RUSH: Potomac, Maryland. This is Kathy, and you’re up first. It’s great to have you here.
CALLER: Dr. Limbaugh, your lecture today is brilliant.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: Love it. I believe there is so much anger and distrust, cynicism out there over the fraud perpetrated at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and especially at the failure of congressional leadership, that what we have is a crisis of confidence in government, not the markets. The foxes are putting themselves in charge of the henhouse and the henhouse is where the golden eggs would be laid if the government got out of the way.
CALLER: Well, thank you, Dr. Limbaugh. I learn at the feet of the master.
RUSH: I think that’s a great way to put it: a crisis of confidence in government.
CALLER: Not in the markets.
RUSH: There’s gotta be some of that, Kathy, because the Drive-Bys and the Democrats for the last two weeks have been drumming that up. Remember, now, for the last — what can we say? — six years or five, at least, the Democrats in the media have been talking, ‘Recession, recession, recession, recession, unemployment, unemployment.’ They have been trying to convince people we are in a recession when we’re not even close to one, for five or six years. Some people have obviously bought it. Some people believe that. Obama: ‘Our better days are behind us.’ Some people obviously believe this. But the vast majority of people who are contacting members of Congress don’t buy it. They are ticked off about this, and their anger is at government.
CALLER: Oh, yes.
RUSH: You’re exactly right.
CALLER: Those lines must have been burning up on Capitol Hill yesterday because it took me a long time to reach Barney Frank’s office, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, my own representative, Chris Van Hollen. I tried them throughout the morning and the afternoon until I got through. Barney Frank’s office actually hung up on me after I politely suggested that he do the honorable thing and resign. They said, ‘Oh, Republicans then should resign because they were in charge for 12 years,’ and then she just hung up.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: The others at least listened. But I could tell they were under considerable strain yesterday from all the calls coming in.
RUSH: Let me tell you what’s happening out there today. Barney Frank has written a piece in the Boston Herald — which is the, quote, unquote, ‘conservative’ paper in Boston — blaming talk radio. Yeah, Brian Maloney has this at his Radio Equalizer blog, his website. There’s another Democrat from California nobody’s ever heard of, Sam Farr, F-a-r-r, who is blaming me. Barney Frank is blaming talk radio in general, Sam Farr blames me and all the other Kool-Aid drinkers. I said yesterday, ‘They’re going to get around to blaming me.’ Snerdley asked, ‘Have they blamed you yet?’ I said it will happen tomorrow. It actually did happen today. By the way, Kathy, thanks much for the call. You might want to listen to this. Barney Frank asked for an opportunity to address this audience.
(A Frank Moment with Barney Frank)
RUSH: You might have had some trouble understanding it. Barney Frank is essentially saying that it’s Bush’s fault for not reining him in, for not reining Barney Frank in who doesn’t know anything about banking. Hell, he doesn’t know anything about a prostitution ring being run in his own basement under his own nose, how can he know about banking? He can fix parking tickets, but that’s about it. So it’s the Republicans’ fault for not stopping Barney Frank in this whole mess. (laughs) It’s funny to watch how they turned everything that happens into blame for the Republicans. What’s maddening about it is when our so-called conservative intelligentsia media takes a bite out of that apple and starts joining the chorus. Barbara in Lexington, Kentucky, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. How you doing?
RUSH: Never better. Thank you.
CALLER: Well, I’m a listener for quite some time. I think since the first Clinton election. Anyway, I’m calling the EIB today so I can get some education because that’s exactly what you do. You educate us every day on the things that we need to know, because we’re not going to get it anywhere else.
RUSH: Thank you, madam.
CALLER: And what I need to know — I think I probably missed it, and I just don’t have the information, but — where is the $700 billion coming from? I mean is it money that we already have in our government, or is it money that we’re going to have to borrow? I mean, where is it coming from?
RUSH: What I have found in the past, when people actually want to learn and when they are steered in the direction of where they figure it out themselves rather than if they’re told.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: So let me ask you a couple questions, all right?
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: Every year we have a budget deficit that is recorded to be 300 billion to 400 billion, sometimes $500 billion. You know obviously what a deficit is?
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: All right, have you heard in recent years last, say, seven, eight, ten years, that we’ve had an annual budget surplus?
CALLER: Yes. During the Clinton years we were supposed to have a surplus to some degree, weren’t we?
RUSH: Yeah, I forget what it was, but it was a surplus on paper. What I mean is, since the Bush administration took office, and budgets have been submitted, has any budget been balanced or has any budget shown that we will take in more money than we spend?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: All right, so therefore the last six, seven, eight, ten, 12, 14 years, we have always spent more than we have. True?
CALLER: True.
RUSH: So there isn’t any pot of unspent money, even equaling ten cents, to give to the mortgage lenders. So the $700 billion obviously is going to have be either printed or borrowed from the Federal Reserve.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: Now, obviously you are wise enough to understand the compounding problem posed by this. The national debt gets a little larger, the federal deficit, however they handle this on the books. Your question is, where is it coming from? We’re going to borrow it. We may go to the ChiComs. ‘Hey, will you guys buy some more T-bills?’ The T-bills are like a roller coaster because of all this. The ChiComs own a tremendous amount of our debt. If they ever call it in, we’re sunk! (laughing) We’re sunk. They won’t do it because they won’t get it, but they own a lot of our debt. That will be talked about at some point down the road. So we’re going to have to print it. We’re going to have to borrow it from someplace.
CALLER: Well, I certainly thank you so much for your time and giving you me some information to chew on as I listen to all these people who try to tell us all this stuff that’s supposed to be going on with the stock market and everything.
RUSH: Well, ‘all those people. You need to understand something about ‘all those people’ ’cause I and the audience know who you mean by ‘all those people.’ All those people believe that the beginning, the middle, and the end of everything important — everything that makes people happy, everything that solves a problem — is government. And so there is never any criticism institutionally of government in a deal like this from people to whom government is the religion, to whom government is the god — and I’m talking about the Democrat Party and most in the media. So, Barbara, thanks for the call. It’s a pleasure.