The Mr. Big of “Default Deniers”

RUSH: Paul Ryan. Yesterday, Economic Club of Chicago, brief little sound bite here.

RYAN: To an alarming degree, the budget debate has degenerated into a game of green-eyeshade arithmetic with many in Washington, including the president demanding that we trade ephemeral spending restraints for large, permanent tax increases. I call this the shared scarcity mentality. The missing ingredient, of course, is economic growth.

RUSH: Exactly right, exactly right. You got the doomsayers here and the latest on the debt ceiling is now default deniers. Have you heard this? This is shameless from Politico: “They are the newest breed of government skeptics, the swelling ranks of Republicans who don’t believe the Obama administration when it says a failure to raise the debt limit will prove catastrophic. And they stand ready to make negotiations over raising the cap on debt as grueling as possible, leaving Treasury officials and Wall Street more nervous than ever that the country could suffer an unprecedented default, with consequences no one can predict.”

Well, hey, if nobody can predict the consequences, then how are the media and the rest of the Democrat Party so certain they’re gonna be dire? If you can’t predict it. “The suspicion, which once flourished only on the conservative outskirts of economic circles, has seeped into the mainstream in recent weeks, gaining broader acceptance among establishment Republicans even as the administration issues increasingly dire warnings.”

Now, by conservative outskirts of economic circles, The Politico means the right wing’s lunatic fringe. This, my friends, a prime example of the left’s textbook propaganda technique. This reporter is comparing Republicans who are questioning the need to raise the debt sealing with Holocaust deniers. There is actually a new term.

It’s just like there are global warming deniers, climate change deniers, you know, connect ’em, relate ’em to the Holocaust deniers. Now default deniers. The conservatives on the outskirts of economic circles who don’t believe that default will lead to dire consequences are now default deniers. Why is there even a debt limit if it would be catastrophic if it were not raised whenever it suits Congress to raise it? Were the legislators who originally enacted this back in 1917 when the nation was at war, were they also like Holocaust deniers in their refusal to see what havoc they were wreaking? I mean if you’re gonna establish a debt limit you are by definition establishing, uh-oh, a period where it can all fall apart if the limit is exceeded. Were Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and almost every other Democrat in Congress acting like Holocaust deniers when they voted against raising a debt limit back in 2006?

Remember, they all ran against raising the debt limit because back in 2006 their campaign playbook mandated that Republicans be called irresponsible profligate spenders. They were all suggesting we not raise the debt limit. I don’t recall one media person criticizing them, calling them debt deniers, default deniers. I don’t recall the media chastising them at all for this. Okay, well, let me just tell you, folks, I, El Rushbo, raise both hands, I am the Mr. Big of the default deniers. Today I claim the mantle. I proudly and honestly come to you today as the Mr. Big of the default deniers. We will not default on anything. And moreover, it is more likely that the country’s creditworthiness would go up around the world since we would finally be doing something to address our out-of-control spending and indebtedness.

If we were not to raise the debt limit, we would be perceived around the world as serious for a change and responsible for a change. Otherwise we are headed for junk bond status, and the only people who want that, junk bond status for US debt rating are the people who seek to fundamentally transform this country as it was founded. Keeping the debt ceiling will just force the government to finally do some real spending cuts. The argument here is for keeping the debt ceiling where it is and not raising it. We have enough revenue coming in from taxes to surface the debt. That is why there will not be any default. Even some in the regime before this latest playbook was employed, as recently as last week or the week before, let it slip that we could go on with barely a ripple through August or October, even, without raising the debt limit. The onus is on them.

This is the fourth or fifth time in four years, three years, that they have come to us, the American people, with this Armageddon, apocalyptic crisis that if we don’t act today our lives as we know it are over, our country as we know it is over, our reputation as it’s known is over, the financial system of the world is over. Everything’s over unless we raise the debt limit. And the truth is not raising the debt limit is the single most intelligent responsible thing we could do, particularly for Republicans who are seeking the White House on the basis of getting this out-of-control spending under control.

For Republicans who are telling us that they hear us on all of this debt and all the irresponsible spending, and it’s time to start talking trillions instead of billions of real cuts, then why the hell would you raise the debt ceiling in the middle of all of that as an agenda? You wouldn’t. You would keep the debt ceiling where it is and use that as a weapon to ensure against additional profligate, wasteful, irresponsible spending, which is what has been going on for way too long here. And it does have a negative impact on the future of every American: born, unborn, and not yet even conceived.

Now, The Politico, where this default denier story appears, Carrie Budoff Brown, the authorette, apparently The Politico hasn’t noticed that Europe and much of the world are slashing their budgets. Apparently they are a bunch of default deniers who have seen the light in Europe who understand they can’t go on as they were. They have discovered that Keynesian economics doesn’t work unless destruction is the objective. By the way, look at Canada. These people are coming out of their recessions a lot faster than we are. Maybe we should call them fiscal responsibility deniers. You people at The Politico, you are fiscal responsibility deniers. Mr. Geithner, you and the members of your regime who are lying through your teeth again about the apocalyptic nature of this Armageddon we face, we are not default deniers. You are fiscal responsibility deniers.

Play sound bite 21 again, Paul Ryan. He’s exactly right. We are mired in the whole concept of shared sacrifice. No economic growth. What ought to be on the table is discussions of shared prosperity. Here again Paul Ryan, the Economic Club of Chicago yesterday.

RYAN: To an alarming degree, the budget debate has degenerated into a game of green eye shade arithmetic with many in Washington, including the president demanding that we trade ephemeral spending restraints for large, permanent tax increases. I call this the shared scarcity mentality. The missing ingredient, of course, is economic growth.

RUSH: There’s a piece in the stack here, Bruce Bartlett, who used to be a fan of this program, and then something happened, and he’s not a fan of this program. He used to be an economist with ties to the Reagan administration. But something happened, I don’t know what it was, but he’s not anymore. But he’s got a piece in the New York Times, the economics section, explaining the science of everyday life. He’s run some numbers, and essentially to cover Social Security and Medicare obligations, really cover them, meaning every obligation is met, every taxpayer in this country would have to pay a 61% rate.

In other words, whatever amount you paid on your federal income tax return this year would need to be 61% now and forever to pay all the Social Security and Medicare benefits that have been promised over and above the payroll tax and what it generates. Now, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. This number exists in every federal budget as a potential future rate. I’ve seen this rate as high as 78% in some budgets back in the nineties, to cover future obligations. This is where Ryan comes in. This is why Ryan’s Medicare proposal is important. To cover every obligation on behalf of every recipient, every taxpayer, 61% more now and forever than what your total federal income tax was last year.

Now, what are the politics of that? What’s the likelihood that that’s going to happen? What Ryan is saying is this is what the regime is aiming at, this is what they want, shared decline, shared sacrifice, the end of prosperity. That is what Obama’s all about and the Democrat Party. That’s why it’s silly to in any way make a statement that undercuts what Ryan is trying to do if you’re Republican.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Paul Ryan this morning on CNBC on the Squawk Box. The guest host, the business correspondent, Andrew Ross Sorkin said to Paul Ryan, “How much pressure are you getting from people on Wall Street who say, ‘You know, that August 2nd deadline, if it actually gets there, you’re actually gonna feel it in the markets weeks before then’?”

RYAN: I talk to lots of bond traders. I talk to lots of people like Gross and Druckenmiller and economists. They all say, whatever you do, make sure you get real spending cuts, because you want to make sure that the bondholder has confidence that the government’s gonna be able to pay them. You’re putting the government in a better position —

SORKIN: So that’s more important —

RYAN: — to pay them on their bonds —

SORKIN: That’s more important than getting a deal before August 2nd?

RYAN: Yes, it is. That’s what I’m hearing from most people, which is, if a bondholder misses a payment for a day or two or three or four, what’s more important, that you’re putting the government in a materially better position to be able to pay their bonds later on.

RUSH: Look, what Ryan is saying, and it’s really simple, if we don’t fix the mess we’re in nobody is gonna be worth anything at some point. That is where we’re headed. And they’re trying to create this panic on the debt limit. Deniers, default deniers. Here’s our buddy Jacob Tapper, last night on ABC’s World News Tonight, this is a portion of his report.

TAPPER: Republicans in Congress are refusing to raise the debt ceiling without slashing spending. If the US even came close to defaulting on its debt, interest rates would skyrocket, the stock market would plummet as with the gross domestic product, and there would be immediate layoffs.

RUSH: Okay, now get ready for this times a thousand as we get closer to August. The pressure on the Republicans is going to be immense. Default deniers, do you want to be responsible for the United States ending its run as the economic engine of the world and the leader of the world? It’s the same tactic that they used to get TARP; same tactic they used to get the Porkulus and spending bills. It’s a catastrophe; it’s Armageddon; it’s the end of the country; it’s the end of the world as we know it unless we act soon. And as it was then, and as it is now, that’s not the case.

END TRANSCRIPT

*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.