RUSH: Winchester, Virginia. David, thank you for waiting, sir. I appreciate your call.
CALLER: Yes, Rush, what a pleasure it is to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: You are master of common sense, and I really appreciate what you do. Listen, Rush, I’m a single father, unemployed, and struggling to survive. I’m trying to put something under the tree for Christmas.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: There are two topics, I feel, that should be part of the discussion with the candidates and what’s going on today; and one is the abolishing the use of corn ethanol in our gasoline, and the other is the seemingly agree with the premise that immigrants or illegals are doing jobs that Americans just won’t do. I’m out here right now, Rush, delivering phone books just so we can have a Christmas so we can survive. I’ll do any job no matter how small to help my family.
RUSH: Phone books?
CALLER: Phone books. Yeah. I answered an ad on Craigslist to deliver phone books, you know, and it’s a tedious job.
RUSH: What is in a phone book?
CALLER: Advertisements, business advertisements. It’s one of the Verizon books, I believe. I deliver them to apartments, throw them in the driveways.
RUSH: People use phone books?
CALLER: Yes, phone books. (laughing) I gotta bag ’em up and deliver them.
RUSH: They still use phone books? No, no. You mean like Yellow Pages and stuff?
CALLER: Yes! That’s right.
RUSH: They still publish ’em?
CALLER: They do. Surprisingly. I’ve been asking myself every day —
RUSH: Oh, man.
CALLER: — I’ve been delivering these why they are.
RUSH: Wow. Well, then you’re obviously doing something that’s very needed if you deliver these things.
CALLER: It’s a job, it’s something to put food on the table. Honestly it’s right before Christmas —
RUSH: No, no. I’m proud of you, I appreciate that. I think it’s great. It needs to be done.
CALLER: I’m so happy to have a little extra.
RUSH: Yeah, I know. I know. I’ve been there. Ethanol was the other thing you mentioned? What was your…? Oh, why are we still using corn for fuel?
CALLER: Right. We need to get rid of this. It’s raising all our costs on food.
RUSH: Let me tell you something. Let me tell you. (laughing) Oh, by the way, folks, in 2008, January 2008, I did say that the light bulb would never be banned. I did say it. Even when I think I’m wrong I’m right. I did say it, we got it on my website. I did say it. Now, ethanol. I’ll tell you a funny little story about this, David. It was either last election cycle or two election cycles ago, I got on this whole business of ethanol about how it was driving food prices up, particularly for Mexicans. You wouldn’t believe what was happening to tacos. The price of tacos skyrocketed, and that’s a food staple for people that don’t have a lot of money, and I got calls from Republicans in Iowa. They thought I was Republican.
“Rush, you do care about winning elections, right?”
“Well, yeah, of course.”
Well, ethanol, if you are opposed to ethanol subsidies, you are not gonna win Iowa.”
You remember those calls. I mean, I got raked over the coals for it. It’s another government subsidy. It’s based on a false premise of cleaner energy. It actually costs more, it’s less efficient, but it is a way of buying votes and it is a way of dealing with a surplus of a crop that we have, when we have it — and, by the way, I am making no friends saying this in the corn industry or in the fuel industry. It’s money. When you follow the money, you’ll get the answer to practically every question you’re capable of asking.