RUSH: All right, now, folks, let me give you a heads-up out here because I have once again today, in response to my name being besmirched on the Senate floor by Sheldon Whitehouse and Dingy Harry Reid, I have confirmed I want to hand Obama a defeat. So the heads-up is that that likely will be a headline and a talking point later tonight on all the chat shows and perhaps through the weekend on the Sunday shows. Knowing that, let me explain why that will happen. The only thing Obama has going for him right now is his likability. That’s the only thing that’s not cratering in the polls. His presidential approval is cratering; his job performance is cratering; support for his health care bill, which he doesn’t even really have a plan his name is on, is cratering. Support for cap and trade is cratering. His policies are unpopular. But, people still like him personally. So Obama’s personality is the only favorable thing on the left right now, so what Whitehouse and Reid and Debbie Stabenow and the rest of them will be doing is framing my desire to hand Obama a defeat on this health care bill as a personal thing that I do not like this wonderful new president personally.
My fight against the health care bill and the stated objective, to hand him a defeat on it, is personal, rather than against the merits of the bill. That’s what they’re going to try to say. I want you to be on the lookout for this over the weekend because I know these people, I know how they’re going to position it. ‘Well, Rush, why do you give them the ammo?’ Look, I don’t sit here and think about whether I’m giving the ammo. I like to tweak ’em. What I’m doing here is just telling you the truth. How do you know? Just trust me. I know. I know it’s bad. I know it’s wrong. I know it’s bad for America. I know it’s not America, what this bill is. The only way that they can salvage it here is to make it personal between me and Obama and then make me look like a meany and whatever else they want to try to attach to it. They aren’t talking about the specifics of this bill, especially their latest deal of throwing Medicare up on the wall because they will lose on that. They think they can win by hanging onto Obama’s popularity, personal popularity.
They’ll be more than happy to pit his personal popularity with what they think is my personal hatred factor, and that’s what they’re setting up and positioning here. And then they’ll take that and they’ll say, ‘Are you Republicans gonna let Rush Limbaugh speak for you, somebody who personally wants the president to lose?’ And that will put ’em on the spot. So it’s another reason why I’m explaining what’s going on here and why it is happening. But I mean you look at the guts of the bill, the two core parts of the bill, $500 billion in Medicare cuts. Would somebody explain something to me. How in the world can you have $500 billion in Medicare cuts when you are going to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 45 or 55? Do you remember it was just two years ago that we were talking about to save this program, which is due to go bankrupt in five or ten years, raising the eligibility age to 75 or 70? Now they’re talking about lowering it to 45 or 55 just to expand it and get everybody covered by it, at the same time you’re talking about $500 billion in Medicare cuts? Now, if you’re going to do both things — (laughing) — some people are going to have to die.
If you’re gonna lower the eligibility age to 45 or 55 and cut Medicare $500 billion bucks, folks, somebody’s gotta die or somebody’s gotta be denied coverage, which will cause them to die eventually. And they don’t want to talk about that. They would rather pit this as these mean talk show guys personally not liking our popular young new president. And then the second aspect of this is the $400 billion in new tax increases, which happen immediately. And the marriage penalty tax in this health care bill. We had a call about that yesterday. She was exactly right. Getting married, two people living together, $30 grand each, not filing jointly, not married, their tax is whatever it is, but if they get married, under the health care plan, same income, grand total now $60,000 married, filing jointly, their taxes go up $20 grand. It’s right there in the bill. They don’t want to talk about the guts of the bill. They don’t want to talk about the specifics. ‘Cause all they’ve got to rely on now is Obama’s personal likability and they’re happy to pit that against mean old Rush. So you keep a sharp eye and see if that’s not how this plays out, starting tonight on the chat shows and throughout the weekend.