RUSH: I have an interesting story here, ladies and gentlemen, from the New York Daily News. It’s from March 27th, but it’s interesting as it relates to what the Democrats are saying today about the budget. This is about Governor “Cooomo” and lawmakers reaching a New York state budget deal. “Gov. Cuomo and state lawmakers struck a deal Sunday for an on-time $132.5 billion budget that Mayor Bloomberg promptly slammed as a ripoff to the city.” But, “The agreement, five days before the March 31 deadline, calls for a 2% across-the-board cut in spending and plugs a $10 billion deficit. It does this without any broad tax hikes or borrowing…”
So Andrew Cooomo just agreed to across-the-board cuts in New York’s budget, and no tax increases. Does that mean that the elderly are going to go without food in New York? Does this mean that people are going to get kicked out of their homes? I mean, the governor of New York has just made across-the-board cuts, 2%! Now, we’ve heard Chris Van Hollen and Pelosi and Reid tell us of the disasters that await us in the Paul Ryan Republican budget; and here Andrew Cooomo has just done his version of their budget in New York, and I don’t hear any Democrats attacking Cooomo’s budget. (interruption)
No, I say “Cooomo” because that’s how Jesse Jackson pronounces it, and if I don’t pronounce it that way, they’ll accuse me of making fun of Jesse Jackson by pronouncing it right. If I pronounce it right, they accuse me of making fun of Jesse Jackson. Now, 2%. I’ll run the math here really quick: A 2% across-the-board cut of the federal budget, what would that equal? What’s our budget, three trillion or $3.3 trillion? What’s 2% of $3.3 trillion over ten years? (interruption) Okay, Paul Ryan’s budget spends $39 trillion over ten years, $3.9 trillion a year. I have to do the math real quick here. Once you get past seven zeros I kinda get lost.
So what’s 2% of $3.9 trillion? It’s $78 billion.
Back to the phones. Bob in Dallas, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s a great privilege. We’re pretty plainspoken here in Texas, and there was one inescapable point with the Democrats’ point about how the new Republican budget is “hurting seniors.”
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I hope they keep up with that because it’s real simple: Obamacare cut of what of a trillion dollars to seniors, and if that doesn’t hit home then the Republicans don’t have any talking points.
RUSH: Obama cut one half of a trillion dollars to seniors.
CALLER: Five hundred billion.
RUSH: Oh, the Medicare cuts.
CALLER: Yeah, the Medicare cuts.
RUSH: Yeah, except that he really didn’t. They’re added back in — and not only that, they were double counted. But here’s the thing on that. You’re absolutely right. The original Obamacare had a $500 billion cut in Medicare. Do you remember…? There were a few Democrats like Bernie Sanders and some wackos, but did Chris Van Hollen go out and talk about the end of the world when he heard that?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: No. Republicans didn’t, either, although more of them went out and talked about it than Democrats. But it just didn’t have the lifespan as it would have if a Republican had proposed it, right?
CALLER: Right. Nobody read it anyway, so…
RUSH: Well, we knew that. No, we were making a big deal out of that here. In fact, we made a big deal out of it twice because they were taking it out. They proposed $500 billion in Medicare “cuts” only to bring the cost in under a trillion dollars, and then they added it back in later. They double counted it. I remember talking (well, it was an e-mail) to a well-known liberal commentator who’s been vacillating on Obama since the beginning, and this well-known liberal commentator was just appalled, appalled that the Democrat Party would propose any legislation — particularly a health care bill — that would cut $500 billion of Medicare.
I had to assure this liberal commentator: “Look, they’re not gonna cut anything. When this thing all ends up, there aren’t gonna be $500 billion in Medicare cuts. It isn’t gonna happen. It’s a budget trick here to get the whole cost in under a trillion dollars. It will be back in. You wait and see,” and the liberal commentator was relieved. There was some concern, but it wasn’t something that occupied a lot of attention as it was. Here, Ryan hadn’t even proposed that, and look at the conniption fit that they are having over his budget. Anyway, Bob, I appreciate the call, I really do. I’m up against it on time, however. The constraints of the programming format necessitate me ending this broadcast segment.
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