RUSH: James in Cumming, Georgia. It’s great to have you up first today on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thanks for having me.
RUSH: You bet, sir.
CALLER: Christmas is the birthday of Jesus dittos to you.
RUSH: Appreciate that.
CALLER: Hey, I wanted to ask you a question if I could off the top here, did you coin the phrase dumbing down America?
RUSH: No. I don’t think so. I don’t know who coined the phrase dumbing down America. I’ll take credit for it.
CALLER: Well, I just wanted to point out —
RUSH: I think Governor Christie did, actually, but it might have been Newt Gingrich.
CALLER: — Obama the “status no” president, if I could. I think that has a nice ring to it.
RUSH: Status no. All right.
CALLER: My call today, I wanted to discuss with you the disparity between billionaires and millionaires if I could.
RUSH: The disparity between millionaires and billionaires.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: It’s a lot of zeros.
CALLER: That’s for sure, but I don’t think people appreciate what all those zeros mean. And I think a great way to put it in context is to say that a millionaire in America who is ganged together with billionaires is only 20 $50,000-a-year men whereas a billionaire is a thousand million-dollar-a-year men.
RUSH: Too many numbers. I’m confused. A millionaire in America is ganged together with — 20 $50,000-a-year men. So you need 20 people making $50,000 a year to make a millionaire?
CALLER: You got it.
RUSH: And you need a thousand million-dollars-a-year guys to make a billionaire?
CALLER: You hit the nail on the head.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And that distance is the difference between being a healthy human being and being deadened in the ground. And we’re letting the media get away with wrapping guys up that are so close — you know, a $50,000-a-year man is a lot closer to being a millionaire in America than he knows.
RUSH: Well, let me just say one thing. The media gets away with nothing on this program. I know what you’re saying, this whole business, the millionaires and billionaires get lumped.
Try this, folks, from CNN, in fact. “Some private colleges are paying their top executives millions of dollars, at the same time they’re hiking tuition prices for students. Vanderbilt University paid its chancellor, Nicholas Zeppos, $1.9 million in 2009, according to the school’s most recent tax filings — enough for up to 43 students to attend Vanderbilt at current prices. … That same year, Vanderbilt’s tuition jumped 4.3%. Since then, the college has hiked tuition more than 3% annually. … His overall pay was actually 21.5% lower than it was the previous year, according to the school.”
Anyway, the bottom line here is 36 college presidents make a million dollars a year or more. Where is Occupy Wall Street? Has somebody told them about this? The tuition keeps going up. We keep pointing it out here. The tuition keeps going up. Nobody ever talks about the greed of Big Education, ’cause that’s where Obama’s buddies are. All these people do is run around and think that Wall Street’s their big problem and college presidents earning all that, look at how many students are going to school for what the president makes.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So Big Education keeps raising prices. Tuition keeps going up. As we know, the Occupy crowd and a lot of students all over the country are unhappy with the student loan situation. And never once do we hear about the greed of Big Education. Never once do we hear about the millionaires that are the college presidents. And you know all a college president is these days? You know what the primary role of a college or university president is today? (interruption) Fundraiser, exactly right. Primary role. Go out and raise money, that’s why there’s so many millionaires now, they’re working on commission. They get paid very well for it. That’s why the football program is so important, helps booster, helps fund-raise and so forth.
But you never, you never hear the Democrats, you never hear the media, you never hear Congress talk about the greed that’s in Big Education. And tuition, college tuition goes up on average about 5% every year. You have a university president that goes out and begs the alumni, that’s essentially what they do. There are exceptions of course. Dr. Larry Arnn of Hillsdale. They all have to raise money, part of the gig, but Arnn also teaches. He probably knows where the classrooms are. That’s very rare that a college president teaches. (interruption) I know Arnn is brilliant. Snerdley was just yelling at me here that he read one of his books. He is brilliant. I don’t know how many university presidents could find a classroom on their own campus. In the primary administration building, they don’t know where it is.
But I’m really struck by the fact that nobody ever talks about the greed in Big Education, and the students, the children, the future are going into hock. Student debt, loan debt, all of this, and what’s the solution? It’s never to be critical of the institutions of higher learning for charging too much. No, we need new loan programs. We need new forgivement of loan programs. We need new payment plans. Because, as we all know, most citadels of higher learning are the incubators of Marxism, liberalism, socialism, that’s where the indoctrination takes place. That’s where Obama’s educated elites are. That’s the group of people Obama goes after in his reelection campaign.
So 36 college presidents making over a million dollars now, and the Democrats, millionaires and billionaires, the caller was right, the Democrats just throw the word millionaire around. In New York Andrew Cuomo caved, gonna raise taxes on millionaires starting at $200,000 a year. That’s a millionaire now, 200 grand. It used to be $60,000 back in 1984.
Related Links