RUSH: We’re gonna start with Sylvia in Clinton Township, New Jersey. Sylvia, you’ve been holding for a long time, and I appreciate your patience. Thank you.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. But I think, you know, the more important all-out assault is these provisions that have been put into this budget bill. Because just to make this clear, are you really telling your audience that you approve of the largest Wall Street banks being able to draw on federally insured savings accounts of individuals and trading with those on risky derivatives and commodities and all that kind of stuff and taking all the profits. And the government, under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation back stopping them or, you know, insuring those?
RUSH: No.
CALLER: And also, even more egregious is that they borrow that money — (crosstalk)
RUSH: I’m not telling my audience I support that because that’s not what it does.
CALLER: It is what it does.
RUSH: It’s not what it does.
CALLER: Then tell us what it does, Rush. (cross-talk) They borrow at zero percent from the Federal Reserve —
RUSH: I’ve got plenty of room to lose some accuracy points and still be more right than anybody else out there. I’m not worried about that. It’s unrisky derivatives here that have been targeted. Anyway, it’s not the way you portrayed it as being.
CALLER: It is the way —
RUSH: If you think Elizabeth Warren is right, then that kind of tells me that you might be a little bit off the rails, not all the way, but a little bit. But I have read today some people who do agree with you, Sylvia. In conservative blogs I have read that some think that Elizabeth Warren does have a point like you do.
CALLER: Well, it’s true, Rush. It’s appalling. I mean, Rush?
RUSH: Yes, Sylvia?
CALLER: And the second part of it, it is the most egregious abuse, it is the abuse by, you know, billionaires on Wall Street. And then we get it from the millionaires who now do call it a small adjustment to campaign finance. There used to be a limit of 32,000 and now that’s been raised tenfold to 320,000 for an individual or 640,000 for a couple. I mean, are we really turning into a plutocracy in this country where we have, like Sheldon Adelson, putting in hundreds of millions if he wants and then just, you know, your average millionaire putting in $640,000 a year?
And for what you call Rio Linda or whatever, a plutocracy, I don’t want to insult anybody, is a government of the richest among us. This is insane. This is the two issues that bother me the most in politics. It’s just banks getting over on us and, you know, billionaires getting over on us, and then millionaires getting over on us. And you shouldn’t just take this as dry. This is not a victory for the Republican Congress, that their first, you know, after this big victory the budget they put forth, these are the two provisions that they support. It’s so disappointing.
RUSH: No, it’s this and everything else in it that they support. You think I support this crazy thing?
CALLER: Then, Rush, speak out on it. You know, flush it out. I am such an inadequate vessel to try to bring this to your listeners.
RUSH: No you’re not. You are a great vessel, Sylvia.
CALLER: Well, thank you. You know, but I’m not. There are people —
RUSH: Yes, you are.
CALLER: — your listeners would support a hundred percent conservative people like Paul Volcker who was, you know, Ronald Reagan’s Federal Reserve —
RUSH: Don’t forget Frank Carlucci, people don’t know that Carlucci is in the middle of all of this, you know it as well as I do.
CALLER: We need people to say this is really wrong, you know, and to say don’t vote for this. This is wrong. Take out those provisions. We are not a government for billionaires and millionaires, we’re not.
RUSH: Sylvia, let me play devil’s advocate with you here for just a second.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: You don’t like the raise, the increase, 32 grand to 320 grand. What is your objection?
CALLER: I just —
RUSH: Honestly. No, no, hang on a minute. I’m not trying to stir anything up and I’m not trying to trick you. I genuinely want to know, what is your objection to people who have wealth spending it in politics?
CALLER: Because, Rush, I genuinely believe that there is an element of quid pro quo. And not so much the — maybe in the billionaires realm and maybe I even agree with some of what Sheldon Adelson says, but of course there is a quid pro quo. You give the money because you want them to rule in things that are favorable to you or your interests.
RUSH: Of course.
CALLER: And some interests are —
RUSH: This is why I would never run for office. I don’t want to owe people.
CALLER: Exactly, Rush. You don’t have to. I mean, you have a far larger power base. The Koch brothers couldn’t buy your three hours a day —
RUSH: There’s nothing wrong with the Koch brothers. Don’t tell me you’re in this crowd?
CALLER: Okay, well, the democratic guy —
RUSH: I know the Koch brothers. They are fine people.
CALLER: I’m sure that’s all fine, Rush. But, I mean, I’m not complimenting you on the power base that you have assembled, et cetera, that you — whatever. That’s not the point.
RUSH: Sylvia, I need to know, are you an Obama voter? Did you vote for Romney in 2012?
CALLER: I voted for McCain and I voted for Obama, because, frankly, I couldn’t — I just —
RUSH: Sylvia, the reason I ask, because the things that you are complaining about Barack Obama has set records doing. If anybody’s in bed with Wall Street, if anybody is engaged in crony capitalism or crony socialism, it’s Barack Obama and Wall Street —
CALLER: Oh, Rush you —
RUSH: — and American corporations. If you think that the Republicans have an exclusive on it, Obama has set new records in this kind of arrangement between private sector corporations and the government. And you voted for the guy.
CALLER: Republicans always say that, but it is the Republicans who have brought all the legal challenges and all the court cases to the Supreme Court and everywhere else to dismantle any kind of campaign finance regulations.
RUSH: No, it is —
CALLER: And you just want Democrats to unilaterally disarm and not —
RUSH: Republicans have done it? Sylvia, you know, you’re a problem here, because you’re obviously smart, you are articulate, you’re well spoken, but you have been propagandized. You’re dangerous ’cause half of what you say is right. But this incessant — look, and you know that I am not a de rigueur defender of the Republican Party, certainly not recently. And that’s not what I’m doing with you.
But to lay all of this at the blame of the Republicans when the Republican base hasn’t tried to stop anything from happening in six years, for crying out loud. I mean, unions are spending $500 million per presidential cycle, the unions! And where are they getting the money? How much free media do they get? This place, the system is polluted enough without trying to say it’s all one way. But I’m glad you called. I appreciate it. I kind of like feisty callers like this now and then. We haven’t had one in two months. So it’s good.
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