RUSH: Austan Goolsbee was the economic advisor for Barack Obama during the campaign. He was on
GOOLSBEE: This is as big of an economic crisis that we’ve faced in 75 years and we gotta do something that’s up to the task of confronting that. I don’t know what the exact number is, but it’s going to be a big number. It has to be. The point is to kind of get people back on track and startle the thing into submission.
RUSH: Stop the tape here. Stop the tape. Now, did you hear what Austan Goolsbee just said? ‘I don’t know what the exact number is, but it’s going to be a big number. The point is to kind of get people back on track and startle the thing into submission.’ Do these people think they can startle the United States economy into submission? I’m trying hard not to attach specific meaning to this ’cause if I do, I’m going to be really scared ’cause this is stupid! To look at the economy as something that has to be tamed, to look at the economy that has to be ‘startled into submission,’ as though the problem here is the economy’s running wild and we can’t control it, and we need a stimulus package that’s going to startle the economy into submission? We have to make the economy give up? Please tell me that they don’t look at it this way. (laughing) I fear that they do. We have to startle the economy into submission. They really think that they can do that, that that perspective is even valid. Here’s the rest of what he had to say.
GOOLSBEE: This era of dithering is gonna end. Starting January 20, Obama’s coming in. We’re out with the dithering. We’re in with a bang! That’s what it’s —
SCHIEFFER: But you’re talking about something in this neighborhood, in this ballpark?
GOOLSBEE: It has to be big. In the campaign, he was looking at a stimulus that was in the $175 billion range, and the economy’s gotten substantially worse since then. So, I mean, as I say, it’s going to be a number big enough that when they spell it out it looks like, ‘Oooo!’ you know, with that many zeros on it.
RUSH: Folks, grab on to something and hold tight. This is just… $175 billion now up to $700 billion. The annual budget deficit, the annual budget deficit this current fiscal year, which started October 1st, is going to be 1.3 to $1.4 trillion. We’ve never operated under that kind of deficit. All this money, all this bailout money, where’s it coming from? We are borrowing it. We are going further into debt. Does it not strike anybody as strange? Every day we wake up and there’s another $700 billion going over there, another $20 billion for that bank or for that company, another $50 billion or whatever for that auto business. Where does this stop? Does anybody ask where is this money coming from? Any of you who have been paying attention to presidential or electoral politics since the Reagan years, since the eighties, that’s when the liberals first started going nuts about the deficit. The deficit was a monster and it was going to eat us up and it was going to kill us, and that was when it was 200, 300, 400 billion dollars. We’re going to have a deficit, next year — this current year, fiscal year — of $1.4 trillion. Do you wake up and say, ‘Oh, wow, Democrat stimulus may reach $700 billion, $20 billion for Citibank.’
And have you noticed something about all this? I don’t want to be a downer here, folks, but let me mention something. We bailed out AIG and went, ‘Yay!’ (clapping) And then there was the next day. We found AIG was going to spas, having meetings. We found out they needed another $80 billion. Not so good. And then we bailed out $700 billion for the toxic asset, ‘Yay!’ (clapping) And then there was the next day where it didn’t help and people said we may need even more. ‘Yaaaay!’ (clapping) And then there was the next day when the secretary of the Treasury came out and said, ‘By the way, we’re not going to buy up the toxic assets and we’re not going to use this as we originally planned, and I can do it here because I have sole power here. We’re going to help try the liquidity markets and get the banks to start lending. ‘Yay!’ (clapping) Then the next day came and the banks hoarded the money and didn’t lend it. Then automobile companies: $25 billion, and the feds said, ‘Maybe,’ and there was no yay. Then the next day came, and the auto execs flew in on their jets. Boooooo! Hissssss! Then they went up and they got grilled and they said what they wanted. And the markets waited with eager bated breath. ‘Yay!’ (clapping)
Then there was the next day. Harry Reid and Pelosi went out there and said, (paraphrasing) ‘Screw you! We don’t have the votes. You’re going to make us look bad. We can’t continually have losing votes up here. So you guys, you got a term paper to do over the Thanksgiving holiday. You gotta get back to us on December 2nd, and you gotta come back with a plan that we can support for the money you want.’ People went, ‘Yay!’ (clapping) Then there was the next day. What’s the plan going to be? Nobody knew. Then the GM execs and the Ford execs announced that they’re not going to fly their corporate jets anymore. ‘Yay!’ (clapping) And then there was the next day. Then they announced they’re going to carpool from Detroit to Washington when they present their term paper, and some liberals are going, ‘Good, good,’ because liberals don’t like CEOs. They don’t like corporations. Then Obama has his big meeting today. ‘Yay!’ (clapping) He announced it yesterday. ‘Yay!’ (clapping) Then a meeting came today. There were no specifics on tax cuts or economic plans, just the announcement of some people. ‘Yay!’ (clapping) Then there was the next day.
My point is that after every one of these bailouts is announced — ‘Yay!’ (clapping) — then the next day comes and the next day and the day after that, we find out it didn’t work. After the first $700 bailout we find out that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are overdrawn, if you will, be to the tune of $30 billion each. ‘Yay… Oh, no! Booo. Hiss.’ Then the next day, bail ’em out, ‘Yay!’ (clapping) Then the next day came and we’re still foreclosing on people. How can this be? So every day they announce all this new money that we do not have, people go, ‘Yay!’ (clapping) and then the next day happens when all these monies and dollars don’t change anything, long faces set in.