RUSH: The headline on the porkulus bill, winning passage last night in the House of Representatives in various places goes like this. ‘House Passes $800 Billion Stimulus Plan with No Republican Support.’ The headline ought to be: ‘House Democrats Vote to Spend $800 Billion in Pork They Don’t Have, Republicans Fail to Stop It,’ or ‘Republicans Don’t Support It.’ There’s nothing wrong with needed stimulus, by the way, if it’s stimulus. But this is not stimulus. This is fairness. Do you remember…? My memory here is exploding, ladies and gentlemen. Remember that interview — and it might have been with Maria Bartiromo at CNBC. It was somebody in the financial community. He was told that capital gains tax cuts generated more tax revenue and not less, and he said, ‘That’s not the issue. The issue is fairness.’
So, at one point, he wanted high income capital gains people to pay a higher rate than lower income capital gains tax. That was just exhibiting a total lack of understanding about capital gains rate, what it is and who pays it. I have to tell you, the Republicans in the House of Representatives, they are starting to come together. This is just fun. It’s now getting to be fun. I want to tell you about a man name John Carter. He is a Texas Republican, member of the Congress. He introduced a bill yesterday to eliminate all IRS penalties and interest for paying taxes past due. He’s calling the legislation ‘The Rangel Rule,’ named after House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charlie Rangel. 
This would enable ‘citizens who fail to pay taxes on time to do so later’ with no penalty, just like Rangel has done and just like Timothy Geithner has done. ‘As of September 2008 the Harlem Democrat reportedly paid back more than $10,000 in taxes but that did not include any IRS penalties. ‘Your citizens back home should have the same rights and benefits that come to you as a member of congress. You shouldn’t be treated any differently under the law than your citizens back home,’ Carter said. He added that citizens should receive the ‘same courtesy’ that the IRS is allegedly granting Rangel and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who also recently acknowledged a failure to pay taxes.’ That’s a great line. I love the way these guys are starting to think. (laughing) Just ram it down everybody’s throats.
Now, let’s talk about the Republicans in the House and the vote on the porkulus bill last night. This was a great victory for conservatives. It was a great victory for Republicans. If you listen to the media reports, you would think that the only members of the House to vote against the porkulus bill were Republicans. But there were 11 Democrats who voted against it, too. Not a single Republican voted for it. That means there was a bipartisan vote against the bill. The vote against the bill was bipartisan. The vote for the bill is what was partisan. Now, neither the media nor Obama want you to know this, because they still want you to believe that Obama is the great unifier, the great uniter, when he couldn’t even persuade a single Republican — not even by serving them adult beverages and Wagyu beef in the White House!
He could not persuade even a single Republican, not even a RINO Republican, not even a Republican in Name Only, to go along with this. This is a huge failure for Obama and the media. They were counting on at least one Republican vote for this so they could spin the story as bipartisan support for the bill and cheer the incredible leadership qualities of The Messiah, the Most Merciful Lord Barack Obama. Well, the opposite occurred, which calls into question his leadership qualities. They’re now saying, ‘Well, you know, you can’t change Washington in a week. We knew this going in. It’s going to be a long, long time,’ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I have a never seen this. David Obey. David Obey, member of the House — oh!
Oh! Do you know that his…? David Obey, who is one of the House leaders — get this, folks — David Obey’s son works somewhere in the National Park Service. I gotta find this. There’s an earmark, a level of pork in this bill that goes to the National Park Service — and Obey’s son works there — and the earmark equals the yearly budget of the national parks. Here it is. I just found it, and this is brought to the attention by Darrell Issa of California. He called for an investigation of the egregious National Park’s earmark. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform member Darrell Issa has called for an investigation surrounding the circumstances of a $2 billion earmark in the House [porkulus] bill for national parks. Issa’s call for an investigation follows a story and investigation by the Washington Times. The NPCA’s earmark in the stimulus is as large as the National Park Service’s entire annual budget by more than twice what the Senate has proposed.
‘Nancy Pelosi promised to drain the swamp but this porkulus is payback and business as usual for lobbyists and special interests.’ What the Park Service didn’t mention in its press release is that the organization employs Craig Obey, son of House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, as senior vice president of government affairs. Additionally, the entire 2009 budget for the National Park Service is only $2.1 billion. The earmark is $2 billion and his son’s a lobbyist and he gets the money! ‘Chairman Obey needs to explain why his earmark that his son’s organization is so forcefully supporting, is so much higher than what the Senate has deemed appropriate and nearly equals the National Park Service’s entire budget.’
I’m going to tell you what, the more that this kind of thing in this bill is learned, the more the American people are not going to want any part of this, and they’re being told once again this has to happen now or we’re going to have a terrible result in the economy. It’s going to get even worse — and they tell us, by the way, it’s going to get even worse if this stimulus bill, porkulus bill goes to the Senate and the president signs it and so forth. But this is not stimulating. If we’re going to stimulate the economy, there’s gotta be something in here that stimulates, and there just isn’t. It is just traditional typical Democrat spending.
Nancy Pelosi wrote this bill. She excluded the Republican Party. Obama went along with it, saying he wanted Republican input, but when he got Republican input, he rejected it. Remember, he said he won the election, meaning he’s going to do whatever he wants to do. This entire sham of a bill and the sham of this great uniter and unifier has now been exposed. And, folks, the House Republicans deserve our praise in this. They stood firm. They understood that they had to stand up against what is the most irresponsible confiscation of wealth and power from the American people in modern history, and that’s exactly what this bill is.
It is a confiscation, the most irresponsible confiscation of wealth and power, from you, the American people, in our nation’s history. They had to say no. The House Republicans had to say no to a bill that has nothing to do with creating jobs, a bill that kills jobs. It has nothing to do with jump-starting the economy. All it does is jump-start the size of government. And they did. And they did so unanimously. And for this they deserve a standing ovation. See, folks, it’s really not that hard to do what’s right. It is not only good government and good politics. What they did is good for the country.
Now, what’s going to happen over in the Senate is Obama is going to try to pick off a couple of RINOs in the Senate and he’ll probably have some luck there. Susan Collins from Maine, let me get the quote. Here’s her quote. Susan Collins: ‘Congress must work with our new president to secure the nation’s economic future.’ So we can wave good-bye to Susan Collins. If that’s what she’s thinking now, she’s already off the reservation. ‘We gotta work with our new president to secure our nation’s economic future.’ Well, we can work with him all we want, but we don’t have to cave to this sham of an idea. So he’ll probably get a couple of RINOs in the Senate. He will have some luck there.
The reason is that you have some Republican senators who arrogantly insist that only by mimicking Democrats can Republicans win elections in certain parts of the country, the Northeast — and so that’s what they do. They mimic liberals while wearing the uniform of the Republican Party. Most of these types of senators are really in politics for themselves, to promote their own careers, and we know who they are. We know we’re going to lose a couple of them in this fight. Obama will gladly, happily pick them off, and I guarantee you they’ll be brought up to the White House whenever the eventual signing is on this, and they’ll be heralded as heroes. You watch.
Yet the Republicans in the Senate — even though their numbers have shrunk because they have too often followed the more liberal path, the Republicans in the Senate — actually have the ability to slow down and even stop major parts of this bill because of the Senate’s rules. The leadership, Mitch McConnell there, I’m not clear exactly what he’s going to do, but he’s got the opportunity here to stop and get some of these ridiculous items out of this porkulus bill. The problem the Senate has is that you may undermine your own position, your own bargaining position if you’ve surrendered on the procedural rules. Procedural rules are the ammo that the Republican leadership in the Senate has, and if they’ve surrendered on them by now (I’m not sure they have) it’s going to be a tougher task.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
Now, this bill next goes to the Senate. They’re not going to vote on this ’til the middle of February, folks. I’ll be back in plenty of time. Don’t sweat it here.
They’re not going to get around to this ’til the muddle of February. What I want people in the Senate — this is so crucial here. In fact, everybody. It is immoral. It is morally wrong to lie to the American people as the Democrats are doing about what this bill really is. It is morally wrong for the mass media in this country not to expose the lies and the misrepresentations of this legislation to the American people and what it is really intended to accomplish. It is immoral on the part of the White House, it is immoral on the part of the Democrat Party, it is morally wrong within the bowels of the Drive-By Media. It is morally wrong to take money from one citizen to feather the nest of other citizens and a political party at the same time.
It is morally wrong to claim that this bill will save or create three million new jobs when in fact it is a job killer. The administration has admitted that even if the porkulus bill is passed and signed into law, that unemployment will reach 10%. It is morally wrong to lie about what this is. It is morally wrong to play along with it because you think the American people don’t know what’s in it! If the American people claim to want this bill and don’t know what’s in it because they’re being lied to, Republicans in the Senate have an obligation to tell the people the truth of what’s in this bill, and not support it because it is morally wrong to do otherwise!
It is morally wrong to say that this bill will cut middle class taxes, when in fact most of it is about redistributing wealth from taxpayers to non-taxpayers. The New York Times reported — I just saw it right before the program started today, right before noon Eastern — that even illegal immigrants will get these ‘tax credits’ of 500 to a thousand dollars each. Your cash is going to be given away by virtue of the porkulus bill to illegal immigrants, in the name of fairness. It is morally wrong to not tell people the truth of what is in this bill. It is morally wrong of the media to act as sponsors, to not care what’s in it, to hope it simply gets passed so that Obama does not suffer a humiliating defeat, so that Obama’s image as a great unifier and agent of hope and change can be cemented.
It is morally wrong for the Republicans in the Senate to know full well what is in this bill and still vote for it because that’s what they think Northeastern liberals might want, when Northeastern liberals don’t even know what’s in this bill. And, folks, it is morally wrong when politicians use a recession to spread hundreds of billions of dollars to their political friends and supporters, who in turn will help them with their reelections two years from now. It is morally wrong to tell the American people that you created a job-creating piece of legislation, an economic growth piece of legislation, when most of the spending does not begin until 2010 when it just happens to be a reelection year.
If Republicans and moderate Democrats are unwilling to stand up against this kind of abuse of power and abuse of the taxing-and-spending authority of the federal government — if they are unwilling to stand up against this morally wrong procedure to the tune of trillions of dollars for years and years — then they are unwilling to stand for anything of consequence. This is a seminal moment. This vote will determine which senators are statesmen. This vote will determine which senators are reckless hacks. Now, I would like nothing more than to see a bipartisan vote against this massive pork bill just as occurred in the House; a bipartisan vote against one lie piled on top of another, one irresponsibility piled on top of another.
Unlike Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, I welcome the other party to join us in stopping this assault on the integrity of our constitutional and economic system. Because, my friends, that’s exactly what this is. Not only is it morally wrong, which is enough, it is an assault on the integrity of our constitutional and economic system. I am thankful, even though the Republicans at the House may not quite understand this yet. I am thankful that Nancy Pelosi shut them out from any participation in writing this. One of the greatest things that could happen in all this is that not one Republican in the House can claim authorship of one word, because they were shut out by Nancy Pelosi. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thanks so much.
The Republicans remain clean and pure as the wind-driven snow when it comes to the immorality of all that has transpired here. It is now up to the Republicans in the Senate to understand their position on this. As I say: unlike Pelosi and Reid, I welcome the Democrats in the Senate to join us in stopping this assault on the integrity of our constitutional and economic system. As for President Obama, he talks the game, but he does not produce. He says he’s a uniter and a unifier, but all he’s done so far is unite Republicans — and even some moderate Democrats — against his phony bill. Heath Shuler from North Carolina actually had to ask Pelosi for permission to vote against this and was granted it because of an uproar in his district over it.
He felt his reelection chances were endangered if he voted for this thing. That’s an indication of what’s going on throughout the rest of the country. He’s a Democrat. So Obama has united the Republicans; he has united the left in his party. He has failed in the House to conceal his true intentions in bipartisanship. You see, this is not a socialist nation. Obama did not have a mandate to make this a socialist nation. He did not campaign on making this a socialist nation. In fact, he ridiculed those who said that he was a socialist, who said he supported socialist policies. This bill, the porkulus bill represents everything wrong with Washington.
It redistributes wealth like no bill ever has before it. It rewards big special interest groups. It’s tens of billions of dollars in payoffs. It rewards people who don’t work, who don’t save. It rewards businesses that fail. I know a lot of people are upset Circuit City went out of business. Yeah, it’s a bad thing for the people that work there. (interruption) What did you say, Snerdley? You’re upset Circuit City went out of business? You really are? See how counterintuitive real economics is? That’s not the right answer. Circuit City was failing. Why? Why was Circuit City in trouble? They weren’t as good as Best Buy! Their customer service had complaint, complaint, complaint.
There’s a reason businesses fail. It was weak. You let the weak go. We’re propping up the weak. Nothing against Circuit City per se, but economics is economics. It’s a frustrating thing how counterintuitive understanding it is. So we’re going to with this bill, with the porkulus bill, we are going to reward people who don’t work and save. We’re going to reward businesses that fail. This bill tramples on private enterprise by sucking credit out of the economy, to be used to subsidize unprecedented new federal deficit spending. The spending. This bill is just old Washington. It is Washington as usual times ten.
It’s Washington as usual on steroids. There is no change in this bill; there is no leaving the past behind. It is the worst of everything that has become Washington and Big Government — and as this is Obama’s marquee policy, then that is how his administration must be defined as well. The worst of everything that has become Washington and Big Government. It’s his marquee policy. He put his name on it; he owns it. Therefore, what we’re saying about this bill can be said about his administration and how we define it. So, again, congratulations to the House Republicans — every one of them — and the 11 Democrats who did the right thing and refused to support something so blatantly, morally wrong.