RUSH: Here’s more Romney from his Des Moines campaign event this morning, continuing to pound Obama for ripping the work requirements out of welfare reform…

ROMNEY: It was an extraordinary success. Back at that time, then-Senator Obama was opposed to putting work together with welfare. Now he’s president, and just a few days ago he put that original intent in place. With a very careful executive action —
RUSH: Yeah.

ROMNEY: — he removed the requirement of work from welfare.

RUSH: Yeah.

ROMNEY: It is wrong to make any change that would make America more of a nation of government dependency. We must restore, and I will restore, work into welfare.

RUSH: Right on, right on. Now, the regime is really upset about this. I don’t understand why they’re this upset about it. I can understand ’em being ticked off that anybody would dare challenge them because they’re messiahs, but they are really off the deep end over this, and this is pretty mild. I mean, this was pretty vanilla what Romney said. (imitating Romney) “And I don’t think we should have a dependency society. When I get in there, I’m gonna put the work requirements back.” And they’re livid.

By the way, it was more than just the work requirements that were taken out of this. Republican welfare reform that Clinton signed into law back in the nineties included other changes. There were stricter conditions for food stamp eligibility. There were reductions in immigrant welfare assistance. Both of those things have been taken out as well as the work requirements. It’s not just the work requirements that are gone. They really toughened up the law, and it worked. The welfare rolls were cut in half. That’s not insignificant. Welfare assistance rolls were cut by 50%. This got the regime just fit to be tied.

Here’s the Romney ad, by the way. This is the ad that they’re calling racist, has racial undertones. They are angrier about this ad — I’m not kidding — they’re angrier about this ad than you and I are about their ad accusing Romney of killing the guy’s wife.

ANNOUNCER: In 1996, President Clinton and a bipartisan Congress helped end welfare as we know it, by requiring work for welfare.

RUSH: Big deal.

ANNOUNCER: But on July 12th, President Obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements. Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They’d just send you your welfare check. And welfare-to-work goes back to being plain old welfare. Mitt Romney will restore the work requirement because it works.

RUSH: They are over the moon angry at this and maybe they’re upset ’cause he’s talking about all the bipartisanship. Hell, I don’t know. I think that’s the least important factor in all of this. But still, here’s the spokeskid, Jay Carney, yesterday afternoon at the White House, Q&A. Reporter said, “The Romney campaign came out with a new ad accusing the president of gutting welfare reform, said the administration’s turned welfare into a blank check for states without any work requirements. Now, from a policy standpoint, spokeskid, does the White House feel that offering states this flexibility has somehow undermined the work requirement?”

GIBBS: This advertisement is categorically false and it is blatantly dishonest. This administration’s policy will strengthen the program by giving states the opportunity to employ more effective ways to help people get off welfare and into a job. Under this policy, governors must commit that their proposals will move at least 20% more people, more people from welfare-to-work. This waiver policy that we’re discussing was specifically requested by two Republican governors, Governor Herbert of Utah and Governor Sandoval of Nevada.

RUSH: Now, they’re fit to be tied. But Obama did all this in secret. If this is such a wonderful thing, why didn’t he call a press conference, or at least, if not a press conference, a big event in the Rose Garden and signal this and tell everybody all these wonderful benefits and lay this off on these two Republican governors who wanted waivers from this. Why not do it, instead of doing it under the cover of darkness, on a weekend, where nobody could see it, and you announce it later that it’s done.

Axelrod was calling it racist. Now he’s calling it blatantly dishonest and an attack. I mean they got people fanning out all over the place on this. On Piers Morgan last night, the guy who’s lost over 70% of Larry King’s audience, and it was no great shakes to begin with, Piers Morgan talking to Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt, not to be confused with Usain Bolt. Did you see what he did, by the way? The track guy. The guy ran a hundred meters in five seconds, faster than you can send the text on your iPhone. He ran the hundred meters in under ten seconds.

Anyway, he was being interviewed by some sports babe, and the national anthem starts at a medal ceremony somewhere else at the other end of the track, did not involve him, he’s from Jamaica, but he stopped, put his hand over his heart, faced the flag, stopped his own interview for our national anthem, Usain Bolt. Obama wouldn’t do that. So, anyway, this is Ben LaBolt, and Piers Morgan said, “Apparently, you’re dishing out all sorts of handouts to people that don’t deserve it here. Expanding welfare to a basic giveaway program. What about that?”

LABOLT: This latest attack is false, and it’s hypocritical. The entire purpose of this program is move more people from welfare-to-work. If there’s a state that can design a more effective program and prove to the federal government that they can move 20% more people from welfare-to-work, we’ll act on it. The governors who requested this are Republican governors in the states of Nevada and Utah who said they could design more effective programs.

RUSH: Problem with this is, Obama doesn’t want to put people back to work. Obama wants to overwhelm this country with welfare recipients. That’s the fastest way to bring about the transformation that he wants. Over on CBS This Morning, Jan Crawford and her report on the Romney welfare reform ad.

CRAWFORD: Romney’s message is part of a broader theme the campaign will be hitting hard in coming weeks, arguing that President Obama is in fact changing America by making more people depend on big government to take care of them while hardworking taxpayers foot the bill. Now, in a campaign that’s already tinged with class welfare and attacks on Romney’s wealth, this could be a potent counter message with independents in these key to swing states.

RUSH: So it could be a potent message, a really hard-hitting message out there. It could really change the minds of the independents. So they’re going nuts over this no matter where you go, over Romney’s little welfare reform ad.

And I gotta take a break. Time goes by.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation said the governors of these two states Jay Carney cited, Utah and Nevada, did not seek waivers of the work requirement. The Obama administration is just lying about that. By the way, it’s a little bit disconcerting to me to keep hearing Bill Clinton get credit for this. You know who wrote welfare reform? Do you know who actually wrote the legislation? Santorum. Rick Santorum was the primary author of welfare reform, and there’s Bill Clinton out there getting the credit for it.

(impression) “Back in the 1990s, President Bill Clinton — working with the Republicans in Congress in a bipartisan fashion — passed welfare reform with a work requirements for freeloaders out there sitting on their butts all day.” Clinton was dragged kicking and screaming to this! Bill Clinton wasn’t the author of welfare reform. He never got close to writing it. He detested it, including the day that he signed it into law. And now the guy who actually wrote it, Santorum, is never even discussed.

Here’s Terry in Dayton, Ohio. We go back to the phones. Great to have you here. Hi.

CALLER: God bless you and Kathryn, Rush. I love you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Rush, is there really this huge group of undecideds out here? If you had to vote tomorrow, I think most people know who they’d vote for. Who benefits by the speculation that there’s this large group of undecideds and the race is so close, besides the advertisers?

RUSH: Well, you’ve got me. What do you think? Answer your own question for me. Who does benefit?

CALLER: Well, I think advertisers definitely benefit. The news, you know? It’s a close race and there’s a lot of people who haven’t made up their minds yet.

RUSH: Wait a minute.

CALLER: So the candidates keep spending the money.

RUSH: Are you trying to tell me that advertisers are telling news people to continue to project this thing as undecided, that there are a lot of undecideds —

CALLER: (groans)

RUSH: So that people will watch the news programs?

CALLER: (chuckles) Oh, gee.

RUSH: I don’t think it’s happening that way. The thing I saw yesterday, if I can remember the numbers, it was confusing when I looked at ’em the first time. It’s the number of voters for Obama that are abandoning him. I think he’s lost… (sigh) Oh, I forget. Fourteen percent? I think 14% of people that were gonna vote for Obama are not gonna vote for him, in a poll that I saw yesterday. Obama lost 14%, but the Republicans lost some, too. It was a weird thing.

The GOP candidate lost 7%. In other words, 7% who voted Republican last time said they’re not going to this time, and 14% who said they voted for Obama in ’08 are not going to this time around. Now, this phenomenon… See, this guy, Terry, is out there, and he’s like me. “How can you be undecided in the midst of this?” (laughs) I know. Common sense rears its head, and you say, “How can anybody be undecided?” I take it a step farther.

How can anybody vote for Obama?

No, no. I understand all the reasons people vote for Obama. It’s Democrat loyalty and all that. I’m just saying in a perfect world. You know, I still dream of one. Not utopia. I just want more common sense, where Realville is where most people live, not just a few. Sometimes it’s a frustrating thing. The welfare reform ad that Romney… We’re still not through with sound bites on this. Go now to sound bite 17.

Bob Schieffer talked with Charlie Rose today on CBS on the CBS This Morning show about this ad, and Charlie Rose said, “It’s getting hotter out there, isn’t it?” Now, they’re talking about Romney’s ad. They’re not talking about Obama’s ad accusing Romney of killing a guy’s wife. No, no. They’re talking about Romney’s ad accusing Obama of taking work requirements out of welfare. Charlie said, “Boy, it’s really getting hot out there, isn’t it,” Bob, old buddy, old pal?

SCHIEFFER: You see where Mitt Romney is going here. I mean, if you look at these new battleground polls that are out, he does best with, eh, white, working-class men. And this is aimed, uh, directly at that group. But I think it’s quite interesting how vehemently both the White House and Bill Clinton are denying this. Bill Clinton is pointing out that, you know, it was Republican governors who were asking for these waivers. And he points out that, uh, when this welfare law went into effect, uh, Mitt Romney himself, as a governor, asked for some waivers, uh, in order to make adjustments in the work requirement.

RUSH: Yeah. Well, again, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation says that all this gobbledygook about Republican governors requesting waivers from these very stringent work requirements just isn’t true. And here’s Clinton carrying the lie forward. I’m playing these sound bites for you just to illustrate that, for some odd reason, this Romney ad has got these people turned upside down. I want you to go back and grab the ad. Grab number 13.

I have to tell you, Snerdley’s saying, “You know everything, Rush. You have every political answer. What is it about this ad that’s got the Democrats and the media so out of sorts?” And right now, I don’t know. Here’s the ad again. You tell me! What is in this ad that has caused Obama and Jay Carney and Ben LaBolt and Charlie Rose and Bob Schieffer and everybody else in the media to go absolutely batty?

ANNOUNCER: In 1996, President Clinton and a bipartisan Congress helped end welfare as we know it, by requiring work-for-welfare. But on July 12th, President Obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements. Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They’d just send you your welfare check. And welfare-to-work goes back to being plain old welfare. Mitt Romney will restore the work requirement because it works.

RUSH: Now, one of the only things I can figure is that the thing that drives them the craziest is when you tell the truth about them. And this ad does tell the truth in the sense that Obama’s gutting the work requirements of welfare reform. And I know full well Obama is doing everything he can to grow the government while making it look like he doesn’t want to and isn’t. He’s doing everything he can to create more and more dependency in the American people while he’s saying he wants to do the opposite.

So Romney’s just telling a simple truth, that Obama is on the side of the takers, a simple truth that Obama is against producers. I don’t know what else it is. I literally can’t figure out why they’re upset, ’cause there’s nothing defamatory in it. There’s nothing untrue about it. It doesn’t even approach “Obama killed that guy’s wife.” It doesn’t get anywhere near that, and yet they’re doing damage control on this like I haven’t seen ’em do damage control, except on, (impression), “You didn’t build that. You didn’t make that happen.”

It took ’em awhile to get up to speed, but after they figured out that they were reeling from that, then they went nuts on that, and this is basically the same thing. Except the Romney camp does not tie them together. I’m doing that myself. The Romney ad does not say, for example, “Last week President Obama said, ‘You didn’t build that small business. You didn’t do that on your own,’ and now he’s saying this.” But they must be afraid of the linkage because Obama did go out and say (impression), “You didn’t build that! You didn’t make that happen. Your small business, you had nothing to do with that! Other people built that! Other people made your business happen. You didn’t do that. Roads and bridges did that!”

And here comes, a couple of weeks later, an ad in which Romney basically says: “Yep, Obama is on the side of the freeloaders. Obama is making it easier on the freeloaders, to freeload. Obama’s making it easier on the takers to take. Obama’s on their side. Obama is against the producers.” If it’s not that — and maybe it is that, and the fact that the other thing got so much traction when they hit Obama so hard on, “You didn’t build that.” This is just, essentially, a continuation of it without Romney establishing any linkage.

If it’s not that, folks, I don’t know what has ’em up in arms.