RUSH: Ed in Muskegon, Michigan. Thanks for your patience and hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Hey… (chuckles) Uh, well… First of all, uh, thank you for interrupting your campaign for the Wisconsin campaign. I have been a listener since the early ’90s when I traveled the state of Michigan as the president of a corrections officers’ union here in Michigan. And of course that makes, I think, maybe — although corrections officers here in the state of Michigan and myself are very conservative — but the union issue might make me an enemy. I hope not. I’m hoping that you would want to become a positive, um, influence on public policy for the whole nation. Because I’ve listened to you since the ’90s when it was pretty much entertainment back then, but you’ve really become a real serious political player.

RUSH: I thought I was a positive influence on public policy.

CALLER: Currently? (static)

RUSH: I said I thought I was.

CALLER: (chortling)

RUSH: Yeah, currently. I thought I was a positive influence. Yes. Each and every day.

CALLER: No. I think… I can see why you would say that, because your ratings… Well, they went up until you had a little problem with attacking that young girl who went to testify before Congress. (sic) But pretty much your ratings have gone up and… and…

RUSH: She didn’t “testify in front of Congress,” but let’s not get sidetracked.

CALLER: I’m sorry.

RUSH: What is your thesis that I could be even more influential if I would do what?

CALLER: If you would be accurate and stick to the facts. I remember when you said: Well, you know, George Bush was president and he just didn’t… The president just doesn’t have a valve to turn the economy on and off. You just can’t hold him that accountable. But you’re doing that to Barack Obama. In fact, when he was elected, you stated that you didn’t care what the country gained. You wanted him to fail so that you’d look better.

RUSH: No, here’s the problem. You are calling to accuse me of not being factual, and you have just purposely misstated something that you know to be untrue: I want the country not to be harmed; that’s why I wanted Obama to fail.

And you know what I meant by it. You’re a smart guy. I can tell. Plus you’re a union guy. So you know. When I said, “I hope he fails,” I meant: I don’t want the country damaged by the kind of things he believes and wants to do. And he has not failed in that sense. He has succeeded in wrecking the United States economy. He has done it. Everybody knows it, which is why they’re now trying (all of a sudden) to say that presidents don’t have any control over it.

That’s why I made the point.

In 2008, this man was The Messiah. He had magic that no other candidate had ever before in American history had. He was going to unify the country. He was going to be post-partisan, post-racial. The world was going to love us. Hell, he was going to lower the sea levels! Unprecedented things. All kinds of power was associated with Barack Obama. You call to talk about George W. Bush? My thoughts on this have been totally consistent. I’ve always believed it’s the people that make the country work.

It’s the people that determine an economy. What government does is put obstacles in their way or remove them. Bush removed obstacles, but not all of them. He wasn’t perfect. Reagan removed obstacles. Obama has put obstacles in people’s way, on purpose and by design. Obama has shrunk the private sector, on purpose and by design. I did not want this to happen. I hoped he’d fail at doing it. But your whole thesis is blown up now. You accuse me of not being factual, and the first thing you say is wrong. So thank you, but I gotta go.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Our previous caller wants me to have a positive effect on policy. What could be more positive in telling the truth? I find it fascinating. All I was doing was commenting on the news media as being selective in their claims about presidential power over the economy. But, look, the recession, that was Bush’s fault. Obama even today, the recession was Bush’s fault. Obama’s even whining and moaning about what all he inherited. He even had the temerity to do that in front of Bush at the portrait unveiling. And yet a mere day after that we have David Brooks saying presidents really have no control over the economy.

All I do is point out the lies and the inconsistencies of the Democrat Party and the American left, and that is why I’m a problem. That’s why I represent such a target, because I simply don’t swallow the dribble and the bilge and the BS that they put out and that they normally aren’t questioned on. I question it. “The recession was Bush’s fault. Obama has no power over the economy.” The media credits Bill Clinton constantly. “What a great economy that was in the 1990s.” Never the House Republicans who forced spending cuts and welfare reform. No, no, it’s always Clinton did this and Clinton did that. By the same token Republicans say Bush did this and Reagan did that. No question about it. But I have been entirely consistent. In fact, the phrase “people who make the country work,” I oughta trademark it, because it’s mine.

I believe it’s the people that make the country work. And it’s you in this audience who are the people who make this country work. And you either have obstacles put in your way or you have them taken down. That is what happens. Tax increases and obstacles. New regulations on small business, obstacles. The EPA, have you heard about this? The EPA is conducting surveillance flights over cattle ranchers in Nebraska and other places? Domestic spying. Now, I remember post-9/11, the American left livid with Bush warrantless wire taps. What was he doing? He was simply monitoring phone calls going from the United States to other countries, intercepting terrorist planning phone calls, and the left went nuts. Civil rights violation. Privacy violation.

Now we’ve got the EPA with surveillance flights over ranches in Nebraska and other places in the Midwest. They’re working with the IRS. It’s the Clean Water Act, that’s what it is. They’re trying to enforce the Clean Water Act flying surveillance flights over these guys’ ranches. The regime. The Obama regime is doing this. And the left, of course, is silent on this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, folks, one other thing. Two calls ago, the union member who said I really, really, really, really could have a positive influence on public policy if I were just factual. Have people forgotten shortly after Obama was immaculated I did submit a column to the Wall Street Journal, a bipartisan stimulus proposal. It had everything that everybody claimed to want: working together, contrasting two different points of view, checking which one worked. I offered it up. Here, basically what it was, Obama wanted to spend a trillion dollars on stimulus and that was going to cause the economy to grow.

By the way, look at all the money we’ve spent and the exact opposite has happened. It’s devastating for Keynesians. It’s devastating for the big government crowd. Everybody knows now it doesn’t work. But that’s up against the media trying to tell everybody that it can and will and perhaps even has, depending on how biased the network happens to be. What I proposed was, okay, Obama won 53 to, what was it, 47 percent. So I said: You take $530 billion, Mr. President, and you do with it what you want and give me whatever it was, $460 billion, and I’ll do tax cuts and I’ll do my side and we’ll see which ends up actually causing more growth to take place.

It had anything everybody would want. Bipartisanship. It acknowledged we could try Obama’s way. That wasn’t accepted, of course. I knew it wasn’t going to be. But it was a brilliant plan. And it was bipartisan, and it showed a willingness to cooperate, a willingness to work with. It was rejected out of hand. I have not forgotten it.