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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: I want to go to the audio sound bites of Obama and his town hall meeting on CNBC this afternoon. It happened at the same time as this program, which means you didn’t hear it. During the Q&A — and it took a long time to get to the Q&A in the town hall. For the longest time it was just Obama and moderator, John Harwood. Here is an unidentified woman speaking to our president.

WOMAN: I am a chief financial officer for a veteran service organization here in Washington. I’m also a mother. I’m a wife. I’m an American veteran and I’m one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I’ve been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I’m one of those people and I’m waiting, sir. I’m waiting. I don’t feel it yet. And I thought I would feel it in some small measure. I have two children in private school and the financial recession has taken an enormous toll on my family. My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives but quite frankly, it’s starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we’re headed again. Quite frankly, Mr. President, I need you to answer this honestly. Is this my new reality?

RUSH: That’s an Obama voter. That’s an Obama supporter. We’re headed to beans and hot dogs again. Is this our new reality? And it’s exactly as planned. Meanwhile, the Obamas are living high on the hog, are they not, traveling all over the world? Here’s what Obama’s answer was.

OBAMA: The life you described, one of responsibility, looking after your family, contributing back to your community, that’s what we want to reward. Now, as I said before, times are tough for everybody right now. So I understand your frustration. There are a whole host of things that we’ve put in place that do make your life better, so my goal here is not to try to convince you that everything’s where it needs to be. It’s not. That’s why I ran for president, but what I am saying is is that we’re moving in the right direction.

RUSH: And nobody feels it, nobody sees it, not even his voters. (imitating Obama) ‘I understand your frustration. There are a whole host of things that we’ve put in place that do make your life better. So no matter how bad you think your life is it’s actually better than it would be if I weren’t president. We’re headed in the right direction, towards beans and franks, on purpose, ma’am. What’s happening to your life, your new reality is by my design. People like you, we want to reward with tax increases. You and your husband make far too much money. We are going to balance our budgets on your backs. We are going to make up all the deficit spending on the backs of you and your husband, ma’am. You got suckered in by my clean, articulate rhetoric.’ This is what Obama’s thinking as he’s mouthing the answer. Next up, Ted Brassfield, an audience member, said this to Obama.

BRASSFIELD: I’m 30 years old. I recently graduated law school and I went back to law school in order to pursue a life of public service, like you have. And what I found was that I simply — there aren’t jobs out there right now. I took advantage of the loans that you were just speaking about. But I can’t make the interest payments on those loans today, let alone think about getting a mortgage, having a family, having even a marriage. Like a lot of people in my generation, I was really inspired by you and by your campaign and the message that you brought. And that inspiration is dying away. It feels like the American dream is not attainable to a lot of us. I really want to know, is the American dream dead for me?

RUSH: So a couple questions, is this the new reality and is the American dream dead for me, which translates, ‘Why haven’t you paid my student loans? I thought you were going to pay my student loans and I thought you were going to buy my first house. How come you haven’t done any of that? I was really inspired by you and I thought you were going to take care of all this for me.’ Now, these people were handpicked. Folks, you have to understand they had a tough time filling this town hall. These people were handpicked. That first woman is a government worker. She is one of the people getting all the stimulus money. She is a government worker. She has a fat pension; she has job security; she’s getting twice as much or three times as much as somebody who does what she does in the private sector. And Obama is telling the truth. He’s trying to reward people like her. She is a public sector employee. Most of his stimulus has gone to public sector government employees like this woman. Her kids are in private school. These people were handpicked, and even they are unhappy. I guess the Obama people thought a government worker and a lawyer working for the community would only give Obama softball questions. I do not think this was expected. I can tell by Obama’s answers that these questions were not expected. This is interesting. That first woman’s a government worker, one of the many recipients of all the stimulus money, a public service employee. Now, this is John Harwood to Obama: ‘Peter Orszag says that we can’t afford to extend the Bush tax cuts for anyone after a year or two. Is he right?’

OBAMA: It’s very important that everybody understand this. What the Republicans are proposing is that we, in addition to that, provide tax relief to primarily millionaires and billionaires. It would cost us $700 billion to do it. On average millionaires would get a check of a hundred thousand dollars, and, by the way, I would be helped by this, so I just want to be clear, I’m speaking against my own financial interests. This is —

RUSH: Awww.

OBAMA: — an irresponsible thing for us to do.

RUSH: Awwww.

OBAMA: Those folks are the least likely to spend it.

RUSH: Awwwwww. Least likely to spend it because they aren’t spending it, our economy is in a shambles and your own Associated Press had the story. By the way, nobody is going to have a check of a hundred thousand dollars written to them. And it’s going to cost $700 billion. Nobody’s talking about tax cuts. I want to repeat this from last Thursday. Nobody is talking about tax cuts. Not even Obama. They’re trying to make you think that Obama is gonna cut taxes in the middle class. Nobody, Obama, nobody is talking about tax cuts. What’s on the table is extending the current tax rates, which are the result of a Bush tax rate reduction 2001, 2003. But nobody’s talking about cutting taxes. Obama’s actually talking about raising them and this is why so many Democrats are distancing themselves from Obama. They understand that you don’t raise anybody’s taxes during an economic recession like this, no matter who you’re talking about. But he’s hell-bent on doing it because his objective is not economic growth. His objective is not really to help that woman. I mean, the stimulus money did not help — grab that sound bite again. This is profound, number 34, unidentified woman. This woman is a government worker. This woman got the stimulus money and if this woman was not aided by the stimulus money, then nobody was.

WOMAN: I am a chief financial officer for a veteran service organization here in Washington. I’m also a mother. I’m a wife. I’m an American veteran and I’m one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I’ve been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I’m one of those people and I’m waiting, sir. I’m waiting. I don’t feel it yet. And I thought I would feel it in some small measure. I have two children in private school and the financial recession has taken an enormous toll on my family. My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives but quite frankly, it’s starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we’re headed again. Quite frankly, Mr. President, I need you to answer this honestly. Is this my new reality?

RUSH: (imitating Obama) Yeah, it’s people like you we want to reward. We put things in place to help you. You’re better off than you would be if it weren’t for me. But this woman knows it isn’t getting any better. He just told her her life’s better, but she knows it’s not. He just told her, ‘Your life is better, we put policies in place for you,’ that’s what he told her in the answer. Again, she’s a stimulus recipient. She is a public sector employee. She has a pension guaranteed. She’s got health care. Even the highly partisan CBO says extending the Bush tax cuts would help the economy. But that’s not what Obama’s agenda is. His agenda is not helping the economy. And slowly but surely even some people that voted for him, they don’t want to admit that he’s not really trying to help, but they are starting to question their own wisdom in supporting the guy. They are starting to question themselves when they question him. ‘Well, when is this gonna kick in? We really had hopes and dreams.’ ‘Well, yeah, yeah, well, I’m just telling you, you’re the kind of people we want to reward.’ ‘Yeah, well, when?’ Then the next guy comes along and says he can’t even pay back his student loan interest much less get married ’cause he thought Obama was gonna take care of that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: A couple of more Obama sound bites from the CNBC, Wall Street bashing, and then back to the phones. Nobody seemed happy at this thing. Here’s a question from a former law school classmate of Obama’s. He said, ‘I represent the Wall Street community. We felt like a pinata. Maybe you don’t feel like you’re whacking us with a stick but we certainly feel like we’ve been whacked with a stick.’

OBAMA: I have been amused over the last, uh, couple years, this sense of somehow me, uh, beating up on Wall Street. I think most folks on Main Street feel like they got beat up on. And they —

FOLLOWERS: (applause)

OBAMA: And I’ll be honest with ya. Th-th-there — there’s probably a big chunk of the country.

MAN: But they weren’t not connected.

OBAMA: Ho-ho-hold on. Hold on.

MAN: Okay.

OBAMA: Hold on a second. There’s a — there’s a big chunk of the country that thinks that I have been too soft on Wall Street.

RUSH: Yeah, and there was some applause at that. So he’s back to bashing Wall Street, and this is for Wall Street! Wall Street people showed up and they had a lot of hope today that Obama was gonna become more pro-business. It’s never…going…to…happen. The New York Times has a story today: ‘Wall Street’s Engines of Profit are Slowing Down,’ and it’s all about future layoffs and profits at Wall Street firms are down. ‘Inside the great investment houses on Wall Street, business has taken a surprising turn — downward. … After an unusually sharp slowdown in trading this summer, analysts are rethinking their profit forecasts for 2010.’ They’re talking about layoffs. This is going to result in less tax revenue for New York City and for New York State. So everything he’s doing is working from his standpoint. The destruction that this man has wrought in just over a year and a half is profound. Audience member Georgetown MBA student Andy Conte (ph) asked Obama, ‘My dad and I were talking about the Tea Party. What will you do if these activists are elected?’

OBAMA: America has a noble tradition of being healthfully skeptical about government. That’s in our DNA.

FOLLOWERS: (applause)

OBAMA: We came in because, uhhh, the folks, uhhh, over on the other side of the Atlantic been, uhhhh, oppressing folks without giving reputation.

RUSH: What is he talking about? Folks —

OBAMA: The problem with the debate that’s taken place, uhhh, and, uhhh, with some of these Tea Party events I think they’re misidentifying who the culprits are here.

RUSH: Uhhh. Uhhh. Uhhh.

OBAMA: We had two tax cuts that weren’t paid for, two wars that weren’t paid for. We’ve got a population, uhhh, that’s getting older. We’re all demanding services but our taxes have actually substantially gone down, and so the — the challenge I think for the Tea Party movement is to identify specifically: What would you do?

RUSH: They are. That’s why they are growing in popularity. The deficit was going down sharply until January of 2007. The deficit was going down. The national debt wasn’t going down, but it wasn’t being added to as rapidly. Unemployment was down. This man has totally broken the bank. You talk about taxes and spending? It doesn’t matter what the tax rates would have been. If we had confiscated everybody’s income in this country the national debt woulda still gone up. The deficit would still be unmanageable, if we had confiscated everybody’s income, not just taxed it. I’m in a good mood so I’m not going on about this. I can really get ticked off at this answer, at every one of these answers. They are just blatant lies. ‘Tea Party events, they misidentifying sort of who the culprits are here’? They know who the culprit is: It’s Washington and whoever is there supporting what Washington is doing. The Bush tax cuts were helping the deficit. The capital gains tax rate reduction actually caused more revenue to flow into Washington than the so-called experts were thinking. Now, if the tax cuts caused the recession — and this is the Democrat line. If tax cuts got us into this mess, how come so many Democrats are pushing for their extension? If tax cuts are what got us here…? The American people are not buying this, Mr. Obama. If tax cuts got us in this position, why aren’t you succeeding with all of your economic ideas in landslide numbers? Why don’t 80% of the American people support what you’re doing?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I gotta go back to this Obama sound bite. As I told you, I could react to these in any number of ways, and if I let go, I could just be livid, pure livid. I mean these answers to questions at his summit today, town hall, they’re just insulting, insulting to anybody’s intelligence. And the last one is the one I think I want to focus on. An audience member says to him, ‘My dad and I were talking about the Tea Party. What will you do if these people are elected?’

OBAMA: America has a noble tradition of being healthfully skeptical about government. That’s in our DNA.

FOLLOWERS: (applause)

OBAMA: We came in because, uhhh, the folks, uhhh, over on the other side of the Atlantic been, uhhh, oppressing folks without giving reputation. The problem with the debate that’s taken place, uhhh, and, uhhh, and some of these Tea Party events is I think they’re misidentifying sort of who the culprits are here. We had two tax cuts that weren’t paid for, two wars that weren’t paid for. We’ve got a population that’s getting older. We’re all demanding services but our taxes have actually substantially gone down, and so the — the challenge I think for the Tea Party movement is to identify specifically: What would you do?

RUSH: No, the challenge of the Tea Party movement is to get rid of you. The challenge of the Tea Party movement is to get rid of the Democrats who are creating this mess. I mean, look, the premise of this. The purpose of tax cuts is to, what, pay for government? That’s not the purpose of taxes. This whole premise here is misguided. Tax cuts were not paid for? You don’t pay for tax cuts. The whole concept of paying for tax cuts is foreign. It’s wrong. It’s irrelevant. By the way, revenues to the US Treasury in 2003 were in the neighborhood of $2.1 trillion. In 2007 revenues to the Treasury were in the neighborhood of two and a half trillion. And the source here is the Heritage Foundation citing numbers from the Obama administration Office of Management and Budget. So apparently government revenues went up from 2003 to 2007 after the Bush tax cuts. Revenues went up. The same thing happened in the 1980s. So his whole premise is nothing but a lie. The whole notion of paying for tax cuts has always offended me, as though government is first, last, and always, and whatever happens — they are the single greatest repository of greed in the world, Washington, DC, including even all the tyrannical dictators around the world.

The single largest repository of greed is people in Washington, D.C. All money is theirs and their little power games such that they believe you end up with whatever they deem is fair for you to have. You don’t pay for tax cuts. Tax cuts generate wealth creation. The purpose of tax cuts is not to stimulate the government. It’s to help the economy. The purpose of tax cuts is to stimulate growth and prosperity in the American people, which clearly Obama’s not interested in. The welfare, the well-being, the prosperity of the American people is not at all something he’s concerned about. Otherwise he would be in favor of tax cuts. Tax cuts are compassion. The Democrats love the word. Tax cuts are intended to leave money with the individual who earns the money. I hate to be so basic here, but apparently the president needs it. Tax cuts are about private property rights. Every dollar you earn is yours, until you are forced to pay taxes on it. Then you have what discretionary income is left for you to spend as you choose.

Now, taxes are necessary, everybody knows this. But the way the Democrats look at it, taxes are a punishment. Taxes are a punishment for people doing too well. Taxes are class envy; taxes are a way to get even with other people; taxes are a way to buy votes for people who don’t think they’re doing well. Now, the president said we had two wars that weren’t paid for, okay? Let me put it this way. Medicare is not paid for. The war on poverty is not paid for. Social Security is not paid for. Medicaid is not paid for. The Department of Education is not paid for. The EPA is not paid for. Why do you single out the Pentagon when the whole government is in deficit? Nothing is being paid for, Mr. President. Nothing! We’re bankrupt! The country is broke. Nothing is being paid for! Two wars that weren’t paid for? The Environmental Protection Agency is not paid for. Running Air Force One is not paid for. We don’t have the money. Everything is adding up to a deficit. But certainly Social Security isn’t paid for, Medicaid is not paid for, Medicare is not paid for, the Great Society, not paid for, war on poverty, not paid for. This deficit’s government-wide. We’ve got spending increases, all of the president’s new regulations. None of it’s paid for.

We are on a deficit deathwatch. That’s why the Tea Party exists. Every penny the president spends today and from this day forward is not paid for, Mr. Obama. Nothing is paid for that you are buying. You’re not paying for a damn thing, Mr. President. All of us are. Everything you get’s gratis. Your wife’s vacations, your trips on Air Force One, the perks and the parties. You’re the only one not paying for anything. The rest of us are in hock for the rest of our lives because of people like you. And you dare to insult us and say that two wars are not paid for, that our tax cuts have led to this problem? You blame the people of this country? You, Mr. President, single-handedly are destroying the wealth creation engine of this country, and you have the audacity to go to a town hall meeting and jump our chili? This is why citizens are rising up. This is why people are abandoning the president of the United States, because he is delusional. This man is delusional about what’s going on around him. He’s delusional about what he’s doing. Tax rates are not lower than after Kemp-Roth was passed. Tax rates are not lower than they were in 1986. Tax rates are not lower than they were in 1988. To the extent that taxes are lower than when Clinton was in office, that’s thanks to the Bush tax cuts.

This president has intentionally bankrupted this country and now he claims that defense spending and tax cuts aren’t paid for? But the rest of all his entitlements and the rest of his massive good do-gooder spending, why, that’s paid for, how do you explain that? All the things he’s spending money on are paid for but a couple of wars aren’t? So national security, which is a constitutional responsibility, was not paid for but all the rest of this massive bureaucracy is paid for? Tax cuts, which allows people to keep more of what they’ve earned the following year is already being spent by the government this year, so they’re not paid for. I mean I have this about right? I think I do. Nothing’s paid for, except his precious little programs. But everything that impacts us is not paid for. This guy keeps spending. He keeps running up deficits. He keeps taking care of his union buddies, trial lawyer buddies, certain Wall Street buddies, and then there’s nothing left for those of you who pay the bills. Suddenly he’s concerned about the budget and the deficit after he has single-handedly blown them up out of sight? Yes, exactly. And we predicted this. This is now the pretext and the predicate for tax increases. The world will demand it, you see.

The world will demand to see some sign of stability in this country. Wait ’til you see what this deficit reduction panel comes up with in December, folks, after these elections, wait ’til you see it, wait ’til you see all the income tax increases and the VAT tax. So essentially what we’re going to have to do is keep ponying up for Obama’s failure. We’re going to have to keep ponying up to pay for socialism that doesn’t work. We’re going to have to keep ponying up to pay for huge salaries and benefits for bureaucrats and union people, and we’re going to have to hear all the while that defense and tax cuts aren’t being paid for. This is our fault. We had the temerity to accept the tax cut, and now we gotta pay the price. So, yeah, I’m livid about this. This is all lies, it’s irresponsible, and more than anything else, it’s dangerous because it’s destroying the very engine of wealth creation that has defined the greatness of this country and has given people, not just in this country, but around the world, hope. In just a little over a year and a half, the level of damage and destruction that this guy has wrought while blaming us for it now is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: What a fraud this whole argument is. What a fraud all of this is, these liberals, the defense, tax cuts not being paid for. Meanwhile, they increase spending on the rest of the government, nothing is paid for. Not a single thing is paid for. Fraud is the best way I can think to describe this entire administration, and now of course what’s the media trying to do? Take every bit of attention away from Obama possible and focus it on Christine O’Donnell. Sarah Palin has some advice for Christine O’Donnell on Twitter. Ignore the media. Don’t even worry about ’em. Go back to Delaware and campaign and tell your constituents what you intend to do. Focus your attentions in Delaware and don’t worry about what the national media says. And I could not agree more. I don’t even want to get caught up in it. I wouldn’t even react to them. The premise that they’re trying to get started here is fallacious. I wouldn’t waste my time with them. It’s exactly what they want. If I were her, stay in Delaware or wherever she goes but connect with voters in Delaware.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Andy in Port Lavaca, Texas. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush, 20 years of dittos, my friend.

RUSH: Thank you very much, my friend.

CALLER: Something has had me raving at the radio and throwing things at the TV and my wife keeps trying to calm me down.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Isn’t everything the president is saying boil down to stay the course on the economy? How many years did they hammer Bush that stay the course isn’t a strategy? And yet that’s all we hear from him.

RUSH: Well, that was Iraq, and this is economic destruction, and that’s two different things.

CALLER: Oh. Well, okay, I hadn’t thought about it that way. I’m just tired of hearing it, and I’m just waiting for the moment when he actually slips and uses the words, ‘We have to stay the course.’

RUSH: You’re very shrewd.

CALLER: If that happens I’ll have a heart attack.

RUSH: You’re very shrewd to observe this. He is not using the words, but in fact he’s going one better. Instead of saying stay the course, he’s saying, ‘Oh, no, it is getting better.’ After people tell him how bad it is, ‘Well, no, no, no, it’s actually getting better.’ I mean, how many years did the Democrat tell us that we have the worst economy since Hoover? All during the Bush years we had the worst economy since Hoover. Why don’t they tell us that now? ‘Cause it clearly is worse now than when Bush was in office.

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