RUSH: There’s a secret meeting going on — a series of meetings, a series of secret meetings taking place — between and among senators of both parties, 12 of ’em. It’s not secret anymore because The Politico has the story.

“Secret Talks Under Way About ‘Fiscal Cliff.'” The Politico claims that 12 senators from both parties are secretly huddling over plans to avoid the fiscal cliff awaiting us on January 2013. That’s Taxageddon. Senator Dick “Turban” of Illinois says that the senators are trying to come up with measures that “will restore confidence in the business community.” But if their measures would restore confidence in the business community, why do they have to keep ’em secret, is my question. If these 12 senators are meeting, six Republicans, six Democrats, from what I’m told, if they’re meeting in secret to try to come up with ideas to restore confidence in the business community, why not do it in public? If you really want to restore confidence, why do you have to keep it hidden?

Here’s the answer. These talks “must be done secretly and never be made public.” That’s a quote from the story. These talks must be done secretly and can never be made public because secret talks will allow Democrat senators to make entitlement cuts, and Republican Senators to increase taxes without either side getting blasted in the political arena. In other words, these Senators know that they’re having this secret meeting, and they’re plotting things that end up being essentially governing against the will of the people. I mean, we’ve learned by now cuts to entitlements never materialize. Tax increases always do. Besides, most of us know that we don’t have a tax problem; we have a spending problem, and increasing taxes just increases our spending problem.

So there’s a secret meeting, and it’s a replay of what’s gone on in public. The Democrats promise entitlement reform but they’ve gotta do it privately because their left-wing extreme kooks would go absolutely nuts and the old folks, if they found out about it, would start throwing bricks at their cars like they did to Dan “Rosty” Rostenkowski. The Republicans who can’t publicly say they’re gonna increase taxes privately will talk to the Democrats about doing just that, in exchange for all these entitlement cuts. And together, working in secret, without any arrows being thrown, these brave 12 Senators can come up with a plan that, when publicly revealed, will be greeted with love, adoration, and total support. But they couldn’t do it in public. This is in The Politico.

I think there’s something else at work here. This article in The Politico ends up saying that all that will probably come out of this is a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts, as Clinton initially suggested this week. Oh, about that, Clinton’s aides are saying that he screwed up and they’re blaming his age. Clinton’s own support staff is saying privately to the media, “Look, all this positive talk about Romney, he’s just getting old. The guy’s getting old.” The implication is he says things he doesn’t know. Not using words like dementia or any of that, but the implication is clear. This guy is aging. He doesn’t know what he’s saying sometimes. You gotta cut him some slack. That’s Clinton’s own people, according to the Politico.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, I want to go back, ladies and gentlemen, this secret meeting that’s going on, series of secret meetings taking place, according to The Politico. There are 12 Senators from both parties secretly huddling over plans to avoid the fiscal disaster we’re headed to in January of next year. Taxmageddon, the Bush tax cuts end, and new tax increases start with Obamacare, new rounds of government spending, all kinds of things that, if they happen… I find this fascinating, too. Even the Democrats know, and it’s a Democrat wish list. The Bush tax cuts end, new tax increases, massive spending, and they understand fully that it’ll wreck the US economy. Some of them do. And we’re led to believe that enough of ’em care about it that they’re having secret meetings with the Republicans to try to head off this disaster.

I’m not sure I believe that. I think it’s another attempt behind the scenes to snooker Republicans into going along with tax increases. They’re not gonna cut entitlements. When’s the last time an entitlement’s been cut? The only way an entitlement’s gonna get cut if it’s deemed unconstitutional. There haven’t been any entitlement costs proposed that anybody really ever meant. And they’re always paired. “We’ll start talking entitlement reform if you Republicans finally agree that we need new revenue,” i.e., tax increases.

So at the center of everything is the Bush tax cuts expiring. That is at the center of everything. We talked about this on this program yesterday. I said… and Snerdley perked up on this, he couldn’t believe it. The conventional wisdom is that if Obama’s reelected, and we get to Taxmageddon, that he’s gonna relent, and he’s gonna authorize another temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts to avoid economic disaster. That’s the conventional wisdom. Now, Obama’s not saying it. All of his surrogates are saying it. The press is speculating. A lot of people have just concluded that it’s conventional wisdom. David “Rodham” Gergen. We played the sound bite yesterday, David “Rodham” Gergen thinks that Clinton is actually part of a strategery here to give Obama cover on this, because Clinton is out there not only saying we shouldn’t hit Bain Capital, private equity is honorable work and those are good people, but we need to extend the Bush tax cuts because we are in a recession.

What you have to understand here, folks, and I’m not exaggerating, what you and I call Taxageddon, the Democrats call nirvana. What you and I look at as fiscal disaster, they look at as dreams realized. And I am not exaggerating. So the popular conventional wisdom, which is often wrong, is that Clinton is out talking about extending the Bush tax cuts to give Obama cover for doing it. I do not believe if Obama’s reelected he’ll not extend the Bush tax cuts. That’s not why he’s running for reelection. He’s running for reelection to end those tax cuts and to raise them. That’s what Obama’s salivating over. He’s not gonna extend these tax cuts. And I don’t know whether David “Rodham” Gergen’s believing his own drivel or whether he’s part of the ruse, too. (interruption) Carney said that? Carney said it on the gaggle on Air Force One? The spokeskid said that Obama is not gonna extend the Bush tax cuts. Okay, well, then the regime is on record, if Snerdley’s right. There’s no guarantee of that. (laughing)

So, anyway, at the center of all these secret meetings, the Bush tax cuts. What The Politico says is going on here is that Durbin is the guy talking, and he’s saying that they’re having these private meetings because to do this publicly, everybody would start throwing stones at ’em and they would disband. The political heat would be too much. If Democrat voters learned that Democrat Senators were considering cuts to entitlements, that there would be hell to pay. By the same token if Republican voters learned that Republican Senators were talking about raising taxes, there would be hell to pay. So Durbin says we can only do this in private. We can’t hold public meetings. So why talk about it, Dick? Why leak it to The Politico that it’s even happening? And they also say, Durbin says to The Politico, the reason they’re doing this in private is to make sure that business is able to have its confidence restored. Dick Durbin said they’re trying to come up with measures that will restore confidence in the business community.

Now, if these ideas that they’re talking about in secret would restore confidence in the business community, don’t you think that that would happen if they did this publicly? So I think there’s something else at work here. This article in The Politico ends up saying that when all is said and done, all that will end up happening is a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts as Bill Clinton is out suggesting. The Politico cites Kent Conrad, Democrat Kent Conrad. They quote him as saying it might make some sense to extend all the taxes in short term, tax cuts. So Obama’s gonna take Kent Conrad to the Cory Booker Memorial Woodshed because Kent Conrad is the latest Democrat to publicly speak out against the Obama agenda.

But I’ve been here too many times. I’ve seen this kind of thing too many times. I’ve been around too long to get fooled by any of this. And this to me looks like — and I hope I’m not being too smart by half here — but this is starting to look to me like a deliberate Democrat strategery. And the strategery is Obama encourages all these top Democrats to say the Bush tax cuts have to be extended, that Obama wants Clinton out there saying this stuff. That Obama wants Durbin talking about this. That Obama wants all these other people talking about the Bush tax cuts have to be extended after the election in order to boost economic optimism before November. The key for all of this is for business to think that Taxageddon is not gonna happen before the election.

But let’s say they play this out. Let’s just watch. Let’s see if all this talk about extending the Bush tax cuts continues. Let’s see if more people pick it up. Let’s see if it becomes part of the conventional wisdom. Let’s just see in the next couple of months, three months, if indeed it becomes part of the mass political assumption every day “oh, yeah, Bush tax cuts extended, January 2012. We can’t allow that to happen, no, no, no, no. We’re gonna have to extend those tax cuts to help” — just say that becomes the public assumption. The purpose of that will be to ease business opposition to Obama and then Obama, let’s just say gets reelected, and it’s just gonna be like Bill Clinton and his middle class tax cut.

Shortly after being inaugurated in 1993, Bill Clinton called a press conference, might have been from the Oval Office, (Clinton impression) “I have never worked harder in my life. I have looked at the numbers, and, folks, we just can’t afford a middle-class tax cut. I wanted to do this, I know I said I was gonna do it, but you know what? It’s worse than we thought. This is the worse economy, the last 50 years, and I just can’t do it.” We’re gonna get the same thing with Obama. We can’t extend the Bush tax cuts. It’s not going to happen. In other words, a big lie is being perpetrated here for the purpose of getting Obama reelected. I wouldn’t put it past them, all these so-called betrayals and misstatements Clinton and all these other guys, supposedly embarrassing Obama. Where’s the discipline?

If all these guys are really off the reservation and really embarrassing Obama, where’s the discipline? Remember, Michael Walsh had it right. To understand the Democrat Party today is to understand the workings of a modern crime organization, crime family. You go off the reservation like this, you get punished. Look at Bob Torricelli, Andrew Cuomo. Bill Clinton in both cases went to those guys. You know, Cuomo wanted to run for something, and he said, (Clinton impression) “Andrew, you see what happened to Torricelli? He went to jail, Andrew, he was close to going to jail. if you want to have a political future you’re gonna back out.” Carl McCall. Whenever any of these Democrats have gone off the reservation there has been discipline.

There isn’t any discipline now. These guys are getting away with supposedly humiliating and embarrassing Obama. Here it is from the Washington Post, “Warshington,” for those of you in Rio Linda. “ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — The White House is insisting President Barack Obama will not extend the Bush-era tax cuts for wealthier Americans – even temporarily. Obama spokesman Jay Carney said the president has been clear in his opposition to extending tax cuts for households with annual incomes above $250,000.” So, maybe my theory is not right. ‘Cause Obama’s undercutting it.

For my theory to be right, Obama would have to shut up and go along with it. But now the spokeskid’s out there undercutting Clinton and undercutting David “Rodham” Gergen and making it clear, “I don’t care what you hear from my so-called friends, I am not extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich.” You got these Senators meeting in private trying to come up with a deal to save us from Taxmageddon.