RUSH: Everybody’s expecting me to be mad today and on edge because these students in the UK are now into violent protests. Frankly, I would be mad if there weren’t other things going on here that have me distracted. And we’ll get to all of this as the program unfolds. Great to have you, ladies and gentlemen. El Rushbo, behind the Golden EIB Microphone. Our telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
Man, oh, man, oh, man. I leave this program yesterday and I come back today, and in the interval, Obama’s out there saying that if we don’t pass the extension of the Bush tax rates we face the possibility of a double-dip recession. Now, first, in order to have a second recession you have to get out of your first recession which we’re not out of the first recession. So having a double-dip is still a matter of events. But, folks, there is something going on here. Obama has not had a come-to-Jesus meeting or event here. He has not changed who he is. There’s something else going on. Now all of a sudden this enthusiasm to extend the Bush tax cuts. And I think I’ve got this figured out. The key here is that there is nothing stimulative about them, and yet Obama is portraying them as stimulative. Why? ‘Cause he knows it’s gonna fail to stimulate. This is not a tax cut. And even if it were, two years is not enough for a tax cut to really indicate economic growth. It took four years for Reagan’s to kick in, three to four years. We’re looking here at just continuing tax rates. If there’s any tax stimulus here — and you tell me how big of one it is — it’s the 2% cut in the payroll tax for one year. At the end of the day that’s not stimulus, either.
Now, we were talking yesterday that the worst thing that could happen for Obama is if this worked. But maybe not. If it works, what does he get to say? He gets to say he crossed the aisle, he put the country first, he put aside things, he worked with the Republicans, and it’s working out, and he happens to be running for reelection. If it doesn’t work, in other words, if there is no economic stimulus tied to the extension of these tax rates, he can say, ‘You know, I went against my better judgment. I knew this wouldn’t work, but I thought for the sake of working with the other side to give it a try. Tax cuts don’t work, supply-side doesn’t work. I proved it in two years here. Supply-side doesn’t work.’ Well, he’s taking positions on both sides so that he can say that he wins no matter what happens.
Barack Obama does not believe that we are gonna have a double-dip recession if these tax rates aren’t extended. He was kind of forced into that. Larry Summers went out and said that, and the regime denied it. This is just this week, the regime denied it. Then they had to double back and agree with it. But this is not something that they really believe. You know it as well as I know it. Obama does not think that extending these tax rates is a stimulus. He doesn’t think that we’re gonna have double-dip recession if we don’t do this. If he thought that, he wouldn’t have done any of the economic policies that he’s done. My guess is he is really hoping this doesn’t work, and there are a lot of people that think that the economy is gonna rebound anyway just because of time. Recessions don’t go on forever. It’s like Barney Frank said yesterday, (imitating Frank) ‘Clearly by 2012 the recession will be over.’ Clearly a lot of people think it will simply because it can’t go on that long. And why it can’t go on that long, the American people are gonna do something at some point. I mean they’re the ones that drive the economy. So statistically you’d have to say, okay, it is gonna come back. And as you know, economies good or bad, presidents get the blame, do they not?
Now, while all this is going we got people on our side celebrating the end of the Democrat Party, because the leftists out there, the Anthony Weiners and these guys in the House are just going batty over this. They just can’t stomach the fact that the rich are not gonna be socked. They’re not looking at this strategically. I heard some people say that this is all planned to make Obama look like a centrist. No. There are too many people that would have to be brought in on it for Obama to be looked as a centrist here for this to be a strategery. I listened to Obama talk about these tax rates, and I know what I know about them, and there’s no meeting of the minds here. This is all about how the table’s been set. How can it be said that the current tax rates that have been in place for ten years are gonna be a stimulus in the next two? It doesn’t make sense logically. The way the table’s been set people think they’re tax cuts. Why? Because they were gonna go up, they were gonna expire. It’s kind of like baseline budgeting.
Let me give you a better example. You go in to buy a car. You tell yourself when you go to the dealership that you’re not gonna spend anything more than $50,000 on your car. You go in there and you see a car you fall in love with for $75,000. But you don’t buy it. You buy the one for 50, and you tell your wife you just saved 25 grand. Even though you never intended to spend 75, you tell her you just saved 25 grand. Well, this tax business table has been set the same way. For whatever length of time the threat has been that these rates will expire, and everybody’s will go up. Now, that would happen if nothing was done on January 31st. But nobody’s taxes are going down. Nobody’s income taxes are going down, and nobody has ever contemplated anybody’s income taxes going down. And it is marginal income tax rates that are stimulative, lowering them, but they aren’t going to be lowered. Yet the table has been set to say tax increases are coming, but now since there aren’t tax increases coming, we’re being told tax cuts are coming, and then those tax cuts, which are not really tax cuts, and therefore will not stimulate the economy, two years from now, Obama will say, ‘Well, in the spirit of cooperation, I’m doing what I thought best. I wanted to try the Republicans’ idea, but it just hasn’t worked.’
This way they don’t have to do revisionist history of the Reagan years to say supply-side or whatever doesn’t work. They just have to tell the American people who have lived through these next two years, ‘They said tax cuts would stimulate the economy, and we clearly see that they haven’t.’ And then, of course, the Republicans, conservatives have to point out two years from now, ‘Well, there weren’t any tax cuts.’ And then you’re into a situation where you have to convince voters after the fact what went on instead of saying what I’m saying to them now, before this happens. The reason economists are saying that a payroll tax cut would be stimulative is because for one year it is gonna result in people’s paychecks being larger. But it’s not a perpetual stimulus because after one year the tax rate goes back up. By the same token, two years of the same tax rates, if they haven’t been a stimulus up till now why are they all of a sudden gonna become a stimulus? The fact is, not raising them is the thing that needs to be pointed out.
By not raising them the economy is not going to be harmed any further than it already has been. If we’re not careful we’re gonna get caught up in this notion that, A, this is a tax cut, when it isn’t, and, B, that it’s gonna provide stimulus even though it’s just two years. I’ve heard small businesspeople say, ‘Two years and more uncertainty after that, that’s not enough for me to start making permanent financial decisions.’ Obama just seems too eager for this now. I mean to come out and say we have to do this or face a double-dip recession. He coulda said that at any time the past two years, and he hasn’t. He doesn’t believe that. So he’s positioning himself here to be able to win no matter what happens. In other words, whatever happens he’s going to have taken a position on it in December of 2008 that he’ll always be able to go back to and say, ‘See, I told you, but I wanted to give it a shot in the interests of fairness, working with the others,’ however he wants to characterize why he did what he did. Up against this, as I say, on television, the Democrat Party, the leftists, all the blogs, having a giant argument among themselves thinking Obama has sold them out, and I don’t doubt that they feel that way. Some people on our side are looking at that and saying, ‘Well, the Democrat Party is cracking up.’ But, no, it’s not. It isn’t.
RUSH: They have new unemployment numbers out today. Before we get to that, there’s an interesting stat, ladies and gentlemen. Statistically… Now, listen carefully. Statistically one-third of people find a job one month after their unemployment benefits run out. Now, what could be the cause of that? Why do you think that happens? Why is it that statistically one-third of people find a job within 30 days of their unemployment benefits running out? Are you scratching your head trying to figure out why that might be the case? It’s been they’ve lost their benefits, and the only way to keep ’em up is to find a job. But still that’s just one-third of them. A White House study group could probably tell us why the other two-thirds are not.
From Reuters: ‘New US claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week in a four-week moving average, slipped to a fresh two-year low, reviving hopes that a labor market recovery was underway.’ Now, I also have AP in here. Both stories here. AP: ‘Applications for unemployment benefits dropped last week to the second lowest level this year, fresh evidence that companies are cutting fewer jobs.’ Now, in both stories, Reuters and AP admit that extending the Bush tax rates will boost the economy. There’s collusion going on because nobody is saying that. Nobody is saying that extending the Bush tax rates will boost the economy. I’m not trying to make too fine a point about this.
What people are saying is that if we let them expire, the economy is gonna take a hit, because tax rates will go up. That is being reworked, and now these are being called ‘tax cuts.’ My friends, they aren’t. Nobody’s income taxes are being cut here. Therefore, there’s no stimulus. AP ought to be apologizing to us if they really believe this. Both the AP and Reuters say in their stories that extending the Bush tax rates will boost the economy? Well, that’s the first time they’ve said it, too. Don’t they owe us an apology for lying about the Bush tax cuts for the last ten years? Why all of a sudden is extending the Bush tax rates gonna boost the economy? It can only be said in the context of, ‘Well, if we don’t extend ’em, the taxes are going up, and that won’t help the economy.’
So all this is being portrayed, presented as a tax cut when it isn’t. And, by the way, that’s another thing Obama wants to be able to say, that he was for cutting taxes two years from now if this works. Now, these media masters, they may think that the bulk of people have short memories, but not I, and certainly not you. Less than a week after we learned that the Labor Department and their minions at Reuters and the AP had been blowing smoke about the unemployment numbers for November, they redouble their efforts today. These numbers get revised the next week and it never gets reported, and they always get revised upward. So whatever good news is being announced today will not be as good next week, which will not be reported. We find it and tell you about it, but it isn’t reported.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: ‘Obama Calls Latest Job Losses Astounding.’ This is in Columbus, Ohio, in March of 2009. And, you know, we’re talking about this ‘double-dip recession’ business. Today: ‘White House Warns Tax Defeat Could Trigger New Recession.’ But I thought we were never gonna have one again, ’cause when he signed the first stimulus bill March of 2009, the AP had a story: ‘Obama Calls Latest Job Losses Astounding — Calling the latest job losses astounding, President Barack Obama said Friday he will not accept a future marked by a recurring cycle of Americans forced out of work due to economic woes. … Well, that is not a future I accept for the United States of America, Obama said.
‘That’s why he signed the stimulus bill that Congress passed last month with miniscule help from Republicans, he said,’ and yet we have had continuing unemployment every month since he signed it. He wasn’t gonna ‘accept’ that. Now if we don’t do this, we’re going to ‘trigger a new recession’? ‘Raising the direst alarm yet, the Obama [regime] warned fellow Democrats on Wednesday that if they defeat the tax cut compromise detested by many liberals, they could jolt the nation back into recession.’ Now, that has really ticked them off. What they’re hearing — the far left, the base of the Democrat Party, what they’re hearing — is that if we don’t make sure these rich keep their tax cuts, we’re gonna go into a double-dip recession.
Folks, they haaate that! They just can’t believe they elected somebody saying that. They thought he was one of them. They thought they were him, that they all were the ones that they’ve been waiting for. And yet here’s Obama telling these people, telling them, he’s speaking to them: ‘You guys, you’re gonna be responsible if you oppose this tax cut for the rich,’ that’s how they’re thinking of it. ‘If you oppose this, why, we’re gonna go to a double-dip recession,’ and they don’t understand. They think, ‘Higher taxes on the rich, that’s the only thing to do. That raises revenue and that will fix the deficit, and that will punish the rich,’ and now the rich don’t get punished, and furthermore they have to hear that that is gonna stimulate the economy?
I cannot, I cannot overemphasize how ticked off they are. They are livid out there! Half of the MSNBC on-air crew, Anthony Weiner, a bunch of these congresspeople — Barbara Lee from California — are livid over this. She’s head of the Congressional Black Caucus. Obama ‘appealed anew for Congress to ‘get his done’ and insisted that more congressional Democrats would climb aboard as they studied details of the $900 billion year-end measure.’ That number, $900 billion, is a really popular number. Everything’s gonna cost $900 billion. Health care was gonna cost $900 billion. Everything has to come in under a trillion dollars ’cause that’s what we spent on the Iraq war, and they really ran the Iraq war in the ground as wasteful spending.
So every spending measure has to cost less than a trillion. If you go back and look, every spending measure, every bill has been really close to costing a trillion, but it hasn’t gotten there. It always ends up being more than a trillion, but what they originally announce isn’t. ‘Cause you know, $900 billion sounds a lot cheaper than one trillion, just like saying something costs only 99 cents sounds a lot less than something costs a dollar. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. … Let’s start with this. This morning in Washington in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, at a meeting of the President’s Export Council, here is The One.
OBAMA: (haltingly) Every economist that I’ve talked to ooor that I’ve read over the last couple of days acknowledges that this agreement would boost economic growth in the coming years and has the potential to create millions of jobs. The average American family will start 2011 knowing that there will be more money to pay the bills each month, more money to pay for tuition, more money to raise their children. But if this framework fails, the reverse is true. Americans would see it in smaller paychecks; that would have the effect of fewer jobs.
RUSH: See? Right there, folks. He’s making my point. Now, do you believe that all of a sudden a lifetime of belief has just been thrown down the sewer and Obama all of a sudden has now become a true believer, a supply-sider? ‘Every economist that I’ve talked to or that I’ve read over the last couple of days acknowledges that this agreement would boost economic growth in the coming years’? Folks, if he really believes that, this is time for the Republicans to make this a tax cut! This is time for them to propose an actual marginal income tax rate cut. Put him on the spot. He does not believe this — and furthermore he’s got a ton of economists, Democrat economists, who don’t believe this.
You know, this goes back to this smoking business. I read the e-mail during the break. ‘Why do you keep making a big deal about smoking?’ Let me tell you why. I remember back in the old days when you could smoke in restaurants, and so do you. Do you remember all the dead people you had to climb over when you left, who had died from your secondhand smoke? You remember that? Oh, I do! Man, I’d light a cigar, smoke it halfway, and people were dropping like flies! In 21, when I left, I had to climb over ’em to get out of there. They were dying that fast. ‘Come on, Rush. Stop making jokes.’ I’m not making a joke. I’m telling you what your regime is saying.
Now, if you’ve got a regime that will lie like this — one puff of one cigarette or secondhand cigarette smoke can cause a bystander to have a heart attack, if they’ll say that — they have no credibility as far as I’m concerned. Well, they never have had with me, but for people still holding out hope, this is no different than some of the scare things they’ve been saying about global warming. It’s all BS. These people on the left — I don’t care if it’s Obama, I don’t care who it is — they lie through their teeth. ‘Mr. Limbaugh, they care about people. You’re just misunderstanding.’ No, I live in Literalville. When a politician says something, I hold ’em to it.
‘Mr. Limbaugh, it’s silly for you to believe that. You want us to believe that you actually walked over dead people leaving restaurants after you smoked?’
I know it’s silly, just as it is silly that you wanna believe it. I mean, you’ve gotta believe that happened if you’re gonna believe your regime. Well, the same thing here with this tax plan. He doesn’t believe any of this, and I think it’s time to say so. If they’ll lie about something as serious as a stroke, or as serious as a heart attack, then lying about this tax business is nothing. I mean, this is chump change. Paul Krugman doesn’t think this is gonna help the economy and he is the Mother of All Democrat Economists. What is this? From now on (well, I’ve always done this) you can automatically reject now when Obama says, ‘Every economist I’ve talked to, every economist I’ve read, every last one agrees, blah, blah, blah. ‘
No!
In the first place, that’s never happened on anything, but especially now. Millions of jobs! Have you heard anybody say that, by the way? Nobody is. Not even on our side. Nobody is saying that extending these tax rates is gonna create millions of jobs. Remember, it’s how the table has been set. The alternative is these expire and tax increases occur, and that causes pain. So against that, people are assuming, ‘Well, we’re not gonna raise taxes? Good! We’re gonna have a stimulus.’ No. No, no, no. It doesn’t work that way, and this just convinces me even more that I’m right here in this. This deal is necessary to stimulate the economy, to ward off a double-dip recession? I’m sorry, I’m not buying it. I’ll keep sticking it to the left on this. This is late yesterday morning at the White House. After a meeting with the Polish president, a reporter asked Obama, ‘Well, now that you’ve negotiated with the Republicans are you willing to negotiate with the Democrats who think you’ve betrayed them on the tax package?’
OBAMA: It is inaccurate to characterize Democrats writ large as feeling, quote, unquote, ‘betrayed.’ I think Democrats are looking at this bill, and you’ve already had a whole bunch of who have said, uh, this makes sense.
RUSH: (chuckles) Well, again, they are feeling betrayed. The whole White House press corps two days ago felt betrayed. I’ve got a story here. This is from the New York Daily News, Andrea Tantaros: ‘Whining Dems on Far Left are Nearly Crazy with Criticism of Obama’s Tax Cuts Compromise,’ and they mention Julian Assange here and Rachel Maddow (no, that’s Bill Maher, sorry) and what’s his name, Anthony Weiner, but it goes and mentions a whole bunch of people here that are angry. Charles Rangel, Pelosi. Fifty-four House Democrats have come out and opposed this thing.
It’s largely symbolic. That won’t matter, but to say that they don’t feel betrayed? I mean, he’s sticking it to ’em again. They are feeling betrayed and he’s basically saying, ‘Screw you! I don’t care how you feel. If you don’t help me with this we’re gonna have a double-dip recession.’ It’s clear these people are so blinded by their ideology they don’t know what he’s doing. It’s just like global warming. All scientists agree with him on global warming. Just like all economists agreed with him on the first stimulus. So whoever is careless with small things, you can trust that they’re lying to you on the big stuff as well.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, the past two years and during the campaign, so maybe three years, it is Imam Obama who was the one who wanted to raise taxes on job creators. Obama wanted to let these tax rates expire. He wanted to raise taxes on them for three years, said it was necessary. Now as of yesterday it’s a bad idea? You know, Snerdley, I’m really sorry to put you in a cold shower. Snerdley was so thrilled, he came in here today, came in here at 11:30, 11 o’clock, he was so excited, ‘The Democrats are falling apart! Rush, I never thought I’d live to see it.’ I said, ‘You’re really hopped up.’ ‘Oh, yeah!’ You should see the long look on his face as I explain the realities to him since the program began. He’s also swatting himself for not figuring it out on his own, ’cause he’s totally capable of it. He got so caught up in the delectable notion that these people are eating each other alive, and in certain sectors they are. But it isn’t gonna last. If you just go to Drudge here, you know, we gained a whole 17,000 jobs, unrevised, it will be changed, and the economy is showing signs of recovery, says the State-Controlled Media.
Yeah, yeah, poll: ‘Most Americans Say they’re Worse Off Under Obama.’ Home values may drop by 1.7 trillion this year. It isn’t gonna change. Nothing’s gonna change just because the tax rates are gonna be extended. None of that’s gonna be affected by the tax rates being extended. And now the Drive-Bys are all focused on some house out in Escondido, California, ’cause there’s explosives inside, and the winds are up, and if something happens and a fire gets started, they got big problems. I looked at it and said, ‘Wow, the foreclosure business is really taking a hit here.’ But it’s probably somebody foreclosed on that’s planted a bomb in there. (interruption) It’s not? What is it, a terrorist? What is it? (interruption) Yeah? Right, they’ve found a lot of explosives in the house. I’m saying the owner probably put ’em in there after being foreclosed on, ticked off. Well, somebody put ’em in there. (interruption) All right, fine. Snerdley says, ‘There’s just some bombs in there, Rush, not that big a deal.’ Okay. Just some bombs in the house, they’re gonna wait to blow it up ’cause it’s a fire hazard.
From TheHill.com: ‘Pelosi Pledges to Win Changes as House Dems Reject Tax-Cut Deal — The House Democratic Caucus on Thursday rejected the tax deal negotiated between the White House and Senate Republicans. The non-binding vote of the caucus held during a closed-door meeting puts tremendous pressure on House leaders to win changes to a proposal –‘ Well, you know, I hate to tell these House Democrats, but the guy that’s gonna run this show tomorrow when the real vote happens is Steny Hoyer. And he wants the deal. And Bite Me wants the deal. This is gonna happen. This is just allowing the Democrats, these kook freaks to go on record for their own reelection two years from now, saying they opposed it.