RUSH: Tom Harkin, affectionately known here as “Dung Heap,” senator from Iowa, last night on the Senate floor said something that he deserves credit for. He said something that in many ways the Republicans ought to be saying. He was talking about the payroll tax cut. He doesn’t like it. He’s a Democrat, a member of the president’s own party, saying he doesn’t like the payroll tax cut.

HARKIN: This Congress will be making a grave mistake, a grave mistake, and reinforcing a dangerous precedent by extending the payroll tax cut and adding another negative without paying for it. And I’m dismayed that Democrats, including a Democratic president and a Democratic vice president, have proposed this and are willing to sign off on a deal that could begin the unraveling of Social Security.

RUSH: Did you hear that? He’s making our point, ladies and gentlemen. You and I are scratching our heads and wondering why in the course of the payroll tax cut debate Republicans are not pointing out, “Hey, Obama’s underfunding Social Security. Hey, ladies and gentlemen of America, the payroll tax is the only way Social Security gets paid for. It’s the only place money for Social Security is collected. The Democrats are cutting that tax. They’re reducing it. They are reducing the amount overall of money collected for Social Security.”

This, to me, has always been a no-brainer. Where are the Republicans on this? For all of my lifetime, I have had to hear that as a Republican, I want old people to give up their Social Security. We’ve all heard that. We’ve all, as Republicans, been accused of wanting to kick seniors out of their houses, take away their Social Security, take away their Medicare. It has never been true. Here comes Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, they’re doing it, they’re actually cutting Social Security revenue by $105 billion a year minimum. And I guess the Republicans are so scared to point this out because it’s a tax cut and they can’t afford to be seen opposed to a tax cut. And that’s not what this is.

Harkin’s right. He’s worried about the unraveling of Social Security. And what he means is, they’re taking money away from it, and it’s by no means solvent as it is. What he didn’t say is the only reason Obama’s doing this is because it’s the only place that Obama can talk about a tax cut. And that’s the one area of this campaign where Obama is trying to hide who he is. Everything else about this campaign, Obama is making it perfectly clear he’s a big government socialist, statist, liberal, whatever term you want to use. He is banking on the fact that a majority of slothful, lazy takers outnumber producers and that they have enough clout to elect him. He is campaigning, he is waging a campaign at life’s losers, in large part. Not all of them. And he’s trying to create even more life losers, because I’m telling you, you get caught up in government dependency and you are a loser. You have no future. Your dignity, your humanity are robbed, taken from you.

So here’s the payroll tax cut, and it’s the two words, “tax cut,” that’s what Obama wants to say he’s for, and he knows the Republicans don’t have the guts to oppose it because they are the tax cut party. Meanwhile, Tom Harkin is exactly right. And it’s a Democrat saying it, going against his own president. I don’t care what his reason is, no, no, I don’t care. The fact of the matter is that he’s making an argument the Republicans could make, and in so doing forever rid the country of this notion that they want to take Social Security away from senior citizens. It’s never been true. It is now happening. Barack Obama is defunding Social Security with this payroll tax cut. It’s the only mechanism Social Security is funded with.