RUSH: So, I want you to do something. Check out the Drudge Report right now. Log into the Drudge Report, Mr. Snerdley. Tell me what you see. Is that not the optic I told you was coming? That’s why Panetta did this. There’s your visual aid. Right now, on the Drudge Report, you have a big picture of Obama with his facial expression grimaced in pain, and the giant headline: “800,000 PENTAGON LAYOFFS,” and that’s exactly what Panetta wanted. There’s your visual aid.

That’s just one of the things that’s gonna happen with this sequester: 800,000 Pentagon layoffs. We are talking $44 billion in 2013. The entire stimulus is $85 billion. The amount of spending reduction we’re talking about… I’m getting blue in the face. You know what? I’m so fed up with this. I’ve been doing this for 25 years. This actually started with the budget battle of 1995, and it seems like every three months or six months it’s the same damn crisis put forth by the same damn people, and we fight it in the same way.

They put out their lies and distortions.

We respond to it with the truth.

It ends up not mattering.

It doesn’t make a smithereens’ bit of difference, and frankly I’m fed up with it. How many…? I’m blue in the face. It’s $42.5 billion in spending cuts, and they’re not even cuts. They’re just reductions in the rate of growth. I just… I just can’t take the lies, the distortions, the fearmongering — and it’s not just at the federal level. The states do it. Local governments do it. You get to the local government, and they always tell you that the cops are gonna get cut and thieves are gonna have a heyday in your neighborhood.

Then the teachers are gonna get cut and your poor little kids aren’t gonna learn anything. The truth of the matter is, unless we get serious and start talking about trillions of dollars worth of cuts, we’re just whistling Dixie here. We’re playing pipe dreams and games. It’s just the same thing again. It just keeps repeating, and the Republicans keep falling for it the same thing way. It’s like I told you. What we’re really up against here, folks, is that the ruling class inside Washington is not interested in limited government.

They’re not interested in reducing the size of government. They just want to take turns running it. They want to take turns controlling the Senate committee chairmanships. In other words, they want to take turns at controlling the money. They want to take turns in having the power to dole it out, give it away, and use it for whatever benefits they can. The truth either doesn’t get out or, even if it does, it doesn’t seem to matter.

So if it’s starting to bore me, I can’t imagine how it impacts you hearing this over and over and over again.

From the Republicans are gonna starve children, and talking about taking food out of the children’s mouths… They’re doing that with this, too.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

Here’s Rich in White Plains, New York. Hi, Rich.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, how are you?

RUSH: Just dandy, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: I just thought of something funny. Have you ever seen the Geico commercial with Dikembe Mutombo where he goes around swatting everything in sight?

RUSH: Not off the top of my head. I know who Mutombo is and I know what Geico is, but I’m not sure I’ve seen that commercial.

CALLER: Well, they made a funny commercial where he goes around swatting everything. Somebody tries to throw out a piece of paper in the garbage and he comes out of nowhere and swats it and wags his finger. Somebody tries to put something in a shopping cart and he knocks it down. And I’m thinking, Obama is Mutombo, and every spending cut that the Congress throws up, Obama swats it down and wags his finger and says, “Not in my house.”

RUSH: That might not be a bad commercial.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: You know, I’m sorry to admit that I haven’t seen that particular commercial, ’cause, you know, I’m a pop culture maven. I don’t know how that one slipped by. But Obama as Mutombo, swatting away budget cuts and wagging his finger? Of course, you don’t know how that would play with low-information voters. Does this ad take place in a supermarket, Rich?

CALLER: Yeah. One of them is somebody’s trying to put something in their cart in the supermarket and here comes Dikembe out of nowhere and swats the thing away, waves his finger, “Not in my house.”

RUSH: I didn’t know he lived at the grocery store. But anyway, the concept is interesting. I’ll have to keep a sharp eye out for the commercial. It would be easy for me, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know exactly,” and laugh along with the guy. I haven’t seen it. I only know how to be honest.

Here’s Salon in San Antonio, Texas, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Dittos, Rush. I sure am glad I had a little time to calm down, calm my nerves. This president does not take turns. This sequestration is a setup for the Republicans, and it’s gonna bite ’em in the elections for the midterms. The whole thing is gonna collapse on ’em.

RUSH: Tell me how.

CALLER: Half a trillion dollars in military cuts prior to the sequestration. This thing may be a dime’s worth of difference, but it’s the dime that’s gonna bankrupt a lot of operations in the military. We’re not gonna be going into the Mediterranean with a second carrier. We’re gonna be giving up a lot in the Pacific, and with China getting agitated like they are and having their young military officers push aggressively to put us in our place, that’s not gonna work out well. And just, for instance, if North Korea drops anything on Japan, South Korea’s gonna like that. And it’s gonna make a real problem for us. Now, who’s gonna get the blame for that? Obviously it’s gonna be the Republican Party.

RUSH: Wait a second. Are you saying the South Koreans would approve of the North Koreas nuking Japan?

CALLER: I didn’t say nuking, but if they did, my information from Frank Gaffney, Secure Freedom Radio, says they would be happy with that, that if the South Korea’s would approve —

RUSH: Well, that’s just Samsung wanting to wipe out Sony.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, folks, our caller from San Antonio was right. The Department of Defense, the Pentagon, was cut $487 billion last year, over ten years. That much was cut out of the defense budget, $487 billion last year, over ten years. There was no talk of furloughs. There were no talk of layoffs. And we certainly didn’t hear from Panetta, “Oh, yeah, have to lay off 800,000 civilian employees.” Now with $44 billion, and really only half of that going to defense — do you realize how ridiculous this is? You know, I don’t even want to give the impression here I’m sucked in by the premise. It’s a danger you run even talking about it. I mean, you almost have to be sucked in by the premise in order to talk about and dispel it.

We’re looking at $22 billion in defense cuts in a year resulting in layoffs and soldiers not having guns and ammo. I mean, it’s just absurd. This is just all so absurd. Here’s USA Today, January 5th of 2012: “Obama Announces Pentagon Budget Cuts.” And from the article, “The new military strategy includes $487 billion in cuts over the next decade. An additional $500 billion in cuts could be coming if Congress follows through on plans for deeper reductions.” And that was referring to the upcoming sequester.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Laura in Austin Township, Ohio, it’s great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Okay. I am calling to, um, give some information about federal workers. My husband is a federal worker. He works at an air base in this area. We have not had a raise in over three years now. He makes under $100,000. He is also required, because he has to be a Reservist to hold his civilian job, to have a security check. When he gets a security check, that means we can have no financial indiscretions. We cannot declare bankruptcy. We cannot default on our mortgage. We have to find a way to pay our bills. We don’t have a choice or he would lose his job. So in the past four years, although the cost of living has gone up, we have remained flatlined in our income, and we worked as much as we can to keep on top of our bills.

RUSH: What do you…?

CALLER: I don’t know any federal worker making over $100,000 at the air base.

RUSH: Oh, they’re out there. They’re all over the place.

CALLER: Well, in Washington. They’re not across the country working at the air bases around the country. It’s not an across-the-board, Washington, DC, pay cut or pay scale.

RUSH: Well, I know there are different General Service Administration pay grades, pay levels. I know that. Look, nobody’s saying that federal workers have it easy. They’re just experiencing less unemployment as a percentage than the general population is. But, look, with this economy and this regime, it’s bad news for everybody. Everybody’s on edge. A lot of people are in dire financial straits, and there’s no end in sight to it, sadly. I hate to put it that way, but that’s the way it is.