RUSH: So here we are in America in 2008. We have mostly free prescription drugs for the elderly. We have nationalized a big chunk of local and public education. We are probably and eventually going to grant 12 to 20 million illegal aliens full citizenship. Now we are in the process of nationalizing the financial and housing markets in ways that we can’t even know right now — and all of this, we are told (laughing) will save America. (laughing) Folks, you just have to laugh out there.
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RUSH: The big bailout’s proceeding here on the House floor, the debate. The vote’s supposed to start at 12:45 Eastern time, about 25, 26 minutes from now. We of course will be monitoring this. The Republicans are saying, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, the bill’s much better now than what we had voted down on Monday.’ (laughing) I guess so. They’ve added $150 billion of pork to it.
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RUSH: Something to be aware of, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s see. Actually, this hit last night, right before midnight. It’s a political story by Patrick O’Connor. ‘Barack Obama called Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings on Tuesday with a promise: As president, he would revisit bankruptcy laws to give judges more leeway to prevent foreclosures. Cummings, who voted against the financial market’s bailout on Monday told Obama he was open to changing but his vote but he wasn’t there yet. ‘I have to look beyond [the bailout] to a rainbow called Obama,’ he said. ‘When you bring in the Obama factor, that’s very, very important.” Now, Biden brought this up in the debate last night. I want to ask you what you think of this, because I mentioned this earlier this week.
The dirty little secret is, folks, that nobody wants to talk about what got us into this problem: loaning money to minorities and poor people who could not pay it back. This was Marxist social engineering. This was affirmative action via mortgage. It’s clear-cut. It’s just people don’t dare say it, except for me. So last night in the debate, Biden said, ‘With regard to bankruptcy now, Gwen, what we should be doing — and Barack Obama and I support it — we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to readjust, not just the interest rate you’re paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but to be able to adjust the principal that you owe. That would keep people in their homes, and actually help banks by keeping you from going under.’ By the way, Obama says he’s out there, and warned everybody about this two years ago.
When did that happen? Obama’s the guy that was a champion handing out loans to people who shouldn’t be getting them all of his career! Do you realize how dangerous this is, to turn judges — and, by the way, who are judges now? You realize how many liberal judges there are in the bench. Judges, letting them adjust the rate? Not on your mortgage, by the way, and not adjusting the principal on your mortgage. No, we’re talking about only a few mortgages here. When he calls Elijah Cummings, who is part of the Congressional Black Caucus that all voted against the bailout, and says, ‘Don’t worry, Elijah. We’re going to get judges here, the bankruptcy laws are going to be changed. The judges are going to be telling the banks what the interest rate’s going to be and what the principal payment is going to be.’ This is saving America. Let’s go to some of the audio sound bites (we have three of them, here) on the bailout just to set the stage here. This is last night on Special Report with Brit Hume during panel discussion. Brit asked Fred Barnes a question. ‘Fred, you’re not sympathetic to the Senate and the House of Representatives, the noises coming from conservatives in the House, give me your thoughts on the quality of their arguments.’
BARNES: I think their arguments are — are idiotic. And myopic. It’s as if they’re operating from some ideology that says, ‘We cannot interfere with the free market by having government do more.’ Ronald Reagan would do this. Alexander Hamilton did it. When you have a financial crisis that threatens to blow up the economy and put America in a deep recession or worse, that’s when government’s supposed to act. Now, if you’re a Libertarian and you don’t believe in government, that’s something, but most Republicans are not Libertarians. They’re just nuts.
RUSH: Okay, there you are. (laughing) So Fred Barnes, the conservative analyst on the Fox News all-star panel with Brit Hume, says you are nuts! This morning on the House floor — now, remember, everybody got mad at Nancy Pelosi for poisoning the well when she went to make a speech and started blaming Reagan policies and Bush policies for the subprime mortgage crisis. Now Charlie Rangel rips Republicans here today on the floor of the House this morning.
RANGEL: Seven hundred billion dollars we are asked to expose the taxpayers to from an administration that all I’ve heard in the last eight years is that we have to keep government out of the free market system that, government and regulations will strangle our economy. And the fact is that, in such a short period of time, had it not been for Barney Frank and people on the other side of the aisle in trying to do the best we can, we leave here with heavy conscience that if we do nothing, then the sacrifice will be felt by employees at thrift accounts, savings accounts, small businesses — and so in a sense we have a political gun at our heads.
RUSH: The last eight years. That’s code word for ‘Bush.’ If not for the deep sacrifices of Barney Frank? It’s gotten to the point, folks, there’s no common sense. There is no reality here. All we have to do is just laugh at this. ‘Had it not been for Barney Frank and people on the other side of the aisle trying to do the best we can,’ to, what? Destroy it? I still say the people that engineered this need to be the ones investigated, maybe frog-marched somewhere. Here’s John Boehner this morning on Washington, DC, on Capitol Hill. The House Republicans held a preference.
BOEHNER: I think most Americans understand, we’re facing a serious economic crisis. And I think over the past few days it’s been clear the House Republicans have stood on principle, and we have made this bill better. Is it perfect? No. But it clearly is better than it was a week ago.
RUSH: There you have it, and it’s now been $850 billion. I said earlier, ‘$850 billion. We need to add seven billion more to this, because Governor Schwarzenegger of Cal-i-fornia has said he needs a bailout now. The state of California needs $7 billion. Now, again: California has been run by who, for how many years? Liberals! California has been run by liberals. It has been overrun by illegal immigrants and so forth, tapping into government services. The people of California tried to stop that from happening. Judges told him it was unconstitutional. So he needs $7 billion because he says the normal channels he goes through to get money to finance the government operations, have dried up. I’m hearing this from a lot of places now. Everybody’s in the tank on this now. Even Fox Business News — the Fox News Channel, wherever; CNBC — they’re all in the tank!
Nobody can get a loan, now. Nobody can get any money. Nobody can do diddly-squat. It’s not my experience. I mean, I actually saw somebody today say on television, ‘People cannot buy cars,’ that car dealerships, that people who are at car dealerships are calling CNBC and Fox saying, ‘We can’t sell cars because we don’t have any financing.’ Are the dealerships still open? Have you seen one? Have you gone in there and seen them closed and shut down during normal business hours? If you go in there to test-drive a car, will they let you test-drive a car? Thought so. The prices are pretty good, too. General Motors is a sponsor here. They have not suspended their advertising until the credit is flowing again.
Now, folks, don’t misunderstand me. I realize that some places there probably are tight squeezes and there’s something clearly going on in the banking business. I think, frankly, as I watch this… I have been sitting as a bystander — let me just share this with you — for the longest time. When I got to New York in 1988 and started familiarizing myself with the place there, I have been wondering about how many people — I mean how many people, personally and in business — have been living on money that they have nowhere near earned; that it is borrowed, leveraged, or what have you? I think there’s a whole lot of consumer credit out there that’s about to explode or could. It’s apparent that the value of things may be wildly overstated and there’s a correction going here.
Because there has to have been a lot of people and businesses playing with money they didn’t have, figuring it was going to be there at some point down the road. We know that’s what happened. It’s coming home to roost in some places. But another places, in other parts of the country, you can go out there and borrow. By the way, I just got a note. I want to set something straight. I just got a note, ‘You sound really down today.’ Do I sound down in there to you guys, today? I’m a little hoarse because, look, I was up late last night. I got back from San Antonio. I went up there to do a fundraiser for a friend. It was an in-and-out thing. I flew back and I had to work when I got back home. I just got a little sleep. I was consuming some adult beverage here after the debate, doing some of the analysis, watching this stuff. So I was up a little late last. My voice may sound a little tired. I assure you, I am not. I am a highly trained broadcast specialist.
Down in the dumps? What in the world do I have to be down about? (laughing) Well, I can answer that. It’s nothing personal, though. There’s not one thing in my personal life I’m down in the dumps about. Ahhhhh. I’ll tell you a little story. I’ll tell you a story. We were, a bunch of friends and I this morning, going back and forth in e-mail chats. And one of them is just in a real foul mood, just about to blow up, and made the observation at how surprised we’ve all been by President Bush in the second term. The first term was really great, and the second term, look at what’s happened here. We’ve got the immigration bill and the Medicare Part B bill and just the growth of government, and eventually we tried to get 20 million illegals get granted citizenship and so forth.
He said, ‘You know, it was just too bad. Look how surprised we are. The thing is if McCain wins, at least we won’t be surprised we’re getting screwed.’
I said, ‘Well, that’s really comforting.’
He said, ‘It is. It’s what we face here. It’s better to get screwed knowing you’re gonna get screwed than to be surprised when you’re getting screwed.’
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RUSH: Folks, do you realize that Barack Obama… (laughing) This is funny. I guess I’m in a little giddy mood here today. Things that ought to enrage me are making me laugh today. Obama is taking credit for things he had nothing to do with. ‘It was me! Two years ago I warned about this crisis. Four years ago I warned about that crisis.’ He wasn’t around to do anything about them. Told his wife about it, maybe, but he wasn’t around to do anything about the subprime mortgage crisis. The biggest one is, ‘I voted against the Iraq war in 2002,’ whatever it was. He voted against it before it started. He wasn’t in the Senate! He couldn’t have voted against it. He was calling all these people and advising them what to do? ‘I warned them about this. I said, ‘We should do that,” and of course, if something happens like lower employment rates or what have you. He says, ‘I had nothing to do with that. Bush did it. McCain did it. Wall Street did it. I’ve been warning about it for all these years.’ I want to go back to this Fred Barnes sound bite. I don’t know how many of you heard it live on TV last night. I played it here mere moments ago, and checked the e-mail. There’s outrage from people over this. So here it is again, Brit Hume, asking Fred Barnes for his thoughts on the quality of Republican arguments against the bailout bill.
BARNES: I think their arguments are — are idiotic. And myopic. It’s as if they’re operating from some ideology that says, ‘We cannot interfere with the free market by having government do more.’ Ronald Reagan would do this. Alexander Hamilton did it. When you have a financial crisis that threatens to blow up the economy and put America in a deep recession or worse, that’s when government’s supposed to act. Now, if you’re a Libertarian and you don’t believe in government, that’s something, but most Republicans are not Libertarians. They’re just nuts.
RUSH: ‘[M]ost Republicans are…just nuts,’ and then right after that we played the sound bite of Charles Rangel saying, ‘If it weren’t for Barney Frank, why, we’d be in a bigger mess than we’re in right now! Barney Frank and all…’ I need to ask Fred Barnes and Charlie Rangel some questions. Were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac free market enterprises? No, they were government-sponsored enterprise. Don’t tell me that a government-owned business is in the private sector. It’s an oxymoron; it can’t happen. So tell me Barnes and Rangel: Is the Community Reinvestment Act part of free enterprise? Tell me, Barnes and Rangel: Is the massive debt incurred by the federal government, which has resulted in all this foreign money coming into this country which is what we’re really propping up, a problem for the free market?
Did the free market really do all of this, or did your precious government do it? Do you, Barnes and Rangel, even understand the free market? Do you understand that the problem we face has been caused by politicians and people who love government using the power of government to distort the free market? Do you understand, Barnes, that a bunch of people who should never have been given loans got them and now they’re being allowed to stay in their houses and bankruptcy laws are going to be rewritten so that a judge will tell the lending institution what the interest rate’s going to be and what the principal payment is going to be, in bankruptcy cases? You guys, Barnes and Rangel: Do you understand the difference between policy, and regulations and bad policies and bad regulations?
Hey, Barnes? Rangel? Who is it that sets interest rates in this country? Who is it that determines the money supply? It’s the government! That’s an independent agency, right? It’s the government. You guys, Rangel and Barnes, you do this country a great disservice (particularly if you are presented as a conservative) when you suggest that the problem here is with the free market and the lack of regulations. This is just the laziness of thought. But a question for my old friend, Fred Barnes. Now that the bill’s going to pass — and it’s going to pass, folks; it’s going to pass — how do you intend to limit the power of the federal government now? They’re going to own the mortgage business. They’re going to own this; they own that. They own the education system.
They’re going to bail out California. How are we going to limit the power of the federal government? As a conservative, Fred, what is your proposal to limit the power of the federal government after all of this? Oh, I know what you’re going to do! You’re going to come out and support of the government getting involved in manmade global warming and nationalizing what’s left of the economy, all for ‘the middle class.’ Have you noticed how frequently Biden talked about the middle class last night and Obama doing the same thing? This is another way around class envy, or another route to class envy. So the theory — and I guess Fred Barnes signs on to this now — is you grow government. You have government take over everything that isn’t running right because government screwed it up in the first place.
So you have the people that broke it, ‘fixing’ it. (laughs) I’m still just…bedazzled by this, flabbergasted, dumbstruck! Not speechless. The people that broke it, the people that are interceding in the free market working (laughing) for the sake of the middle class — who they are harming! — have to now go in and fix it. Now, here comes Arnold, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He wants his $7 billion, and if he gets it, what’s to stop some other state? What’s to stop Kwame Kilpatrick from saying, ‘Hey, you know, Detroit needs ten million!’ Once you start the precedent, where does it stop? And then when it’s presented as a savior, as something that’s saving and working, why doesn’t everybody just say, ‘Give me some’? We’re gonna all do it for the middle class. Maybe in a year or two I’ll be able to come behind this microphone when Obama is president and say, ‘I warned you people two years ago,’ and I’ll be telling you the truth.
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RUSH: Larry in Pensacola, Florida, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Yeah, Rush, thanks. I want to talk about this bailout a little bit. I’m really upset. You know, I follow the markets and the economy very closely. I operate a small business. We may be in somewhat of a financial bind, but we’re not in a financial crisis, and in fact this morning, before the House even voted, you see where Wells Fargo and Citicorp are nearly coming to blows over the right to purchase Wachovia.
RUSH: Yes, and Wachovia is my bank!
CALLER: Yeah, and Wells Fargo is the darling, you know, the big bank that has been smart. They stayed out of trouble, you know, they’re the bank that Warren Buffett owns common stock in. He has for several years, and he really respects them. They would not be taking this kind of a risk were our whole capitalist financial system, you know, in dire straits.
RUSH: But wait a second, Larry. There’s something I want to say. We don’t have much time and I want to get to an interesting point about this. Because Wachovia thought they had a brokered deal, a government brokered deal with Citibank earlier in the week.
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: Wells Fargo comes in with a better offer from the private sector that doesn’t involve the government, and Wachovia says, ‘Hubba, hubba!’ The government says, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no! We want you to do this.’ The government is trying to make Wachovia take the worse deal.
CALLER: Yeah, and we heard yesterday, ‘Lay off of Wells Fargo stock.’ Well, you know, the general consensus — as proven by the fact the markets are tanking this morning after the House passed this turkey — is that, you know, it’s not going to help Wells Fargo. But in fact the guys at Wells Fargo — I did business with them for ten years — they know what they’re doing. They’re very, very analytical. This is a good deal for them.
RUSH: I know it is. They have been in business since the stage coach days. That’s how far back they go. It’s still their logo. They’re buying my bank, in California. I gotta run, Larry. It’s a great point.