RUSH: Now get into the dead-serious news stories having to do with the overall attack and assault on capitalism in the United States of America, led in part by this man, Barney Frank, the Banking Queen.
(playing of Banking Queen)
RUSH: EIB Network and El Rushbo.
(continued playing of song)
RUSH: (bumper music) She’s About a Mover. Interesting bumper rotation selection following the Banking Queen, Barney Frank. Heh-heh-heh. All right, we’ve got our first real public skirmish between the White House and Congress involving Barney Frank. Barney Frank is basically telling Obama, in this story, to shove it. The New York Times headline is: ‘White House Wants to Revise Compensation Part of Stimulus — ‘Facing a stricter approach to limiting executive bonuses than it had favored, the Obama administration wants to revise that part of the stimulus package even after it becomes law, White House officials said Sunday. President Obama plans to sign the…’ We’ve been through that. ‘Under the administration’s proposal, compensation restrictions would apply only to banks that received ‘exceptional assistance’ from the government.’
Barney Frank wants compensation restrictions on every business his committee oversees. In fact, Chris Dodd — let me find this — has supported or proposed something. These two guys ought to be the ones before a committee answering questions. Chris Dodd has proposed… I want to get the form. It’s a very short story. Ah! Yeah, here it is. This from the Wall Street Journal and this is in the Porkulus bill. ‘Companies that…’ and this is what Obama wants to change. ‘Companies that have received federal bailout funds can’t pay top earners a bonus equal to more than one-third of their total annual pay. For example: An employee with $1.5 million pay could receive a bonus of no more than $500,000. That figure equals one third of the $1.5 million total pay.’ So they’re gonna limit compensation; they’re going to limit bonuses. It’s very strict in the Porkulus bill, and Bob Gibbs was on Face the Nation, Slay the Nation show with Bob Schieffer yesterday and basically said: Look, we’re going to have to change that.
GIBBS: We’re looking forward to working with Congress to institute some of these regulations will ensure that, uh, taxpayer money isn’t wasted. We also have to make sure that it doesn’t, uh, hurt regional — smaller and regional banks that want to participate in this program.
SCHIEFFER: Let me just make sure I understand what you’re saying here. You’re not going to try to modify this, are you? Or are you?
GIBBS: The president’s going to sign this bill in Denver and those provisions are in this bill.
SCHIEFFER: So he’s going to enforce this? He’s — he’s satisfied with this as it is now?
GIBBS: We will sign this bill into law on Tuesday.
RUSH: Now, that’s not quite what’s in the newspapers today, and I don’t know who to believe, the newspapers or Obama’s spokesman, because Obama’s statements have expiration dates on them. But the administration is going to propose that compensation restrictions apply only to banks that receive ‘exceptional assistance’ from the government. Now, here’s what Barney Frank had to say. Barney Frank was on same show, Slay the Nation, same host. This is after Senator Shelby says he agrees with limiting the pay of executives that get government money. Barney says that doesn’t go far enough.
FRANK: Let me be very clear. Uh, Mr. Gibbs may, ahh, not like it, but it’s going to be enforced. I differ with Senator Shelby in one — in one sense. He said, ‘Well, only when they’re getting the government money.’ I think we need to try to prevent the situation where people come to us. The way the compensation is structured for a lot of these companies, if they take a gamble and it pays off, the top people get a lot of money. But if they take a gamble and it backfires, they don’t lose any money. We have got to make it illegal for them to have these one-way streets, which I think add to the incentive to take unnecessary risk.
RUSH: So Barney Frank wants this: If company loses money the executives lose money, they get paid less. He wants to make that a federal regulation. This is something that the White House doesn’t want to do. They want to change this, and listen to what Barney Frank actually said, ’cause he said, ‘Mr. Gibbs may not like it, but it’s going to be enforced,’ and then he said, ‘This is not an option. This is not, frankly, the Bush administration where they’re going to issue a signing statement and refuse to enforce it.’ So we have a skirmish here. Now, I don’t want to get caught up in the skirmish here between liberals. Instead, I want to point out just how totally this restructures the whole system of American capitalism — and this is just one element of it. In the stimulus bill, the Porkulus bill, gone is welfare reform. There’s also a provision in this bill…
I have a friend. I’m not going to say who. I have a friend whose very high up in a city, a local city government in this country. This guy got an e-mail from the town grand pooh-bah, not the mayor but the person who actually does all the work that said, ‘Okay, here are the details we’ve got on the Porkulus bill, and we’ve never seen anything like this, we don’t know really what we’re going to have to do.’ What this basically does, is cities, states, municipalities are all going to have to go to Washington to get their money now. They’re all going to have to pass muster in Washington. There is a provision in the Porkulus bill. It’s called Provision 2 of some section of some subsection of some subsection.
And it says that governors after tomorrow when Obama signs this, governors will have 45 days to request the funds. Now, there’s a governor, South Carolina, Mark Sanford, who doesn’t want the money. He doesn’t want to be obligated by it, he’s going to be forced to take it, because item number two allows essentially for unconstitutionality by the federal government to go to the legislature and take it on their own whether the governor requested it or not. Now, one of the reasons they want this money is they’re getting rid of welfare. Why do they want to be in charge of the money? Welfare reform, the work requirement is now gone. I’ve read it. It’s right in the bill. States will be eligible for even more money based on the number of new welfare cases they sign up.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We got more Barney Frank news. I’m sorry. I just found a Barney Frank story in there so here’s the theme song, Banking Queen.
(playing of Banking Queen)
Ladies and gentlemen, ahem-m-m-m. (continued playing of Banking Queen) Would you turn it down just a little bit? No, I guess not. All right. Folks, do you realize how courageous it is of your host to play this song, Barney Frank is the Banking Queen, when his party is, even as we speak, conniving, not behind the scenes, but on the scene to shut down this program and others marginally like it? ‘Boy, Rush, why are you taunting?’ I’m not taunting anybody. I’m exercising my free press rights to free speech, while they last. I want to get as much out of the First Amendment as I can before it gets shredded, ladies and gentlemen. All right. Get rid of the music. Here’s the story. ‘Barney Frank said Sunday he doesn’t think the $50 billion in tax dollars that the Obama administration intends to use to help people pay their mortgages will be enough.’ Obama’s going to Phoenix on Tuesday or Wednesday and he’s going to announce a program to save people’s homes. In fact, MSNBC has a whole discussion topic: Can Obama save your home? Barney Frank said, ‘I don’t think it will be enough, but in fairness, we won’t know for a while. But we can’t kick people out of their houses. If $50 billion’s not enough, we’re coming back for more.’ David Axelrod on Fox News suggested the $50 billion mortgage bailout could double to $100 billion to bail out people who are unable to pay their mortgages. That’s a beautiful thing.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, what an insult. I just got an e-mail from somebody who cannot stand the song Banking Queen. Most of you like it. One naysayer out there said, ‘Rush, you’ve got to stop singing along with it.’ I wasn’t singing along with it. I uttered not one musical note singing along with the Banking Queen, Barney Frank.