April 11, 2012
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Actually I don't want to start at the top here, but I've got no choice. I'm talking to broadcast engineer about the audio sound bite roster I've just got here.
You know, I'm trying to have a nice day living my life and all of a sudden I find out that Obama and the Democrats are once again impugning the name and reputation of Ronald Reagan. I'm gonna deal with it, but I'm gonna tell you that, folks, the whole focus of the next number of months up to the election is Barack Obama and his record. It's not Ronald Reagan. It's not Warren Buffett. It's not the Buffett Rule. It's not any of these side shows. The focus is gonna be Barack Obama and his dismal record of utter failure. We're not gonna forget it here. I'm not gonna be distracted, but the same time, when Obama tries to use these diversions we're gonna have to deal with it as briefly and as poignantly as we can.
Great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh, behind this, the Golden EIB Microphone here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
So now we find out today that not only was Ronald Reagan for tax increases on the rich, Ronald Reagan was pro-abortion. Have you ever stopped to realize this bunch of people, the Democrat Party, Barack Obama, they hate Reagan. They have always hated Reagan. They engage in revisionist history about the Reagan years. But when they need to move their agenda forward, when they need to marshal support for what they're trying to do, who do they invoke? LBJ? No. Teddy Kennedy? No. JFK? No. RFK? No. Bill Clinton? No. They invoke Ronald Reagan, the beloved Ronaldus Magnus.
Now, what does that tell you? They have to take one of the most popular presidents in history, a Republican, a person with whom they have absolutely nothing in common and without any agreement whatsoever and try to convince the American people Barack Obama is Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan did what Obama's doing. It is shameless. It is offensive, and, like everything else Obama is doing, it's a lie. But here's the problem with this. The Republican establishment -- and we discussed this during the elongated primary process -- the Republican establishment is scared to death of conservatives, scared to death of a conservative nominee, because their formative lesson is the Goldwater landslide defeat. That's what they think will happen, or would have happened had the nominee been an unabashed conservative. So they're happy.
The Republican establishment is happy 'cause now there won't be this massive landslide defeat because we don't have a conservative. They do not look to 1980 and 1984 and see two massive landslide victories. But it gets tiresome, and it's frustrating at the same time. We've talked about this countless times before. Obama, last night, right here. I mean he was within a nine iron, effectively, at least as Hank Haney hits 'em, from where we are right now in Palm Beach Gardens, and he said, "This election will probably have the biggest contrast that we have seen maybe since Johnson-Goldwater of '64, maybe before that." But for God's sake, folks, look around. The US today is not anything like it was in 1964 when Goldwater lost in a landslide. The country does look almost exactly like it did in 1980 when Reagan trounced Carter. That's the lesson. The lesson here is that Obama is the second term of Jimmy Carter. But here they trot out Reagan and any other conservative that they think will help them remain in office.
Now, while Obama was here campaigning in Florida on the taxpayers' dime, he also said, "Here is the news. We tried this for eight years before I took office. We tried it. It is not like we did not try it. At the beginning of the last decade, the wealthiest Americans got two huge tax cuts, in 2001 and 2003. ... We were told the same thing we're being told now -- this is going to lead to faster job growth, it's going to lead to greater prosperity for everybody. Guess what? It didn't." Guess what, Mr. President: It did. The unemployment rate from 2003 on, 4.7%, 5%. Job growth was through the roof. Incomes were going up. The economy was roaring back after a recession, after 9/11. The Bush tax cuts worked exactly as they were intended to, and Obama knows it because during the lame duck session a couple of Christmases ago, when the Bush tax cuts were set to expire, guess who it was who said we can't let the Bush tax cuts expire, it would put too much pressure on the economy, take too much money out of people's pockets. It was Obama.
So, folks, he knows. They all know on the left. They all know that trickle-down economics works. They all know that Reaganomics works. That's why they're invoking it. They all know that tax cuts work, and that's why they oppose it. Because what's good for America is bad for them and their political party. It did work. I'll give you an opportunity. You go back and you can relive the years 2002 through 2008, or you can relive the last three. Now, you tell me what works and what doesn't work. You and I all know that what doesn't work is Obama. What will never work is Obama.
But here he is -- and this has been one of my brilliantly profound points the past week. Obama is coming from the standpoint that this country was founded unjustly and immorally by the equivalent of the 1% back in the 1700s. Our Founding Fathers were the equivalent of the Warren Buffetts and Bill Gateses back then, and they structured a country that saw to it that only they would have the opportunities for freedom and economic prosperity and so forth. Nobody else would. They rigged the system, and it never worked. That's what Obama said, it never worked. Not just the last ten years didn't work. The last 200-plus years haven't worked.
That's what Obama's main thrust is. That's his main point. "This you're-on-your-own economy, this trickle-down stuff? Nah, it never worked. It never worked throughout 200-plus years! This country has always been a fraud and an illusion. It never worked. What's real is what's happening now. This is how people were intended to live. This is how everybody in the rest of the world has always lived, and it's no different than the way we should live now." And this is what Obama's doing. And the way he goes about this is shrinking the private sector, expanding government, taking money out of the private sector and shrinking it. Everything's going according to plan.
Except during an election year, Obama knows he can't be honest about that.
He will not win a thing. He will lose in a landslide. So now guess what? It's time to invoke Ronald Reagan. I remain fascinated how they hate Reagan, folks. The Democrat Party, the American left despise Reagan -- precisely because of his success, precisely because of his policies, precisely because of the fact that he was genuinely loved and adored by the American people. Remember the Reagan funeral? Remember the outpouring in Washington and the funeral procession in California? Millions of people in both places were lining both sides of the street. The media covering it was dumbfounded. They couldn't understand it. They couldn't understand it in California.
They're the ones who have revised history. They're the ones who've tried to write that Reagan hated the poor, that Reagan went over to Lafayette Park at night and took pork 'n' beans from the homeless, walked back over to the White House kitchen, put 'em in the microwave, zapped 'em and ate 'em. And rubbed his tummy and said, "I'm glad they're starving." That's the picture they tried to paint of Reagan, and they thought everybody thought of Reagan that way. He passes away, and an outpouring of love and respect and devotion from the people of this country actually shocked 'em. It wasn't that long after that Senator Kennedy passed away, and they were similarly shocked at how few people lined the streets of Washington.
They were shocked that it wasn't necessary to stop traffic in Washington for the Teddy Kennedy funeral procession. So here we are in an election year, and the phony-baloney, plastic-banana, good-time rock 'n' roller leftists know full well that what they heartily, truthfully believe would be rejected in landslide proportions if they were to be honest about it. So who do they invoke? What do they invoke when it's time to win reelection? They try to convince... I mean, Obama's target audience is the stupid, the ignorant, the uneducated and ill-educated.
He's now co-opting Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan! They have to cite Reagan. If they're gonna win reelection, they have to somehow associate one of the most popular, respected, beloved presidents ever with their perverted, obscene, destructive policies. If I had to, I could spend all day on this, but I'm not. We've got some sound bites to support all this. If your blood pressure's low and you need it up, you're at the right place. This is the day. But never, ever are we gonna lose sight of how this election's gonna be won, and that is the constant focus on the failure of Barack Obama, the constant focus on his record.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here. I want to read to you, ladies and gentlemen, from one of Obama's books that we're told that he wrote. It is chapter seven of his first autobiography. Obama has two, you see. He's done so much as a community organizer and as a lecturer and a rabble-rouse, it takes two massive -- massive -- volumes to catalog this incredible life led by Barack Obama. The first book, Dreams from My Father, page 54 is when Obama tells us why he got into political. "In 1983, I decided to become a community organizer," writes The One. "There wasn’t much detail to the idea; I didn’t know anyone making a living that way.
"When classmates in college asked me just what it was that a community organizer did, I couldn’t answer them directly. Instead, I'd pronounce on the need for change. Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds. Change in the Congress, compliant and corrupt. Change in the mood of the country, manic and self-absorbed. Change won’t come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots. That’s what I’ll do, I’ll organize black folks. At the grass roots. For change."
Democrats always run as conservatives. Even Obama is gonna run as a conservative. That's what he's trying to do here. He so despised Reagan it's what made him want to become a community organizer to start coalescing and effervescing from the bottom up! Yet when he gets in trouble, who does he invoke? Ronaldus Magnus! He's out there saying in Palm Beach Gardens (impression) "We tried! We tried it, uhhhhh, for ten years with Bush, and it didn't work." It did work. The Bush-era tax cuts were followed by 52 consecutive months of job growth. Fifty-two! Obama doesn't have one policy that will make that happen.
Every policy Obama has in place is an obstacle to job creation. The Bush-era tax cuts were followed by 52 consecutive months of job growth. That, by the way, is a record in US history. The Bush tax cuts helped to create more than eight million new jobs. That's close to a record in the period of time. The Bush tax cuts brought the unemployment rate down to 4.5%. The Bush tax cuts worked better than even their biggest advocates dreamed they would work. And Obama has the audacity here in Florida last night to tell people they didn't work. These people... It's why, folks, you cannot... It's why it's a mistake for Paul Ryan to start debating any assertion Obama makes. It's all lies.
You know the old adage about getting in an argument with a fool: After not too long a time, people can't tell the difference. The way to deal with this is, you know, put some facts out there, but focus on the dismal failure that Obama is. We had a 4.5% unemployment rate, and it was even as low as 5% in 2008. Do you realize in the spring of 2008, the election year, the unemployment rate was 5%, as opposed to the so-called 8.2% today? Yep, it didn't work, did it? It was all fake, phony! That's what we're being asked to believe. Let's go to the audio sound bites. This morning on CNN's Newsroom, here is how the anchorette Carol Costello reported President Obama speaking live at the White House this morning about the Buffett Rule...
COSTELLO: Let's go to the White House now. Uh, President Obama has begun speaking. He's meeting with millionaires and their secretaries to push the Buffett Rule.
RUSH: "He's meeting with millionaires and their secretaries to push the Buffett Rule." The Buffett Rule. Buffett's out there saying (paraphrased), "I don't want any part of this. All I was talking about was raising taxes on 50,000 people. What is this?" He's not actually saying that. He's probably thinking it. But here: "President Obama has begun speaking. He's meeting with millionaires and their secretaries..." That's the news. That's President Obama 2012: An absurd photo-op. Here's the president himself talking to "the millionaires and their secretaries."
OBAMA: The people who've joined me here today are extremely successful.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Recue it. Nobody "joined" Obama. They were summoned. Somebody called 'em and said, "We want you to come to the White House and be today's props." "The people that joined me here today"? They were summoned.
OBAMA: The people who have joined me here today are extremely successful. They've created jobs and opportunity for thousands of Americans. They're rightly proud of their success. They understand, though, that for some time now, when compared to the middle class, they haven't been asked to do their fair share.
RUSH: (snorts)
OBAMA: And they are here because they believe there's something deeply wrong and irresponsible about that.
RUSH: (laughing)
OBAMA: Executives who are with me here today, not just behind me but in the audience, agree with me. They agree with Warren.
RUSH: (laughing)
OBAMA: This should be fixed. They, in fact, have brought some of their own assistants, uh, to prove that same point.
RUSH: (laughing) "They agree with me! They haven't been doing their fair share. They haven't been asked to do their fair share, and they're here because they believe it's something deeply wrong and irresponsible." (laughing) They are there because they're either deep-in-the-woods partisans for Obama or they've been summoned there or they're just a bunch of groupies! But I'm gonna... Folks, anybody who volunteers to pay a hire tax rate, God bless 'em. Let 'em do it. But keep their hands out of our pockets. It's none of their business. But this is the trick. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, people ask me throughout my life: "How come all these rich guys run around, Rush, and they support tax increases?"
Because it inoculates them from any criticism. All Buffett and Gates have to do is come out in support of raising taxes on the rich, and they're loved and adored and they get great media coverage and they become celebrities! Trust me, folks: The vast majority of people do not want to be criticized in the media. They want to be loved and adored. And in the Buffett and Gates cases, and these millionaires, they're now inoculated. Nobody's gonna hate them for being millionaires. They just showed up and asked for their taxes to be raised! But you don't want these people next to you in a foxhole. You don't want these people next to you in a battle to save the country. Because these people have demonstrated they'll sell it out in order to get great press coverage or adulation -- or no criticism, period.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I think Obama's losing it, folks. I honestly think that there's a problem. Things have not gone as planned. The adulation -- and Obama is totally dependent on adulation, when you talk about these millionaires and their secretaries and other wealthy people who publicly support tax increases because it inoculates them from criticism. It keeps the people with pitchforks away. Warren Buffett doesn't worry about his house being stormed by people because he's out there, "Yeah, I make too much. Yeah, I don't pay enough taxes. Yeah, my secretary is getting ripped off." Oh, Warren, he's one of us. Meanwhile, Buffett owes a billion dollars in back taxes. Do you know that?
Warren Buffett owes $1 billion in back taxes. He is fighting it. He doesn't think he should pay it, but publicly he's out there saying, "I'm not paying enough in taxes." And people go, "Oh, Warren Buffett, man, he understands our plight. He is one of us." And so Warren Buffett's inoculated from any criticism. He doesn't have to worry about the poor storming his compound trying to take his property away from him or revolting against him. It's the same thing with Bill Gates. It's the same thing with all of them. It's the same thing with the Kennedy family.
They never advocate publicly for the very things that made them wealthy. They never advocate. They live it in private, as privately as possible. They go about their business lives as privately as possible, using every free market advantage they can. When it comes to time to be public about it, condemn that. It keeps the media away. It keeps the peasants with their pitchforks at bay. It gets them love and adulation from the media. And Obama wants the same thing. Bill Clinton, $120,000 a speech, and Bill Clinton, every chance he gets, (imitating Clinton) "You know, I don't need a tax cut. I'm wealthy now. Hillary and I, we're doing pretty well." Have you ever known anybody to brag about their wealth? It's not becoming. The Clintons are the first to do so. "Yeah, people that have the kind of money I got, I don't need that tax cut." He'll take it, though. He damn well takes it, and he does everything he can to avoid paying as much of taxes he can, legally.
Privately, all these liberal Democrats live the life of the free market. Publicly, they wouldn't dare advocate it. And so, as leaders, they're worthless. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, could have a lot of value to this country. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, if they did a tour running around this country describing for people how they did it, inspiring and motivating people to seek heights that they didn't dream possible for themselves. Do you realize what good they could do for the country? But do they choose that? No. They choose the path of safety, adulation, publicly condemning everything they have done in their private lives to be successful. And as such, great opportunities are missed.
But for them, it's a wonderful payoff. They're loved and adored by the press. They're loved and adored by the poor. They're loved and adored by the middle class. They're loved and adored by everybody. And they don't have to live their lives in fear that somebody's gonna come and take their money from them or steal from them or what have you, other than the norms that any wealthy person goes through in that regard. But they don't have to worry about public rage. Occupy Wall Street will never show up at Bill Gates's house. Occupy Wall Street will never show up at Warren Buffett's. But they will show up at an AIG executive's house or wherever Obama sends them. Obama wants the same thing. Obama's always had it. Nobody's ever said no. He led a charmed life. Whatever he wants, he'd had. Never had to work for much, and he now talks about how he's wealthy and he doesn't need these tax cuts. He doesn't need those tax cuts. He takes them.
All these millionaires, I want to see how many of them walk out of the White House and head over to Treasury and write a check because they don't think they're paying their fair share? I'll bet you the answer is zero. I'll bet you not one of these millionaires wrote a check to the White House or went over to Treasury to write one. And I'll bet none of them called their accountant and said, "Look, before we file next week, you know, add a couple hundred thousand to my tax bill." I bet it won't happen. But they'll show up and they'll allow themselves to be used as props for the notion that they don't think they're paying enough. This is all insulting.
Drudge has these pictures posted. Obama is supposedly wasting away to nothing, skin and bones. I just think he needs to get out of the White House more and go eat places where Michelle isn't. That's when he enjoys eating. Maybe he's smoking. Who knows. Doesn't look good, doesn't seem happy. None of this has worked out the way he intended. Now he's gotta invoke Ronald Reagan to have a chance at winning reelection. Now he's reduced to making senseless, laughable claims with millionaires and their secretaries in the room. He has to summon a bunch of Americans to the White House to sit still while he says to the nation that these people admit they're not paying their fair share.
The top 1% of wage earners in America, the top 1% of income pays 36.7% of all taxes. The top 10% pay 70.5% of all taxes. Top 1% pay 36.7%. Top 10% pay 70.5%, and they tell us that the rich aren't paying their fair share. The Democrats have been saying that for as long as I've been an adult, and I was an adult at eight. So that's a long, long time. The median income in this country, tax rate's 15%. Millionaires pay about 26%. The Alternative Minimum Tax which is really the Buffett Rule, the first Buffett Rule, it's all the AMT is, is the first Buffett Rule. They're just trying to add another AMT here. The Alternative Minimum Tax was first called the millionaires tax, and now what? It hits everybody. Well, not everybody, but more and more people are subjected to it each and every year. And people who are nowhere near being millionaires are now subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax. That's all the Buffett Rule is. That's all any new liberal idea. It's a starting point and liberal programs are never solutions. They just exacerbate problems.
Our buddy, Jim Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute: "Here Are Some Real 'Reagan Rules' for Obama." 'Cause Obama's cherry-picking. Two things. The media, Democrats are trying to -- Reagan, when he was governor of California back in 1976, voted for abortion. What they don't tell you is Reagan said, "I didn't know what I was doing. That was my worst mistake. I agonized. nI lost sleep over that vote. I didn't know what I was doing. I was too young. I was inexperienced as governor." From that point on he was as pro-life as any American ever has been. And the second invocation of Reagan is that he agreed that millionaires ought to be paying higher taxes. And he saw to it that they did by cutting their tax rates. And they pay more taxes. The rich, I gave you the numbers. Top 1% pays 36% of all taxes. By the way, the bottom 48% pays nothing, and Obama talks about fairness.
If we were really talking about fairness, Obama would drag representatives of the 48% not paying income tax, he'd bring them in a room, and say, "Guess what? Your free ride is over. I agree with Governor Christie. You gotta get up off your couch. The country can't survive with you sitting on your couch waiting for a check in the mail every week." What's fair about 48% of Americans paying no income tax? It's just so convoluted it's perverted. And I think it's rooted in panic. I think the regime is in utter panic.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Anyway, back to Pethokoukis. "Some Real Reagan Rules for Obama: "Blame government, not business." That was a Reagan rule. "Cut taxes and make the safety net more efficient. Get government under control. Obey the Constitution. Don't forget to cut taxes. Don't hate fossil fuels." Those are Reagan rules. Protect human life! Don't support infanticide, as Obama did. I mean, this is sick. It is really pathetic, and I think they're flailing. Each time they get in trouble, they try to latch on to Reagan. Of all people! You know, you people, Obama, the least you could do is honor Ted Kennedy and say that that's what you want to be. Then you have to find Chris Dodd and a waitress and make a sandwich at a Washington restaurant.
And you might gain some weight.
Who knows?
END TRANSCRIPT
_____________________________________________
To read more from Rush Limbaugh, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment