Health Care, the UAW and the GOP

RUSH: Grosse Pointe, Michigan. This is Janet. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s splendid to talk to you again.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I’m calling because I wanted to point you in the direction of Ron Gettelfinger’s op-ed in the Detroit News today. You can find it at Real Clear Politics, I think. And it’s proof that you’re right. Very early proof.

RUSH: Well, tell me what it says.

CALLER: What it says, he’s advocating national health care. Now here’s how you were right, okay, because you said, number one, you can never let go of this. You said the UAW would end up running the auto companies. Okay, never, ever let go of that one, because America’s going to see what the UAW is in the next five to ten years, if it lasts that long. And the second thing you said just last week was that it’s not going to work with the UAW running the auto companies. And Ron Gettelfinger’s op-ed today is proof of that, because he knows exactly what has driven the auto companies to the brink of bankruptcy and now into bankruptcy, and that’s the health care costs and all of the retiree pensions —

RUSH: So what you’re saying is that Gettelfinger’s desire to off-load the ownership —

CALLER: On to you.

RUSH: — into his health care retirement trust fund —

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: — is an acknowledgement that —

CALLER: He cannot build cars for a profit and give all the benefits that they give to the UAW.

RUSH: True.

CALLER: And that’s why it’s going to fail. He’s not going to concede that. He’s going to try to make the American taxpayer —

RUSH: Wait. When you —

CALLER: — pick up.

RUSH: — when you say it’s going to fail, what is ‘it’?

CALLER: The car companies.

RUSH: Yeah, but United Auto Workers will not fail.

CALLER: Well —

RUSH: You realize there’s going to be a United Auto Workers union, if there are no autos being made?

CALLER: Yes. Yes. I don’t know what they’ll be making. They’ll be making something —

RUSH: And they’ll be getting their health care and their pension and their retirement.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: How in the hell can you have a United Auto Workers if they’re not making cars? Hello!

CALLER: Okay, Rush, but let’s —

RUSH: The point is that this is Barack Obama leveling out the unjust immorality of this country over all these decades.

CALLER: Correct.

RUSH: He thinks these people should have something for nothing because they have been raped, the union people and the disadvantaged, the downtrodden, the poor, have effectively been raped by American capitalism, and they have a lot of stuff coming due, a lot of stuff’s owed to them. Snerdley is looking at me with a look of total, stunned disbelief. If I’m wrong about this, I want you to explain something to me. How is it that in this whole process of saving Chrysler, 55% of the company goes to unions who only had 10% of the bonds? How are they given 55% if they only had a 10% stake in the debt of the Chrysler? I mean this whole thing is a thumb in the nose and a cramdown, if you will, of the new way American business is going to be structured if Obama has his hands in it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We just had a call from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, referencing a column by Ron Gettelfinger, who is the union thug who runs the UAW. They have 55% of Chrysler after the Obama cramdown here, and, of course, there’s all kinds of stories now about the bullying that went on. People are starting to speak out. The hedge fund people are starting to speak out and these people all voted for Obama. You have to understand that the vast majority of these people on Wall Street that are being treated like dirt voted for this guy, and now they are the ones scared to death of him and afraid to speak out, although a couple of them are. But you heard Gettelfinger say, (paraphrasing) ‘Yeah, we’ve got 55%,’ well, it was discussed in the column, the Detroit newspaper today. ‘Yeah, we’ve got 55%. But health care is what we care about and we’re gonna sell our 55% so that we can fund our health care trust,’ because really it’s all about health care, which is no big news. Rick Wagoner, when he was running General Motors essentially said, ‘I thought I was coming in to build cars. I learned when I became CEO that I have to administer a health care and pension fund.’ That’s what the job became.

So in light of this health care, another big bugaboo that has everybody captivated right now, and Dr. Frank Luntz is a Republican consultant on the language of politics. He’s a Republican version of George Lakoff, rhymes with, who advises the Democrats on language. And Luntz has sent a 26-page confidential report to Republicans on Capitol Hill that somehow The Politico ended up with from some Capitol Hill Republicans. This 26-page report from Dr. Luntz to Republicans is a warning to the Republicans that the American people want health care reform and that lawmakers need to try to avoid directly opposing President Obama. So a word doctor listened to by Republicans has a 26-page report telling Republicans the last thing you can do, do not oppose Obama on this. Here’s a quote from the 26-page report. ‘You simply must be vocally and passionately on the side of reform. The status quo is no longer acceptable. If the dynamic becomes ‘President Obama is on the side of reform and Republicans are against it,’ then the battle is lost and every word in this document is useless. Republicans must be for the right kind of reform that protects the quality of healthcare for all Americans. And you must establish your support of reform early in your presentation.’

Luntz goes on to say that the Republicans need to ‘Acknowledge the ‘crisis’ or suffer the consequences. If you say there is no healthcare crisis, you give your listener permission to ignore everything else you say. It is a credibility killer for most Americans. A better approach is to define the crisis in your terms. ‘If you’re one of the millions who can’t afford healthcare, it is a crisis.’ Better yet, ‘If some bureaucrat puts himself between you and your doctor, denying you exactly what you need, that’s a crisis.’ And the best: ‘If you have to wait weeks for tests and months for treatment, that’s a healthcare crisis.” This is what he’s advocating Republicans say in agreeing that there’s a crisis.

Now, a following section in the 26-page report says this: ‘The arguments against the Democrats’ healthcare plan must center around ‘politicians,’ ‘bureaucrats,’ and ‘Washington’ … not the free market, tax incentives, or competition. Stop talking economic theory and start personalizing the impact of a government takeover of healthcare. They don’t want to hear that you’re opposed to government healthcare because it’s too expensive (any help from the government to lower costs will be embraced.)’ So Republicans are being advised to embrace more government involvement to lower costs. Don’t say it’s anti-competitive. They don’t care about current limits to competition. ‘But they are deathly afraid that a government takeover will lower their quality of care — so they are extremely receptive to the anti-Washington approach. It’s not an economic issue. It’s a bureaucratic issue,’ is how Dr. Luntz is advising the Republicans to deal with Obama and the Democrats on health care. Don’t discuss economics, don’t discuss competition, make it about bureaucracy. Don’t mention economics, and don’t get into competition, and don’t say you’re opposed to government health care, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Maybe it’s come to that; I don’t know. But this is what the Republicans are being advised. One more thing from Dr. Luntz’s report: ‘Waste, fraud, and abuse are your best targets for how to bring down costs. Make no mistake: the high cost of healthcare is still public enemy number one on this issue — and why so many Americans (including Republicans and conservatives) think the Democrats can handle healthcare better than the GOP. You can’t blame it on the lack of a private market; in case you missed it, capitalism isn’t exactly in vogue these days. But you can and should blame it on the waste, fraud, and abuse that is rampant in anything and everything the government controls.’ So Republicans are being advised, ‘Hey, capitalism is not a big deal, it’s not really in vogue, so don’t start talking free markets and capitalism. Accept the premise that government has to do this, just go about it a different way, waste, fraud, abuse, blah, blah, blah, others you lose people.’

Now, there’s another way of putting this, and I think you might be able to apply this to a number of other issues as well. A lot of people on our side, we sit here and we agonize over how in the name of hell can all these Obama policies and Democrat policies be accepted, not rejected? And how come when we talk about great policies in the past that have worked and philosophy and so forth, how come it falls on deaf ears? Here’s the way of thinking about it, and reading Dr. Luntz’s advice to the Republicans sort of turned on a little light. How about this? Maybe this might make sense. I’m talking about liberal voters, Democrat voters, are not even concerned with policy. They have beliefs, beliefs that Republicans are racist, beliefs that Republicans are sexist, beliefs that Republicans are bigots, beliefs that Republicans want to screw the little guy. They don’t ever see policy that says this ’cause there is no policy or set of policies that causes this to happen. In other words, the Democrat PR machine has been very effective in creating just standard operating procedure beliefs that people have. Stereotypes, if you will, of Republicans. And while Democrats and liberal voters have beliefs about Republicans, they also have beliefs about Democrats.

What are those beliefs? That they’re compassionate, tolerant, love the little guy, only want the best for the country, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They believe it. It’s not anything that they have deduced from policy. So on the other side of this you have conservative Republicans arguing against this and trying to persuade these people who hold beliefs that they’re wrong by articulating policy. And maybe the theory is that somebody arguing policy to a believer has no chance. Take belief in God. Take belief in global warming. I mean it kind of works when you look at it with global warming. There’s no evidence, no scientific evidence. But people believe it. And believe it’s happening, for whatever reason. They believe the people, they believe Algore, they believe the pictures they’ve been shown about polar bears on diminishing glaciers, they believe it. They have beliefs. And you argue facts and policy, falls on deaf ears. It’s like Christians will not be talked out of believing in God by people who try to give them what they consider to be facts that refute it. Or, you can’t prove it so why do you think it?

I don’t think it, I believe it, it’s an article of faith with me that I believe in God and Jesus Christ. And you can try to talk to those people all day long, if you don’t believe it and you think they’re wrong, but you don’t get to first base with them with any evidence that you produce whatsoever, ’cause the belief is the belief. So we’re up against a bunch of people that have beliefs, and you might say that these people have a religious void in their lives that has been replaced by a belief in other things, a belief in Democrats, a belief in government, a belief in liberalism, whatever it is. This is why I frankly cringe when I see Republican alternatives here, ‘Okay, they believe in big government, we gotta say we do, too. They believe that only government can fix health care? Okay, we have to say that we agree with that, we just have to do it better.’ I don’t know how this is going to work. I don’t know how telling believers that, ‘Hey, I believe what you believe, too, but then at the same time saying, but I don’t think we ought to do it the way you believe we should,’ I don’t know how that works, especially when we don’t believe it.

I don’t think that government is the way to solve the health care problem. And if I was running for office, I don’t care what I was advised, I wouldn’t say so. This is what I meant yesterday about politicians having to pander. They go out and they listen and, ‘Okay, people say government needs to fix health care. Okay, that’s what the voters say and my job is to get reelected, or elected, so I gotta come up with a plan that government’s going to fix this.’ So I could never be a politician. I don’t think the government’s the solution. I happen to think government is the problem. I think government involvement has led us to this so-called crisis, and not just in health care, but in a number of things. But I will have to admit that arguing that with examples of policy success or failure to a bunch of people who just believe what they believe, with no need for evidence, by the way, if you believe something, you don’t have to have evidence. So it’s just a different way of expressing a sentiment that I’ve expressed earlier. You talk with people who don’t think, they feel. So if you’re a thinker, use logic, progressive equations to try to explain things, you don’t get to first base with people who are simply feeling something. And they certainly don’t want their feelings altered. If something makes them feel good and right, they don’t want to believe anything differently.