RUSH: Now, the sequester. There is still one other point I wanted to make and it has slipped my mind, but it’ll pop into my head at some point. Obama is claiming, by the way, among many things that criminals will be set free because we will have to close prisons. Criminals will be set free because of the sequester if it goes through. I mean, the scare tactics and the fear mongering knows no boundaries. Now, if that’s true, if the sequester means that a bunch of criminals are gonna be let go, isn’t that another argument for not giving up guns?
So Obama’s out there trying to raise fear on all of this talk about the sequester — we’re talking $85 billion. I want to put this in perspective. The federal budget is $3.5 trillion dollars a year, and we’re talking about $85 billion that might be cut, and all of this disaster is gonna happen. Kids are gonna go hungry. Schools are gonna shut down. Bridges and road repair will not happen, and now prisoners are gonna be let go. Eighty-five billion dollars. It is like if you earn a hundred thousand, it’s like losing a quarter. It wouldn’t matter. Hell, what is the Sandy relief package, $50 billion? So while this is gonna cost us $85 billion, the sequester, $50 billion we’re spending here on Sandy relief. Sixty. Pardon me. I was wrong. Sixty billion on disaster relief.
Let’s go to the audio sound bites, back to the top now. This is Obama this morning in Washington, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. I think I’m right about this. I think they shut down the Oval Office and parts of the West Wing. They’re doing two years’ worth of remodeling and refurbishing so Obama’s had to move across the street to what used to be called the old Executive Office Building, OEO, it used to be called. Now it’s the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Anyway, Obama went there and said this.
OBAMA: Emergency responders, like the ones who are here today, their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded. Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays in airports across the country. Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off. Tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care for their kids. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings. This is not an abstraction. People will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again.
RUSH: Now, folks, all of that’s gonna happen because of Obama’s other budget stuff. I just want to tell you everything that you just heard is eventually gonna happen if Obama’s policies are not stopped because we’re gonna have a total collapse. Now, in the old days we’d play a sound bite like this and we’d parse it and go through it and point out where he’s lying and fear-mongering and trying to scare people. We did that for 25 years and in terms of impacting low-information voters, that never worked. So obviously that’s not the way to go and you don’t need me to parse it. You know how utterly ridiculous this is. This is outrageously laughable.
So what we need to do is pretend that we are Obama’s real audience for this. The average American, the low-information voter — by the way, the low-information voter is not some idiot who can’t read and just watches TMZ all day. There are a lot of low-information people who are corporate executives. There are a lot of low-information people who think they know everything and don’t know diddly-squat. So we have to analyze this as they hear this. And, remember, the prism through which we’re now looking at all of this. Obama is not saying this from the position or standpoint of governing. He is not saying this from any perch of power.
Obama is saying this as a freedom fighter. Obama is on the campaign trail, and he is trying to stop all of this from happening. He is fighting the forces that want you to suffer, and they are the Republicans. They are the conservatives, and they are Fox News and they are me. Obama is fighting that and he’s trying to warn everybody not so much what will happen, no. His real objective here is to define his opposition. In this sound bite, what Obama is attempting to do is tell low-information voters, anybody who hears this, just what kind of people the Republicans are.
The kind of people he’s fighting and the kind of people he’s trying to protect you from are the kind of people that would have no problem with first responders being shut down, no problem with Border Patrol agents being sent home, no problem with FBI agents being furloughed! No problem. Republicans wouldn’t be bothered a bit if the federal courts had to be shut down and bad people couldn’t be prosecuted. The Republicans wouldn’t care a whit if air traffic controllers and security basically had to cease operations ’cause they ran out of money.
Obama wants you to think that Republicans don’t care that tens of thousands of parents would have to scramble to find daycare, ’cause the Republicans don’t care that daycare would be shut down. You see, none of this that he predicts here is debatable. In the minds of the low-information voter and in the terms that Obama is offering this, these are not things that might happen. These are what the Republicans want to do every day. These are the things that Obama is fighting to stop.
These are the people that he’s fighting to stop. They don’t care if your kid or your grandmother doesn’t get her flu shot. They don’t care if you or anybody else gets cancer screenings. They don’t care if you lose your job. They don’t care that the unemployment rate might tick back up again. All of this, as far as Obama is concerned, is what will happen every day if they’re not stopped! This is not so much tied to the sequester. The sequester is just the most recent opportunity for him to characterize his opposition this way, and he is doing everything he can to stop this.
The fact that this sequester business is only $85 billion — the fact that none of this would happen, the fact that there’s no Republican who wants any of this to happen, the fact that it’s other people’s idea — is irrelevant in terms of the people Obama trying to reach. This whole sequester is his idea! In fact, I’ve revised my thinking. I think he wants the sequester to happen because I think he wants to cut down the US military, in a big way. Most liberals do. Here it’s gonna happen automatically. He’s not gonna have to do anything but sit around and let it, but he’s gonna score some political points along the way.
So here, let me take a break, but the next sound bite establishes exactly what I’m talking about.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. You just heard Obama and his litany of all of these disasters and horrors that await if the sequester happens — and, of course, these are things the Republicans want to achieve every day. That’s his message. That’s his objective. It’s a waste of time here for us to parse this and point out how all of it’s a lie. That misses the point, ’cause it’s obviously a lie. It’s more important here to understand what he’s doing and how he’s doing it, and who his target is. Here’s the next bite which kind of wraps it all up here in a silver bow…
OBAMA: Republicans in Congress face a simple choice: Are they willing to compromise to protect vital investments in education and health care and national security and all the jobs that depend on them, or would they rather put hundreds of thousands of jobs and our entire economy at risk just to protect a few special interest tax loopholes that benefit only the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations? That’s the choice.
RUSH: Republicans, under these circumstances, it’s all up to them. They “face a simple choice: Are they willing to compromise…?” Now, I’ve got a story here from The Politico: “GOP Senators Waiting for Obama’s Outreach.” I need to spend more time on this. This does deserve parsing, because if it’s true, it’s an illustration of how out of it the Republicans are right now. If they’re really waiting around for Obama to reach out, if they really think that’s what Obama wants to do, they’re signaling to everybody, “Hey, we’re willing to compromise! Hey, we want to compromise!”
He’s not interested in compromising!
Look at what he’s gonna get.
TheHill.com is quoting the White House as also claiming that the sequester will end Head Start funding for 70,000 children and leave 373,000 seriously mentally ill people without treatment. It is amazing what we’re gonna get for $85 billion. But, look. From Obama’s standpoint, he’s gonna get the military cut back severely, he’s gonna get Head Start shut down, and he’s gonna be able to blame the Republicans for all of it because Obama is not governing. Obama is not in charge of any of this, except The Politico says that he is.
They say that he’s the puppet master.
He’s the master at limiting, shaping, and manipulating media. He’s in charge, but no, he’s not. The Republicans, all they want to do is prevent this country from going bankrupt, which would destroy the value of everything we’ve created as a nation, shut down every federal agency and program, and create possible civil unrest as we saw in Greece. We’re trying to prevent that! We’re trying to prevent the destruction of incomes and savings and pensions and home values and shutting down farms and businesses. It’s Obama’s doing all of this!
But a compliant, puppet-mastered media is happy to promulgate the notion that Obama is a valiant gladiator fighting these evil, mean Republicans who want all of this pain and suffering on you. That’s really what we’re up against. The polling data all says it. He’s not held accountable. His agenda is not blamed for what’s happening in the country, folks.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: How come the president did not warn that the number of rapes will go up like Biden did in Flint, Michigan? Everybody knows that the Republicans want more rapes, don’t they? That’s what Obama’s trying to make people believe.