RUSH: It is Open Line Friday, so we go back to the phones to Fort Mohave, Arizona. Liz, great to have you here.
CALLER: Yeah. (pause) I admire you greatly.
RUSH: Thank you very, very much.
CALLER: And congratulations on your recent wedding.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Hope you have many happy years.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I have a question. These idiots in Washington —
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: — that keep insisting this recession is over —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: (laughing) Are they nuts or what?
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: More and more people are losing their homes. I’m one of them.
RUSH: By the way, it was actually… To be precise it wasn’t ‘idiots in Washington.’ It was idiots at Harvard. It was a group of guys from Harvard who proclaimed that the recession ended in June of 2009. The regime just picked up on it and said, ‘Oh, good! The recession’s over.’
CALLER: Well, it’s not. Like I said, more and more people are still losing their homes. We’re one of them. My household is four disabled people.
RUSH: And you’re losing the house?
CALLER: And we’re losing the home because we can’t get any help.
RUSH: What kinda help? You mean financial help?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Are they gonna foreclose on you, is that what that means?
CALLER: Yeah. I’ve got a week to get my back payments in and if I don’t they’re starting the foreclosure paperwork. (choking up) Like I said, I take a few, four, disabled people, and we have to try and maintain our home on less than 2,000 a month.
RUSH: That’s not the mortgage? That’s how much it cost you to maintain it?
CALLER: No, that’s what we have to live on every month, less than $2,000 to pay all the bills —
RUSH: Including…?
CALLER: — buy my groceries —
RUSH: Including the mortgage?
CALLER: — and the mortgage.
RUSH: Now the disabled people, are they your family?
CALLER: Yes. It’s me, my husband, my mother, and my mother-in-law. We’re also — me and my husband are also — disabled veterans. Our applications for service connected benefits —
RUSH: Well, no wonder…
CALLER: — continue to be denied.
RUSH: Yeah. No wonder you think the recession’s not over.
CALLER: Our Social Security application continues to be denied.
RUSH: Why?
CALLER: They keep saying he can go to work. He can’t stand on his feet but he can go to work.
RUSH: This doesn’t make any sense.
CALLER: Tell me about it. What are people like us supposed to do?
RUSH: Well, it doesn’t make any sense because the regime would have us believe that people like you are who they’re looking out for and taking care of and coming up with all kinds of programs to keep you in your house and keep you from being foreclosed.
CALLER: For two years —
RUSH: Modified Mortgage Relief Program or something. Have you tried to access that?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: What happened?
CALLER: They wouldn’t help us because we’re in a mobile home.
RUSH: They’re gonna foreclose on your mobile home?
CALLER: We’re in a mobile home.
RUSH: They’re gonna foreclose —
CALLER: We’re in a double-wide mobile home within a trailer park, a mobile home park.
RUSH: They’re going to foreclose on a mobile home in a trailer park?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Well, this is…
CALLER: Yeah. For two years I’ve been filling out applications for assistance and writing letters. I’ve got over 586 letters sent out begging for help, from anybody.
RUSH: Nobody in the house is able to work?
CALLER: No!
RUSH: Well, how have you gotten by up ’til now?
CALLER: Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Jugglin’ bills every month.
RUSH: What’s your source of income?
CALLER: My disability, which was 1100. I found out this month the VA is garnishing my wages for prescriptions ’cause I can’t afford to pay for them. So they’re gonna just take the money anyway.
RUSH: Wait a minute. The VA is garnishing a portion of your wages?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Well, wait a minute. You have a job?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: What are they garnishing then? Your disability payment?
CALLER: My Social Security. Disability. I was getting a thousand dollars — 1100 a month —
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: — Social Security, disability.
RUSH: And you can’t work?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: Nobody in the house can work?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: When’s the last time anybody in the house was able to work?
CALLER: 2001.
RUSH: So for ten years almost —
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: — you haven’t been able to work. You’ve been living on whatever disability and other things you had.
CALLER: My mother used her life savings to help us up until now. Now she’s wiped out.
RUSH: Right, that’s gone. And there’s nothing any of you in the house can do —
CALLER: No.
RUSH: — work related?
CALLER: No. My mother has had five strokes. My mother-in-law, in the last three months, has spent two of those months in the hospital in and out.
RUSH: How did you pay for that?
CALLER: We haven’t paid it.
RUSH: What are you able to pay for with your income? You say you’ve got $2,000 a month. What are you able to pay for?
CALLER: We’re barely able to pay the bills.
RUSH: What kind of bills? What do you owe?
CALLER: Just all we have is our mortgage, our space rent, our electric, gas, water.
RUSH: Car?
CALLER: No. Car’s paid for.
RUSH: Car’s paid for. How much do you owe on the domicile?
CALLER: On the home alone?
RUSH: Yeah, the trailer.
CALLER: Twenty thousand is what we owe to pay it off.
RUSH: And they’re demanding all 20,000 or they’re gonna kick you out?
CALLER: Well, right now just the back amount.
RUSH: What’s that?
CALLER: Oh, God.
RUSH: Anyway the point is the recession’s not over for you?
CALLER: Oh, not by a long shot.
RUSH: And you’re sick and tired of hearing the recession’s over?
CALLER: (laughs) Doubly.
RUSH: How do you feel when Obama says, ‘Hey, be patient. It took a while to free the slaves’?
CALLER: Yeah, I’ve even written him a letter and it got sent back, too.
RUSH: You sent The Messiah a letter and it was returned un-replied-to?
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: Did you vote for The Messiah?
CALLER: Nope.
RUSH: Well, that may be why. They probably know.
CALLER: Nooo way, I did not vote for him.
RUSH: All right, now, if you are evicted from your mobile home, where will you go? What will happen?
CALLER: I don’t know. I haven’t anyplace to go. I don’t have money to pay deposits to go anywhere.
RUSH: But you do have $2,000 a month. You say you do have $2000 a month to do something with.
CALLER: I still gotta pay the rest of the bills. By the time I get all them paid, I ain’t going to have nothing to do nothing.
RUSH: Well, but I know it’s not a lot, but it’s still $2000.
CALLER: Fifteen hundred dollars is what they want now.
RUSH: How much do they want?
CALLER: Fifteen hundred.
RUSH: $1500. And how much time would that buy you?
CALLER: What, um, another three months.
RUSH: Are you a veteran yourself?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: You know what you could do? You ought to call Velma Hart. Velma Hart’s the CFO of AMVETS. Now, Velma Hart is the woman that went to Obama town meeting the other day in Ohio (I think it was in Ohio), and she said, ‘Is this it? Is this our new reality? Frankly,’ she said, ‘I’m exhausted defending you and your policies.’ I mean, this is Obamaville here, folks. This is gut-wrenching to have to listen to. So you have no option. You just have to sit around and wait for the time to pass and for the bank to come along and repossess your home?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Now, you… Look, Liz, you sound a little bit more industrious than that. Honestly, you don’t sound to me — now, I’m you just hearing you on the phone, but you don’t sound — like somebody that sits around and waits for things to happen to you.
CALLER: I scrounge every day to make ends meet.
RUSH: I don’t doubt that. Millions of people are.
CALLER: And if I’m lucky, by the time I get done paying everything, I have a hundred dollars to buy groceries for a month, for four people. That’s not easy.
RUSH: Well, have you called the VA? Have you called any of these organizations? AMVETS?
CALLER: Yeah, I’ve called all of them.
RUSH: You’ve called AMVETS?
CALLER: Mmm-hmm. I’ve called them, I’ve called the American Legion, I’ve called —
RUSH: Nobody?
CALLER: — two different ones for disabled veterans.
RUSH: And —
CALLER: But we’re not from the recent wars, Iraq or Afghanistan.
RUSH: Yeah, but your entire family is living with you in your home there? You don’t have any other family anywhere else?
CALLER: No. Not close by.
RUSH: Church?
CALLER: Nope. Nothing.
RUSH: Are you a member of a church?
CALLER: No. Not anymore. I spend all my time taking care of these guys.
RUSH: Hmm.
CALLER: That’s what I do is take care of them.
RUSH: Do you blame George Bush for any of this?
CALLER: Part of it.
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: But it really hit hard about two years ago.
RUSH: And it’s done nothing but deteriorate and get worse for the whole two years?
CALLER: Uh-huh. Yeah. They keep raising our space rent every year.
RUSH: So why did you…? Do you get food stamps?
CALLER: No!
RUSH: Oh, I know you qualify for food stamps, everybody qualifies for them. They’re trying to give those away.
CALLER: Nope, they say we make too much money.
RUSH: You don’t make any money!
CALLER: That’s my point.
RUSH: Everything you get is Social Security or some kind of benefit.
CALLER: That’s —
RUSH: Are you on any kind of welfare?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: But you certainly qualify.
CALLER: They tell us we don’t.
RUSH: Who?
CALLER: DES! I’ve applied for food stamps.
RUSH: DES? What’s that?
CALLER: Department of Economic Security.
RUSH: Well, call the agriculture department. They run the food stamp program.
CALLER: No. You know, our air conditioner —
RUSH: Liz, the food stamp people advertise trying to give away food stamps so as to keep their budget each year up. There’s gotta be something. All you’d have to do to qualify is produce your income tax returns and to show that your income and that none of it’s derived from work. There has to be something that you haven’t exhausted, food stamps at least. Anyway, Liz, this is heartbreaking. Obamaville. (sigh) Snerdley… Liz, if you don’t mind, give Snerdley your phone number and we’ll keep in touch here and see what’s up with you.
I gotta run, take a break, back with more right after this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: That’s a tough situation. You have four disabled people, including veterans, who don’t qualify for anything? Surely she’s not exhausted all of the options available to her out there in Arizona.