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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: Frank in New York City, thank you for waiting, sir. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Mr. Limbaugh, it’s a pleasure to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Quick response. I was listening to Fox and Friends this morning between 8:15 and 8:45, and they had an interview with Mr. Steny Hoyer who said that he was voting for the cap and trade. He said it’s a good thing but that it’s not a tax and that it would only cost the people $174 per year. Now, if that’s not a tax, why would it cost $174. Obviously, it’s a tax of some type, right?

RUSH: Well, depends on how you define tax. I would say that legislation that raises the cost of living, it’s a tax on whatever, but it’s still bad. That number $174 is so low and so untrue that he’s making it up.

CALLER: I think so, too. But then he went through the wind and the solar and all this. But wind and solar only account for like 7 percent. What is the alternative energy?

RUSH: There is no wind and solar!

CALLER: I know.

RUSH: There isn’t any! It doesn’t work! Look, one of the things they’ve done in this bill — I’ve got to find this in this stack — but one of the things that they have done is offer all kinds of incentives to inventors to get going on this. Let me take a commercial break and find this. This is going to be another one of these things I think I put in a stack — ah, I found it. Here it is. Listen to this. They had an early morning amendment today, 300 pages added to the cap-and-trade bill. And one of the things they added in this creates a New Manhattan Project for Energy Independence. The project calls on the president to reach 50 percent energy independence in 10 years and 100 percent energy independence in 20 years, and ‘will award competitive prizes to the first individual or group who can reach any of seven established energy goals.’ Here they are: ‘Double CAFE standards to 70 MPG while keeping vehicles affordable.’ If somebody can do that in 10 to 20 years, they’ll get a prize.

Now, wait. I want you to stick with me on this. Seventy mile per gallon CAFE standard. Anybody who can come up with a way ‘to cut home and business energy usage in half’ will get a prize. I could do that. You know how I could do that? I could do it right now. If I were a member of Congress, or if I were Obama, I’d just have my energy czar order every electrical power plant to cut power to every home to 20 percent of the day. Voila. I have cut home and business energy use in half. Number three: ‘Make solar power work at the same cost as coal.’ My friends, we are in Neverland here. We’re in dreamland. Here’s number four: ‘Make the production of biofuels cost-competitive with gasoline. Five: Safely and cheaply store carbon emissions from coal-powered plants. Six: Safely store or neutralize nuclear waste. Seven: Produce usable electricity from a nuclear fusion reaction.’ If a group or individual can do any of those things in 10 or 20 years, then they will be awarded some sort of a prize.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We are back. I love this. Actually, folks, this is a teachable moment. So in the amendment to cap and trade, they have offered some incentives. They call it here ‘the New Manhattan Project for Energy Independence.’ Do you know what the Manhattan Project was? Rachel? Let me do a little… Brian, do you know what the Manhattan Project was? There’s no wrong answer. (interruption) I’m trying to illustrate a point. (interruption) You don’t know what it was. Rachel, do you know what it was? Snerdley, do you know what the Manhattan Project was? (interruption) Snerdley does. (interruption) Fascinating. I’ve got two people here who went to the public school system. This is not their fault. They don’t know what it is. It was not a movie. They don’t know. The Manhattan Project was our all-out effort to create and invent the nuclear bomb. We knew we could do it. Now, this is key: We knew we could do it.

Price was no object. Money was no object. We knew we could do it. We know that there are nuclear explosions. The sun is an example. We knew it could be done, so we put our best minds on it and we did it. That’s what they want to replicate here in energy. But here are the differences. Let’s take the first one. They’re going to award a prize to somebody or some organization who in 10 to 20 years can invent a way to double CAFE standards to 70 miles per gallon while keeping vehicles affordable. The very fact that they have to offer a prize is evidence we are nowhere near this! The market does these things. Government does not decree inventions. Individuals invent, using ambition, their talents, their freedom, their liberty, their passion. Nobody told Thomas Edison: ‘We’re going to give you a million bucks if you invent the light bulb.’ Nobody told the Wright Brothers: ‘We’re going to make you rich if you find a way for us to fly.’

They wanted to do it themselves. Energy is something that everybody needs. There is a huge profit potential in the energy business. We all know this, because everybody needs it. I’m talking market economics. You need gasoline. You need electricity. There’s a profit for the people who provide it. Ergo, if there were a profit in solar power, we would have it! If there were a profit in windmill power, we would have it. If there were profit in a putt-putt car that got 70 miles a gallon, we would have it. Don’t believe all these conspiracy theories that the oil companies work with the car companies to keep gas mileage down. Propulsion. Energy ‘expension’ has amazing costs to it. Right now there’s nothing that compares to oil and natural gas and coal. Nothing! Like I said yesterday: Why are we using coal-fired power plants?

Because it’s the cheapest that we have found! It’s the most efficient that we have found. We don’t have to harness the energy. It’s in the coal. All we’ve got to do is go get the coal. Ditto, oil. All we’ve got to do is go get it and refine it. But we’re going to… ‘But, Rush, the sun has lots of energy out there.’ Yeah, but we don’t know how to harness it yet. There’s no way. Wind? Give me a break. Green technologies? By the way, these little putt-putt electric cars are not going to save anybody any emissions. There’s already huge profit potential. Don’t you think if any viable energy technologies were out there they would already be employed if they really did work? The people that are engaged in windmills and so forth are simply doing it because they’re being paid by the government. General Electric? You wonder why they go ‘green’ every other day on MSNBC. Because they’re getting grants to explore and experiment in this stuff! They’re not doing it on their own. There’s no profit in it. We’re not there.

So the very fact that this horrible, rotten, worthless piece of legislation has to dangle carrots in front of people’s eyes is proof positive that none of what this bill seeks to achieve is anywhere around the corner. Necessity is the mother of invention, and government demanding something is not the same thing as necessity. But running out of oil? Which we’re in no danger of running out of oil anytime soon, ditto natural gas. What is the thing? Let’s see. ‘Make solar power work at the same as coal.’ Why? All we’ve got to do is go drill for our own oil if you want to limit our dependence on other people. But none of this is anywhere near happening. And just because Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi say, ‘Hey, here’s a prize if you go out and invent some stupid little car that gets 70 miles a gallon and still costs what a car costs today,’ ha! ‘then we’ll give you a big prize.’ Yeah, that’s really going to inspire some people out there. The danger is somebody will claim they’ve come up with it and stupid politicians will say, ‘Okay, good,’ and claim that it works when it doesn’t, just to create the image that they have accomplished some miracle.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back to the amendment that they hurried through at 3:00 this morning. Part of the purpose of this amendment on H.R. 2454, the cap-and-tax bill, is to buy off the agriculture senators who are having some trouble with it.

And they put in as part of this amendment the creation of a New Manhattan Project For Energy Independence. The project calls on the president to reach 50 percent energy independence in 10 years. We could do it in 10 years if we just drill for the oil that we’ve got! I’m sorry to yell, folks, but it’s out there. Tons of it. In Alaska, off-shore. So call for the president to reach 50 percent energy independence in 10 years and 100% in 20 years. They’re going to ‘award competitive prizes to the first individual or group who can reach any of seven established energy goals: Double CAFE standards to 70 miles per gallon while keeping vehicles affordable; cut home and business energy usage in half; make solar power work at the same cost as coal; make the production of…’ This stuff enrages me because there’s nothing wrong with coal. There’s nothing wrong with oil. There’s nothing wrong with fossil fuels!

We do not need to switch off of these energy sources. Anyway, these are so pie in the sky. The very idea that they have to offer an award for this means that it’s not feasible. Nobody in the market is working on it, and the reason is energy is already highly profitable because everybody needs it. If you’re in the energy business, you make a profit. Everybody needs it. You know what happens when your power goes out. You know how mad you get. Imagine if you ran out of gasoline as often as you lose power in your house. You need it and the people provide it, are going to get a profit for doing so. So if there is this new magical technology out there with all this profit potential everybody’s going to need, they’d be on it already. So if we’re going to start… I’ll offer a prize. I don’t know what it’s going to be. The first liberal who can call here and convince anybody in this audience that George Bush is responsible for the death of Michael Jackson, I’ll give you an award.

They blame everything else on George Bush, why not this? How about getting an award if you can figure out how to get our spaceships to go warp speed? How about offering an award for coming up with an actual way to make somebody invisible? How about an award for finding the technique that we can fly like Superman without having to have an engine strapped on our back and no wings. Superman can do it. Somebody can come up with the technology so we can fly around. Look at the energy reduction that would create, if we could just fly like birds. Now, granted we’d probably have to eat a lot more to flap our arms. Well, but Superman doesn’t flap his arms; he just lays out there.

So if somebody comes up and invents flying like the way Superman does, we’ll give an award for that, too. How about an award for world peace? I’m sorry, we already have that. Nobel. Nobel Peace Prize. There’s never world peace, but people get awards for it, nevertheless. See, this is what I’m worried about. What I’m worried about is that somewhere down the road some yokel who understands the game here is going to come up with some little vehicle that has a 70-mile-per-gallon CAFE standard, meets it. And these lunkheads in Congress are going to say, ‘Oh, look it works,’ when it doesn’t, just to say they’ve created this miracle or have managed to make one to happen. This stuff, I’ll tell you just every day, every day it just keeps adding up. They just keep going for more and more of this stuff and every day it’s stand up and say, ‘Stop! No, you won’t.’

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