RUSH: Matthew in Fort Worth, Texas, you’re up first today. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call, Rush.

RUSH: You bet, sir.

CALLER: I’m a longtime listener. I consider myself a Rush Baby. I’ve been listening to you about 20 years now.

RUSH: Wow. I love it.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Got a couple of quick things on your first hour. You were talking about education, the student loans and all that. I think you’re absolutely right, there’s the false image that’s portrayed that if we don’t go to college, that we’re gonna be failures.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: You know? That we can’t just go out there and do like our fathers and our grandfathers did and just be true entrepreneurs and, you know, follow our dreams like —

RUSH: Exactly right.

CALLER: — something you talk about a lot.

RUSH: You don’t have a prayer.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: You don’t have a chance.

CALLER: And I think the other thing that’s associated with that is there’s this big social status that is attached to going to college. It kind of starts a class warfare like we’re kinda talking about here with what’s going on with the Wall Street deal. Another point I wanted to make was that the left is using this dream and this Mecca, as I would call it, of going to college, they try to get all these people in there and then they indoctrinate a lot of them with these false —

RUSH: Yep. That’s one of the primary purposes, one of the main objectives on the left, is controlling education. No question about it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Who’s next? Tim in Dana Point, California. Great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Good morning, Rush. Ninety-nine point nine percent dittos from a Vietnam vet. Anyway, my issue this morning is kind of on behalf of the voters, Republicans, Democrats, and across the board is that I wonder what the love quotient, perhaps, would be between the college students and the parents if they were to say Obama’s got this great idea, all you have to do is cosign your house on behalf of me for my education, and you know that you owe it to me, I’m your kid, and I will pay you back, and that way we would put the onus on the people themselves. So let’s see then what would happen with the voters in looking at Obama’s prospects if he has to reword this bill which will not pass through the Congress and see what happens then.

RUSH: I lost you. Are you suggesting that parents be forced to cosign their kids’ student loans and then if that happened, there would be far few student loans taken out?

CALLER: I believe so.

RUSH: Okay, so if there are fewer student loans taken out because parents would not want to extend themselves to cosign something $210,000, for example, then what? Fewer people would end up going to college.

CALLER: That’s true. But somebody else would have to pay, other than the people that don’t have any assets or don’t have any kids or they pay their taxes all year round —

RUSH: That’s what’s happening now.

CALLER: I realize. So if they were forced to cosign, I would bet that they do in fact have a lot less people going to school, and then let’s see what else Obama has up his sleeve next to try to circumvent that issue.

RUSH: Well, that’s an interesting thought. Make the parents — of course, you know, now you’re introducing something that is very, very foreign, a very foreign concept in 2011, and that is that parents are responsible for their kids. That would be something that, a lot of parents would, “What? I’m responsible for my kids’ education? Hell with that.” But if the parents cosign — what am I missing here? (interruption) Instead of all the other taxpayers, the parents cosign a car loan, parents cosign on this, why not the student loan? Well, true, they get to stay on the health care, but they have to pay for that. That was something they didn’t expect to be part of the deal. They thought they were gonna be allowed to stay on their parents’ health care policy at no charge to age 26. They didn’t realize that it was going to cost them. Remember, now, parents are only responsible for kids until they are 26 under health care. So co-signing for student loans, yeah, probably would be a lot fewer people going to college.

Mark in Mobile, Alabama, hi, great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Mega dittos from the buckle of the Bible Belt, Rush. I want to talk about the student loan program.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: I am a Rush Baby. I started listening at the age of 15 when I took my first government class in high school, and this student loan program is seductive. I was lucky enough to go to a conservative college. I graduated with $50,000 in student loans. When this program came out, I did the math and said, “I’m gonna save about 150 to $200 a month,” and I started thinking, wow, this is great. After all this time of them giving handouts to everyone, finally something comes to me and then it hit me. Wait a second, I’m gonna pay for this either way. I’m either gonna pay for it now or I’m gonna pay for it in taxes. I’m putting money in my right hand pocket to take it out of my left. And the goal I believe, and you certainly can tell me more on this, but I think they’re just trying to get the middle class to be dependent on them as well. They’ve already got the lower socioeconomic status. Now they’re trying to get the middle class.

RUSH: Oh, there’s no question that that’s what this is about. That’s been going on for a while. The middle class is on the hooks long before the student loan program came along.

CALLER: Well, that may be. I wasn’t on the hook, though, and now they’re trying to get me on the hook as well. And that scares me. I’m afraid of it’s gonna buy him a lot of votes in 2012.

RUSH: How are they trying to get you on the hook?

CALLER: By saying that we’re gonna lower the amount of your monthly payments, we’re going to forgive your loan after 20 years of payments. Well, now, I’m suddenly dependent on the government to erase my student loan.

RUSH: Well, that’s true, but it’s difficult to illustrate here but the dirty little secret here is that this is gonna end up affecting so few people. It’s a big sales pitch, and the people that it does help is gonna save ’em four to eight dollars a month. This is so outrageous. I don’t quite know how to express what a ruse the whole thing is other than to tell you it is a campaign optic, it’s no different than putting forth a tax bill that you call a jobs bill. The Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable. Obamacare, there’s nothing affordable about it, there’s nothing far-reaching about it. None of the legislation coming out of this regime does anything it is named to do.

Again, this jobs bill, it’s not a jobs bill; it is a tax bill. And the student loan bill, one of the first things Obama did was move in to corner the market and to take it over from the banks for the express purpose of having people owing the government. When they have the power to forgive your loan, when they have the power to limit what you pay on the loan, when they have the power to seduce you… imagine you’re faced with the repayment of a student loan that you think is $210,000 and Obama comes along and says, “You know what? After 20 years, we’re gonna forgive it, and we’re only gonna make you pay 10% of what you earn if you take a job in social services.”

What are they doing? They’re controlling what you do, they’re controlling how you choose to live your life, and you’re choosing to live your life in such a way as to limit the damage government can do to you. That’s what all this is really about, and all of it’s happening under the guise of compassion. All of it’s happening under the guise that Republicans hate you. “Republicans want you dead. Republicans want dirty water, they want dirty air, they want the poison everywhere! The Republicans don’t care about you but look at what we’re doing.” In the process all that’s happening here is that people buy into this, go into debt with student loans, and then they are at the mercy of the regime. If you end up registering Democrat, that will be known.

If you vote Democrat, you’ll be looked upon with better favor than somebody who votes Republican. If Obama via executive order (or any other Democrat leader) wants to forgive your loan based on good behavior from you, and they do it, they own you — and that’s what this is all about. I don’t think there’s any question about it. In terms of saving people money, again, the numbers of people this is actually going to affect… We’ll just wait. It’s gonna take a while, but you will see that I am right about this. It isn’t gonna be long, a couple or three years. Remember this day, remember this week with Obama promising all these wonderful reforms in the student loan program and how it’s gonna reduce your costs and the burden of paying these loans back is going to be greatly reduced.

Three years, two years are gonna go back and nothing’s changed and you’re gonna be wondering, “Where’s the relief?” You’re still making payments on the student loan, there hasn’t been any change whatsoever. It’s no different than Obama’s mortgage rescue plan or his foreclosure rescue plan. None of it is working. None of it has had any impact! None of it has done anything toward its primary objective or its claimed desired effect, but that’s not the point. The point is Obama gets to say it. He gets to promote it. Obama gets to tell you that he’s making it possible for you to stay in your home. He’s making it possible for you to get an education. He’s making it affordable for you to do this. None of it ever happens! None of it!

In fact, the opposite happens: Life gets tougher, things get more expensive, you lose more flexibility and freedom. But that’s of no concern because all that they’re after now is your vote and your support. So that’s all this stuff is, is just campaign optics. Don’t forget — it was last week, two weeks, three weeks ago — the news hit that the regime asked for the authority to track you down on your cell phone if you were in arrears on your student loan and to harass you for repayment. Most people are using cell phones, there’s not a cell phone phone book out there like there was and is for land line phones. The regime has asked for permission, or authority, to get hold of people’s cell phone numbers for the purpose of calling them and harassing them on pavement of student loans. So while you’re made to think here that you’re getting a free ride or a relaxation of your responsibilities, it isn’t gonna be the case at all.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: To Syracuse, New York, this is Sean. Glad you called, sir, great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh program. You are up next.

CALLER: How you doing, Rush?

RUSH: Very good, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: Yeah. Let me get right to the point here. I’m a conservative and I survived four years of liberal indoctrination at a college institution. And basically I was a — I was a criminal justice major, and I could have finished any criminal justice degree in two years and I was forced to take ridiculous classes like Human Growth and Development, Religious Person Traditions, Buddhism — things that I wouldn’t need to learn for a criminal justice degree. It’s how they keep you there for four years. It’s a money-maker.

RUSH: Now you are a person, you’re a guy after my own heart, because this was one of my main complaints. I told my dad when he’s telling me what all was gonna happen to me when I didn’t go to the college, I said, “Look, if I could go there and learn what I want to learn that is relevant so what I want to do, I’ll be there every day. You wouldn’t be able to keep me out. But if I gotta take ballroom dancing, if I I’ve gotta take Human Growth 101 and learn about boiling water before I drink it, I don’t care about that.”

“Son, these people are professional educators. It’s their job to understand how to best educate the largest number of people. It’s called a well-rounded education.”

I said, “I don’t want one. I want a targeted education.”

Yeah, I know. This is the point. Let me make something very clear: I understand well-rounded person and all of that. My only point is some people aren’t cut out for it. Education has to be structured, like I said. You have 200 people in the classroom; you can’t tailor it to every individual in that will these. There has to be a curriculum. It has to be based on what the educators think is the best way to create a, quote, unquote, “educated person.” I understand all that. It just wasn’t for me. It is expensive, but it just wasn’t for me. I am not… I don’t want anybody to misunderstand here. I am not telling you to punt college. I’m not telling you that’s the route that you should take. But I do understand that it is an institution controlled by the left, and I don’t trust ’em.

It is an institution that is controlled and dominated by the left, and I know what their purpose is. Particularly higher education, but you don’t have to go higher education to hear the horror stories. It’s much differentiate than when I was in school. There wasn’t any indoctrination. There wasn’t certainly wasn’t any ideological indoctrination. Now, I would have to admit all the teachers I had growing up were pro-America. Now, today, that would be “controversial.” Pro-America is pro-imperialistic, pro-racist, pro-whatever to a lot of sickos today. But when I went to high school and junior high, American history was taught from the standpoint of American greatness. The founding of the country was taught within the context of how miraculous it was, not as it’s taught today: A crime. (interruption)

No, I didn’t have to take women’s studies courses! And you know something else? (If you think I’m in trouble now, wait ’til you hear this.) When I went to school they had home ec for women. You didn’t need Michelle Obama with a garden in the White House telling people what’s healthy or not; the schools taught it! ‘Cause dirty little secret is: Cooking isn’t fun. It is a chore, and it was something that was taught how to be done for the right nutrition and all that. There was home ec back then! But it’s all changed now. I wouldn’t want to have any part of it. I wouldn’t want to have to go to a class called American history and listen to a teacher tell me how my country sucks and then give me the answers to the tests so that she could get away with propagandizing me while making it look like she’s teaching me something when she’s not. That’s what’s going on in American schools, and it’s not for me, and it wouldn’t be for my kids. My kids wouldn’t survive if I had any. They would have been tossed out along with me after one year of the garbage that suffices for an education these days in way too many schools in this country.