RUSH: Falls Church, Virginia, Ellen, welcome to the program, madam. Nice to have you here.
CALLER: Oh, thank you so much for taking my call, Rush. Maybe you addressed this in the past couple of days, but can you help me understand why John Boehner and Eric Cantor are supporting Hal Rogers’ appointment as chairman of the Appropriations Committee?
RUSH: Yeah, I think I can. Do you want to know why?
CALLER: Yes, I do. Please.
RUSH: Well, it’s about seniority, number one. Well, I don’t know if that’s even number one, but seniority is part of it. Also having people who you know and can trust to do your bidding are gonna be there. That’s why you put Fred Upton over at energy. I mean the substance —
CALLER: It’s his actions. Congressman Rogers is known as the prince of pork.
RUSH: Yep. Yep.
CALLER: And we sent a resounding message —
RUSH: Yep.
CALLER: — this past November.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: I wrote e-mails to Boehner and Cantor —
RUSH: Yep.
CALLER: — yesterday to say this is not what we voted for.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And it’s infuriating.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: We are finally going to be in charge once again —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — and I don’t want them to blow it.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: It makes us look like hypocrites.
RUSH: No, it doesn’t make you look like hypocrites.
CALLER: As Republicans it makes us look like hypocrites.
RUSH: Oh. You mean in the eyes — well, okay. But you’re really not. You didn’t vote for this. That’s what you’re angry about.
CALLER: Yes, I am.
RUSH: You didn’t vote for the king of pork or earmarks to be in charge of appropriations. Now, the way they’re handling this is, ‘We’ve talked to Hal and we made sure Hal understands here –‘ my point is if you have to talk to somebody long after they’ve been an adult to get their mind right about what happened in the election, it’s like if you gotta go talk to Fred Upton and explain, ‘Fred, you know, that lightbulb ban that you led, that really is not what we’re about here, we’re about free markets, and we don’t think the government ought to be in –‘ and Fred says he gets it now. Well, the fact that you have to explain it to Fred argues against putting Fred on the committee in the first place. I pointed out earlier in the program the Democrats have not changed their leadership, and neither have we. So you could arguably say that on the surface nothing appears to change.
Dennis, Columbus. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, how you doing? Hey, you know, for five generations my family has complained about taxes. I’ve heard my great grandfather talk about ’em, and for me, my employment history has covered five variations of the Congress and/or the presidency starting with Reagan. So I don’t care who’s in office, one way or another they’re digging deeper into my pocket. If you start with Reagan, while he didn’t raise taxes, what he did do was eliminate the credit card and car payment interest deductions, thereby influxing more money into the government coffers. You know what happened to Bush 41. He said, ‘No new taxes,’ and he got slaughtered. Clinton [sic] one time cut taxes. It’s either in ’03 or ’07, I forget. But he cut taxes for the bond market, and it just keeps going. I don’t know where it ends. Last year alone I paid almost $20,000 in federal income tax. I mean I’m supporting a family.
RUSH: Look, I think more and more people are starting to be educated as you are on this, and that’s why the election results last November are what they were. It’s gonna take time.