RUSH: Obama just signed a couple of executive orders out there and with the signing of these executive orders, the four-year campaign to reelection in 2012 has begun. This order freezing the pay of his staff is entirely symbolic, as if they would be entitled to a pay raise any time soon anyway. So he’s going to freeze the pay of his staff, and this is all calculated here to make him look like he’s setting a new era of ethics and it’s all calculated to make it look like he’s concerned about you. While you’re having economic trouble, his staff is going to have a pay freeze, who knows what their starting salaries are in the first place. They might have been built up over normal anyway and then frozen. We don’t know. He also signed an executive order prohibiting lobbying for people in his administration. I don’t know how many presidents have done that but he certainly is not the first. But it’s all form. It’s symbolism over substance here and the economic aspects of this are designed to make you think, ‘Okay, he’s getting serious about the economy. He’s going to freeze the pay of his staff.’ It’s sort of like raising taxes on the rich.
Let me ask you Marie in Discovery Bay and the rest of you who have small businesses, let’s say Obama announces today he’s going to raise taxes on the rich, and he’s going to do it by suspending the Bush tax cuts. Is that going to give people any more money to come by your shop? Is it going to give people any more money to come by and exchange their dollars for your goods or services if, hypothetically, he raises taxes? I don’t think so. By the same token, how does freezing the pay of his staff affect your business? How does it affect people opening up their pocketbooks and walking into your small business?
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RUSH: Let’s see, this is — da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da — where he tells his staff that they’re not there to advance their careers or their ideology.
OBAMA: We are here as public servants and public service is a privilege. It’s not about advantaging yourself. It’s not about advancing your friends or your corporate clients. It’s not about advancing an ideological agenda or the special interests of any organization. Public service is simply, and absolutely, about advancing the interests of Americans. The men and women in this room understand this, and that’s why you’re here.
RUSH: Every president says this. ‘It’s not about us; it’s about you.’ (sigh) This is PR staging. This is part of the creation here: ‘We’re going to be ethical pure. Our people don’t care about their own advancement.’ There’s no person in the world who doesn’t care about their own advancement! Everybody taking this job hopes to parlay it in the private sector for big bucks down the road. It’s the way of the world. They should. I’m not being critical of it. He’s telling us he’s got people that aren’t going to do that? That is BS. Now on the first day of work, his staff, Obama is freezing their pay.
OBAMA: During this period of economic emergency, families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington. That’s why I am instituting a pay freeze on the salaries of my senior White House staff. Some of the people in this room will be affected by the pay freeze.
RUSH: What, were they expecting a raise on the first day? So Washington’s gonna tighten its belt. Your belt is not going to get looser. We’re all going to be in tough economic times, Marie! Obama just said the way he’s going to deal with this is his White House staff isn’t going to get a raise, and your business, why, you’re supposed to feel much better about it. Don’t fall for this.
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RUSH: Now, you wouldn’t believe what I just saw during the break here. I was standing in Snerdley’s office, watching TV. He’s got all the networks on and we were watching PMS, and they do a videotape recap of Obama signing his new executive orders, the ones promising new ethics. His staff, ‘They’re not there to improve their own lives. They’re not there to advance their own ideology,’ which is the biggest crock you could possibly hear. They are there for both. That’s why they are in government! That’s why they wanted to win the election. They believe in their ideology, and they want to advance it, and of course they’re trying to improve their lives; who doesn’t? But all this is designed to make you think they’re tightening their belts. That’s supposed to make you feel better, but it’s not loosening your belt.
And then after announcing the pay freeze and all, then he starts talking about the ethics and so forth and his people aren’t going to lobby, and they cut from that to hearings of Timothy Geithner who failed to pony up 34 or $42,000 on his taxes, and he’s nominated to be Treasury secretary. And then they cut from that to hearings on Hillary Clinton, who’s got more conflicts of interest than you could… You could stack ’em all up from here to the moon. You’d have to go beyond the moon if you wanted to stack up all the conflicts of interest. So right there, while promising one thing, we cut to two nominees who give the lie to it all. But do you think anybody is noticing this? No, because it just isn’t about this.