RUSH: We’re going to start in Indianapolis with Alex. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, sir. It’s an honor to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I have one quick question. I agree with about 95% of what you say. I listen to you every day. I haven’t missed in quite some time. But there was one point that I’d like to ask you about. I’m a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the UFCW. It wasn’t an option. I had to do it with my job, and it’s a great job. But they make sure I have better pay than I would have otherwise. I have friends that aren’t unionized groceries and they get paid less. I have good health insurance. I have good overtime rules, good vacation rules, and I’m just wondering: Do you see that there’s some benefit to unionization for the individual workers. Not when they get involved in politics but just for individual workers?
RUSH: Look, I’m all for freedom.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: You want to join a union — if it makes sense for you, if it makes you happy, and it’s the best you think you can do — go for it. I have no problem with that. My problem is primarily with the public employees unions, although they’re all aligned. The leadership of these unions are all leftist to the point of… There was a piece written by the head honcho of the Service Employees International Union. This is the bunch that donated $60 million to President Obama during his campaign. There was an article published this week urging the Democrats to continue, to not stop this, that the union people of this country demand it. Now, union people are 8% of the population.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: This article appeared in the Communist Party of the United States magazine. The unions, the public employee unions and the leadership of most unions are not just Democrats. They are far-left liberals. They work expressly for the destruction of the private sector. Look at what just happened with President Obama. He’s got this tax plan, this tax increase on anybody that has what he considers to be a ‘Cadillac health insurance plan,’ meaning if your health insurance plan costs your company $23,000 or more per year, then there’s going to be a 40% tax on that. Well, almost every government worker, government union’s health care, is a Cadillac health care policy. Obama exempted the unions. Eight percent of the population will not have to pay his 40% tax. The other 92% of the people that work in this country here are not unionized, will have to pay it for them.
CALLER: Yeah. Like I said, I think when they get involved in politics, it comes really poorly (sic), but I think that if they could find — if the unions, like UAW, FCW could find — a way to state of out of politics but still make certain —
RUSH: Impossible.
CALLER: I know. It would be nice, though, but I just wanted to let you know that they do help me out and they help me take care of my family and they help me in a lot of ways personally.
RUSH: This is the great seduction. This is the great hook. I actually believe that… I don’t know what you earn annually. I know that many government workers, many government unionized people, if you add their salaries and benefits together, you get an annual compensation of $175,000 a year.
CALLER: That’s true.
RUSH: They are not being laid off. They are not losing their jobs. The unemployment rate in government worker unions is 3.6%. It’s 17% throughout the rest of the country.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Look at what the UAW did! Look at what UAW did to General Motors and Chrysler.
CALLER: They tore ’em apart, yes. I see that. I know. It’s a double-edged sword. But when I go to the store or when I’m trying to pay my bills, you know, it is nice to see that. I wish they could do it without tearing GM apart. My dad lost his job with GM because of unions. But it is nice on an individual basis, sometimes. But, I mean, like I said: 95% of the time I’m right there with you, but I just want you to understand that when I cash my check, I do in some ways appreciate the UFCW.
RUSH: Well, yeah. That union, however, you work at a private sector store, right? You don’t work for a government entity?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: That’s not a government union although they all pool their resources, and vast majority of them — whether they’re in government or not — still advocate liberalism and Democrats, and they have had an unfair political and financial advantage for a hundred years, 50 years up until yesterday. That’s now going to change. That’s why they’re all squealing like stuck pigs. But I think in large measure — this isn’t true in virtually every case — when you look at an American company or industry or type of industry in trouble, the odds are you’re going to find a union smack-dab in the middle of it, and not the workers. You guys are just like rank-and-file Democrats really don’t know what their leaders are really all about.
You’re Democrat because you were born that way and your parents were. Your parents have always been union and it just gets passed down to the family. It’s like you. You owe your life, you think — you owe your salary, your living, your ability to pay bills, your ability to eat — to the union. I’m not trying to talk you out of that. This is free country. If you want to be a member of a union and you derive that from it, fine and dandy. But I want you to know what they’re doing with their mandatory dues that they are taking from you. I mean, they’re financing a leftist, liberal movement in this country. Look what it’s doing. We’re at 10% unemployment, probably 10.8% in reality.
If you count the people that stopped looking, it’s up to 17% unemployment. There’s no hope. There’s nothing. The people that run this country have the same mentality of the people who run these government unions, and they don’t have any love or appreciation for the private sector. They all hate corporations (even though they make deals with them for salary, wages, and benefits) and they end up doing them great harm. It’s the most amazing thing to watch. I’m glad you called, though. I appreciate the opportunity to answer the question. I have no animus at all toward people who work as members of unions and so forth. The only people I disagree with are liberals, whether they work or not, and I always am going to. I think they will destroy this country if given half the chance. Don in Miami, I’m glad you waited, sir. You’re on Open Line Friday. You’re up next. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. I respect this opportunity.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I think the Republicans have lost their vision. The president is not a lame duck because of Massachusetts. The opportunity seems to be… The Republican opposition seems to be proud of derailing the health of America, but the Democrats, from my scope of vision, seems to be on the right direction, the right direction. We’ll soon see the derailing of the right-wing voice of opposition.
RUSH: Well, tell me specifically: From your ‘scope of vision,’ what is it the Democrats are doing right?
CALLER: The Democrats are trying to raise the standard of the middle class, at the same time bring the standard of the lower class up and I’m not… I’m a conservative, trust me.
RUSH: Uh, Don?
CALLER: I don’t think… I don’t think the upper class in this society should be so selfish as to not, um, like the president’s sense to go straight down the middle and help the economy.
RUSH: Don, may I ask how old you are?
CALLER: Oh-ho-ho! Sir, you wouldn’t… I’m up there.
RUSH: Okay. And you believe this all your life?
CALLER: I’m a registered Republican, I vote Democrat, and I believed this all my life.
RUSH: That’s… Don, I —
CALLER: I know you take opposition, that this is free speech.
RUSH: It’s not just I take opposition. It’s just I’m sad, because you sound like a smart guy but you couldn’t be more wrong. I mean, this administration particularly — Barack Obama and this bunch of Democrats — is destroying the middle class. They are putting more people in poverty. They never try to elevate people at the low-end of the scale. They always try to punish people at the top, which is what Obama’s doing now by double taxing the banks. There’s not one thing this man has done for the people of this country. Not one thing, Don. He hasn’t done one thing for the middle class. He hasn’t done one thing for any group or individual that you can find. He hasn’t done one thing. Name for me, anybody, exactly one thing he’s done good? You think they are trying. You didn’t even say they’ve done it. You think they’re ‘trying,’ which means that you are falling for their rhetoric. You are falling for their good intentions. Look how they’ve destroyed black families in this country, Don, with their welfare programs. Look how they have kept people in poverty with their poverty programs. Look at how they have kept more and more people dependent on government for their lives, for their very existence — and they live as paupers. Yet those people think the Democrats are fighting for them. It’s an age-old myth that way too many people believe, but we are in the process of changing gazillions of minds. Glad you called.