Why Should the Winners Compromise?

If you’re willing to join him from the other side, fine. We’ll welcome you to the fold. But Bush’s agenda is what it is. Why would he modify his agenda after winning more votes than any president ever has, a three-point margin and an electoral vote victory? Why should he modify his agenda to let people in? It’s silly but that’s what the left is out there saying. (sigh) It’s incredible. Let’s go to E.J. Dionne Jr. Now, this is on CNBC last night, the Capitol Report. The host, Alan Murray says, “Let me play a bit from the press conference today,” and then he plays Bush saying, ‘Now that I’ve got the will of the people at my back, I’m going to start enforcing the one-question rule. That was three questions.'” We played that for you yesterday. Murray says, “E.J., what do you make of that?”
EJ: Well, I think ‘ubris is this administration’s Achilles heel. Uh, I think they, uhhh —
RUSH: Stop the tape. Hey? E.J.? You’ve got to learn to laugh. The president is trying to be funny. Resume tape.
EJ: — intend to push harder than anything like they got a mandate for in this election, and on Social Security reform, he’s going to have to answer so many questions: Who are the winners? Who are the losers? How is he going to pay the at least $1 trillion cost of the transition? I think Social Security reform could be, for President Bush, what healthcare reform was for President Clinton, because once you get down to the details, as you mentioned earlier, a lot of people begin to say, “Huh? This all sounded like a great deal. We were all going to get something out of it. No one would pay a cost.”
MURRAY: Well, but —
EJ: People have to pay a cost.
RUSH: Now, E.J., you know, you’re smarter than this. You’re the one with the degree and I’m not, but let me educate you on this. There’s a big difference between healthcare and Clinton, and Social Security and Bush. Bush is trying to take the government out of people’s lives and make their Social Security retirement even better and larger. Bill Clinton was trying to add government to people’s lives, which was going to cost everybody. There’s a huge difference, E.J. But here’s the question, ladies and gentlemen. I want you all to hear this and I want this to become a mantra out there. — I’m doing this to seize the left. You guys are all robots and I’m giving you marching orders. (Laughter) — Now, look, though, here’s the truth. They keep wailing and whining and mooooaning about the “transition costs” of Social Security. Now, what this is?
If we decide to do this, they’re going to take 2% of current payroll taxes and let people invest 2% of the 12%. Forget this, you know, seven and five or seven and seven, the company matching. You’re paying it all! So let’s say your Social Security is 15%, the first 86 grand, whatever it is. Two percent of that goes into an account with your name and it gets managed and it grows and so forth. The other goes to the government. Okay. The theory is, “Well, it’s 2% the government doesn’t get and you add all that up, the transition cost, because we still have to pay the benefits of those that are retired.” That’s true. That’s true. The president said, “If it were easy, it would have been done already.” We’re going to have to find a way, because here’s the alternative.
We either come up with a way to do this and manage the transition costs, whatever they turn out to be, or we don’t do anything, as Senator Kerry wanted to do with Social Security, let the Baby Boomers retire in full force, and then we’re looking at $15 to $17 trillion in shortfall — trillion, not billion. It’s two trillion transition’ $15 to $17 trillion in shortfalls in Social Security if we don’t do anything, because when the Baby Boomers get there, people retire, we’re going to have to extend the retirement age, cut benefits or something. This plan by the president is a way of lessening the financial pain and improving the system. Look, this is not the 1930s anymore. It’s time to modernize the program!
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RUSH: We’re up to audio sound bite #3: Nancy Pelosi, Miss America, digging in for a fight. Doesn’t sound like she’s going to be doing any reaching out or compromising here, folks. On the Today Show today, Matt Lauer interviewed Pelosi with Senator Mitchell McConnell and Mr. Lauer said, “In the press conference, the president said the following: ‘I’ve earned capital this election. I’m going to spend it on what I told the people I’d spend it on,’ which is you’ve heard the agenda: Social Security, tax reform, moving the economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror.” Lauer then says, “Now clearly people like you and the senator are going to appear on programs like this in the days following the election and say, ‘Yes, we’re too divided. We got to work together,’ but it never seems to work out that way. Will it work out that way this time,” Miss America?

PELOSI: Well, I certainly hope so. The result of the election did not erase the fact that he had the worst record of job creation in seven decades [sic] —
RUSH: (Laughing)
PELOSI: — that many more people, millions more, do not have access to healthcare [sic], that we have a growing deficit [sic], and that the war in Iraq is going poorly [sic].
LAUER: But Congresswoman Pelosi, this doesn’t sound like the type of language that’s going to lead to unite on alcohol.
PELOSI: Well the president said when he ran the first time that he was a unifier [sic?uniter] and not a divider. He’s now saying he’s going to reach out. I hope that he will try to be president for all of the people, not just the people who voted for him.
RUSH: You know what’s happened here is, these guys all sounded contrite and, you know, Pelosi, we had the bite yesterday where she was saying: “Oh, yeah, we screwed up. We’re losing the values states. We don’t know what we’re doing wrong.” It sounded like they all got together last night on the phone and said, “What are we doing? We’re idiots! We got to go hardline. We don’t make…” and so they’re back on track. I mean, they’re re-running the Kerry campaign in this bite. Nancy Pelosi rerunning the Kerry campaign! This whole business about Bush saying he was going to be a uniter and not a divider. He tried. He brought Ted Kennedy up. He wrote No Child Left Behind, the education bill. Don’t get me started on this. I’m just giving you evidence here, more and more evidence these people have not gotten it.
I mean, this is a big slap up side the hee’ad, if you want to talk about it that way, but apparently the pain’s already worn off. They just do not. They’re just delusional. They do not have a clue. They’re in denial. They haven’t the ability to see reality. There’s more here from Miss America on the Today Show. Matt Lauer said, “Congresswoman Pelosi, on tax reform, the president would like to make the tax cuts permanent. That’s not been something the Democrats have favored. Instead of telling me where the president has to come toward you, what are you willing to do and what are Democrats willing to do to move toward the president’s point of view on this?”
PELOSI: Well, it’s a question of the president making the tax code more complicated in the first four years of his term and now saying, “Let’s simplify it.” We should simplify the tax code. We should have more tax cuts for middle-income Americans, and when — if the president wants to meet on that ground, we’re happy to do it, but we will not contribute to the growing deficit. When we go into the lame duck session, the Congress will be called upon to raise the debt limit again because of the reckless economic policies of the Bush administration. Just because the election is over doesn’t mean that the challenges aren’t still there. Just because the president thinks he has a mandate doesn’t mean that Democrats don’t have a responsibility to point out the challenges we still have.
RUSH: All right. So she’s not going to move anywhere. Gave a nice little bob-and-weave there, sort of a chuck-and-duck, but she’s not going to — they’re not going to — move anywhere near the president. They have no intention of moving anywhere near the president. “Just because the president thinks he has a mandate doesn’t mean that the Democrats don’t have a responsibility to point out the challenges we still face.” Go ahead. Rerun the campaign. Rerun it. See you in ’08. Okay. We’re going to skip #5, Altamont. We’re going to move on here. I mentioned this to you earlier. I watched this, actually. Don’t ask me why. It was on C-SPAN 2. You know, it’s odd enough that I’m watching C-SPAN 1. I was watching C-SPAN 2. I was. You know, I admit it. I’m surfing around and I’m actually looking for those postmortems featuring Democrats because it’s than any reality show out there, and I found one last night. There was a big panel at George Washington University, which is where they do crossfire in the afternoon. They didn’t even tear down the Crossfire set, except for “CROSSFIRE!”
The words weren’t there but all those colored little banners and things were there. They had Peter Fenn up there and you had Sarah Taylor from the Republicans; Bill Greener from the Republicans. You had Mark Mellman from the Democrats and they were all reviewing the election results and there’s this exchange between Peter Fenn. Now, Peter Fenn was one of Clinton’s big defenders during the Monica and impeachment stuff. Big Democrat consultant. Rich Democrat. Very rich Democrat inside the Beltway and Bill Greener, Republican guy, and this is an exchange here, and Peter Fenn, you’ll hear him start out by saying — and this is a smart guy, but he’s adopting… Who was it that we had this on Monday or Tuesday? Some crackpot. “We don’t understand! People are not voting in their own self-interests.” He says that people are “voting against their own personal interests.” Now, what wacko said this? It was some Democrat, obviously, couldn’t believe it. I mean, but it’s kookville, but here’s a mainstream Democrat consultant saying it and listen to the rest of the conversation, because what you’re going to hear Peter Fenn trying to sound “mainstream America” but can’t hide the elitism.

FENN: Look, you know, a lot of people were voting against their own personal self-interests when they voted for George Bush [sic]. They — they — they — you know —
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
FENN: — they got a $3,500 —
GREENER: You guys really don’t get it. It’s amazing!
FENN: Well, let me tell you, in the next election, it may be amazing to you because the Wal-Mart families are going to vote for us not you, because here’s what’s going to happen: They’re going to see that their insurance for their healthcare went up 3,500 bucks.
GREENER: That level of palpable, patronizing and condescension on the Wal-Mart voter so permeates what you say —
TAYLOR: Yes.
GREENER: — that it deafens what it is that comes through.
FENN: There’s knowing condescending about it.
RUSH: Well, you be the judge. You know the Democrats hate Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart big Republican donors. They love CostCo because it is owned and run and donated by a big liberal. The Wal-Mart voter? If you listen carefully and you go back to the archives, you will find that conservatives are always made fun of and laughed at because they are Wal-Mart voters. What’s a Wal-Mart voter? A Wal-Mart voter is an idiot. Wal-Mart’s where stupid fools go. No self-respecting liberal would ever set foot inside a Wal-Mart. They’re too good for Wal-Mart. They wouldn’t dare be seen going in and buying things so cheap that they’re in Wal-Mart. That’s the way the liberals look at it. I mean, guys like Peter Fenn. I realize there are Democrats that go into Wal-Mart but you Democrats got to understand — especially you Democrats in the South, you have to understand — how you’re looked at by your own elites simply because of where you live and where you shop, and that was Bill Greener, again, the Republican there.
Let’s see. I’m going to forget George Mitchell. I really don’t care. Can you believe the guy that’s CEO of the Disney or chairman of the board is up there on Democrat stages on Election Night during the last campaign? I can believe it. Paul McCartney? I don’t care what McCartney says. Elizabeth Bumiller? (reading) Buh, buh, buh. Don’t care what she says. Susan Page? Kwame Holman, I guess that… Let’s see. Who? Maybe grab #10 there Altamont. You want to hear McCartney? Why do you want to hear him? Do you really think you’re going to be surprised by what McCartney says about the election? Do you really think you’re going to be surprised what he says? Grab #8, Altamont. Some people want to hear Paul McCartney of the Be’les. He said this on the KLTA morning show. The anchor, Sam Rubin, was interviewing McCartney, and Rubin says, “Now, more political conversation, I suppose. Within the hour I talked with Sir Paul McCartney. He’s in London. We talked about, among other things, America’s place in the world and the election.”
MCCARTNEY: I think it’s sad, really, because after 9/11, the perception and the feelin’ of support for the American people was tremendous, obviously, you know, and everyone sort of stepped up to the plate. I think that’s been eroded and I’m not really quite sure. I think it’s to do with the, uh, administration. So I think a lot of people over in Europe are a bit saddened that this has happened, and that America seems to be sort of ignorin’ a lot of the rest of the world and trying to — is just intent on going it alone. It’s a bit of a sad thing, you know. I mus’ say I was, you know, interested to see the result of the election.
RUSH: And then the anchor, Sam Rubin, asked McCartney, “What did you think of the result of the election? What did you personally think?”
MCCARTNEY: I personally wasn’t too keen on it. I was supportin’ the other guy.
RUSH: Really! Well, shocking news from across the pond, from Paul McCartney, supporting John Kerry. Tell you what, I’m glad I played that. I would have not known where McCartney came down on the political spectrum. Thanks, Mr. Snerdley, for making me play that. (Flawless Beatles impression:) “We love you, yeah, yeah, yeah. We love you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Yeah… Yeah…
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