RUSH: CNBC, an interview just moments ago, Warren Buffett, big early supporter of the Bamster’s, huge Obama supporter says there’s been little progress over the past few months in the economic war being fought by the country. ‘We haven’t got the economy moving yet,’ Buffett said. And of course he’s right, except Goldman Sachs is out there saying they had a record first half of 2009, or they’re going to pay record bonuses or some such thing and Citibank’s giving people raises of 50% while the unemployment rate skyrockets at 10%. ‘While the economy is a shambles and likely to stay that way for some time, Buffett remains optimistic, there will eventually be a recovery over a period of years but –‘ of course there will be. It’s just cyclical. But what kind of recovery is it going to be? Buffett says the nation should concentrate on creating jobs.
I thought that’s what the stimulus bill was! The nation should concentrate on creating jobs. That’s what the private sector always does. But when you deplete the private sector of operating capital, be it with this monstrosity of health care reform, or cap and trade, or any of the other Obama initiatives, running the automobile companies — what the hell, where is the money to hire people? The government’s got it all. And then the government’s dictating how it’s going to be used, the government’s dictating which automobile dealerships going to be shut down. The focus ought to be creating jobs? If you want to create jobs get Obama out of the private sector. It’s just that simple. Get him the hell out of the private sector. Get President Obama out of it, scrub this health care business, it’s a debacle, it is unnecessary, it’s unneeded. Eighty some odd percent of the American people are satisfied with theirs. This whole thing is a ruse. There’s no need for it. Every claim that’s being made about how it’s not going to cost any money is absurd. Let’s go back, grab audio sound bite number one. I want you to keep this in mind as you listen to Obama and his minions, Rahm Emanuel and so forth, plug and promote cap and trade and health care. This is Obama last Saturday during the YouTube weekly address.
OBAMA: There are also millions of Americans who signed contracts they didn’t always understand, offered by lenders who didn’t always tell the truth.
RUSH: Well, who was responsible for that? The government was. And now they’re going to operate health care, and you’re going to end up in a whole bunch of other stuff you had no idea you were going to end up in and then you’re not going to be able to end up out of it because you’re not going to have any options. With this cap-and-trade business they’re gonna start taxing carbon. You realize they’re even going to be able to raise taxes on Coke and Pepsi? Carbonated beverages that makes it fizz. It’s absurd. All of this is going to deplete the private sector. And Buffett knows this, and Buffett’s out there talking about the focus of the country ought to be on creating jobs. Listen to this. This morning on Good Morning America, the day-long ABC infomercial on Obamacare, Diane Sawyer talked to the Bamster himself this morning. She said, ‘Is it time for Americans to recognize that they’re going to get fewer scans, fewer procedures, fewer tests?’
OBAMA: The measure of the quality of care is not quantity, but whether or not it is making you better. What we’ve said is, let’s put out the research, let’s study and figure out what works and what doesn’t.
SAWYER: Will there be aboard making Solomonic decisions about best practices —
OBAMA: What I’ve suggested is is that we have a — a commission that helps — made up of doctors, made up of experts, that helps set best practices.
RUSH: The doctors and experts paid for by Obama. Doctors and experts are going to be dependent on Obama for their income. So of course they’re going to have to speak the party line. The bottom line is you’re going to get a board full of a bunch of bureaucrats deciding what medical care that you get. And it’s not going to be based on the quality of care. It’s going to be based on what they think is worth spending on you. It’s no more complicated than that. If they think you’re not worth spending enough money to find out what’s wrong with you, they’re not going to find out what’s wrong with you. If they don’t think you’re worth spending enough money to cure, then they’re not going to spend the money to give you the treatment that you need. That’s what this all means. That’s what’s coming down the pike. Don’t forget, we had a call last week, there are people who are actually fearful that if they are Republicans they will be discriminated against in terms of health care because this is such an ideologically political administration that does have a bunch of enemies. ‘Well, Rush, what do you mean? They’re gonna decide how much it’s worth to treat me?’ Well, in large measure, it’s going to have to do with your age.
If you’re approaching seasoned citizen status, your worth is a lot less than a young person. You have a duty to die and get out of the way, a Democrat, former governor, Colorado, said that, Richard Lamm, old people, come on, get out of the way, you’re spending all this money, you’re costing us all this money, you’re going to die anyway so go ahead and just fade away and die. And the truth of the matter is 80% of the individual’s health care costs are spent in the last years of one’s life, understandably and logically. So the best way to understand this is, this board, this bunch of bureaucrats, they’re not going to decide what tests you need based on the quality of care. They’re going to decide how much you’re worth to them, help keep these Social Security numbers in check. How the hell do you think they’re going to reform that? They’re going to reform Social Security by having to pay out to fewer people. And how are they going to do that? By treating fewer older people. You think they’re really going to reform this in some measurable way and make it solvent? They’re going to try to reduce the number of people getting it. I’m dead serious, Snerdley. I wouldn’t say this stuff if I didn’t mean it.
This is all such bilge. It is all drivel. You are going to get treatment based on how much some government agency or bureaucratic thinks you’re worth. Who knows how that’s going to be decided, the degree to which you have a sickness or an illness or a disease, your age, are you working or not, are you a drag on the system anyway? Did you vote for Obama? What did you eat during your life? Have you eaten carrots in the last 30 days? Have you eaten trans fats? Do you smoke? Have you drunk a lot of soft and sweet beverages and so forth? I don’t know. There’s a reason, we don’t need to give you a test. You’re sick because you’ve been eating all this rotgut we’ve been warning you against for 30 years. Screw you. And you say, ‘Okay, well, I’ll go to my own doctor.’ No, there won’t be a private doctor for you to go to. Sad to say. And surprise, surprise. His thinking on mandates is now evolved. Remember he blasted Hillary for having mandates during the campaign, but his promise of having no mandates has expired. Diane Sawyer said, ‘Will you accept mandates with fines for individuals if they don’t sign up? You were against that during the campaign.’
OBAMA: I have to tell you that this is an area where people have made some pretty compelling arguments to me, that if we want to have a system that drives down costs for everybody, then we’ve gotta have healthier people not opt out of the system. I think my thinking on the issue of mandates has evolved.
RUSH: Well, what else needs to be said? Everything else that he said yesterday in his press conference about competition, private sector versus the public option is just meaningless. He’s now evolved on mandates. Fines for individuals if you don’t sign up for health care. Remember, Mrs. Clinton, this was a biggie. They were going to force you into this, and Obama, no, no, we can’t do that. But he’s had some pretty compelling arguments made for him, he’s changed his mind on this, the system drives down the costs for everybody we gotta have healthier people, so he’s gonna mandate it. All the rest of this is BS. The government is going to mandate that you get health care, and after they mandate you get health care and sign up for insurance, then they’re going to decide whether or not you’re worth treating, then they’re going to decide whether or not you’re worth testing. If you think that national health care is gonna open up a new vista of endless health care to make sure you always get cured or you never get sick, you’ve got another thing coming. It ain’t going to work out that way. Here, by the way, is the Warren Buffett sound bite. Becky Quick, CNBC, talking to him. The question, ‘Last time we sat down to talk with you was on May 4th, and you told us you think we’re in an economic war right now. How much progress do you think we’ve made in that war?’
BUFFETT: Well, it’s been pretty flat. I get figures on 70-odd businesses and a lot of them daily. Everything I see about the economy is that we have had no bounce. The financial system was really where the crisis was, you know, last September and October, and that’s been surmounted and that’s enormously important, but in terms of the economy coming back it takes a while. There were a lot of excesses to be wrung out, and that process is still underway and it looks to me like it will be underway for quite a while. In the annual report I said that the economy would be in a shambles this year, and I’m afraid that’s true.
RUSH: Well, okay, that’s inspiring. The economy is going to be in a shambles this year. This is a big Obama backer. But notice the financial sector has been surmounted. I guess so. I guess the people are still being foreclosed on out there. I’ve got stories on that in the stack. And people still can’t get loans and their credit card rates are still going up, but somehow we’ve mounted the financials thing? Goldman Sachs with record bonus payouts the first half of this year and Citibank raising salaries 50 percent, yeah, depending on how you look at it I guess financial sector has rebounded a little bit.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The White House is in trouble on health care, and the evidence of this is all over the place, but one of the telling indications is that Rahm Emanuel has been dispatched today to call up a bunch of members of Congress and the Senate and is dropping the F-bomb on them and demanding that they 
get on board with this and so forth. This is a Chicago thugocracy that’s operating out of the White House, the technique developed by Mayor Richard Daley from which Emanuel comes and David Axelrod comes — and of course Obama himself. Part of Obama’s news conference yesterday was that smug voice, and that tone, saying, ‘Hey, if the public system outcompetes the private system in health care, then the privates will have to get with the program and learn how to do things right.’ He kept talking about, ‘Well, they say this government never does anything right, but if we do it right and the private system have to get with the program and learn how to do things right.’
Now, that’s ignorant arrogance. He intended it to be that way. He never answered the question about the unlevel playing field. The question he got on this was, ‘In the ‘public option,’ the government will not be pressured to make a profit to stay in business. They won’t be pressured to make a profit. The government doesn’t have make a profit in anything.’ The private sector, private insurance companies, private health care, they don’t have to make a profit to stay in business — and the tenor of his answer on this was most revealing. He almost slipped up and said, ‘Well, they shouldn’t be making a profit in the first place.’ He didn’t say it but that was his tone. I think that Obama looks at profits as evil. He obviously doesn’t understand that business cannot function without profits. You know, he’s like a lot of other dictators. He’s got the private sector, and he thinks it’s always going to be there to be raped. It’s always going to be there to be pillaged and plundered.
The private sector is always going to be something he can go grab and control and tax and take money out of and grow the government. He doesn’t have any concept (or maybe he does) that he’s going to kill it all by doing all this. So he can sit there and say, ‘We’re not going to get rid of the private sector,’ but the public sector, the government will not have to make a profit to stay in business, and the other guys will. Now, if you have to compete with somebody who doesn’t have to make a profit, guess where you’re going to end up? You’re going to lose! You’re going to go out of business. You’re not even gonna stay in business. There is no… If General Motors is giving away cars at what it costs to make them, and Chrysler is trying to sell ’em at a profit, guess what? Chrysler’s going to cease to exist. It can’t compete against people who don’t have to make a profit. Let’s even go further. Let’s say General Motors sells their cars for half of what they cost, and Chrysler is not allowed to do that.
Of course what sense would it make anyway?
But the government can do it. They can post a loss because they can print the money. So private sector health care givers — doctors, nurses, insurance companies — have to make a profit to stay in business. Obama’s business doesn’t have to show a profit. They’re not going to say in business. The government is going to end up being it all, by design. So Obama looks at the private sector as just a never-ending windfall. He looks at profits like surplus value, the same way Marx did. A profit is almost a crime. A profit’s a crime against the people. A profit is rape. It’s surplus value that you can go get, and when you take some entity’s profit, then you have been fair, and you have equalized society, and that’s how he looks at it. I think Obama’s a true believer on this stuff. That’s why he’s so pro-union. He’s one of these ‘workers of the world unite’-type guys, down to his core. He’s unapologetic about all this. He doesn’t even know he’s revealing it to me. I think he thinks he’s fooling everybody but he’s not fooling me. This guy’s right out of Das Kapital, folks. Profit is surplus value. Take it. Taking the profit is fair and just? Profit is evil? Profit is unfair? What’s sad is that the average person — including, I would even go so far as say, the average conservative commentator — doesn’t pick up on what Obama’s all about here. ‘Cause they don’t believe it. They can’t believe the guy’s as far gone as he is. So to make this fair, I’ve got a way to make this fair which isn’t going to happen but I want to make this point when we come back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. Let’s recap here. Barack Obama and his national health care business. He says, ‘The private sector, well, if they can keep up, if they can outperform us, then fine and dandy.’ Outperform you? They are going to have make a profit and Obama won’t, and that means they will cease to exist! So, to be fair about this, let’s establish one condition: that the government, when they run health care, will be subject to all administrative reporting requirements, including quarterly and annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission. They will be subject to all civil and criminal penalties that government imposes on business, and business will be permitted to enforce these requirements on government just as government does on business. I’m serious about this. I am dead serious about this. This health care thing is a debacle. It is not needed, it is unnecessary and the vast majority of Americans do not want it. If we get it, it’s ball game.
Every aspect of your life will then be regulated on the basis of cost to the government. Now, the government can sit there and it can regulate. It can now take over businesses. It can take over the auto business. It can take over the banks. It can run the mortgage business. It can regulate business all day long. A bunch of people have no idea how to run a business can regulate every aspect of your business life, fill out forms. You got OSHA, all these other regulations. Well, all right. If they’re going to get into private sector business operations, let’s turn the damn tables and let’s regulate them. Let’s make government, when they run General Motors, subject to the same requirements that the people who used to own General Motors are required. Now, I know it will never happen, but we somehow gotta get past this notion that government does everything right, that government’s this divine angel that only intends the best.
I don’t care about the intentions because the intentions don’t count when you measure the results, which are always horrible when the government’s running something.
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RUSH: The Obama administration, a big push on health care today and this week. In fact, the Bamster’s heading out. He’s turning to the grassroots to push health care reform. Time for the Obama road show victim parade. As people pore over details and ramifications of government-run health care, Obama team seeks to not get sucked in by the Washington discussion. ‘Obama is setting out to humanize the health-care debate and push Congress to pass serious reform. He aims to ensure, in the words of one White House adviser, ‘that we don’t get sucked in by the Washington discussion.’ The Washington discussion, focused on the high costs and uncertain results of competing proposals, is not going Obama’s way.’ The facts suck. The facts of this just aren’t helping Obama. The facts don’t add up so he’s gotta go out there and do a dog and pony show and what they’re going to do is they’re going to head out there and they’re going to have all these sorry cases of people who broke an arm or lost an eye or the dog did something and they tried to get health care and the evil insurance company wouldn’t pay off and the evil doctor wouldn’t do the test.
That’s what you’re going to hear. That’s how they’re going to do it. They’re going to gin up hatred. They’re going to make people think people don’t care about you because they, the Obama people do. They’re bombing in Washington on this, they’re bombing big time so it’s time to go out to the Obama people. So, in that regard, and I know you Obama people are in this audience. All it takes is for one syllable uttered by me from my oral cavity about Obama, one negative syllable and I am overrun with e-mails, so I know you’re out there. Maybe some of you independents and moderates are on the fence about this. I just have a simple question for you, and this the most obvious question not asked at yesterday’s press conference. Mr. President, will your health care plan work as well as your stimulus plan? Okay, okay, it’s not fair because everybody knows the stimulus plan bombed! But that’s the whole point.
How is that hope and change going for you? How’s that new job? How’s all these shovel-ready make-work projects? How’s Caterpillar supposedly rehiring bunch of people when they haven’t, how’s that working out for you? How’s that stimulus plan getting your job? How’s your new job coming? How’s your home foreclosure? Obama’s fixed all that, right? And now he’s going to be the provider of your health care. Ha, how’s your stimulus job working out? Don’t think that it is. And then of course the New York Times today: ‘Obama says government health coverage plan would not hurt private insurers.’ I just explained how it will wipe ’em out. Private insurers have to show a profit. The government never shows a profit, and they don’t have to. Private insurers will not be able to compete, pure and simple. Now Obama is talking about mandates anyway, mandating people get coverage, it’s over.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Warren Buffett has blasted Nancy Pelosi’s cap and trade. This is the Waxman-Markey bill, but it’s Obama’s! So Warren Buffett, in effect, is blasting Obama’s cap-and-trade national energy tax, calling it a huge tax, fairly regressive that will harm an awful lot of people not to mention the US economy. Warren Buffett, a giant Democrat wrecking ball today on CNBC.