RUSH: (heartily laughing) Obama’s blue ribbon deficit panel can’t even come to an agreement. They couldn’t even agree on their own plan, folks.
JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny South Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!
RUSH: I mean for the last week everybody has been breathlessly awaiting whatever this bunch comes up with, right? For the last month they’ve been waiting half breathlessly. This week everybody has been panting eagerly awaiting whatever magic will come from Obama’s blue ribbon deficit reduction commission. This is Alan Simpson and Irksome Bowles. And they could not even agree on their own plan which just goes to show, ladies and gentlemen, that what we have proposed, 10% across the board is the only way to go, everything else is just gonna be argued ad infinitum. Just cut everything across the board 10%. It can be done. It’s easily done. I mean, if you just ignore the caterwauling, ignore the screaming, ignore the yelling, ignore the people who ostensibly will be in pain, because everybody’s gonna get cut 10%.
Anyway, great to have you. Open Line Friday. Rush Limbaugh behind the Golden EIB Microphone for yet another excursion into broadcast excellence. Here’s a phone number. 800-282-2882. E-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
Now, you people on the phones out there, you’re not on the phones yet ’cause Snerdley hasn’t started answering. I am zapped. I am worn out. The clock went off — well, the clock doesn’t wake me up, the sun wakes me up — but I just could not get out of bed. I mean it was a struggle. I was not up all night again. I went to bed relatively early, midnight. I could put my head down on this desk right now and fall asleep, and if I were like half the people working in this country I’d have called in sick. But I’m here doing Open Line Friday. Yep, the commission members, they needed 14 votes, and they got 11. They needed 14 votes to agree on this plan, and the commission members said that by winning over an 11-7 majority on the panel for its blueprint that they had defied expectations. (laughing) I mean, gee. They failed and they defied expectations. If this isn’t Washington speak I don’t know what is. You talk about having low expectations. The expectations here were to fail, and they did, and they’re clapping their hands over it.
Andy Stern voted no, the SEIU guy. You had Dick Turban on there. He voted ‘yes.’ Regardless, here’s the way the Wall Street Journal blurbed it in an alert. ‘The deficit cutting plan by President Obama’s budget commission failed to win the 14 votes needed to trigger congressional action. The plan won support from 11 of 18 members. Fourteen were needed for official approval. Commission co-chairman Erskine Bowles declared victory, nevertheless.’ Geez, I wish life were that easy. Yeah, Snerdley, can you imagine if it ever happened here? Hey, folks, we lost half our audience in the latest ratings report, and we’re winning. Can you imagine the chutzpah — (interruption) what, Snerdley? Well, no, I know we can’t imagine it happening, no, of course not, and B, it wouldn’t be our response. That’s my whole point. If it did happen I wouldn’t say, ‘Hey, we’re winning big. We just lost half of everything.’ So Irksome Bowles here declares victory, ‘saying the panel’s nonpartisan deliberations showed it’s possible to have an ‘adult conversation’ about cutting the deficit.’ What was this adult conversation worth? Who’s buying the drinks? That’s something Simpson Babe’s always talking about, who’s buying the drinks.
‘Considering the breadth of the recommendations — ranging from an overhaul of the tax code to aggressively cutting spending to widespread changes to the Social Security program — many economists concluded the commission served its purpose.’ (laughing) Jeez. I wish it were this easy. The commission served its purpose? This commission was a fraud from the get-go. Any commission that has as its objective a plan to reduce the deficit and does not even include Obamacare in the discussion cannot be taken seriously. Adult conversation, why those are nothing new, we had plenty of those during the Clinton years. They generally involve pizza deliveries and then trips to the study off of the Oval Office. I mean this whole thing is Saturday Night Live skit material. This whole Wall Street Journal report declared victory. Many economists concluded the commission served its purpose by having an adult conversation.