RUSH: I want to translate the speech last night in the words of Obama. So what comes next is me speaking as Obama, giving that speech last night, what he really meant; because the inherent inconsistency in his position remains. He says, ‘We spend too much on health care but we need to spend more. We need to add more people to the system by force if necessary. We need to expand health care as a matter of law, no exceptions. We need to compel insurance companies to provide more benefits to anybody and everybody who seeks them,’ but we spend too much on health care! One of the reasons is, it works. We all know that it’s like buying a lawyer. The more money you spend on a lawyer, the better lawyering you get.
More on that as the program unfolds. My mind is shooting off here in rapid-fire neuron blasts and I’m trying to keep this overload I have somewhat organized. So here is how that speech last night, if he were telling the truth, would have gone. ‘By cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare — which of course is a government-run entitlement program — we’ll be able to fund expanded health care without waste, fraud, and abuse. And of course we support Medicare. It’s the Republicans who hate Medicare. We’re only cutting over $500 billion from the already bankrupt program because there are other people, apart from our seniors, who need health care, too. Everyone has to sacrifice, particularly mom and dad, granddad, grandmom. But they won’t mind. That doesn’t mean, of course, we’re going to ration care. We would never do that. We love our seniors.
‘These are scare tactics by the special interests who always oppose reform. No, we’re going to cut Medicare because we support Medicare, and we’re going to cut benefits to seniors because we love our seniors. And what’s all this talk about the government taking over health care? More fearmongering by the special interests! No, what’s going to happen is that we will oversee the insurance companies to make sure they don’t cheat and rip you off. That’s right. The same politicians and bureaucracy that stole trillions from the Social Security trust fund to pay for ever more spending — and the same politicians and bureaucracy that stole trillions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund — will use their carefully honed skills and experience to ensure that the private insurance companies treat you fairly.
‘And what we will do is tell these companies who must be covered — which is anyone who asks to be covered– we’re going to tell ’em what they have to charge and we’re going to tell ’em that they have to cover preexisting conditions. We’re going to tell ’em what they can’t charge. We’re going to tell ’em what benefits they have to offer — and if they fail to do exactly what we say, we’re going to have to close ’em down to protect you. That doesn’t mean, of course, that you have to change your insurance company. We would never tell you to drop your insurance if you like it! No. What we’re going to do is put your insurer out of business. See the difference? And as you know, we are here to change Washington. We want to use free market language to massively grow government.
‘We want to increase competition by destroying it. We want to grow jobs by killing employment. Our stimulus recovery is going just as planned. Real unemployment is now at 16.8% and rising. This is how we save the economy from the brink: By killing jobs, killing home ownership, and killing private property; by creating trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars in new debt. This is how we will create a stable dollar, a prosperous economy. This is how we will grow businesses, increase home ownership and so forth. And if we don’t it’s Bush’s fault anyway because I inherited all this! So don’t you understand? I’m in the process of destroying your country. I don’t like it at all. I don’t like this Constitution. It wasn’t written for me. I never had a chance to vote for it. I’ve been saddled with it and my people, saddled with it and my party’s been saddled with it and we hate this Constitution!
‘This Constitution doesn’t tell us what we can do to you. All this Constitution tells us is what we can’t do to you, and we want the Constitution to tell us what we can do. Not only to you but for you. I don’t like this at all. And I haven’t liked it and my college professors haven’t liked it and my parents didn’t like it and none of my friends liked it. Bill Ayers didn’t like the Constitution. Jeremiah Wright doesn’t like the Constitution. My gang at ACORN doesn’t like the Constitution, and I’m gonna fix it — and I’m doing it right in front of your eyes while I’m telling you the opposite of what I’m doing. I’m destroying your economy. I am foreclosing on your house. I have taken over two of the three big automobile companies. I’m going to make sure you can’t eventually drive the car you want. And I’m doing all this to restore the economy so that we never have a down cycle like this. I’m doing all this to save the planet from climate change.
‘I’m doing all it is so that you will have good jobs and good health care. You won’t have any money unless you turn to me for it. It’s essential that despite talking like a capitalist that we leave no industry free to actually make profits, because profits are the tool of the special interests — who, after all, don’t care about you as much as we do in this administration. We know what you need better than you do. We know how to manage your affairs and your finances better than you do. This is why we’ve nationalized the banks, the mortgage industry, the student loan industry, and soon the energy companies and the health care industry. We, after all, aren’t driven by the profit motive. We’re driven by the public interest, and we know what’s in the public interest better than you do.
‘That’s why it’s time to stop all this talk, stop all this bickering, stop the games and just shut up when I’m speaking and instituting my hope-and-change agenda. My agenda is your agenda whether you know it or not whether you accept it or not — and it’s going to be forced down your throat whether you want it or not. Now, I’ve tried very hard to work with Republicans. My door is always open to them. But they refuse to accept my agenda. They seek to sabotage real reform and real change and hope. They keep talking about empowering individuals to make their own health care decisions. The Republicans keep talking about cutting taxes for middle-class families so they can buy their own insurance.
‘The Republicans keep talking about expanding health savings accounts much like IRAs and 401(k)s so that families can save some of their own money tax-free to prepare for catastrophic illnesses and increasing competition by enabling insurance companies to compete for business across state lines. Do you believe that idiocy from the Republicans? Do you believe that stuff? Individuals can’t be trusted to do the right thing. We all know that. People are foolish. The only thing they should be free to do is make enough money so that we can confiscate 50, 60, 70% of it via taxes. In fact this whole nation filled with the notion of individual rights and limited government is nothing more than a racist invention of white slaveholders.
‘And let me repeat this again: The whole notion of individual rights and limited government is nothing more than a racist invention of white slaveholders known as the Founding Fathers. We know that our Founding Fathers were racists. We never agreed to their Constitution. Did you vote for it? No. It was imposed on us from one generation to the next. So forget about it or else our agenda of redistribution of wealth and big centralized government will be obstructed by something as inconsequential as the highest law in the land which we don’t respect; which we didn’t vote for; which we think is a sham; which we think is racist, sexist, bigoted, and homophobic. The first thing I could do if I had a chance is rip the Constitution to shreds. Now, I know we’re not to the point where I can do that yet in front of you.
‘So I’m going to do it while you can’t see me doing it all the while telling you, ‘I support what you support.’ Now, we need to nationalize the health care system as fast as possible, and the reason is that we have so much more hope and change to get to in our agenda before the next election. We need to get back to cap and trade so we can manage virtually every business and household in the country, so we can begin the long neglected effort to limit and then shrink how much wealth is produced in this nation. We are 5% of the world’s population; we use 25% of the world’s resources. We are stealing from the poor of the world, and we have done this since our interception. We are immoral and unjust and we are imperialists. As global citizens, we must change our ways.
‘We must do our fair share to participate in the world’s poverty. We are too rich, and I’m in the process of making sure that will not be said about this country in the future. The standard of living, when I get through here, will plummet dramatically. That’s only fair! We need to pay a penalty for usurping so much of the world’s resources. Poverty exists in the rest of the world because of us and our Constitution — which I didn’t vote for and I didn’t get a chance to vote for, and if I have my say about it, I’m going to rip it to shreds before I leave this White House. We must make ourselves poorer! We must learn to suffer through the misery that other societies impose on themselves. We’re going to call this ‘going green’ so that you think that we’re ‘saving the planet,’ but what we’re actually doing is making you poorer.
‘We are going to rob you of your wealth and the opportunity to earn wealth, because when we say ‘going green’ it conjures images of polar bears and flowing creeks and fields and flowers. It’s time to return to simpler times anyway, agrarian times. The Industrial Revolution wasn’t all that great anyway. There was more racism and slavery in the Industrial Revolution and more pollution and disgusting destruction of the planet. This is just part of our progressive agenda, an agenda for the modern era. It’s time we moved forward into the past. It is time to make tomorrow our yesterdays. It is time to surrender yourself to the greater good. You must make sacrifices! We are, after all, a community of one — and I am The One who will lead you to the Promised Land.’ That’s what that speech was last night. That’s what’s in this man’s heart. That is what’s in this man’s mind.