RUSH: Don’t think for a moment Obama’s not setting up a government shutdown here and try to recreate 1985, shift the blame to the Republicans. I mean, they’re doing their own budget. Obama’s budget’s a blueprint; all president’s budgets are. Congress actually does the budget. And they’ll send 
it up there, and if Obama vetoes the thing, then he wants a shutdown. He wants a shutdown because he thinks he can reverse his own fortunes just like Der Schlick Meister, Bill Clinton, did in 1995. But you know what they always say. You ever thrown, folks, you ever had a spontaneous, great party? It just happens Friday or Saturday night.
You get together with some people, just have a great time, and you say, ‘You know what, let’s do this next week,’ and you try to do the same thing next week. It just isn’t the same. Well, I predict to you it will be the same effect for the Democrats if they try to recreate the government shutdown party of 1995 here in 2011. I got a note here from a friend listening intently to the program, all this that we’ve discussed today, and this is really good: ‘The Only Hope the Country Has — The only hope this country has is through the innovations of a free people, a people who are free to benefit from their good ideas and their hard work. History has proved over and over there’s no shortcut. University eggheads and politicians do not have, never have had a better way to achieve prosperity for a nation.
‘Hard work born of free people benefiting from their innovations.’ Now, government can’t accomplish this. Government only gets in the way and makes it more difficult. Government does not create wealth. By definition, government does not create wealth. Government confiscates wealth. So the government needs to get out of the way, and that means quit taking so much wealth away from the private sector. That’s the hope that we have. That’s the only hope we’ve got. America’s hope is not in stimulus bills. It’s not in mortgage-assistance programs. It’s not in green technology sponsored by the government with crony capitalism subsidies. It’s not in windmills or any of that — unless market forces can combine with need and necessity to create something that’s profitable in a new energy sector, and that will happen if the country remains free.
That kind of stuff cannot be forced on us.
The country is not gonna become great and rediscover itself because of electric cars or any of that, or any of these other government ideas.
It just isn’t going to happen.
And looky here! How many…? Remember all these arguments about government-funded abortions? ‘No, Rush, the government doesn’t pay for abortions. That’s just one of the tricks you people on the right try to always use.’
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We’re talking about the government shutdown of 1995 and how the Democrats are hoping to relive that wonderful moment in their political history because they do view it (perhaps correctly so) as one of the elements that revitalized the dormant Clinton regime at the time. ‘Cause Newt and the boys had the House Republicans on a roll. This was just the second year after they had been sworn in. And the government shutdown happened, and it was totally orchestrated. Clinton told the federal employees, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get your back pay.’ (interruption) Okay, the question is: ‘If it saved Clinton, why did he sign welfare reform?’
It didn’t alone save Clinton, but they think it did. We’re not dealing with reality. This is what they think. The Democrats think that this is how they beat back this Republican revolution. That’s why I’m eager to repeat this. We have a montage from my television show in 1995 about the budget battle the Democrats think they won and are looking to replay. This is how they were behaving. This is what they were saying back in 1995, 16 years ago. Is that right? Yeah. Five, 11… Regardless of the lousy at quick math in head, this is what they’re hoping to replicate. This is perhaps a prelude to things that you will hear them say as we get closer to March this year, which is the government shut down date.
REP. SAM GIBBONS: GOP! Get Old People!
REP. WILLIAM CLAY: What’s next? Castration? Sterilization?
REP. JOHN LEWIS: They are comin’ for our children! They are comin’ for the poor! They are comin’ for the sick, the elderly, and the disabled!
WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN MIKE MCCURRY: The reason they’re trying to slow the rate of increase in the program, I suppose, is because eventually they’d like to see the program just die and go away. You know, that’s probably what they’d like to see happen to seniors, too, if you think about it.
REP. MAJOR OWENS: What is being done to our society — the torture and the maiming of our society — is incomprehensible.
REP. GIBBONS: You’re a bunch of dictators, that’s all you are. I had to fight you guys 50 years ago.
RUSH: That was Sam Gibbons. You know, he parachuted in on D-Day at Omaha Beach, and he was claiming that the Republicans were just like the Nazis he had to fight 50 years ago. Ah, Major Owens! Oh, my glad to hear that voice brought back from the archives, the Grooveyard of Forgotten Hits. Major Owens: ‘What’s being done to our…?’ This is the guy who said the sharks still swim the route of the slave ships from Africa to the United States. Sharks are still out there. They’re still hoping that more slaves will be thrown overboard for them. He said it, we have the tape, and it was John Lewis saying, ‘They are coming for our children!
‘They are coming for the poor! They are comin’ for the sick, the elderly, and the disabled!’ It was Mike McCurry who said, ‘[T]hey’d like to see the program just die and go away. You know, that’s probably what they’d like to see happen to seniors, too, if you think about it.’ William Clay: ‘What’s next? Castration? Sterilization?’ Sam Gibbons: ‘GOP! Get old people!’ That’s the budget battle of 1995. That’s what they’re hoping to rekindle. Back to the phones, Janet in Shiloh, Illinois, I’m glad you waited. Great to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Last Man Standing. How are you? I wanted to emphasize how this is not 1995, and I agree with you completely because I’m not a stupid woman. Obama is gunning for government shutdown, and he’s delusional. I think that’s the polite word. Because back then as you would recall the Democrats used all sorts of threats as to why they couldn’t do things like shut down the government or impeach a president, and one of them was the stock market would crash. Well, the stock market has crashed, and it gave us this president that has further taken us off the rails of the country.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: We have eight million homes, claims Mort Zuckerman, in some state of foreclosure right now. Unemployment’s been up above 8% since this fellow’s taken office. The Democrats, they said the Republicans want to let granny die. Well, the Democrats have given us death panels.
RUSH: Exactly right!
CALLER: Yes. Yes, yes, yes!
RUSH: Who is it that’s given us the death panels? Who is it that’s doing that? Exactly right.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Who is it that’s forced people out of their homes?
CALLER: Right! (giggles) It’s the Democrats, and they have no compassion — and you know what else, Rush? This is really important. There’s a lot of people in their forties — late thirties, forties, early fifties — who have been in the private sector had their retirement savings wiped out. Their homes, if they haven’t lost them, are worth a fraction of what they were — and they’re more reliant on Social Security than they ever were. We’ve got to take this fight straight to the jugular of the Democratic Party! We’ve got to stop letting them be the bullies that they are who destroy people’s lives. That’s what they are about. Look at our major cities! Look what the census numbers of Chicago are. They’ve got a 1920’s percentage of people living there in Chicago now. Who organized Chicago?
RUSH: I know.
CALLER: Who? Obama.
RUSH: It’s the same sad story in New Orleans. It’s the same sad story in Detroit where they’re actually talking about bulldozing houses. It’s the same sad story. Whenever Democrats have run a city unchecked, take a look at the city. State, same thing. Janet, if you’re willing, you need to be signed up as a spokesman for the Republican Party. This is what the Republican Party ought to be saying! This is what people in the country think. The Republicans could score major points by simply validating what people already think. People in the e-mail ask (snidely), ‘Well, you FOR a shutdown, Rush? You were for it last time.’
Damn right I am!
Shut it down!
Let’s prove again we can live without it for a few weeks. So-called essential jobs will not go undone. We’re not thinking like winners here. We should prepare for what happens when it happens, and what happens is that we prove the world will not turn to dust and blow away when this government stops operating for a while — and at the same time, we make it clear that this is being done because the president seeks to bankrupt the country, and we refuse to be any part of it. We make it clear that HE is shutting down the government for his own political reasons. We make it clear that HE and his media are treating this as a giant political game all for him to win. 1995 was what it was. This is a different time and aim different place today.
For one thing, Obama is not Clinton. Clinton, there was no better liar than Clinton, and there still isn’t. Obama is a stumbler! You take the teleprompter away, and he’s got zilch. In fact, the Republicans proposed cutting the teleprompter budget in the White House as a joke? You take his teleprompter away and he’s got nothing. In 1995, basically it was still me. There was no Fox. There was no giant blog network. The New Media was in its birth stages, if you will. It’s a whole different day today. It’s a whole different time. We’ve gotta tell people exactly what’s going on. Barack Obama is holding the government hostage for his own political ambitions. He’s playing a game with it! His whole budget is a game. There’s nothing serious in it. I’m glad you called. I appreciate it.