RUSH: This is the State-Controlled Associated Press. ‘Heavy government stimulus spending and near-zero interest rates did little to end a ‘lost decade’ of stagnation and mushrooming debt in Japan.’ I had you going, didn’t I? ‘Some economists and lawmakers say the US may wind up following the same trajectory. Despite early signs of recovery and a strong US stock market rally, fears persist that the failure to generate new jobs or ignite more consumer spending could drag the economy back into recession, or result in a protracted Japan-like period of poor economic and stock-market performance,’ and it was over ten years. It was a lost decade. ‘Japan is President Barack Obama’s first stop on a tour of Asia beginning Friday,’ where he’ll probably drop off Anita Dunn over there in China.
‘[A]nd the gloomy world economy will be high on the agenda. Both Japan, beginning in the 1990s, and the US, in the most recent economic crisis, had credit and housing bubbles and both engaged in huge amounts of overborrowing … ‘It seems to me we are on the exact same path that the Japanese took in their ‘lost decade’ — of running up huge government debts, of not stimulating growth and at the end of the decade having this massive debt,’ said Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, senior Republican on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. The US may already be in a lost decade — and not realize it yet. Some 7.3 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007.’
It did not begin in December 2007. They’re trying to pin this on Bush with that, but it did not begin then. So, months after… Folks, remember when I said, back in January, ‘I hope he fails,’ I meant, ‘I hope this stimulus thing fails. I hope his plan doesn’t work because if it works, we’re going to get exactly what we have.’ So months, nine months after my Limbaugh analysis comes this in the State-Controlled Associated Press. I am not surprised at all by any of this, and so the president of the United States this morning in a little three-minute address from the Diplomatic Reception Room which has all the nice pictures in there — it’s one of the entrances to the White House — announced a ‘jobs summit’ next month in December. After TARP, after stimulus was gonna keep unemployment under 8%, after he had the magic fix, a job summit! We’re going to talk more, which is exactly what community organizers do.
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RUSH: So, the man-child president, Barack Obama, wants to have a summit, a summit to talk about jobs. I said yesterday, ‘People are tired of speeches.’ You know, I have an Undeniable Truth of Life: ‘Ours is a world governed by the aggressive use of force.’ In Obama’s world, ours is a world governed by the aggressive use of speeches. He gives speech after speech, he talks and talks and talks, and he thinks his soaring rhetoric is going to inspire somebody to do something. I don’t know what. I still don’t believe, folks, that he wants to create jobs and I know some people think it’s heresy to say that, but I have always told you what I believe and what I think and I don’t think so. Anybody, folks, who wanted to create jobs would be out there cutting taxes. Anybody who wanted to create jobs would be spurring investment in the private sector, not in government.
They’d be doing everything they could to reduce the burden on growth rather than taxing that growth, which prevents that growth. We don’t need higher taxes. Now Harry Reid is talking about a new higher payroll tax on the wealthy to pay for his health care. This is on top of the House’s 5.4% increase in the top marginal rate. Where do these people think that money is? Why is it that this one little, small group of Americans — the so-called rich — are the ones that are constantly targeted and focused on by the Democrats? It’s because they want to wipe ’em out. This is being done on purpose, and this summit is meaningless. There’s nobody that has any belief whatsoever that after these guys get together in the White House to have a summit that all of a sudden jobs are going to be created. I know what Obama’s going to do.He’s going to pressure private companies to do more.
Ha! He is going to pressure private companies to go out there and do more. They can’t do more. The small businesses in this country are in pain. They are hurting. They are the targets of all of this. How many more ‘summits’ does this guy need to inform himself? These are just shows, folks, they are intended to convince people he cares about their plight, when he doesn’t. We mentioned this yesterday how cold he is. People say he’s ‘cool.’ He’s not cool. He’s cold! These employment numbers, he doesn’t have any indication of any emotion about this. He doesn’t represent himself as having any caring about this. What Obama needs… You know what he really needs? And it’s too late, he’s not going to be able to get it at this stage because the people he’s surrounded by. He needs an education. Barack Obama needs some classes on capitalism. I don’t think he’s ever been taught capitalism. I think he’s been taught to hate it.
I think he’s been taught to resent it. I think he’s been taught that capitalism is inherently unfair, unjust and immoral. That capitalism gave us slavery, that capitalism gave us subjugation, that capitalism gave us discrimination, that capitalism gave us unfairness and inequality. That’s what he’s been taught his whole life. The people that raised him felt that, the people that taught him school, the people he hung around with at ACORN, his community organizers, thought the same thing. This guy needs an education, classes on capitalism, classes on capital creation, wealth creation, job creation — and I can tell you what they are. The classes would be tax cuts, regulatory moratoriums, smaller government, all of the things that he is inexorably opposed to. I mean, this is so simple. To fix this is so simple even a left-wing, inexperienced little Marxist like Obama might be able to pick up a few things if he just took a couple night classes on capitalism. Maybe read a Milton Friedman book! Okay, here are the sound bites. First he’s calling a job summit ’cause there’s an emergency. But he has to assure us first that he’s already saved the economy.
OBAMA: Over the past ten months we’ve taken a number of bold steps to break the back of this recession. As a result, the economy is now growing again for the first time in more than a year and faster than at any time in the past two years. But even though we’ve slowed the loss of jobs — and today’s report on the continued decline in unemployment claims is a hopeful sign — the economic growth that we’ve seen has not yet led to the job growth that we desperately need.
RUSH: And there was no private sector growth in that third quarter GDP of 3.5%. Let me go through this again. GDP equals CIG: Consuming, business investment is the I, and government is G. GDP equals CIG. There was no consumin’ going on out there! Look at the sales. Look at manufacturing. There’s no consumin’ going on out there, not an increase in consuming. Investment? Businesses are investing; is that right? Yeah? That’s why more and more people are being laid off? Is that why? So there wasn’t any business investment; it was all government. It was all G! It was all government growth. It was cash for clunkers and this first-time home buyer tax credit. There was no economic growth in the private sector. Here’s the next sound bite.
OBAMA: We all know that there are limits to what government can and should do even during such difficult times. But we have an obligation to consider every additional responsible step that we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country. And that’s why in December we’ll be holding a forum at the White House on jobs and economic growth. We’ll gather CEOs and small business owners, economist and financial experts, as well as representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups to talk about how we can work together to create jobs and get this economy moving again.
RUSH: This is community organizing. If you’ve ever wondered what it is, this is community organizing. You get all these different people in the room and you talk, and you talk about we can work together in order to bring this country out of its recession. Labor unions, small business, politicians, we can all work together, just like ‘the world came together to take down the Berlin Wall.’ There’s no working together on this! You turn people loose. You get burdens off of their backs. You get regulations out of their way. You turn obstacles in front of them into invisible objects and let people just move full speed ahead. You don’t sit there and talk about it. Here. I have some comments about this. Let’s listen to the third and final bite.
OBAMA: It’s important that you don’t make any ill-considered decisions, even with the best of intentions, particularly at a time when our resources are so limited. But it’s just as important that we are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we’ve already taken to put America back at work. That’s what this forum is about.
RUSH: It’s not because there aren’t plenty of ideas. I’ve offered ideas, I just did, and I’ve offered these ideas every day on this program. I wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal suggesting a bipartisan stimulus plan. Maybe I ought to FedEx that up to them, my Wall Street Journal piece — and I should copy Obama and Biden and Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, Christina Romer, Gibbs, and anybody else. I mean, Obama’s already tried his way, the political way, and it’s failed. So now let him try mine. I wonder if he’s going to get anybody in that room, even from small business, who is going to have the guts or the knowledge to say something other than, ‘Obama we need more help from you. We need more handouts. We need more’ whatever it is they want, bailouts or what have you. Let’s go back. Da-da-da.
Here’s what Obama said when he signed his genius stimulus bill in Denver. And, by the way, that was in February, I think, when he signed that. Remember when he signed the stimulus bill he did it in Denver and he was all by himself. No other politician was permitted on stage to take away from this big moment. And all of this has been a scam, folks. The bottom line is, TARP, stimulus, it’s the Chicago way. All this is is getting money that you could have never voted through Congress to pay off your political buddies and buy votes like with the AARP and the AMA and whoever else you’re going to need. It’s a slush fund! You wonder why they haven’t spent but 14% of the stimulus? It’s because they never intended to! It’s a slush fund.
It’s going to be used for Democrat reelection campaigns next year. It is used to pay off members of Congress and whoever for their votes on needed Obama legislation. I mean, this is classic; right out of the way Marxist and socialists and Stalinists do things. Imagine a slush fund of over a trillion bucks, almost two trillion and that’s what we’re looking at here. And that’s why so little of it has been spent. When he signed this thing — only him, by the way, on stage; he couldn’t share it with anybody — he said, ‘We have begun the essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time. We will need to do everything in the short term to get our economy moving again as well as begin restoring fiscal discipline and taming our exploding deficits over the long term.’ That was Obama in February signing the stimulus bill.
Today, he announces a ‘jobs summit.’ This has all been a scam, folks. Months later, Obama is holding a jobs summit after saddling the country with unimaginable deficit, $1.5 trillion deficits yearly, weekly increasing unemployment rates. A jobs summit? You know, again, whether somebody sees Obama as a near-god or an anti-American boob, the results are always the same: Failure. He is an unmitigated, abject failure, except in his world he is succeeding. I have an idea. Let me help out here. You know how we can really jump-start this economy? We can take a cue from the House health care bill where they’re going to put people in jail if they don’t buy health insurance. If anybody doesn’t find a job in three months, we put ’em in jail. We put ’em in jail so we no longer can count them in the unemployment number.
We just put ’em in jail, and we use stimulus money to build new jails to put ’em in jail. I mean, we know it’s not Obama’s fault. Anybody not working is doing it to make Obama look bad. That’s what’s really going on! Send these people to jail. They’re probably Republicans not finding work on purpose just to make Obama look bad. (This is how they look at it in DC.) Send them to jail all those who don’t want to buy his insurance policy. Let’s start putting people in jail here! By the way, speaking of that Pelosi said that’s a perfectly fairly provision in our bill. We’ve got that audio sound bite coming up as well on the program. Now, Lee Cary at the American Thinker, he’s a little bit more charitable in talking about Obama here.
He says, ‘It’s pretty clear to the conscious that the president hasn’t a clue how to grow the economy, and every day more of the suspected job growth isn’t even part of his agenda for the next few years.’ And that’s exactly right. ‘It would have been heresy to make the following statement six months ago: ‘Obama is intent on eroding the economy so he can more easily transform it into a version of European socialism…” I said it, Mr. Cary. I said it. I’ve been saying it, and the White House has never responded to that. They’ve responded to the ‘I hope he fails’ business. But that room, Mr. Cary, points out where this job summit, it’s going to be all buzz bzz bzz bzz bzz optimism and bon ami and so forth, but nothing’s going to change. This is all about feeling good and looking good and making people think you care about them, and then nothing at all happens — and that’s when you blame business for not doing enough.
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RUSH: I got a question in the e-mail: ‘Hey, are you slowing down those sound bites of Obama on the job summit?’ No. We didn’t slow ’em down at all. He does sound like he couldn’t care less about the subject. No enthusiasm, no conviction whatsoever, just reading the teleprompter. He said he’s trying to break the back of the recession? Hell with that, he’s broken the back of America and our economy. That’s what he’s breaking the back of, and it’s purposeful.
Jen in Brownstown, Michigan. I’m glad you called. Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Well, you said just what I thought you would say about the jobs summit, and I just think that no matter what, like the people think, the real American people think, I don’t think Obama cares about it, I don’t think the Congress cares about it, and I wish I was wrong.
RUSH: Yeah, I know how you feel. It’s a tough thing to accept, it’s a tough reality to accept, nobody wants to believe it, that we’ve elected a president who actually is comfortable with this kind of damage so it can set up what he really wants to do, is massive redistribution of wealth and create as many dependent middle class Americans as possible on government so that they will perpetually vote Democrat and keep the Democrats in power for perpetuity. I mean that’s what’s headed here plus a genuine dislike. That’s why I say, folks, it may not be Obama’s fault — (interruption) what, Snerdley? What? How do they think they can win in 2010? I’ll answer that. Snerdley’s question is how do they think they can win in 2010? That’s easy. I’ll explain that in just a second. Well, let me explain it to you now. How about $500 billion to dole out to various Democrats in their campaigns from the stimulus money, and how about ACORN running around doing what they are famous for?
Oh, which reminds me, there are all kinds of new and exciting things coming out on New York-23. It might be that Hoffman conceded too soon, a bunch of precincts gave him zero votes he’s now closed the gap to 3,000 votes and they’re still counting over 10,000 absences. He may have conceded too soon but this Owens guy has already sworn in and has voted on the health care bill. It’s unlikely that he’s going to win, but I mean it’s much, much closer than he thought and his campaign thought when they conceded. Syracuse newspaper has the details. Being charitable, as charitable as I can, this may not be Obama’s fault. He is who he is. He was raised by communists, he was mentored — Frank Davis was an avowed communist. His father, Barack Obama Sr. was one as well. Now, we know that he’s been educated in the Ivy League, which teaches the inherent unfairness in this country, that capitalism’s unfair, that it leads to unequal results, discrimination, poverty for some, wealth for others. I mean, he’s been taught that this country is unjust and immoral, which is why I suggested a couple of night classes on capitalism.
‘Now, Rush, don’t you think that he’s actually been exposed to it?’ Oh, I think he’s been exposed to it but from a standpoint of how unfair, how mean-spirited, and how unjust it is. Look, you know what your kids are faced with in school every day, what they’re being taught about American history and what they’re being taught about the evils this nation perpetrated after it was founded, even before it was founded when our ancestors arrived here. You can imagine what this guy’s been taught. We know that he thinks it. He’s said it in his books all over the place, various interviews. So he is who he is. Pete Wehner has a great phrase: ‘We don’t have a statesman president, we got an ideologue.’ We have an ideologue president. Pete Wehner writing his piece today at his website.
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RUSH: By the way, this jobs summit, isn’t this a subconscious admission by Obama that he doesn’t know what to do? Or is it just a stall, just to look busy? He doesn’t know what to do, but he’s gotta look like he’s doing something.