocked when tax increases don’t produce the revenue that they expect. So the ChiComs are laying into Obama, make no mistake about it, and he’s setting up tax hikes. He’s already spent us into a destructive debt to the point that this country will not be what it was for years and years. Now he says (paraphrase), ‘If government were to pile up too much debt…’ and it’s always Bush’s fault.
AP Beijing: ‘President Obama says creating jobs isn’t the goal of a coming White House forum on jobs[.]’ Number three. ‘Democrats realize the problem with the phony stimulus numbers. House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis): ‘The inaccuracies on Recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous, and the administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct these ludicrous mistakes…. Credibility counts in government, and stupid mistakes like this undermine it.” A little editorial comment here: It was Joe Biden who was established by President Obama as — ’cause ‘nobody messes with Joe.’ Joe was going to police all this. He was going to make sure people weren’t playing games with it. He was going to make sure the money was being used properly. He was going to make sure that people were not engaging in fraud or abuse or any of that. Old Joe! Because ‘nobody messes with Joe.’ Well, Joe can’t keep himself out of automobile accidents! Two accidents this week alone involving his motorcade! Three people injured.
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RUSH: So Obey wants accountability from the most transparent (Obama promised) administration in history: Barack Obama’s. This is in reference to the congressional districts which don’t exist. Tim Geithner is in trouble again. Fred Barnes explains it in the Weekly Standard. Some details have come out about the AIG bailout, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia and it doesn’t make Geithner look good. Fred doesn’t he think he can survive this, but, I mean, who’s going to pressure him out?
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RUSH: I want to continue with this economic list, ten snippets of news stories from today, highlighting the economic crisis — government waste, fraud, management — that cannot be spun. Fred Barnes says Geithner is in trouble again: ‘Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is in trouble again, and this time he may not be able to save his job. You’ll recall that his confirmation was threatened by revelations of cheating on his income taxes. Now he’s accused of paying billions too much for the bailout of AIG and allowing the insurance firm’s Wall Street creditors — Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia — to be paid in full for their derivative contracts with $27.1 billion in taxpayers’ money.’
Now, what is noteworthy about that is that in bankruptcies or similar situations creditors always accept less-than-100% paybacks. It can be anywhere from 50 cents on the dollar to 60 cents on the dollar. Geithner paid back everybody in full with the AIG bailout and their creditors — which is a bad deal and it smacks of cronyism, 100% cronyism. Geithner is one of those guys. Henry Paulson is one of those guys. And when this news gets out, if it does, it’s the kind of thing that’s going to irritate people even more and more who think that there is a special scratch-the-back relationship between Washington and Wall Street.
Reuters: ‘Improper payments by the US government to people, firms and contractors rose sharply to $98 billion in fiscal 2009 and President Barack Obama plans new rules to clamp down, the White House said Tuesday.’ I was under the impression President Obama had already fixed all of this. (interruption) Yeah, that’s a good point. The bondholders of GM in that bankruptcy were told to take a hike. Obama called them selfish for wanting even a portion of what they were owed to be paid. The bondholders were held up as villains. The people who had invested in General Motors, which Obama now owns, were held out as villains. They were pointed to as the bad guys, as the demons. And yet here’s Geithner paying back Goldman Sachs — which is just rolling in money right now — Merrill Lynch, Wachovia in full for their derivative contracts, with $27 billion of taxpayer money from the AIG bailout.
Oakland, California: ‘California faces a budget gap of nearly $21 billion over its current and next fiscal years according to the state government’s budget watchdog agency, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday.’ Meanwhile, the state is proceeding with its attempt to reduce the size of giant-screen TVs that consumers are allowed to have. Number seven, a setup for rationing: ‘Mammography Outcry Points to Trouble for Health Care Reform.’ You know, this mammography story that came out yesterday, we had this two weeks ago on this story. The American Cancer Society put the news out first; they were shocked at this, that the age for mammograms will go up to 50 instead of 40. Remember that story we had said that mammograms can cause problems, early mammograms can cause problems because they can find things that are really not bad that end up being treated and cost a lot of money and are wasteful? So they moved the age to 50.
Los Angeles Times: ‘A core tenet of the healthcare overhaul President Obama is pushing through Congress is that medical care can be improved — and costs contained — if the country relies more on experts to determine which procedures and treatments work best. But Monday’s mammography report by the US Preventive Services Task Force delivered a swift and stark reminder that few ideas are more explosive in healthcare. The expert panel — which recommended that women in their 40s should no longer get annual mammograms to screen for breast cancer — sparked an outcry from those who say that the federal government is more interested in saving money than in improving women’s health. … ‘This is really the first step toward that business of rationing care based on cost,’ said Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), a physician.”
He’s exactly right, and we’ve all predicted this. There’s no question that this is what’s going to happen. This is a little leading indicator, and you might even say that we got death panels going on here. Number eight: ‘Recovery Board Chairman: We Can’t Certify Jobs Data at Recovery.gov. — The chairman of the Obama administration’s Recovery Board is telling lawmakers that he can’t certify jobs data posted at the Recovery.gov website — and doesn’t have access to a ‘master list’ of stimulus recipients that have neglected to report data.’ Well, this is a comedy of errors also totally predictable, folks. Another government bureaucracy acts like a bureaucracy and doesn’t know what it’s doing and can’t keep track of what it’s overseeing. Big shock!
‘Earl Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, responded to questions posed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., late yesterday to say the board can’t vouch for the numbers submitted by recipients of stimulus funding.’ Number nine, the Wall Street Journal: ‘The $1.9 Trillion Gimmick — What passes for a joke on Capitol Hill these days is that Bernie Madoff, given his experience managing Ponzi schemes, should be put in charge of the federal budget. Nancy Pelosi & Co. seem to have taken it as a serious suggestion. The House is expected to vote on a $210 billion fiscal swindle that will prevent automatic cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. The entitlement’s price controls are scheduled to fall by 21.5% in January and another 2% every year after that under a formula known as the sustainable growth rate. … The ‘doc fix’ was originally part of Obamacare, until Mrs. Pelosi realized that adding a quarter-trillion dollars to the total tab made it difficult to pretend the bill would reduce the deficit. In the ‘Fiscal Responsibility’ section of the press release announcing the separate SGR package, Democrats insist that it will be subject to ‘the ‘pay as you go’ principle of budget discipline,” which she promised, by the way, in 2006-2007, there is no pay-as-you-go.
‘The Comedy Central punchline: ‘The Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act would not increase total payments to physicians above what they are today and therefore, would not be subject to the paygo requirement.’ In other words, under the Madoff school of accounting, Democrats rely on straight deficit spending.’ It is criminally irresponsible here what is happening in the US House of Representatives and the Senate when it comes to health care. And finally number ten from the AP: Washington, ‘The trucking industry lost another 7,500 jobs in October as the US unemployment rate surpassed 10% for the first time since 1983 and is likely to go higher.’ If the recession’s over, you can’t tell it by the trucking industry. They just lost 7,500 more jobs lost.
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RUSH: And one more economic story. I’m not trying to depress you here, folks. Actually, the purpose for reciting all of this is to document the failure of Barack Obama, because all of this is on him. All of this is on his administration. Every story that we have had, including the budget problems in California, it’s all on him because he has set up circumstances where nobody can recover. California’s got their own independent problems (they’re being run into the ground by liberals, of course) but they don’t have a chance. Hardly any other states have a chance. There are some states doing pretty — well, not pretty well — but that are less damaged by the economic circumstances, but this is the documentation of Barack Obama’s failure, failure for the United States. To him it’s a success story. This is what is maddening and infuriating. All of these items are a success story. He wants this chaos; he wants people on welfare; he wants people dependent on government. New York Times: ‘New home construction slowed unexpectedly in October to the lowest level in six months according to the Commerce Department.’ What in the world would be ‘unexpected’ about new home construction slowing town in the middle of a recession with 10.2% unemployment? Nothing unexpected about that! Nobody would be surprised by this, and anybody who claims to be surprised is incompetent.