RUSH: You know what the latest is? It’s reared its head again, because the official opinion on Fox News is the Republicans should avoid a government shutdown at all costs. Whatever you do, do not shut down the government. If that means the losers in the last election get pretty much everything they want, then so be it, because the absolute worst thing you could do, according to Fox News, is shut down the government.
The worst thing that could happen to the Republicans, who just won in a landslide election, would be to shut down the government. Even if it means that the people who lost the landslide election get everything they want, that’s fine, that’s preferable to the damage that would incur to the Republicans if they shut down the government again, like they did last year.
It’s not even really a government shutdown. That’s another misnomer. But do you remember that last year? Almost at this time. It was in December during a lame-duck session last year, and that evil meany, that real mean, insensitive guy, Ted Cruz, came along and single-handedly shut down the government, damn it, and just totally bollixed everything up. It was so bad that the Republicans, in less than a year, won a landslide midterm election.
Now, the thinking at Fox News on not shutting down the government is that, “Oh, my God, if we shut down the government, oh, the media is gonna kill us and, oh, the people are gonna hate us even more than they hate us now, and they’ll never recover from it. Don’t shut down the government!” We aren’t even talking about shutting down the government, but it’s even worse than that, folks. We mentioned this before the election and afterwards. As you know, the Republicans won the Senate. That means the Republicans, in January, will control the House and the Senate. Now, set that aside for just a second. ‘Cause it’s gonna happen. It’s there. Even if the Republicans shut down the government, they’re still gonna be running it come January.
Now, let’s rewind, and let us return to the period of time, let’s say just the last three years. Do you know how this country has been budgeted? Oh, by the way, speaking of which, we have finally hit $18 trillion in the total national debt now. And do you realize this: 70% of that has occurred in the last six years. The national debt, $18 trillion, and 70% of it happened during the Obama administration. And how has it happened?
Well, one of the ways it’s happened is we haven’t had budgets, because the Democrats ran the Senate, and the Democrats did not want to submit a budget every year which would lay out their agenda because they would not win elections if people knew what they were doing, and the budget is a pretty good indication of your agenda.
So instead we funded our budget and our country with something called continuing resolutions, and every period of time, say 45 days or 90 days, we would have to have a meeting between the House and Senate Republicans, the Democrats, and come up with a stopgap spending bill for yet another 90 days. And every 90 days threat of a government shutdown, the Democrats would concoct some thing the Republicans couldn’t support. They would run around and say the Republicans shut down the government.
This would cause the Republicans to agree with everything the Democrats wanted because the Republicans never shut — we had a shutdown in 1995 and, oh, my God, it was a disaster, oh, my God, do you remember? Oh, gee. The government shutdown, it was worse than Goldwater losing in ’64. Oh, it was so bad, oh, my God, we’ve never recovered from it, so they think.
So the alternative to shutting down the government is the Democrats get everything they want. And the Democrats have gotten everything they want. They’ve gotten Obamacare. They got gay marriage. They’ve got amnesty. They got everything they want, continuing resolutions, right? So we gotta stop this, do we not? The American people don’t want any more of it. The American people so much don’t want any more of it that they shellacked the Democrats in a landslide defeat three weeks ago, four weeks ago, whatever. November, Election Day, not long ago, the Democrats got shellacked.
The American people clearly do not want this budget, this country run by the Democrats anymore. They’re fed up with it. They’re tired of it. They want this stuff stopped. So what the Republicans are gonna do is keep doing it. Let’s go back to my undeniable fact that the Republicans are gonna run the government in January. They’re gonna run the Senate. They’re gonna run the House. The Democrats — they’re not gonna have 60 votes in the Senate, but they’re gonna run the place.
Do you know what the Republicans are doing right now? Fox News is telling them not to shut down the government. “It would be the absolute worst, oh, my God, it would be a disaster, oh, do you realize what the media will say? Oh, my God. The people of this country want the government so bad, the people of this country love the government, you can’t shut down the government, oh, my God, the people.”
Never mind the fact Republicans won a landslide election not 10 months after they shut down the government the last time, but we’re not supposed to remember that, no. You would think, after the people have spoken, landslide defeat Democrats, $18 trillion national debt, everything Obama and the Democrats have wanted, the American people said stop it, you would think that the Republicans would just do a short order budget bill to get us through, say, January or February. Just another short little continuing resolution, and then in January or February, when they run the House and the Senate, then they do a budget that is responsible.
Doesn’t that make imminent sense, ladies and gentlemen? That’s not what they’re gonna do. The Republicans are gonna agree with the Democrats. If this holds, and we’ve been talking about it since before the election and it’s still out there as a viable possibility. The Republicans have decided to sit down with Harry Reid and whoever else and do the entire budget for the remaining fiscal year, which would be through next September 30th, this month. Thereby the Republicans are guaranteed to run the House and Senate for at least the next two years.
And if they do this, if they agree to a full omnibus budget on the Democrats’ terms, obviously, the Democrats still run the Senate right now, so if they do a budget deal right now with the Democrats still running the show, it’s gonna be a Democrat budget all the way through next September. The Republicans have just thrown away one of the two years they’re guaranteed to have power. Does any of that make any sense to you?
You’ve just won the Senate, to go with the House, you’re coming up on two years of control over the House and Senate, two years where you control the budget, two years where you have the veto power over nominations, all kinds of stuff, the American people elected you to stop what’s going on, and so what you’re gonna do is let the Democrats write the budget for the next year? Well, I mean, you’re gonna participate in it, you’re gonna say you wrote it, but the losers, I guess this is what it means to cross the aisle and work together and compromise. Is that what this means?
The Democrats are going to let the losers essentially write the budget for all of the remaining fiscal year, which is through next September 30th? Yeah, apparently so. And the reason why they say that they’re gonna do it is just to get it out of the way so they can move on to other things once they’re sworn in. Get the budget, pain in the ass, just get it out of the way. Kicking the can? It’s mystifying to me.
There’s another reason, too, by the way. Another reason why they want to do this, and that is to limit, block, stop whatever power newly elected conservatives in the House and Senate might do in writing and formulating a new budget. So if you do a budget all the way through September 30th, 2015, then you have rendered the newly elected conservative members of the Senate, whoever they are, and in the House, powerless over budget matters.
And then over here on Fox News: “Don’t shut down the government, oh, don’t you dare.” The media: The worst thing the Republicans could do is shut down the government, oh, my God, it’s horrible. I don’t even want to think about it, oh, my God. They’re in abject panic up there. Fox News, inside the Beltway, oh my, the Republicans might shut down the government. Do you realize what Chuck Todd’s gonna say? Oh, do you realize what the New York Times editorial — oh, my God, the Washington Post is gonna say about it, oh, geez, be worse than the school lunch lies, oh, gee. Don’t shut down the government. Oh, my. It’s better if the Democrats get everything they want. That’s much better than us getting flack for shutting down the government.
But, remember, that meany, selfish, power mad egomaniac Ted Cruz is probably working with Sarah Palin behind the scenes, shut down the government last December, yeah. And the Republicans won in a landslide like 10 months later. Go figure.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, there’s another advantage to doing budgets by continuing resolution. A lot of people don’t know this. I’m sure many of you in this audience do. But continuing resolutions prevent spending cuts. A continuing resolution is all about resolving to continue the spending to keep the government operating. Continuing resolutions mean that every department is automatically given the same amount of money as the year before, plus inflation along with the baseline increases that are built in.
A continuing resolution does not permit any cuts in spending. Hell, there never even are, really. They’re just reductions in the rate of growth. And the government shutdown last December, that that meany Ted Cruz did, remember him? Yeah. Bully. Well, only 17% of the government was shut down last year. Eighty-three percent of the government did not shut down. Every welfare check to every dependent Democrat went out on schedule. It did not shut down. What’s being contemplated now is not even a government shutdown, but Dingy Harry is out there threatening to not shut down the government next week. He’s threatening not allowing the Senate to even recess until he gets everything he wants. He’s not gonna end this lame duck until he gets everything he wants.
And of course the Republicans, we’re not gonna impeach, we’re not gonna do that, and we’re not gonna do a government shutdown. Why should they act like they lost? Why should the Democrats act like they lost the election?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We talked about this in the previous hour. Fox News is running around: Do not shut down the government! It’s the worst thing that could happen to the Republican Party. This would be an unmitigated disaster. It would be the end of the Republican Party. Don’t do it. It’s like don’t talk about impeachment, don’t do it. In other words, don’t do anything to disagree with Obama, even though the losers lost big, the Democrats got shellacked, they lost in a landslide, we shut the government down last year at this time and won a landslide 11 months later, 10 months later.
RUSH: Now, Gloria Borger — of all places on CNN — last night admits that all of this talk over on Fox about not shutting down the government maybe is irrelevant. Because she last night, on the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, admitted that the Republicans didn’t suffer from the last government shutdown. Wolf Blitzer said, “Hey, Gloria, our new poll showed that if there were some sort of shutdown, 50% would blame congressional Republicans; 33% said that Obama would be to blame! So this is not a winning issue.”
BORGER: Well, that’s why Republican leaders don’t want to do it. But having covered the last election, as we all did, you know, Wolf, there wasn’t any hell to pay for shutting the government. The public blamed Republicans for shutting down the government and they gained, what, a dozen seats in the House and control…? So, yeah, and controlled the Senate.
RUSH: Dirty little secret. Even CNN has figured it out. So CNN’s got this poll, and it says that if there were some sort of shutdown, 50% would blame congressional Republicans. It’s about the same as last year, 56% blame the Republicans. But, hey, it really hurt ’em! They picked up 12 seats in the House and they got control of the Senate. Man, that shutdown last year really hurt ’em. Yet the Republican establishment’s running around, “Don’t shut down the government! Oh, my God, don’t! No, no! We can’t! We can’t!”
But they were sent there to stop Obama.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. So Last night Gloria Borger points out: Hey, Republicans shut down the government last December, and they picked up like 12 seats in the House and they won control of the Senate. Wow, that government shutdown really hurt ’em. Dana Bash caught up with Dennis Ross (Republican-Florida). He’s a member of the House. He’s not a member of a committee. He is a Republican in the House. Dana Bash said, “Congressman Ross, was there any discussion in there about needing to avoid shutting the government down? Was that directly addressed in there?”
ROSS: That’s not even a topic I think we’re gonna discuss at this particular point. I don’t think that’s an issue we’re gonna wanna discuss it. We’re not gonna take that bait.
BASH: Why is it bait?
ROSS: I think that’s been the president’s biggest bully pulpit, is trying to scare the American public into thinking we’re gonna shut down the government.
RUSH: See, yeah, like impeachment: “Obama’s trying to bait us, but we’re not gonna fall for it! We’re not shut down the government again and then pick up 12 more seats.” It’s maddening, isn’t it, folks? But you’re witnessing what fear and paranoia can do to people. Fear, paranoia, posttraumatic stress disorder all in combined impact on Republicans inside the Beltway.
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