RUSH: Here’s Christine in Asheville, North Carolina, as we head back to the phones. It’s a delight to have you here, Christine. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s a real pleasure. I just wanted to represent Generation X, the generation that no one talks about, and I can speak for myself —
RUSH: Hang on just a second here. Christine, hang on just… Some people don’t know Generation X, Generation Y, Gen Z. Give us a date range. You know, I’m not asking your age. I know it’s a very sensitive thing. But —
CALLER: (laughing) Well, we were young adults in the 90s. So I’m in my mid-forties now.
RUSH: Okay. All right. Fine. So you’re just the next step up from the Millennials?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And my entire adult working life has been in an economy in decline. And not only have you, which has been a real pleasure. I’ve listened to you for many years. But Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have been in the public eye, and in particular in my generation, my whole life! You know, I remember Hillary as first lady and working on health care. To see this attack from the left concerning Donald Trump and his finances, and as someone who has seen my country get poorer…
We don’t have any money, but people who do have money, I’m ready to play the, “Where did you get your money from?” game, especially concerning our Senate in Congress. I find it hypocritical and unbelievable that these people who are completely… They just have no self-awareness, you know, hounding Trump, going after Trump. For my part of it, I do not plan on abandoning my president. It is the first time in my adult life that I am in an economy that is growing.
I was just old enough and walking out into the workforce when NAFTA was really taking a hold and companies were leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving, not coming back. And like you say, and I could not agree with you more, the left has nothing to run on. But for my generation, the generation who won’t have Social Security, it’s gonna bomb out, we’re broke, we’re $10 trillion in debt, when I hear leftists talking about all of these things that they want to pay for, you know, Medicare for all, it’s a lovely idea, but we don’t have any money, Rush.
RUSH: That’s exactly right!
CALLER: (laughing) Where’s the money? There’s no money.
RUSH: Christine, you are making a really important point that I don’t want to gloss over. I want to return back to the primary point you’ve made. You are in your mid-forties. And for the first time in your life you are living through a growing, positive economy. That prior to now, your entire life has been lived in either a flatline or a shrinking economy.
CALLER: Yes –
RUSH: Now, part and parcel… Now, let’s not forget something. For most of that time in the last eight years prior to the Trump, people like you were also told that this was as good as it gonna get, that you had to account and acknowledge that there was a new normal now and that America’s great days of the past may not have been totally legitimate and this was more like the way it’s going to be now. So you were also told, not only were you in a flat line economy, you were told don’t have any lofty inspections here. Right?
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Now, now let’s jump forward to this growing economy. My next question: Are you actually…? There’s no wrong answer here; it’s not a trick. Are you actually aware of the growing economy because you’re living it and experiencing it, or only are you aware of it because you see economic numbers reported that say it’s good?
CALLER: I am in a small economy in Asheville, North Carolina, that is its own separate economy. So I’m aware of it via information. But I can feel it. I can face it. I know that it’s true. I mean, Rush, it’s hard to build your life if you’re coming from nothing and don’t have anything and you’re trying to build a life. And I literally feel like the finances in America, there’s been a stranglehold on it, there’s a depletion of it.
I mean, I’m old enough to remember sitting around the table and my parents saying, “You have to finish your dinner. There’s children starving in China.” When I was growing up, everyone knew that China was a poor, poor, poor, poor place. And just in a span of just, you know, 20 years, it’s boomed. Am I happy for the people of China? Absolutely. We don’t want to see anyone in the world struggling and not have what they need to survive.
But the other side of it, it’s because of poor management and our government that has leaked all of this money out of our country. And people here are suffering. And you talked about the opioid epidemic and all of these… You know, the fruit, the fruit of having no work. Which used to be just standard knowledge. You knew that if there was a population of people that didn’t have work, they were gonna have other problems.
RUSH: Exactly right. But the point is you’re living the economy. You’re not just saying and thinking it’s good because people are telling you; you’re actually experiencing it?
CALLER: Well, I am experiencing it, and I feel blessed, and I feel grateful to the president because, you know, people want to act like, oh, well he was just given money. Well, lots of people win money in lottery, and it’s gone a year later.
RUSH: Oh.
CALLER: It takes real skill —
RUSH: Oh, that’s a whole ‘nother thing. You’re absolutely right. That is a whole other subject. Lottery winners and what becomes of ’em. You’re absolutely right. I just… I’m glad to hear you say you’re living it, you’re experiencing it, it’s real to you, that it’s not just the result of me or people like me telling you things are good. That matters. Just one thing. My mom also told me, Christine, to eat everything on my plate because there were people starving in China.
But I was a smart-ass, I was a smart aleck, and I turned to her… I tried to use logic on every example of parental discipline I could. So when my mom said that to me, after a number of times I got tired of hearing it. I said, “Mom, you’re telling me that if I eat everything on my plate, a bunch of people in China are gonna be rubbing their stomachs and saying, ‘Boy, it feels good to be full’?” And she called me a smart aleck and to stop sassing her. But she never told me the China starving story again, either.