RUSH: Malcolm is on the phone from the Netherlands. Is that right? Malcolm is in the Netherlands. Great to have you, Malcom.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Wooden shoe and windmill dittos from the Netherlands.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I’ve actually been trying to get through for 15 years. I’m 27 now. I first converted when I heard the story back in like 1992 about the guy who gets a tax cut and how many people he affects just by going on vacation. Suddenly you made all of supply side make sense to me, so I want to thank you for that.
RUSH: You’re welcome. (Laughing)
CALLER: I actually used to wear the Clinton awareness dollar bill folded. I’d walk around in seventh grade with the dollar bill —
RUSH: Oh, the deficit awareness reduction ribbon, yes.
CALLER: Yes, sir. I thank you for showing me the light. I’m calling in regards to what the pork that the Democrats are putting on. First off, are they subsidizing any pork farmers, or is all the pork in the bill?
RUSH: All the pork’s in the bill. There’s so much is going to agriculture, some of it’s going to go to pork farmers. There must be six different allocations, just off the top of my head, to agriculture, if not more, in the get-out-of-Iraq in March of ’08 bill.
CALLER: Well, I think that that’s actually brilliant for them because they can say when Bush vetoes it, they’re going to go separate it into two bills. They’re going to say the first one, Bush didn’t want to fund the troops, Bush didn’t want to give all this money to the troops. They’re going to forget about the withdrawal surrender date and everything. The second thing is I think they’re going to tap into the heartland monopoly that conservatives tend to have with the farmers. I think they’re going to take this and say, ‘Look, we tried to help out these farmers who are struggling, and the Republicans, because of politics, refuse to give all this money to the farmers.’
RUSH: Well, there’s an interesting question that you have raised, and I’ll explain the answer on two fronts. Well, maybe three. In the first place, I’m not so sure that — you seem to indicate that it’s just a matter of time before there is a funding bill for the troops. I raised this in the first hour. The Democrats have drawn the line in the sand here. I don’t know how they compromise on this. They’ve got their deadline date, March 31st of 2008. They don’t want it sooner. They’re worried about every loss of blood, loss of life, drop of blood of our troops, they say, but they’re willing for more loss of life and more drops of blood through March 31, 2008, which means they want the withdrawal to happen during the election year in the presidential campaign.
So I don’t know how they’re going to compromise with this. I don’t know what the Republicans are going to do. Bush is not going to go along with this. He’s not going to ever sign a piece of legislation that has a specific date of withdrawal in it, so I don’t know where the compromise is. As to the pork and the fact the Democrats have loaded up a bunch of pork in agricultural states which are assumed to be Republican states, red states, and that when this doesn’t get signed and doesn’t happen, that these people are going to be out of whack, I don’t know that that’s the case. A lot of Republicans are fed up with all this kind of stuff and it’s one of the reasons Republicans were voted against last November is because they were engaging in this kind of stuff. Now, what you’re saying is politics is local and everybody’s fine when they get their pork, but they don’t want anybody else to get any.
The third thing I would say about this is the president did not specifically say none of this stuff is worthwhile. He said some of these are emergencies, some of these are crises, they just don’t belong in this bill. He did not indicate he would not ever sign a bill into law that would have these pork projects in it. He just said they don’t belong in anything to do with national security or the war in Iraq or Afghanistan; they have no place there. There is some stuff in this bill that will not survive, and it’s a catchall that so much stuff that be thrown in here. It will be interesting to see if it eventuates, manifests itself the way you suggest. Because nobody knows what’s in this, yet. Most Americans who listen to this program, after today, know what’s in this bill. But outside of this audience, and maybe a few others, I don’t think that most Americans know what’s in this. So if they don’t know, how can they be disappointed?
The Drive-Bys were not promoting all the pork in this bill. They were just focusing on the epic struggle to withdraw troops from Iraq and surrender. The pork that was in it was irrelevant. Plus, Malcolm, let me tell you this little tidbit. The Democrats in the House have already proposed a new farm bill with $124 billion, in addition to the pork for $24 billion of pork that’s in the get-out-of-Iraq bill. And guess what? This $124 billion in the farm bill that the House Democrats have proposed is up from the $84 billion that the Republicans had in the last Congress. So they’ve added $60 billion to their farm bill. Look, the president didn’t talk about this. It could be the largest tax increase in the nation’s history is also in this get-out-of-Iraq-and-lose-the-war bill. So the Democrats knew this was going to get vetoed. They knew it didn’t have a chance of becoming law, so they throw all of this stuff in there. Some of them are negotiation throwaways.
In every negotiation you go in with a bunch of ‘demands’ that you’re willing to throw away. I don’t care if you’re negotiating price of a car, you never go in with a list of demands or things you want that doesn’t have some stuff in it that you can throw away, because you have to appear to be giving something up. That’s how you achieve compromise. Yes, you have to give something up, and both sides are expected to play this way. Now, in this case, the fundamental element of this bill is troop reductions starting in March 31st of 2008. I don’t know where the compromise is on this because on one side of the bill you’ve got victory, the other side of the bill you’ve got defeat and surrender. Now, somebody tell me, where is the compromise there? I asked earlier in the program — we haven’t had any takers on this, have we? — I asked where’s the compromise between defeat and victory? Is it partial defeat, partial victory? Is it some agreement where both sides can claim they won, even though that can’t possibly be true? Well, take that back. The way Washington operates, the way these people up there talk, they could probably come up with something about which they can say just that, regardless what the details are. Anyway, Malcolm, I really appreciate your patience. It’s great to hear from you. Thanks much. I’m sure this is more detailed and in-depth, responsible answer than even you expected.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Mary Ellen in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Am I pronouncing that right?
CALLER: Rehoboth, Massachusetts.
RUSH: Rehoboth. It’s great to have you with us. Thank you.
CALLER: Well, thanks, Rush. First want to say, God bless you. You are a true American hero in my eyes.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Chuck Hagel and Ben Nelson. It would be very interesting to know what they stand to profit for changing their vote. I’d really be interested to know the corresponding state and what they’re receiving, what pork the actual individual senators’ states are receiving.
RUSH: At this point I don’t know. I just have the full list of all the projects in there, but I don’t know what states specifically and what members of the House benefit from it. Remember, it’s a house bill that has the pork in it. I don’t know that — I’m sure the Senate does too, they added some of their own pork to it, I just don’t know which goes to where. As for Hagel, he’s up for election in 2008.
CALLER: Oh, not really.
RUSH: And plus, Hagel’s running for president. Now, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell he’s going to get anywhere in the Republican Party running for president, but maybe he’s got polling data in Nebraska, even though Nebraska went for Bush, over 60% in 2004. Maybe people have soured there on the war and Hagel is listening to the polls. Who knows? But in terms of specifics, he and Nelson, they both did a reversal. Nelson is a Democrat but he was with the Republicans on this. Somehow Dingy Harry, the news is, and it’s gotta be more than this, the news is that Dingy Harry convinced these guys that the election results last November were to get us out of Iraq.
CALLER: I think there’s something more to it. You might think that I’m a little suspicious, but you’ve taught me well. And you’ve always said, follow the money. And I don’t think these are a hundred percent people of conscience. So those that have said we are against this war from the beginning, may I would cut them a little slack, but it just seems like there’s a whole lot of changing going on and not necessarily because of the last election or because of ’08. So I’m still a little suspicious. I think people want to be able to go back to their states and say, ‘Yeah, not only did I end the war but I also brought back the bacon.’
RUSH: There is no question that that’s a factor.
CALLER: And don’t you think that because they’re able to put these bills together under kind of like, you know, the old Maxwell Smart code of silence —
RUSH: Well, yeah. You have to dig deep to find out what’s in these things, and half the members don’t even read what’s in them.
CALLER: Well, they’ve read far enough to know that they’re gonna come home with something.
RUSH: Yeah, I know. We’ll try to find out. It’s sort of ancillary to me in terms of importance. But Hagel, I can’t explain it. Nobody can explain it. Everybody’s trying to figure out what this is about. The best I can come up with is he went to Maverick U., studied under John McCain, and is trying to establish his own similar maverick ID here and distance himself from the Republican Party.