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RUSH: On the fifth of July, a big admission from Joe Biden: ‘The truth is we and everybody else misread the economy.’ We might even have the audio of this. We’ll start here with Obama Saturday, a portion of his weekly YouTube address.

OBAMA: In a little over 100 days, this recovery act has worked as intended.

RUSH: Yeah. Here’s Joe Biden July fifth on This Week with Stephanopoulos, and Stephy said, ‘Nine-and-a-half percent unemployment in June; the worst numbers in 26 years. How do you explain that? Because when the president and you were selling this stimulus package you predicted at the beginning that if you get this package in place, unemployment will peak about 8%. Now it’s nine and a half percent.’ Wall Street expert Meredith Whitney now today predicted 13%. ‘So either you misread the economy or the stimulus package is too slow and too small.’

BIDEN: We and everyone else misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures of most of the blue chip indexes out there. Everyone thought, at that stage, everyone, the bulk of —

STEPHANOPOULOS: CBO was a little bit higher.

BIDEN: A little bit higher. But — but they’re all in the same range. No one was talking about that we — we would be moving toward — were worried about ten-and-a-half percent or nine-and-a-half percent at this point.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, we’re looking at ten now.

BIDEN: No — well, look. We’re much too high. We’re at nine — what, 9.5 —

STEPHANOPOULOS: 9.5.

BIDEN: — right now. And so the truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited.

RUSH: I listen to stuff like this and my blood boils because, yeah, the economy was in the tank but everything that’s been done to fix the economy has just been continued by these people, and the political solutions have not worked. But, see, it depends on how you define ‘worked.’ Because Obama himself said that the stimulus wasn’t designed to work right away, no, not designed to work right away but it’s working as intended, and he urged patience. So let’s take this, it wasn’t intended to work right away, let’s forget that for a second. Let’s go to where he said on July 11th, this in Bloomberg: ‘Obama said this $787 billion stimulus bill has worked as intended, as he pushed back against Republican criticism that his recovery program has failed to rescue the economy.’ Worked as intended. If it’s working as intended that means it’s right on schedule. So nine-and-a-half percent unemployment was expected! If we are to believe the president, nine-and-a-half percent employment was intended. He’s gotta say now that going above 10% is part of the plan.

According to Timmy the Tax Cheat, this is all healthy. What I want to focus on here is that he means it when he says it’s working as intended, and I don’t think he thinks that anybody is going to analyze it literally. It is working as intended. Now, what I’m going to say is shocking, and it’s not believable to a lot of people because they simply can’t believe that anybody elected to run America would intend these circumstances. But these circumstances, which he admits he intends, are exactly why I wanted him to fail. I did not want 10% unemployment and going higher. I did not want people losing jobs. I did not want the economy stagnating. I wanted Obama to fail. But when you look at his agenda and what he really wants to do, this is just perfect. His centerpiece is health care.

Now, Rasmussen has a poll out today that more Americans oppose national health care than support it. Not good for Obama. It isn’t gonna matter if you think polls on issues and his agenda matter, then you’ve got another think coming. But it could matter in terms of the elections of 2010, if he goes ahead and rams this down everybody’s throat when nobody wants it or a majority of people don’t. But it is my firm belief, because nobody’s this dumb, nobody is this economically illiterate. They have to be doing this on purpose. Folks, they are depleting the private sector of capital. They are taking money away. Everybody knows that to stimulate job growth you have to provide incentives in the private sector for that growth to take place. There are no incentives. There are no incentives for anyone to invest, there are no incentives for anybody to hire, I mean in great numbers. You have pockets here where there may be some upticks in performance, but overall when you’re up at nine-and-a-half percent unemployment and heading higher, it’s not possible to revive the private sector. You need more people working.

By the way, here’s another thing to cement this. The reason he wants this is because this is more chaos. This will lead to more demand on the part of average Americans for somebody to come in and fix this. And the irony is is the people that are going to demand the government fix this are demanding the same thing the people that broke it to fix it. So we have nine percent unemployment, we have utter chaos. It’s really not even a question of wanting Obama to fail. He has failed, not the way I wanted him to fail. He succeeded in his mind. He has succeeded. This is my whole point. This is a man with a chip on his shoulder. This is a man who seeks to get even. He apologized for this country again on this latest trip. He said, ‘We had nothing to do with the Cold War. We had nothing to do with anything, no, no, no.’ He’s out there apologizing and I believe this man has as his intention to cut this country down to size, and that’s why I think he chose Sonia Sotomayor.

I think we’ve got people here who have a deep resentment of this country. He’s into transfer and redistribution of wealth and to do that he has to take wealth from somebody, and he’s taking wealth from those who have produced it and created it, and he’s going to transfer it to those who can’t. Give them health care, not jobs. He’s going to give them health care; he’s going to raise their taxes on cap and trade. Obama is spinning right now about taking time but everything said and says now about, for instance, health care is that it is needed right now to prevent future disasters. This was never about being patient. It was about immediacy, period. He was going to implement his agenda regardless the economic circumstances he encountered so it doesn’t matter what Biden said, ‘Oh, it was worse than we ever thought it was going to be, we had no idea,’ it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. He’s implementing his socialist — that word turns people off — statist agenda, whatever, he is implementing his agenda to cut this country down to size regardless the economic circumstances.

Stimulus was rammed through Congress by Obama and the Democrats before anybody could read the damn bill. It had to be in place right now to prevent what’s happening now, which it obviously has not. Obama has failed. His ideas, in the popular lexicon, have failed. But I refuse to believe in his mind he’s failing. I don’t think Obama’s upset about any of this. I don’t think Rahm Emanuel is upset. If they were upset about this, there would be an immediate plan to stimulate the economy with tax cuts, capital gains reductions, anything to get people moving, anything to get people investing, anything to get people spending, anything to get people hired.

This is my point, there’s nobody that’s educated with a brain that believes what is being done will grow an economy. It doesn’t happen. Now, maybe these guys have such vanity and such egos that they think, well, it’s only failed because we haven’t done it before. Maybe that’s the case, but I don’t think so. I think there’s something far more devious and deceitful going on. We had to have that stimulus bill in place right now to prevent what is happening now. It didn’t prevent it. It is continuing to roll on. Here’s Obama, by the way, last Tuesday morning on the Today Show. F. Chuck Todd spoke to Obama, and F. Chuck said, ‘Vice President Biden’s characterization of your administration’s initial economic assessment is just a misread, said that you misread the economy and so forth. What about that?’

OBAMA: All right. Well — well — well — the — (stammering) I — I would actually, uhhh, uhhh, rather than say misread, we had incomplete information. What I would say is that in some areas you’re seeing the economic engine turn, but what we always knew was that; A, this recession was going to be deep; B, it was going to last for a while.

RUSH: And we’re gonna make it last even longer is what he didn’t say but what he should have said to complete the thought. We are going to make it last even longer. Now, here’s the question. We talked about this, all of us on our trip last week. It really boils down to, where is the breaking point? Where is the tipping point where people who today and a month ago, two months ago, were still blaming all this on George Bush, when’s the tipping point where they say, ‘You know what, Obama’s not fixing any of this.’ Everybody is convinced that that tipping point is going to occur. This is the big unanswered question. We don’t know. I got into a big knock-down, drag-out on one of the legs on the trip. I got into a big knock-down, drag-out with someone saying, ‘We need to go get the independents. We need to get the moderates.’ I said, ‘That’s how we lose. That’s how we got McCain.’

Whoever these Obama voters are, the hell with what they’re called, at what point are enough of them going to say, ‘Wait a second, this isn’t working and it’s his plan.’ And that’s the great unanswered question. Once that happens, and here’s the next big unanswered question, once that happens — I’m confident it’s going to, people are still Americans. Most Americans do not want to sit around and watch the permanent destruction of the private sector. Most Americans, I don’t care who they are, Hollywood liberals who are fleeing Hollywood, by the way, to make movies, they’re seeking lower taxes in other parts of the country and world to make movies. Got that story coming up. At some point, ladies and gentlemen, enough Americans are going to not want to see the permanent destruction of the private sector where they earn their living, provide for their families and their futures. At that point, they better have somebody to vote for. There better be an opposition party that can handle the people fed up with the status quo. And when these two things happen and the tipping point, the converging point actually occurs, it’s going to be an interesting thing to note.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Before we go to the phones here I want to make one point about what President Obama said in that last sound bite that we played. Grab number 18 again, Mike. This is Obama disagreeing with his idiot, Vice President Biden, saying that they didn’t misread; they just had ‘incomplete information.’ Now, that’s fascinating to admit. Listen to this…

OBAMA: All right. Well — well — well — the –(stammering) I — I would actually, uhhh, uhhh, rather than saying misread, we had incomplete information. What I would say is that in some areas you’re seeing the economic engine turn, but what we always knew was that; A, this recession was going to be deep; B, it was going to last for a while.

RUSH: All right, now, ‘we had incomplete information.’ Isn’t that interesting? The government and politicians always have incomplete information. They are always unintended consequences. That is why big government is always a failure. But they think they know everything. They think they know everything but they never do. They are always uninformed and have incomplete information. And this is why free markets are the answer. The governor and politicians can never possess or gain the information the rest of us have when we live our daily lives and enter into daily transactions — trillions of them every day. Now, since we already know that the stimulus has failed in what its stated purpose was, why, then, trust these same people with national health care? How in the world can they have all the information on health care?

If they had incomplete information on the economy –’cause Bush lied to them or didn’t give them all the data (which was predictable that they would use that as an excuse) — when did they ever have complete information? Why in the world trust these klutzes to do anything. And when their health care plan fails, what will they then say? They didn’t have all the information? They didn’t realize how complicated it was? Folks, look the bottom line is Obama didn’t want any of this to work. I know that’s hard to believe. You’re thinking it’s a radical statement. It is not radical. It is crucially important that you believe it. He doesn’t want any of this to work because everybody with a brain knows it won’t. This is my point, folks. There’s enough human and world and government and American history, this will not work. And yet they’re doing it anyway. They want it not to work. They’re not this stupid. They are this radical. They do want the destruction, partial or otherwise, of the private sector. This ‘Oh, we didn’t have all the information. Sorry, but nothing we can do about it now. We’ll just have to make the best we can. You’ve got cancer? Fine. Get in line. Third stage and you’re, what, 70? Forget it. We’re out of money. We didn’t have all the information we needed to handle everybody here.’

Here’s Bob, as we start in Empire, Michigan. It’s great to have you on the program, sir. Welcome.

CALLER: How you doing, Rush?

RUSH: Pretty good, sir, thank you.

CALLER: You know, right at the beginning of the presidency, about a month into it, if we remember, Biden had come out and had said that this might not work. At first we thought it was Biden just being stupid but I think they’re already getting the American people psyched up to basically run for cover and cover themselves even though they are planning for it to not work as you’ve been saying from the very get-go. I just don’t see at this point how possibly, with what’s been going on, it could work any way other than what the way they’ve been planning for it to work, which is making it not work.

RUSH: Well, for now that’s true, but we can still stop them. The effort to stop them… I know it appears they’ve got the votes but, look, on health care… ‘House Democrats Proposed Tax on Wealthy to Fund Health Care.’ How many tax increases on ‘the wealthy’ is that now? We’re going to have a value-added tax. ‘Senate Democrats Cool to House Tax on Rich for Health Care.’ I’m just sharing with you headlines here. ‘Officials Push for Health Care in Spite of Delay.’ There’s an opportunity to stop this. As far as the stimulus is concerned — and here’s another dose of reality for you, which we’ve mentioned before but it doesn’t hurt to repeat this — is only six percent of it has been spent. And the money that has been spent so far, do you know where it’s gone? State governments. It’s gone to state governments to help them with their deficits. They’re disguised bailouts. The bulk of it doesn’t start getting spent ’til 2010. Now, what is 2010? Why, for 435 members of the House and 32 members of the Senate it’s a reelection year (gasp!) and they get to pass around a lot of money, disguised as a stimulus package. There’s still time to stop a lot of this. But it’s going to take somebody standing up and doing it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Another Obama sound bite here. On CNN live this afternoon, they aired a portion of Anderson Cooper’s interview with President Obama. Anderson Cooper said, ‘Vice President Biden said that you ‘misread’ the economy. You said, ‘No, no, no. We had incomplete information.’ Nevertheless, you said you would not have done anything differently. That seems contradictory. How can you say if you had known unemployment was going to go to nine-and-a-half percent, wouldn’t you have asked for more money in the stimulus bill?’ (laughing) These idiots.

OBAMA: It’s not contradictory. Keep in mind that we got an $800 billion stimulus package, by far the largest stimulus package ever approved by a United States Congress.

RUSH: Big whoop.

OBAMA: And the stimulus package is working exactly as we had anticipated. This was designed to be a two-year plan and not a six-month plan. Now, it may turn out that the enormous loss of wealth, the depth of the recession that’s occurred, uh, requires us to, uh, reevaluate and see what else we can do, in combination with the —

COOPER: A second stimulus?

OBAMA: Well, eh, eh, it — y-y-you know, there — there are a whole range of things, uhh, umm, Anderson, that we’ve done.

RUSH: Okay. They’re waffling back and forth on a second stimulus. If they do a second stimulus there should be no doubt, ladies and gentlemen, that they’re trying to cause all this to happen. Remember, Stimulus 1 was over a year ago, $176 billion. Stimulus 2 is this boondoggle that we’re living with now. Stimulus 3 is on the drawing board here. So it’s patently obviously what’s going on. It’s just going to require some people to finally associate who is largely responsible for this. And don’t forget this, now. On Friday, Erick Erickson at RedState.com posted the following: ‘According to CongressDaily, Tim Geithner testified before ‘a joint House Agriculture and Financial Services hearing on the regulation of derivatives.’ ‘Noting the rising unemployment, Geithner said what the economy ‘is going through is a very necessary and healthy adjustment as [Americans] go back to living within their means.’

”He added: ‘We do not have an economy that is growing again.”’ Necessary and healthy adjustment? Nine-and-a-half percent unemployment is ‘necessary and healthy’ exactly how? This is the guy, remember, that was so needed! He was so needed, the only guy who could possibly understand TARP, and we had to overlook his tax evasion. And Obama talking about a two-year plan on the stimulus, that is a flat-out lie. When did he ever say it was a two-year plan? Anybody remember that? You remember him saying that? Two-year plan? It was we had to have it now. Do you think they would have passed it if he said, ‘Look, it’s a two-year plan. We need to gradually get it up.’ It wouldn’t even have come close — and it’s a giant pork bill to boot.

All right, Sean in Salina, Kansas, you’re next. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hello. Well, first off I’d like
to say I really enjoy your program —

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: — but I disagree with your thesis that Obama is trying to drive the economy into the ground.

RUSH: That’s sad. That’s unfortunate that you disagree. People like you we’re going to need.

CALLER: Yeah? Here’s the thing. You say, ‘Not a person with a brain out there would think that things are getting better,’ but really if you look at Wall Street and you look at how the stock market is doing, the stock market forecast the economy by about six months in general, and the stock market’s been doing great. So these people with brains who study the supply inventory, demand, et cetera, they think that things are headed up.

RUSH: In the first place, Obama doesn’t believe what you just said. President Obama himself said — and so did David Axelrod — that they don’t follow the stock market, ’cause it’s ‘like a tracking poll.’ It’s up one day and down the next, and you can’t make policy on the basis of the stock market. They’re going to do their agenda regardless of the stock market. The stock market is not up. The stock market’s down from 13,000! The stock market is not up — and all your talk about inventories and things? There’s nobody making anything. The unemployment rate is 9.5% and going higher. Look, I traveled the fruited plain. I traveled the fruited plain all last week. I will share one observation with you. In Montana; Idaho (not Iowa); Oregon; and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I asked the guys who are the investors building these golf course developments…

These are golf courses with homes, nice homes around them, and I asked them, ‘Where are most of your people coming from? Where are most of the people investing in these coming from?’ California. There are a lot of Californians in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, who are leaving California, or having partial residence in these other places. Montana. That golf course, Stock Farm, was owned by Charles Schwab who we happened to meet. I’ve met him once at the AT&T. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Redmond, Oregon. ‘Where are these people coming from?’ Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Redmond, Oregon; Jackson Hole, Wyoming — California is the first state they mentioned where people are moving from and buying homes to live on the golf courses that we played. You know what a golf course development is, Snerdley?

Maybe people don’t. You have a golf course and you have homes around it. You’ve got a country club there. It’s either year round or — depending where it is — it’s six months a year, what have you. So mostly it’s not full time, but I asked, ‘Where are the people from that are buying these houses to live here?’ California was the first state mentioned. We talked about this once and the concept of federalism. You can leave when a state goes nuts. But when the federal government goes nuts, where do you go? If you don’t like what’s happening in California you can bum out. But you can’t bum out of the United States without renouncing your citizenship and moving somewhere else. Now, I also saw… This is an interesting observation. I thought it would be obvious to those of you who live in these places. All of these places are wintertime activity places. Montana; Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Oregon — and of course Truckee, California, which is Lake Tahoe, 6,000 feet, lots of snow there.

We were playing in a lot of places right underneath ski slopes. It’s the same thing in Jackson Hole. Every car is an SUV. Every car. Nine out of ten that we saw driving is an SUV, and I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way Obama’s going to get these people to give these up.’ They’re not going to put up with it. This is just something… This whole country is so massive, it’s so intricate. The private sector is so born of personal behavior and so forth, and it just struck me. These people would not be able to get around out there and they want to. It’s wintertime place. It just strikes me how… He’s going to try, don’t misunderstand. They’re going to try to get rid of these things, but… (sigh) I’m pausing here because there were certain things that I was told about economic circumstances in some of these various places, and I don’t want to go into great detail. (interruption)

No, because a lot of these places are high-end. This is the thing. It’s not miserable but… (sigh) These are big risk takers, and they started these developments two and three years ago. And real estate prices have seen, you know, they plummet everywhere and so forth. These places, the values pretty much hold up because there’s a demand for them because they’re high-end places. But I’m reacting to the previous caller saying the economy is not that bad. In certain pockets of it, it’s not that bad. But you talk to the 9.5% unemployed. In Michigan it may reach 20%. I mean, it is bad in a lot of places. But what compounds this is that there is nothing going on to improve it. There are roadblocks everywhere to improving it, and they are being put there by President Obama. And now we got Timmy Geithner, who was so needed to get our economy going again that Congress overlook his tax evasion for multiple years. He’s never worked in the private sector and he thinks you losing your job is ‘necessary and healthy.’ That’s Barack Obama’s America.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me ask you a quick question out there. How many of you think in your own mind, economy is not that bad. I’m able to get gas, go to movies, isn’t that bad. Do you remember when gasoline last spring, summer, fall, whatever it was, hit four bucks a gallon? That’s all we heard every day, all day, all the cable networks, how four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline was destroying people’s lives and they were interviewing people with the hard-luck stories and how they couldn’t get to the grocery store and they were cutting back on food. Remember. Let me ask you, we are in a recession deeper than any since 1980-’82. You see any of the hard-luck stories in the State-Run Media that would lead you to believe the economy is as bad as it is? You don’t. And that’s one of the reasons why you may not think it’s as bad as it is. But the numbers don’t lie.

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