RUSH: I want to start out here today with a little bit of a lesson. This is a story in the Daily Caller.com, Chatsworth Osborne Jr.’s website, and this story I dare say will never see the light of day in the Drive-By Media. But here we go: “According to a recent Sachs/Mason Dixon poll –” and Mason-Dixon’s a credible bunch “– obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller, a large majority of the public backs an amendment to the Constitution requiring a balanced budget, a reform some lawmakers say is on the table in the debt ceiling debate.”
Does that surprise you? Does me. We’re talking the US Constitution. Sixty-five percent of the public supports a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution, 65%. Only 27% oppose; 8% are undecided. Eighty-one percent of Republicans support the idea. Sixty eight percent of independents support the idea. “Even a plurality of Democrats, the party that typically resists spending cuts, back the amendment by a 45 percent to 44 percent margin. ‘Americans are concerned about our nation’s deepening deficit and as a result, an overwhelming number support a balanced budget amendment,’ said Alia Faraj-Johnson, Partner and Executive Vice President of Ron Sachs Communications, the organization that commissioned the poll. A large plurality — 46 percent to 21 percent — also say they would be ‘more likely’ to vote for a presidential candidate who backs the amendment.”
Folks, I know it is a tough thing to resist the media onslaught every day. It’s tough. Even I, El Rushbo, have to consciously figuratively slap myself in the face sometimes to avoid getting caught up in the everyday media narrative. The everyday media narrative is that Obama’s overwhelmingly popular; the vast majority of the American people want a socialist welfare state; the vast majority of the American people are unconcerned and uninformed about budgets, spending, and debt. The overall media narrative each and every day is that liberalism is preferred and actively supported by a large margin. That’s the everyday mantra and narrative. And of course accompanying that is the notion that all of us are a small minority, really disconnected from the mainstream of our country, that we’re just oddballs and our concerns are so old-fashioned and irrelevant and in fact even sometimes embarrassing.
That’s the attempt every day, I don’t care what the story is. I don’t care whether it’s foreign policy news, domestic news, cultural news, whatever it is, the overriding narrative and template that I just cited is what guides the media every day. A great illustration of it was that paragraph excerpt from that hapless Rolling Stone piece on Roger Ailes and Fox yesterday, which said that 31% of Fox viewers actually believe scientists who say that there’s a debate about global warming. I mean that’s one of the greatest illustrations yet. Those realities, these liberal lies, the whole leftist agenda, lie after lie after lie, is so etched as unalterable truth, that anybody who opposes it is an oddball, kook, very weird, small in number. It’s just the opposite.
We need to be positive about our agenda. We need to be enthusiastic about it. We need to be unapologetic. The public supports our agenda, 65% balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the US, and there are other items, other policies that poll similar to this in terms of support. The public supports conservatism. The public lives their lives, a majority of them, as conservatives. It’s also true that conservatism scares the left and liberalism more than any other force on the planet. And conservatism is a force. It is a powerful force and it frightens the left more than anything else, more than any other enemy.
The public, the voting public, the people who make this country work support cutting spending in big numbers. They support reforming entitlements in big majorities. They support limiting government in big majorities. The Republican leadership needs to learn this. The Republican leadership needs to accept this, happily so, and then run on these issues. They need to have press events every day. We hear next to nothing from the Senate leadership and the entire leadership is mostly reacting to liberal attacks or liberal policy premises rather than going on offense, as of course I frequently mention here. It’s an oft repeated refrain on this program, always on defense, reacting to their premise rather than going on offense and establishing our own.
One of the areas, for example, that I think could qualify as a subject for everyday press conferences, the concept that lowering taxes increases revenue. Now, you and I know this, we believe it, we’ve lived it, we know it’s the truth. We also know that there’s an entire political party and ideological apparatus devoted to convincing people it’s not true. Democrat Party, liberalism, high taxes, they also have people believing that they’re concerned about raising revenue. They’re not. If you really want to raise revenue to the Treasury, you lower taxes on all activity that generates revenue: corporate capital gains, personal income. You lower the rates and get out of the way. It works every time it’s tried. There’s a point, by the way, where you can’t lower rates and raise revenue, but we’re not at that point yet. That’s what the Laffer Curve is. It shows you where you reach that point. Art Laffer. But we’re not there yet.
We got plenty of room to lower rates, still create that’s worth shouting every day, particularly in this climate. It’s worth getting behind every day. It would establish and serve to educate and inform while making the policy point at the same time. Now, the Washington Post, of all places, has published a poll just a few days ago which showed the American people are far more worried about borrowing more money, raising the debt ceiling, than they are about defaulting on the debt. We reported that, we shared it with you from the Washington Post. So the public is with us. The public is us. We are the public. We are and represent a majority of the thinking in the country.
So again, we need to not get depressed or get down about our agenda because the public supports it. It’s waiting to be tapped by a clever, engaged candidate.
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RUSH: So during the break, the usual complaints: “Okay, so you say 65% of the American people support a balanced budget amendment, and that you conservatives have 60% support and all these other issues? What are these other issues? I noticed you didn’t mention any.” All right, you want me to mention ’em? Abortion. Gallup poll yesterday: 61% the American people are opposed to abortion. Immigration issues, closing the border. That’s easy. Well over 60% of the American people oppose amnesty. Well over 60% of the American people oppose the Obama-Democrat Party solution for our immigration problem. They oppose it, clearly.
Obamacare, that number is close to 70% now of the American people who oppose Obamacare. Cutting government spending. Well, we just had the balanced budget amendment: 65%. Lowering taxes? Does somebody want to show me the poll that shows 55 or 60% of the American people favor raising taxes? You can’t. That poll doesn’t exist. Repealing regulations? Speaking of which, there’s a great piece today. I’m gonna get to this in the first hour of the program today. It’s actually a column by a Yale professor who ended up on a train or an airplane with a small business owner, and the Yale professor said, “You know, this is really worth my while. We professors deal in the abstract. We don’t deal with human dynamism.”
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RUSH: Appleton City, Missouri. This is Dexter. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Well, thank you. Glad to be here. You were talking about getting the amendment to the Constitution for balanced budget, and I don’t believe there is any agenda that has anything to do with that. I believe that the Americans are tired of having to pay their own bills and keep going the way they’re supposed to and get the government doesn’t have — the government isn’t held to — the same high standard that the American people are.
RUSH: Oh, amen to that.
CALLER: And so I don’t think there’s an agenda. I don’t think it’s a Democrat thing; I don’t think it’s a conservative thing. I think it’s an American thing. We’re just tired of the government spending, spending, spending and —
RUSH: Yeah, but I wasn’t trying to say there’s an agenda. What I was trying to say is here’s a poll out of the blue that shows that 65% of the American people support a balanced budget amendment. Now, to me, whether there’s an actual movement to do that, not my point. My point on this is that the media, liberal, which we know, is that it’s just another example, 65% of the American people support a balanced budget. That means support reducing spending. It means support not raising the debt limit. It means supporting all kinds of fiscal sanity, 65%. My point is that the public supports all of these things. The public supports exactly what you’re talking about, cutting spending, reforming entitlements, limiting government. Of course we’re held to standards the government doesn’t hold to itself. But my point is the Republican leadership needs to run on these issues, and they need to have press events every day touting these issues. They don’t need to be ashamed of what they believe.It’s time to stop thinking they’re in the minority. It’s time to stop acting defensive about what they believe, because these issues are majority issues in terms of public opinion in the country.
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