RUSH: White Lake, Michigan, for Henry. Nice to have you here, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: One point that’s been missed, if you’re a welfare recipient or if you’re drawing unemployment compensation, please call your congressman and let them know that they’re threatening your benefits if they vote for this bill.
RUSH: How so?
CALLER: The federal government is already saying that they can’t maintain their commitments for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. If they pass this health care bill, welfare, food stamps, military retirement, federal retirement, all of those are on the list. As soon as someone says there are Medicare cuts in this bill, all you have to do is look down the line and see that if they can’t afford Medicare, they can’t afford the rest of these, either.
RUSH: Wait a minute, nobody affords Medicare. I’m sorry to be losing my patience. You qualify or you don’t qualify.
CALLER: Yes, but funding for Medicare comes from the federal government.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: This bill could bankrupt the federal government.
RUSH: Yeah. The federal government’s already bankrupt. That’s actually a good point. This is all academic at this point. We don’t have any of this money and there is no deficit reduction with any of this. And everybody, a lot of people are going to lose coverage, by design. Insurance premiums are going to go up. Nothing that they’re saying is true. Look, there are memos out today from Steny Hoyer to the members: Do not discuss the details of CBO. If you get dragged into a discussion of details, the lie will be exposed. There is no deficit reduction. So you just keep saying there is. I’ve seen the memo. It’s been leaked. Politico’s got another memo from the Democrats. Don’t talk about it, we’re going to do the doc fix later in a separate piece of legislation. What’s the doc fix? The doc fix is going to repeal reimbursement cuts to doctors. It’s going to cost $321 billion to permanently repeal this. So all this talk of $500 billion in Medicare cuts, which is just a budget gimmick anyway, is wiped out 60, 70% by the doc fix. The doc fix, in a separate piece of legislation, seals the fact that there is no deficit reduction in this. The point is that everything being said about this is a lie, particularly the structural things: the cost, insurance premiums going down, deficit going down. None of it is true. I mean it’s not even close to being true.
Here’s Susan in Concord, California, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: Yes, ma’am.
CALLER: Hey, I’m just wondering, I feel like as time goes on we keep giving the Democrats an excuse by saying that a lot of what they’re doing is about their ideologies. I believe it’s more about the unions, about SEIU wanting to take over the industry. I firmly believe that Obama is maybe a front man for the union. He doesn’t seem to really have much interest in running the country. And I think that they’re just getting their way in there, they’re gonna take over as much industry as they can, which will guarantee the Democrats back into party again, as long as the union members continue to vote the way they tell ’em to.
RUSH: Well, that makes it about ideology because the unions are as far left as anybody else in the country is. The unions are as radical — the government unions — well, even John Sweeney, the AFL-CIO guys are as radical left as Saul Alinsky. I mean they regularly have their op-eds published in the Communist Party of America’s publication, Daily Worker or whatever the hell it’s called now. It’s clearly ideologically driven and it’s clearly driven to expand government, and the unions are out saying this is our payback, this is what we want, we got Obama elected. I’ve heard a lot of people also speculate what you’ve speculated here that there’s somebody really running the show here besides Obama, that he’s the front man, that his lack of interest in things, lack of interest in specific details, lack of caring about whether he’s telling the truth or not means he’s doing somebody else’s bidding. Frankly, if it’s true I don’t really care. Either it’s Obama or somebody, but he’s executing the orders and we’re dealing with the most radical leftists who have ever achieved in this country, and it’s right in front of our noses, right in front of our eyes what they want to do with it. And it is to transform by overthrowing this country as founded. It’s right there for everybody to see. And they are seeing it.
There’s an interesting Fox poll today: ‘Americans Feel Disenfranchised By Obamcare Push — The latest Fox News Poll was just released and it reflects the degree of anger and disenfranchisement Americans feel about their federal government, spurred on by the Obamcare poll that very few want. Presidential Approval has fallen to an all time low in this Fox poll, 46% approve and 48% disapprove.’ It’s pretty close to what Gallup has. ‘Do you feel your views are represented by the federal government right now, or not? Only 35% of Democrats, 19% of independents, and 7% of Republicans think so.’ In other words, a vast majority of the American people do not think they’re being represented by the federal government, and they’re right. The federal government is governing against everyone’s will. The American people are angry, they are fit to be tied and they’re not going to comply with this whatever and whenever it happens.
Here’s Joe in Rock Falls, Illinois. Great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Yes, Rush, thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: We’re forever in debt to you. We wouldn’t even be in this fight at this stage if it wasn’t for you.
RUSH: Nah, but thank you very much.
CALLER: And I want to thank you. It seems like the Democrats and their media friends are always successful at framing a debate. Right now they’re pitting the people that need health care against the insurance agencies when, in fact, it’s actually the government that has the biggest role for health care costs being so high, and that’s through Medicare and Medicaid. I work at a hospital and at the hospital we only receive pennies on the dollar for Medicaid, sometimes that takes years to recoup. Medicare does a little better, but still falls short, and —
RUSH: Right. And they want to expand. The point he’s making and he’s dead right about this, the biggest insurance company in the world is the US federal government: VA, S-CHIP, Medicare, Medicaid. They have more customers than any private insurance company in the country. They deny more claims than any private insurance company, by percentage, than any private insurance company in the country does. They have lousy care. They don’t pay well, they don’t pay the doctors, they don’t reimburse. Obama is the president and CEO of the biggest insurance company in the country, and it is broken, and it is bankrupt, and there is no literal intelligent reason why this man should be entrusted with the power to run anything. He is a neophyte, he is clueless, and he is dangerous.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Nancy in Morris Plains, New Jersey. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’m really spitting nails. You’ve got a irate Italian on your hands here. Every time I hear that Obama is at 46%, I want to know why half of the people in the United States are this stupid. Of course my husband the engineer keeps telling me that, you know, they pick the intelligence level at 80, so half of the people are below that.
RUSH: (sighs)
CALLER: But I am sick and tired of listening to these actors and actresses and the Main Street (sic), quote, media pushing this garbage agenda, this ‘progressive’ nonsense. Unless people listen to Fox, or ABC Radio, they’re fed the same crap. And most of them do not have either the intelligence or the will to listen to the other side. What. Can. We. Do? This is so frustrating. I’m tired of Tom Hanks. I’m tired of all these A-holes! Excuse me. This frustration level just builds and builds. My husband has worked since he was 15 years old. We’re almost ready to retire. Our money is gone from our 401(k). He went to college 12 years. Now, we grew up in Newark, no one gave us a penny, and I have to listen to this idiot talking about ‘sharing the wealth’? I just cannot stand it anymore. I have had it, and it is so frustrating. I argue with people in the post office, in the grocery store. My husband’s afraid he’s going to have to bail me out someday. What can we do? We have calls, we have e-mails, we have written letters. They’re not listening to us. They are trying to ruin this country. My father came here in Ellis Island and built a business when he couldn’t even talk English. What can we do besides calling? They’re ignoring us. You can hear the frustration in my voice.
RUSH: I hear it, and it is being echoed from coast to coast.
CALLER: But they’re not listening!
RUSH: Yeah. Wait, no —
CALLER: They don’t care what we say!
RUSH: It’s not that they’re ignoring us, Nancy. It’s that they are looking us in the face and saying, ‘Screw you.’
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: They’re not ignoring us. They are insulting us. They are telling us that we don’t count. They are telling us, ‘Whatever the hell you want doesn’t matter. They look at us with contempt.’ They look at us as an obstacle to overcome. They are like many totalitarians: The people are the problem. The people are the obstacle. The Constitution is an obstacle that has to be overcome and they’re using trickery and illegality and lawlessness to get this done if they’re able to Sunday with the Slaughter Solution. You —
CALLER: But, Rush, 46% of the people in the United States are still approving of the job he’s doing! Where are these idiot 46%? He should be at 20%. That’s what they did to Bush —
RUSH: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It took ’em —
CALLER: — who in my estimation, I wish he was back.
RUSH: Wait a second, now. Bush was nowhere near these numbers at this point in his presidency. He was still in the sixties. It took —
CALLER: Oh, I know, but at the end —
RUSH: Wait a second, now! Wait. It took them five years to get Bush into the thirties. At this rate we’ll have Obama in the thirties by August.
CALLER: He should be in the twenties now. Don’t they see?
RUSH: Well, ‘should be’ and ‘will be’ are two different things, and you have to understand: It’s still honeymoon time for a lot of people. He’s the president. There are some people who are just going to say they like the job he’s doing because they’re afraid to tell a pollster anything other than that because he’s black. They don’t want a pollster to think they’re racist. There’s all kinds of stuff that factors into this. What you have to understand is that you are in the vast majority of people in this country. You are as frustrated, and you have as many millions and millions of Americans who are as frustrated as you, who are asking: ‘Who the hell is Tom Hanks and why do we care?’ and, ‘Who the hell is actress A, B, C, and D? Why do we care?’ and, ‘Who is Chris Matthews and why do we care whoever is?’
CALLER: But they have a platform.
RUSH: Why do we care?
CALLER: They have a platform.
RUSH: Well, we don’t care. The Cartoon Network has a larger audience than MSNBC and CNN combined! People aren’t watching them, Nancy. We are winning this except our obstacle is we have a bunch of statist, tyranny-devoted totalitarians that we’re fighting here, who don’t care about the democratic process or that this is a representative republic.
CALLER: They have a soapbox, and so does… You know (TV channels) two, four, five, seven, they got him elected. They are the ones. Those idiots on Saturday Night Live that made fun of Sarah Palin. Every time somebody says to me, ‘Sarah Palin is an airhead. She’s stupid,’ I say, ‘Tell me one stupid thing she said.’
RUSH: (groans).
CALLER: They can’t say anything. They watched Saturday Night Live and Tina Fey. They listened to Tina Fey and equated that with Sarah Palin. Nobody can tell me one stupid thing she said, and I say to them, ‘You’re telling me she can’t do a better job than Obama is doing?’ I mean, I look at people and say, ‘Tell me what stupid thing she said.’ On the economy, why aren’t we drilling for oil? Do you know how much money we could save if we drilled for oil in Alaska? All that money we wouldn’t have to pay Saudi Arabia
RUSH: All right. All right, all right. Why don’t you try to answer just one of these questions for me? Why —
CALLER: I know why. It’s all political. Why did he send $2.2 billion to Brazil and let them drill to oil? It’s because George Soros gave money to his campaign and he owes money.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: Oh, I know what’s going on but you can’t talk people into it. I’m arguing in the post office and some idiot kid says to me ‘Halliburton.’ I said, ‘If I hear that name one more time…’ I’m just I have almost gone to jail. I tell my nephew, who’s a police officer, ‘Tom, get ready to bail me out,’ because I’m standing in the post office, and I said something, and then some idiot turns around and says, ‘Oh, Halliburton.’ I said, ‘Oh, PUH-leez with the Halliburton! Let it go.’ I said, ‘Do you know that Obama’s sent $2.2 billion to Brazil to drill for oil off the coast of Brazil because his friend George Soros owns a company?’
RUSH: Yeah, but why?
CALLER: Most people don’t know that. They have buzzwords.
RUSH: Why? I want you to dig deep.
CALLER: Because the media isn’t reporting it.
RUSH: No, no, no, no, no.
CALLER: None of the stations is honest.
RUSH: Why? No, no, no, no. No, no. Why is Obama doing all these destructive things? Why?
CALLER: Because he wants to ruin the country.
RUSH: Okay!
CALLER: He wants to bring us down. He wants a world economy because he’s a communist. I’m sorry, but he’s a communist.
RUSH: What’s your favorite pasta dish?
CALLER: Umm, I guess I like manicotti best. Any time you’re in New Jersey, give me a call. I’ll make you a nice Italian dinner.
RUSH: Thank you, Nancy. I appreciate your call.
CALLER: I make it homemade!
RUSH: (laughs) I can’t wait. I’d love that. Thanks so much.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, this lady Nancy that called from New Jersey, Nancy exemplifies what is about to boil over and boil over outside people’s homes. She said that inside her home, but she’s not far from taking it outside her home if you get my drift, and this is happening all over the country. Nancy, I want to answer your question, I didn’t want to interrupt you, why do 46% of the people still approve of Obama? It’s about the percentage of people that get government benefits. About 46% of the people get food stamps, welfare, unemployment compensation, whatever, 46% of the people get some kind of government assistance, and a lot of them, as you know, we’ve had ’em on this show, associate it personally with Obama, from his stash, and about 25 to 30% are paying for that 46%.
But there’s a lesson here, and I would be remiss if I did not teach it to you. Nancy’s call, all of this anger, all of this frustration, all of this ‘I can’t take it anymore’ is what happens when Republicans decide to teach Republicans a lesson. All of you who are mad now, you were mad back in 2006, Republicans were too big spenders, they were no different than the Democrats, you wanted to teach Republicans a lesson, there was no difference in the two parties, and so the Democrats won the House, Obama won the White House two years later, this is what happens when you teach Republicans a lesson, when you think there’s purity in throwing your own guys out. This notion that there’s no difference between the parties, do you think that’s true now? Do you think there’s really no difference between the two parties? Do you think any of this would be going on? Even with McCain, do you think we’d be doing this kind of process to get national health care even if McCain had been elected? Nope. No way.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: John on Route 81 in New York, great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Yeah, I was traveling back to Virginia. I just elected about a month-and-a-half ago to move my family back to Virginia from New York, we’re voting with our feet. Not against our will, we’d rather stay, this is where we grew up, but there’s not really any choice, you know, I’m a small business guy, self-employed guy and we just finally had to say uncle, and what I really wanted to say is if the rest of the country really wants to have a regulated health care situation similar to that we have in New York and all that goes with it, the high cost of health insurance and the incredibly low benefits, then all they have to do is support this health care reform and that’s exactly what they’ll get.
RUSH: Well, in fact, if you go to Massachusetts, I got a story right here in the Boston Globe, more cuts loom as state faces $295 million in red ink. There is rising demand for Massachusetts universal care, because people think it’s free, and people are using it for things it was never intended, average, run-of-the-mill, I got a cold.