RUSH: Ali Velshi, obviously, ladies and gentlemen, is a low-information reporter. Ali Velshi, the economics guru at CNN, said last night: “Republicans need to understand the difference between the debt ceiling and debt.”

He’s saying that you can’t use the debt ceiling to try to control spending, and he said the Republicans are making a big mistake. He said the American people understand economics now. There aren’t any low-information Americans on the economy. This thanks to Obama and the recent debt deal and the fiscal cliff. The American people now get it. And what they get is that the Republicans are the bad guys who are going to take everything away from ’em.

When Republicans want to “get a handle on spending,” what that means is try to take food out of the mouths of babies. They’re going to take food away from the elderly and doctors, and treatment away from everybody. That’s what the Republicans want to do, and Ali Velshi says the American people now understand this. And, of course, the debt ceiling is the next big budget fight coming up.

Velshi is saying you can’t use the debt ceiling to try to control spending and that’s where the Republicans are making their mistake. They should be trying to control spending. The American people don’t want spending control. The Republicans need to understand this, and so the debt ceiling? They should let Obama just name it! Let Obama have control of it, because you can’t use the debt ceiling to try to control spending.

This presumes people know what the debt ceiling is.

The debt ceiling is exactly what it says: At that level of debt when you’ve reached the ceiling, you can’t legally borrow any more money. And, of course, that limits spending. But Ali Velshi says that the debt limit and spending aren’t related, and the American people understand this. We’re gonna prove to you that he’s right about this, by the way, in mere moments. We’ll have the Ali Velshi sound bite and the corresponding sound bites to establish this.

He says the debt ceiling being raised has nothing to do with credit ratings.

Nothing at all.

The debt ceiling doesn’t matter to anything.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, for those of you out there who have credit cards, some of you have limits, spending limits on your credit cards. Some of you don’t. Some of you have the American Express black card. Some of you have the American Express platinum card. You can charge as much as you want, 30-day cycle, but most Americans have a limit, a monthly limit beyond which you can’t charge. Think of the federal budget as much the same. Think of the debt limit as your monthly credit card limit. You can’t go over it on your credit card. And the United States government can’t spend more than what its credit limit is or its debt limit.

Now, Ali Velshi, CNN, says that has no relation to spending. He-he-he-he-he. The CNN lead economics guy, the credit limit, the debt limit has nothing to do with spending. At all. Here is his sound bite last night on CNN. Ashleigh Banfield says, “We are all tired of it and yet you say we’ve got Valentine’s debt ceilings, Saint PatrickÂ’s day sequester and then the budget deal after that. Is there any reason to believe that it’s going to be different than the last few fights?”

VELSHI: The only good thing here is that everybody’s engaged. Americans know more about their economic issues and their budgetary issues than we have in a long time. And I think Congress seems to be getting the message, “Hey, don’t worry about the media, worry about your constituents who are actually mad. They just want something to get done.” The GOP needs to learn the difference between the debt and the debt ceiling. Using the debt ceiling and the ability to pay our bills for things we’ve already spent is just outrageous. It was outrageous in August of ’11 and it continues to be outrageous, but the Republicans continue to use this language that somehow it’s to control spending. And it’s just incorrect.

RUSH: See, the debt limit, you’re an idiot, you’re absolutely stupid, the Republicans are, if they think the debt limit is to control spending. Now, just like your credit card limit is not meant to control your spending. It’s just arbitrarily set. Because the credit card companies are a bunch of creeps, and they’re mean, they don’t like you. They just as soon you go broke. So they set a limit on what you can spend and after that you can’t spend any more, and the federal government does the same thing, but it doesn’t matter, because Ali Velshi just said that this language that the debt limit is being used to control spending is just stupid and most Americans now understand this. Which I believe.

So we thought we’d put the theory that the American people understand economics now, Ali Velshi’s theory, to the test. So we went to Entertainment Tonight. We have a portion of Christina McLarty. She’s the infobabe at Entertainment Tonight. She had a report about speculation that Kim Kardashian may pose nude while pregnant.

MCLARTY: Will she pose nude like so many other famous moms have? And if she does, the big question; what will it do for her brand? Of course, KimÂ’s no stranger to posing in the all together. This shoot for Playboy magazine was in 2007.

KARDASHIAN (2007): IÂ’m doing it with class because I got a big [bleep].

INGRASSIA: I think people would love to see her do some kind of a high fashion sexy shoot while she’s pregnant.

MCLARTY: Of course, a pregnant Kim would be joining the likes of Jessica Simpson for Elle, Mariah Carey in Life and Style, Christina Aguilera, Marie Claire, Britney, HarperÂ’s Bazaar, and the original trend setter Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair.

INGRASSIA: I think if a celebrity does a nude photo shoot while pregnant with the right magazine, then it’s great for their brand.

RUSH: There you have it, Entertainment Tonight illustrating that the American people sure as hell understand the economy. If Kim Kardashian does a fashion shoot while posing nude, it will help her brand. What does that mean? She’ll make more money. And so the American people understand, you get a deal to get pregnant and then pose nude on the cover of a magazine, under the guise of doing a fashion shoot, you can get rich. Voila, the American people understand the economy. Ali Velshi may be on to something.

Let’s give it another shot here. This is NBC’s Access Hollywood. Here the host is Michelle Beadle and her report on Lindsay Lohan and how she made some money on New Year’s Eve. Did you know Lindsay Lohan went to a New Year’s Eve party in the UK, she was paid a hundred thousand dollars just for showing up for this thing and here’s the report.

BEADLE: Lindsay Lohan, how we love you. And so does the Sultan of Brunei, who paid Lindsay a hundred grand to attend his New YearÂ’s Eve party in London. She rang in 2013 with a nice chunk of change and now she gives her new home a new look courtesy of the Million Dollar Decorators.

IRELAND: Being rich doesn’t mean you have good taste. Typically the more money you have, it seems to me, the worst taste you have.

RUSH: That was Kathryn Ireland there. She’s the host of Bravo’s Million Dollar Decorators. So, the American people watching Access Hollywood clearly learned Lindsay Lohan made money on New Year’s Eve by charging a hundred thousand dollars to show up and learned she got lousy taste when she decorates her house with the money. Ali Velshi at CNN says the American people understand the economy and I think he’s on to something. Good Morning America, a portion of the correspondent Tanya Rivero’s report on the fashion trends for 2013. You’re gonna hear a couple of unidentified male models here in this report and a GQ magazine correspondent named Will Welch.

RIVERO: Now, “meggings,” or leggings for men, are hitting the streets and the runways as one of the hottest new fashion trends adopted by celebrities like Justin Bieber, Russell Brand and Lenny Kravitz. But are guys really ready to squeeze in? I got to say, I feel like you’re missing your pants. (laughter) So what’s the underwear situation like?

Model 1: Ooh…

Model 2: No underwear.

RIVERO: There is none. Okay, commando.

ERIN: I think it was a slippery slope with skinny jeans. I kept buying like skinnier and skinnier pants. And then, here we are.

RIVERO: We brought in an expert from menÂ’s fashion bible GQ to weigh in. These guys were saying they kind of like mid-thigh. You agree with that?

WELCH: Well, yeah. There’s some basic anatomical practicality to that. American men were just wearing everything entirely too baggy. As part of that adjustment youÂ’re seeing some like, extreme sort of outlier situations.

RIVERO: Only time will tell if this trend has legs.

RUSH: There you have it. Meggings for men, leggings for men called meggings. And of course this leads to profits for the manufacturers. Who knew that there was a market for this? Good Morning America has revealed a brand-new fashion market. In this faltering and weak economy, manufacturers of meggings for Hollywood guys obviously doing quite well economically and therefore understanding how the economy works. Ali Velshi, CNN, may be on to something.

One more here, CNBC’s Squawk Box. This is Jared Bernstein. He’s the former economic adviser to Joe Biden. And they’re having a discussion about the December job numbers. By the way, we’ll get into details on that. The job numbers for December are out, and this is Rick Santelli and Jared Bernstein. They had this little exchange about what it all means.

BERNSTEIN: This is an okay jobs report as folks are saying. At a period when you might have expected, you might have worried about something worse. The fiscal cliff was a little scratch on your hand compared to reaching the debt ceiling. That is a self-inflicted wound that is far, far deeper.

SANTELLI: We need to grow up. You need to be a man when you look at the debt. If it means uncomfortability [sic], if it means going over cliffs…

BERNSTEIN: Man up on the debt.

SANTELLI: If it means the government closing, my kids will thank me some day for it.

BERNSTEIN: Yeah, I don’t think so.

SANTELLI: I’d like to see if you run your personal finances like that.

BERNSTEIN: Yeah, personal finances and government finances are different, Rick.

RUSH: See that, personal finances and government finances are different. That’s Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Biden. He’s exactly right and this is what Ali Velshi says the American people understand. Your credit card limit is nothing like the United States debt limit. The United States debt limit doesn’t mean anything. Your credit card limit does. So government spending, personal finances and government finances are totally different. And the American people get this. They’re totally on board with it. And there you have it.

Now a brief time-out. We will continue with much more after this. No, I wouldn’t. No, no, no, no, no. Somebody’s trying to get me to call Lindsay Lohan a party girl. That’s just an economic move that she made.