RUSH: There are other things that if I don’t tell you about, you may not find out about them. One of them just concluded. The budget director for Trump is Mick Mulvaney. He’s a former member of the Congress, of the House. He’s a Tea Party type. He’s a good guy. I have met the Budget Director Mulvaney. I liked him very much. He just had a press conference announcing the details of the Trump budget, and I heard him say things that you just don’t hear said in Washington explaining budgets.
He said that this budget, the Trump budget is “a taxpayer-first budget.” I don’t recall that ever having been used as an approach to budgeting: Taxpayer-first. It’s a balanced budget. It’s the first balanced budget in decades. Mulvaney says that if the Trump budget is adopted, it will result in sustained 3% economic growth, and that’s the foundation. Mulvaney says that without 3% growth, we cannot have entrepreneurism; 1.9% economic growth is not enough growth to spur the risk-taking involved in entrepreneurism, which is one of the building blocks of a growing American economy.
We need people taking risks. We need there to be the reality that there is a payoff at the other end for taking the risk and that there a successful outcome if you do. He said we can’t get there at 1.9% economic growth. That’s stagnation, essentially. We need 3% economic growth. Now, CBO has scored this thing. (sigh) They say that we won’t get to 3% growth until, when — 2027 or some such thing? I don’t remember the number. I just read this. But regardless, they’re very pessimistic on even getting to 3% growth. That is outrageous!
This country ought to be growing at 4% sustained! I understand Mulvaney shooting for three based on where we are, but Obama never had anything over a point and a half — 1.5% economic growth — in eight years. You couple that with rising taxes and rising Obamacare, health insurance premiums and deductible costs; it’s no wonder nobody was getting ahead. The Trump people are trying to fix it. They’re trying to address it. He said 3% sustained economic growth was a normal range for the country for decades until Obama came along. And it was.
Economic growth routinely was in the 3% to 3.5% — sometimes 4.5% — range until Obama came along, and all that came to a screeching halt. Mulvaney said that if you are 30 years old, you have never had a job in a healthy economy, and if you’re 30 years old you don’t know what a healthy economy is. Yet you’re being told that we’re in one, and you were told for eight years of Obama that we’re in a roaring recovery and we got a booming economy going on out there.
And people who have nothing in their lives to compare that to, imagine what their attitudes on the U.S. economy and activity must be. They don’t know wild optimism. They don’t know sustained economic growth. They’ve never seen it! It’s never happened while they’ve been alive — and that matters, because most people’s historical perspective begins the day they were born. That’s when history matters. Anything before that is old fogy time and they’re not interested in that. Every generation is that way. You have to fight that. You have to try to learn history.
Every generation thinks things are happening that have never happened before. Every generation of people thinks we’re in the last days. Every generation’s filled with pessimists. But when you have the Millennials generation, a majority of which have never had a job — you might even be able to put the period there: “Have never had a job, period” — or never had a job in a healthy economy. Yet, what have they been told? They’ve been lied to. Obama and his boys told ’em, “Everybody, everything is just great! We got a roaring economy. We’re adding jobs left and right. We got the sustainable energy, renewable energy, green energy! We got all that wind and solar happening.”
They have been so misled and lied to about what real economic growth is. No wonder their expectations are so low. They don’t know anything else. No wonder they’re still living with mommy and daddy at age 36. They don’t know anything else. Mulvaney — I think properly — pointed out people do not know or have forgotten what it’s like to have healthy, 3% growth in the economy. Well, for those of you who haven’t been alive for it, I can tell you I have, and Mulvaney is exactly right. If the economy right now is growing at 1.4, 1.5% and you double that? I guarantee you that kind of economic activity is impossible to ignore.
You see it where you live. You’ll see it reflected on the news. You’ll see it everywhere. Jobs are being created at 3% growth. Entrepreneurism is healthy. Wages are increasing. People are going about the business of creating wealth and accruing wealth for themselves. It’s a huge, huge percentage. Imagine economic growth 100% greater than it is today, from 1.5% percent to 3%. I don’t mean double the GDP; I mean the rate of growth, double that. Nobody could escape it. Nobody would have any excuse for not noticing it. And that’s when Mulvaney is pointing out.
So he said that the priorities in the Trump budget are border security, law enforcement, veterans, school choice, and parental leave. And he insisted they’re gonna build a wall. He says (paraphrased), “I don’t care what people are telling you or what you’re hearing, we are going to build the wall.” Everything in this budget fulfills a Trump campaign promise. What Mulvaney has done here on matters economic is put the Trump campaign’s promises on paper. And, for you seasoned citizens, nothing in the budget touches Social Security or Medicare. Because Trump promised that he would not, the budget doesn’t.
And Mulvaney used the line that I first heard used by Jack Kemp. I could probably try to tell you it was my line because many of you don’t know who Jack Kemp was. Well, most of you do, but some of you wouldn’t. But Jack Kemp used the line. I’ve always attributed it every time I’ve used it since. Kemp said, “We in the United States do not measure compassion by how many people are receiving federal welfare or benefits. We measure and define compassion by the number of people who no longer need it, who have become self-sufficient and self-reliant.”
Jack Kemp. Somebody may have said it before he did, but he was the first, I’ve said.
It was a good press conference from Mick Mulvaney. I know presidents’ budgets always get changed. The Congress does the budget. I understand all that. But I wanted to get this mentioned to you off the top here before we get mired in the weeds on all this other stuff ’cause you’re not gonna hear about this today, and it’s the reason Trump was elected. These things are among the top two or three reasons Trump was elected, and I just think it important that everybody know that they’re working on these things and that Mulvaney is toiling away at it at his press conference today to announce their objectives.
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RUSH: A couple more things here on the budget today as announced by Mulvaney departmental-wise. The Trump budget expands Homeland Security by 7%, the VA by 6%, and the defense budget (Pentagon) +5. Here are the departments that will be cut if the Trump budget ever were to become law. The Department of Justice: 4% cut. Department of Energy: 6% cut. The Department of the Interior: 11% cut. Housing and Urban Development: 13% cut. Department of Transportation: 13% cut. The Department of Education: 14% cut.
Health and Human Services: 16% cut. Department of Labor: 20% cut. The Department of Agriculture, 21% cut. The State Department would see its budget cut by 29%. And the big winner, as far as we’re concerned: The EPA would have a 31% budget cut. This is a dream come true if this were to happen! This is exactly, this is precisely what this country has needed for the longest time. And there hasn’t been a Republican in my lifetime since Ronaldus Magnus who has approached this, either in rhetoric or in deed.
The caterwauling here over the — well, for example — labor department; education department, 14% cut; agriculture. There’s gonna be a lot of push-back on that. Of course, the EPA at 31%? This is what’s needed. This is precisely what’s need. This drains the swamp. This reduces the size of this bloated bureaucracy and the deep state that it contains. Again, I wanted to mention this off the top, ’cause I actually thought if I got started and left this for later I might not get to it, and this is among the many reasons Trump was elected. And I think it’s helpful for all of you Trumpists to know that his budget director is moving forward on all of this.
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RUSH: Coronado, California, with Bobby. Thank you, sir, and welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi. Thank you, Rush. I want to kind of issue a warning, I think, to the establishment Republicans in the House and the Senate. If you remember back in 2009, Obama had the presidency, the House, and the Senate in his favor, and thankfully just did not do anything about immigration “reform.” I look ahead to 2017 and into 2018, and Trump has the exact same situation: House, Senate, he’s the president. These Republicans need to pass tax reform. They need to pass his budget, and we need to 3% growth or 3.5% growth. And if you have 3.5% growth — which needs to start now so it kicks in about 2018 — it’s possible that every incumbent Republican in the House will win. It may be an exaggeration, but if you want to win in 2018, the 3% growth will mute… It’ll be as if CNN is muted.
RUSH: You’re right.
CALLER: You’ll see their mouths —
RUSH: I don’t mean to interrupt but I got a time-constraint problem. I want to react specifically to what you said. A, you’re right. B, I have yet to see the evidence that Republicans are excited to help Trump here on things like this. I mean (laughing), repealing Obamacare should be a slam dunk based on what the Republicans themselves had said for seven years, and look where that is. That 3.5%, 3% growth? I don’t even think Mulvaney thinks we’ll get there by 2018. But if we’re on track for it, that means the economy’s gonna start roaring.
But there’s a story in TheHill.com (I can’t wait to get into the details) that the Democrats think — they already believe — they’re headed for a wave election in ’18. They’re gonna take back the House and they’re gonna take back the Senate, they have convinced themselves, because of Trump and his collusion with Russia and his out-of-control White House. They think the media has created this atmosphere that the Democrats are desired back in droves by the American people, and they’ve already got it figured out. They’re gonna win everything back in about a year and six months.
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RUSH: I had shared with you the details of the Trump budget, as presented by the budget director, Mick Mulvaney. I had shared with you the objective of 3%, 3.5% growth, a taxpayer-oriented budget. I shared with you the various cabinet departments — the bureaucracies — that will be cut. I gave you the percentages, and duly said that this is what Trump was elected for and this is what they are working on — and if this kind of thing actually happened, then it would be Katie bar the door.
This is exactly why Trump was elected: The economy, the economy, the economy — and, of course, immigration and the wall are part of that. So what happens next? Okay, so Mulvaney was good. So this is how it works. They go out and they find an old denizen of the swamp. They find an old swamp creature. They find somebody that slithered around the swamp for decades as an official establishmentarian. They go out and find somebody (preferably a Republican who loves Democrats) and they go out there.
They find this guy — or gal, as it may be — and then they ask this guy, this old denizen of the swamp, what he or she thinks of this newfangled, crazy budget idea that Trump’s budget director just put forward. Well, the swamp denizen that they found and dredged up here is former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson “Babe.” That’s our pet nickname for him because Senator Simpson in his later years was often critical of me, and referred to me as “Rush Babe.” (laughing) I remember that in public comments. So we returned the favor: Alan Simpson Babe.
So, anyway, this denizen of the swamp, Alan Simpson… Think of him as McCain in a cowboy hat. He’s six foot five, skinny, thin, can eat and drink whatever he wants. He has that narrow face and that (impression) drawwwwl from Wyomin’, and is considered a man of quaint… What’s the word I’m looking for? Oh, this ancient wisdom that just rolls off his tongue. Rick Santelli was tasked with interviewing this denizen of the swamp, former Senator Alan Simpson Babe (Republican-Wyoming) and Santelli said quite simply, “What’s your reaction to the Trump budget?”
SIMPSON: (phoner) I’ve been listening with great interest. Uh, quite — quite dazzling, actually. I thought of an old phrase, uh, from my law practice: If you torture statistics long enough, eventually they’ll confess. That is a dream world! That’s over the rainbow. The Great Oz is taking us over the rainbow. That can’t possibly be! And then to do this and not touch two-thirds of the American budget is a tragedy. And two-thirds of the American budget is the cost of health care — forget what the hell you call it — and the solvency of Social Security. Leave those two babies off the table, and you’re just absolutely outta your gourd.
RUSH: So you see, just not possible. It’s not possible. The old swamp denizens know full well you can’t do it. “Why, this kind of thing has never been done!” (laughing) Except for when it was back in the 1980s! (laughing) “You just can’t do it! (laughing) These people out of their gourds. I don’t know what they’re smokin’.” That’s a famous rejoinder from Senator Simpson Babe. “I don’t know what they’re smokin’, don’t know what they’re drinkin’. But it’s just not possible! You’re out of your gourd! This just can’t be this is how they do it!”
This is how the establishment circles the wagons. You go out and find somebody who has indeed never done it, and you get him to tell everybody else, “It can’t be done.” And he’s a Republican! It’d be one thing if the swamp denizen was a Democrat. But the swamp denizen dredged up today here is a Republican. This is how they do it, folks. I mean, I can’t help laugh at this. (coughs) Excuse me. And I know it’s serious. But all of this is so predictable. You know, the can’ts never did anything. You can find people that are pessimists anywhere you go.
You can find negative people everywhere you go. The last thing in the world you want to do is talk to them, because all they’re gonna do is cement pessimism in you! You know, back when I was more frequently asked for career advice than I am now, one of the things I always told people: Whatever your business — I don’t care if it’s radio, if it’s Wall Street, if it’s mainstream retail, whatever you do — do not hang around people who failed at it. Whatever you do, do not take guidance from people who failed at it — unless they, at some point, succeeded.
Everybody who fails is bitter, and failures often blame everybody else. I can’t tell you the number of times when I was a young whippersnapper in Cape Girardeau working in radio as a teenager and dreaming big. Every time I’d meet somebody that worked at a larger market — which is what you wanted. That’s how you climb the ladder in radio. You move to a bigger city, bigger station. I can’t tell you the number of guys I talked to who told me, “Forget it. It’s just not possible. They’re just not gonna let it happen to you.
“It won’t! It’s mean, it’s rough out there. You can’t do anything! Besides, you don’t even have the talent! I don’t even know why you’re even dreaming. You’re not any good.” Why do you want to her this? You know, pessimism, there’s something fascinating about it. Pessimism is… I don’t know if “attractive” is the right word. It’s magnetic. Pessimism is easy. We all can do it. We don’t need to read books on how to be pessimists. We don’t need guidance on how to think negatively. But we do need guidance on how to think positively. People that write books on how to do that are multimillionaires.
I had my share of people telling me I couldn’t do it, that it couldn’t be done, that it wasn’t worth trying, that the business is too cruel and too mean-spirited. One day I finally said, “Why am I listening to these people?” So I made it a point that I was only gonna talk — or try to talk — to people who succeeded. Same thing here in Washington. They never, ever find anybody who thinks it can be done because they have done it or participated in it having been done. They never do! Unless they’re talking about things that nobody likes and that even if they succeed, it’s bad news.
Like things the left wants to do. Those are all bad news. You can find people that will be optimistic about pessimism. That’s another dual-edged sword. Those kinds of people are really frustrating. Those who are optimistic about the worst happening. Those who are optimistic about being negative. But they never inspire. It’s amazing how in the Drive-By Media, in the American… You notice how rare it is? When you’re watching a TV show or a movie where it features optimism, can-do spirit, great accomplishment, everybody comments on it ’cause it’s so rare.
Everybody tells everybody else, “Go see it! You should see what happens,” ’cause everything we’re treated to is a barrage of the worst. It’s either on the horizon or it’s happening now, and there’s no way out, and it’s gonna ensnare all of us! I don’t care what it is. And this is a classic case. So you’re all up to speed and hot to trot on this budget; then they drag out somebody who hasn’t worked… Well, he may be a lobbyist. I don’t know what he’s doing, Alan Simpson Babe.
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RUSH: You know what, folks, a lot of people want to weigh in on the budget announcement here from Mick Mulvaney today. I’m gonna take the calls now rather than move on to Brennan and these hearings then go to calls and people go back and talk about the budget. I just want to keep things connected and in order here.
Here’s Joe in Los Angeles and I’m glad you called, sir. Great to have you with us today.
CALLER: Hey, mega unemployed dittos from the district of fabulous Maxine Waters, soon to be the district of Omar Navarro —
RUSH: Soon to be the district of what?
CALLER: Omar Navarro, who’s gonna beat her in the next election.
RUSH: Omar Navarro, you know, they shut Maxine’s microphone off at a recent appearance she had before the state Democrat convention. I’ve got the audio sound bite coming up. They literally — the Democrats turned off her microphone.
CALLER: Oh, no. Yeah, Omar actually lives in the district, by the way. She lives up in Hancock Park. Hey, very simple. My question is, why is Trump haphazardly rolling out a budget like this and just giving the Democrats more targets to shoot? Every Trump initiative has to led by a long thought out media strategy released by experienced war professionals like Dana Perino or Dick Morris or somebody like that.
RUSH: What?
CALLER: Every one of his legislative initiatives are gonna be under assault, especially with the special counsel doing this process crime show trial. And they’re all gonna be stillborn because the special counsel’s gonna prevent senators from wanting to stick their neck out to vote for a president with this cloud over his head. Now, they need to do two things. One, they need to hire somebody like Dana Perino and Dick Morris to create their media assaults with every legislative strategy. And then Trump needs to either fire the special counsel or expand his investigation to include Hillary Clinton and Obama administration deep state leakers.
RUSH: Now, that last, that last I heartily agree with you on. Trump can fire — he can fire the independent counsel any day he wants and for whatever reason he wants.
CALLER: That’s right. A televised criminal trial of Hillary, Susan Rice, and Sally Yates will keep the Democrats busy on defense for several new election cycles. And this is exactly what they would be doing if they were in our position, so it’s time to fight here. We’re sitting here waiting for —
RUSH: I have to ask, Joe, is Dana Perino your mother or your aunt or something?
CALLER: Ha-ha. No, I just think that the way that they’re rolling out these media assaults is totally wrong. See, half of the energy has to be spent on developing the legislation or the executive initiative. And then the other 50% of the time has to be set up with dealing with a media strategy with someone that has experience in that. Now, they gave this budget plan out, the Democrats are gonna spend the next year attacking it and assaulting it before it even becomes legislation. So I just think they need a little bit better presentation there.
RUSH: Well —
CALLER: This is war.
RUSH: Look. Look. I can give you a counter way of thinking on this. I’m just guessing. It could well be that they sent Mulvaney out there today to get it out — Trump knows that he’s got to keep his base engaged. That’s the only support base he’s got. He’s got to keep them engaged. He knows that they’re not watching the news anymore, the Drive-By news. He knows they’re not watching it. Or he should be confident that they aren’t.
Given the nature of things, there’s never gonna be a good time to roll out something like this today, because you’re always gonna be able to say they can cover it with something else, the terror attack, the ongoing investigations. But the budget has to be done theoretically by October.
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RUSH: Mulvaney presents the Trump budget today, okay? We went through it. It’s exactly why Trump was elected. Here’s Chuck Schumer who finally got around to reacting to it.
SCHUMER: When you add it all up, the Trump budget is comic book-villain bad. And just like comic books, it relies on fantasy to make all the numbers work. It’s the kind of budget you might expect from someone who is rooting for a government shutdown.
RUSH: (laughing) A government shutdown! We’re in May and we’re talking about government shutdown! That’s all they’ve got? That’s the only objection to this? “This sounds like a budget you’d might expect from somebody who’s trying to shut down the government.” These people have become intellectually empty. They are vacant. They’ve got nothing. This is why the media is running the progressive show. I’m sure people in the media go, “Aw, Chuck, don’t go there now! Nobody’s gonna believe they’ll shut down the government in May!” You watch. Somebody in the media is gonna admonish Schumer over this. They won’t pick up this mantra. They’re not gonna do that ’til you get into August or September when everybody comes back.