Democrats Smile: October Surprise!

RUSH: President Bush is now making remarks thanking the House, praising the House for passing the bailout bill. One of the things the president said was that this is now going to enable the banks to start lending money again. Now, they tried this (I mentioned this to you) in Europe. They tried this. I mentioned this to you yesterday. They tried this in Europe earlier this week. Some banks said, ‘We need some liquidity,’ so the central banking organization over there blew in $150 billion, and the banks did not lend it. They deposited it. They invested it. They’re holding it for when times improve. I will be interested to see if indeed the banks start lending money after all of this. They keep calling it a $700 billion bailout bill. We know it’s $850 billion because they added $150 billion in the Senate.

Let me tell you why I’m laughing. I shouldn’t be, but I have to tell you why I’m laughing. During the break at the top of the hour, we had Fox on in Snerdley’s office and they have Pelosi, Barney Frank, Jim Clyburn, Steny Hoyer, and some other Democrat, and they just got the biggest smiles on their face, and there’s not a Republican to be seen. She’s taking questions from the press, and they’ve got the bill in a big blue box, open to the signature page. They’re passing it around. They’re showing each other the passed, signed version of the bill, and they’re just yucking it up like you can’t believe. I’m saying, ‘You know what?’ We had the sound down. We couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I know exactly what they were saying.

‘We screwed ’em big time! October surprise, hello. We screwed ’em again,’ meaning the Republicans, and there wasn’t a Republican anywhere around. ‘We did it! We pulled it off, October Surprise.’ They had the biggest smiles on their faces. I have never seen people smiling so much over the passage of a simple piece of legislation, and they were not smiling because of how tough this was. They were smiling because of what it is. They just got themselves totally exonerated from any culpability in this. No wonder Barney Frank is smiling. The only thing missing was Chris Dodd. They shoulda brought him over from the Senate and showed him the signed bill.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Brian in Freeland Park, Florida, it’s nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Rush, that’s Fruitland Park, Florida.

RUSH: What is it, Fruitland?

CALLER: Yeah, Fruitland Park, close to Lady Lake.

RUSH: Fruitland, Freeland, sorry.

CALLER: No problem. Listen, this bill that just passed probably just buried me. I’ve been working really, really hard. I’ve got a medical condition I’m trying to pay for. I’m self-employed and I’ve been robbing Peter to pay Paul, and originally what I was going to call you with was that my situation is when I did my loan three years ago, it was based off of a credit score through a lending guy, not the actual bank. All I needed was for the bank — and I’m sure there’s a lot of other people out there like me — to make an adjustment, not on the principal but rather the interest. To me, I don’t understand why the banks don’t do that. It would stop the foreclosures.

RUSH: I’m having trouble. You lost me, because you said this is going to wipe you out.

CALLER: Well, the bill will, yeah, because now the bank’s going to look at me if I’m 35 to 40 days behind like I’ve been running for the last four or five months — always able to make it but make it late — now they’re going to look at me and say, ‘Hey, we need to speed this process up and just get rid of him altogether.’

RUSH: Oh, before anything goes into effect. Let’s wait and see if that happens. I’m going to have to find the date certain that this goes into effect. The president’s gonna sign it, but I gotta find when it goes in effect to see if that’s going to be a factor. Brian, thanks for the phone call. I appreciate it.