RUSH: The Washington Post has an editorial today. Folks, this is the kind of stuff that has happened in my lifetime that you used to get from the mainstream media. This is the mainstream media, Washington Post, speaking truth to power. I saw this today, and I was shocked. The headline of their editorial: “Democrats Losing Their ‘Balance’ on Entitlement Reform.”
We talk about random acts of journalism, this is a random act of realistic analysis. The Washington Post in this editorial actually mocks Obama and the Democrats for their hypocrisy at pretending to be appalled at entitlement reforms that they supported as recently as last year. The Washington Post editors even admit in this editorial that Obamacare is gonna drive up the debt. You know, back in the day, they used to pretend it was gonna save trillion dollars of dollars. The Washington Post was part of the Drive-By Media apparatus that said Obama’s right, you get to keep your doctor, you get to keep your plan, and your premium’s going down $2,500. The Washington Post reported that. During the time it was being sold, they were right in there helping out.
Now all of a sudden they’re saying the exact opposite. Obamacare is gonna drive up the debt. Nobody’s gonna save money on premiums. And it isn’t going to save trillions of dollars. But the most interesting thing is buried way down in the third-to-last paragraph. The third-to-last paragraph. “The cartoon version of the fight is that Democrats want to soak the rich, and Republicans want to slash the poor. But hereÂ’s the problem: ThereÂ’s no way for either of them to solve this problem without affecting the middle class, which in the end will have to pay more and accept something less than what has been promised.”
Honestly, they rip into this whole fiscal cliff as being nothing but a cartoon. And that’s exactly right. It is a manufactured cartoon. Republicans want to cut taxes for the rich, and Obama wants to help the middle class. And they’re saying that’s a crock. They admit that both sides know that the way it’s gonna end up is the middle class is gonna have tax increases, along with everybody else. It’s not just the rich who are gonna have tax increases; it’s everybody. Well, this is why this whole fiscal cliff is so boring to me, actually, ’cause I know how this is gonna end up. I know how it’s always gonna end up. The budget never gets cut. There will not be any entitlement reform, because neither party is willing to go to the mat for that.
We’re not there yet. It’s still just a posturing position for both parties. Democrats oppose it. In the case of the Democrats, they will never, ever willingly, voluntarily cut entitlement spending. The only way that’s gonna happen is if they’re dragged kicking and screaming and when they have no choice. The Republicans will reach a point where they really mean it. But this whole thing is a cartoon because we know how it’s gonna end up. And one of the techniques, the Republicans say, “Well, we’ll let Obama have what he wants. We’ll really get tough the next debt limit fight.” In fact, you may have heard that. “Well, you know, we kinda got our hands tied now, but you wait ’til February when Obama wants to raise the debt limit. That’s when we’re gonna drop the hammer.”
The hammer never gets dropped, taxes go up, entitlement spending goes up, the debt’s gonna go up. There’s nothing in place to change that, particularly with Obama and the Democrats having won the election. There’s nothing that’s gonna change that. So to get involved in all of this — well, call it the cartoon — the daily participation by everybody in the media reporting breathlessly the minute-by-minute transformation, the minute-by-minute occurrences. Like the template today is, “Do you know that Boehner and Obama have been meeting privately for a bunch of days in a row? Did you know that?” And nobody knows what they’re agreeing to or disagreeing to. Nobody knows what they’re concocting.
That’s the news today, that Boehner and Obama are meeting privately, and nobody else knows what’s going on. It’s one of these things I say if they’re gonna have a recession, I’m not participating. That’s how I am. I’ve gotten so cynical about all this. It’s hard to do it, but I religiously fight every day to avoid being caught up in the media bubble. Now, for me, what that means is, ignoring the New York Times and ignoring the Washington Post and ignoring CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, cause they’re all the same. You get the same news from the same networks, the same papers, same quotes, same analysts, same opinions, same analysis, same thing. Every day they’re all doing the same thing. Every day they’re all talking about the latest whatever development, and it’s really hard not to get caught up in it.
The New York Times sets the news template for the day for everybody else. Whatever’s in the Times is what the rest of them use to follow as the news of the day. I don’t join the crowd on anything. But sometimes it’s hard to avoid getting caught up in it. Sometimes a news story is reported in such a way, you can’t ignore it, you have to talk about it. But this is one of those been there, done that’s. How many of these budget deals, how many debt limit deals, how many crises, how many end of the year, gotta get it done or else disaster happens? And since we don’t have a budget and haven’t had one in three years, every budgetary item is a crisis and disaster, by design, as it turns out. Because every crisis and every disaster, the architects get what they want. TARP, GM bailout, stimulus bill, whatever.
“If we don’t do it, the financial system in the world is gonna collapse.”
“Okay, okay, here, take it.”
“If we don’t do it, General Motors is not going to have any cars.”
“Okay, okay, here, bail ’em out.”
“If we don’t do it, for crying out loud, we’ll go over the cliff and defense spending gets cut and entitlement spending…”
“Okay, okay, do it.” That’s how it happens.