RUSH: Well, well, well, well, well, look at this. It’s one of these famous breaking-news alerts from the Wall Street Journal. Are you ready for the headline? “White House Proposes Cutting State Department Budget by 37% — The Trump administration is proposing to cut spending by 37% for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development budget –” (that’s aid) “– according to a person,” a person unnamed, one person “familiar with the budget deliberations.

“Trump is developing a federal budget that the president said would add more than $50 billion to the base defense budget,” which McCain says isn’t enough. “The increase will be made possible by significant cuts elsewhere, particularly the State Department and its foreign aid division. The budget for the State Department U.S. aid this year is approximately $50 billion.” So a 37% cut. We’re up to $20 billion, 15, $20 billion? That’s gonna cause some stuck-pig squealing. Whether it’s true or not, what a thing to leak seven hours before the speech begins.

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And then, of course, whatever happens with the EPA. And remember now, the injurious thing as far as the left is concerned is that all of these cuts, when you cut 37% of the State Department, can I tell you what that is? If this is true, can I tell you what that is? That’s getting rid of Obama-appointed career people in there. The leakers, for one thing. U.S. aid, by the way, in order for me to do a troop visit to Afghanistan I had to go through the State Department, the Bush State Department, and specifically the umbrella was under the aid for international development.

And, by the way, it’s erroneous to say that that’s the focal point of American foreign aid. It’s some of it, but not all of it’s contained in that budget. But I can tell you, folks, I can, there were people in that department that didn’t want me anywhere near that trip. I mean, there were people that had no professional desire to do anything positive for George W. Bush. It was an eye-opener for me. Now, I ended up winning some of them over, but that’s because I’m a naturally charming and inoffensive person. And they quickly realized that all of these wild concoctions of me that they had were incorrect, and it ended up being a truly enjoyable trip.

But it was an eye-opening thing for me. I mean there were some people staring me daggers. At the orientation, we got to Kabul, we get off the plane in Kabul and walk in and immediately get in the security detail. Blackwater was the security detail. We’re in all these SUVs and zigzagging through town to get to the private location. And it was time for everybody on the trip to introduce themselves and explain what they were doing there and how we could work mutually together to get things done. And I was there just to coordinate with whatever they were doing with troop visits where they went. That’s the only way I could get a troop visit done.

It was fascinating. They were doing a lot of good work, too. At this point a major project in Kabul was an all-girls’ school that had Barbara Bush’s name on it, that she was behind, and it was designed to elevate the status of Islamic women, many of whom were not allowed to be educated, many of whom were not allowed to go to school. It was eye-opening in a lot of ways. Anyway, the Trumpster is gonna take 37%, take a knife and whack 37% of the money out.
Now to the EPA, this comes from The Daily Caller, so we don’t think this is fake news. The Daily Caller is the website started by Tucker Carlson. He’s now on official leave there while he’s bashing libs and embarrassing them on — (interruption) well, I’ve not retired the Chatsworth name. I interviewed him for the newsletter, I said, “Hey, Chatsworth, how you doing?” He just chuckled.

Anyway, “President Donald Trump will ask Congress to cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) budget 24 percent, or nearly $2 billion, according to sources familiar with the budget plans. The White House sent draft budget plans to agency heads Monday, detailing billions of dollars in cuts to a wide range of federal programs. Cuts to EPA and other agencies will fund a $54 billion increase in defense spending.”

You know what I like about this is all of these years, folks, everybody said stuff like this wasn’t possible, you just couldn’t do this. You can’t cut the federal budget because over half of it is entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SSI, and you can’t cut that stuff and live. The recipients will find you and kill you. And there’s not enough left in discretionary spending to seriously cut the budget. This is what the establishment people told us all these years, that it was a pipe dream to ever think the government could get smaller.

This is the kind of stuff I mean that is just totally discombobulating and turning these people upside down. Here comes Trump — can you imagine when he announces this tonight? And the Democrat half or whatever it is, the 40% of the chamber that’s Democrats, can you imagine how they’re gonna react to this? And, by the way, I’m sure Trump is fully prepared for whatever heckling or negative reaction he gets from Democrats if there is — (interruption) Oh, you don’t think there will be any heckling? Well, I asked this earlier. I said, what kind of breaches and violations in decorum can we expect tonight?

Well, Eliot Engel, who is a nobody, I’ll turn him into a somebody here. Eliot Engel is a congressman from New York. He looks like an eagle, a bald eagle, and was he speaking on the House floor, one-minute speeches just this afternoon.

ENGEL: I have deep respect for the presidency, and I will attend the joint session. But that respect between branches must be mutual. He’s cozied up to Vladimir Putin, the strongman who attacks our democracy. He’s moved to gut the Affordable Care Act and look the other way when threats against the Jewish community have increased in recent years. This isn’t part of our normal political discourse. This goes beyond ideological and political differences. The president needs to work with all people and therefore I will listen to what he has to say today, but I will not greet him and shake his hand.

RUSH: Oh, okay. So he’s gonna listen, not gonna shake his hand. He’s not gonna be standing in line at the aisle there for an autograph or a photo-op. (interruption) I’m not surprised. Maxine Waters is not going? That means who else won’t go? Who are her partners? Actually a lot of them are not there anymore, like Diane what was her name from Los Angeles, she’s not there. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. This was a local LA politician. (interruption) What? No. Can’t remember her name. And then there’s Barbara Lee from Oakland. She’ll probably not show up as well. Diane Watson.

Did I ever tell you about the time I met Maxine Waters? The Super Bowl was in Atlanta, 1994 season, 1995 game. And it was the year they had announced — this is not relevant to the story, but just to give you a historical calendar link. This is the year they’d announced Carolina and Jacksonville as two new expansions teams. And at one of the big parties — this was a Thursday night party — it was not the commissioner’s party. It was the night before that. I met Gene Upshaw. It turned out he was a big fan. Upshaw, number 63 for the Oakland Raiders. (interruption) That might have been Art Shell.

At any rate, he was one of the great offensive linemen for Raiders. He was a player, ran the players union. This is back when the NFL liked me and I liked them. And Maxine was there. Now, this was Buffalo Bills and the Cowboys were playing the game. Maxine was there with her husband, Sidney. And Maxine came up to me, “What do you mean, I don’t like capitalism? What do you mean by that?” I’m sitting here minding my own business at an NFL party and here’s Maxine Waters.

I said, “Congresswoman, it’s nice to meet –”

“Don’t give me that. What do you mean, I don’t like capitalism?”

I said, “Well, I’m sorry,” and I started recounting for her things that I’d heard her say. And she pointed, “Look at my husband Sidney here. Sidney has a Mercedes dealership,” or some car dealership that he had, “and he thrives and survives in a capitalist system. What do you mean?” And she started giving me examples of what she thought capitalism was, which were really lame examples. They were examples of somebody who really doesn’t know what it is but they don’t like it.

She was nice. I don’t mean to portray that she was in my face, but she was, but she was in a challenging way. She wasn’t bullying or threatening. I was just shocked, of all the people you expect to stop you at a Super Bowl party, the last one in my book would be Maxine Waters. I haven’t seen her since.

So anyway, massive EPA cuts. They say you can’t do this. But he’s gonna propose it. Now, the politics of this is gonna be fascinating. ‘Cause I’m gonna tell you this. People that voted for Trump, this is exactly what they were talking about and the added bonus, this is Trump focusing on the domestic agenda and straightening out and fixing, trying to, what is wrong with the country, what is wrong in the direction the Democrats have taken, expanding, growing government, further detachment from the people.

A government that often governors against the will of the people, wasting money, resulting in a middle class that is no longer getting raises and accruing and acquiring wealth. Wages have been stagnant for 15 years. This is exactly, exactly what they had in mind. And, by the way, the people that voted for Trump never bought this argument that you couldn’t cut the budget. They just thought that was BS from a bunch of people that didn’t want to cut Washington, didn’t want to have Washington get any smaller.

So here’s Trump, I mean, launching with both barrels, and this is just what’s leaked. Trump also gave himself a C- on Fox today for his communication skills in the first weeks of the administration. His messaging, he gave himself a C or a C+, primarily ’cause he botched the rollout of the executive order on the travel ban, and they’ve gotta redo that. So he took the hit for that and says he’s gotta do better. Overall, of course, he got an A+.

Also from The Daily Caller: “The initial GOP proposal to replace Obamacare that was leaked last week is already receiving harsh criticism from some on the right for leaving out policies favored by conservatives while keeping liberal provisions, such as subsidies. The draft legislation, initially obtained by Politico, makes a number of changes to Obamacare policies, but doesnlt go far enough for some Republicans.

“The draft is two weeks old and is likely to change before congressional leaders are satisfied with it, according to Republican aides. One major Republican-favored policy notably absent from the draft [of the Obamacare repeal] is allowing the sale of health insurance across state lines.” That’s something that Trump touted all the time at his rallies, that if you want to make health care — health insurance. If you want to make the prices competitive, and if you want to bring the prices down, allow insurance companies to compete state to state.

So I’m curious why that would be left out. That’s the one thing Trump has always touted in his Obamacare plan, and it’s hard to see why anybody would oppose it, except for (dadelut dadelut dadelut!) the insurance companies. If you tell the insurance companies, “Nope! You can only sell in Mississippi,” well, that means nobody else can sell in Mississippi. So they can pretty much do what the market will bear and then some.

“Trump Seeks Historic U.S. Military Spending Boost.” We have heard something like a $54 billion increase. “The proposed rise in the Pentagon budget to $603 billion comes as the United States has wound down major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…” That’s a 10% budget increase for the defense department, and I think I saw McCain on TV today say it’s not enough. Have to double-check that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Are you ready for this? For Trump’s State of the Union tonight, Republicans have been told to show up early and no photos. The Democrats have been told to show up and be polite. That was the graphic crawl I just saw on Fox News. Then I have this: “Donald Trump Invites Widows of Slain Law Enforcement Officials to Joint Address to Congress.” In addition to the widows of slain law enforcement officials, “[t]he Trumps have also invited Jamiel Shaw, Sr. whose son Jamiel Jr., was shot and killed by an illegal immigrant in 2008.”

So the parent of a son killed by an illegal is also gonna be up there with Mrs. Trump, and this guy Jamiel “Shaw endorsed Trump during the campaign, praising him for vowing to deport criminal illegal immigrants. Many Democratic lawmakers have announced that they are inviting refugees and illegal immigrants to Trump’s speech to protest his strict border enforcement measures.”

So the Democrats are gonna have actual felons and misdemeanor-ers in the House Gallery. Is this not amazing that the Democrats are inviting refugees and illegal immigrants in an attempt to embarrass Trump? Can you believe this? You want to talk about a people out of touch? I hope Trump hears about this and has ICE agents waiting right outside the chamber door. (interruption) Yeah, you can quote me. We love to have fun here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, I just heard some people talking about Trump’s budget cuts, EPA and State Department. “It’s not that much money. It’s only $50 billion.” The money is not the only point, folks. When you start paring down these agencies, when you make them smaller, the odds are you’re going to make them less powerful. It’s not just the money that goes to these agencies that presents the problem. You have all these cabinet-level departments, these bureaucracies, that have all of these embeds in there, career appointees issuing regulations left and right.

That’s the real problem is what they’ve done to take over the legislative process, to take rule making and law making away from the people and then they just do it willy-nilly and they issue these regulations and everybody thinks they’ve got to abide by ’em. And it’s really problematic. It’s as big a problem as the money. And cutting the money is one of the first steps in reducing the power and influence in these agencies. They’re much bigger and much more pervasive than anybody ever imagined, except the people that actually envisioned them, and they’re functioning exactly as they were intended by Big Government designers.

Now, what Trump has just done while we were in the break, Trump signed an executive order just now getting rid of the EPA water rule. And this is basically the rule that kept land owners from doing what they wanted to do on their own land. For example, if a farmer would dig a hole that reached water so that his cattle could drink water from it, the EPA would come in, “You can’t do that. That’s not your right to do that. You’re violating land usage rules and regulations,” and shut ’em down and just minor things like this.

Puddles and ponds, turning your backyard into something that you no longer have ownership over. It was a massive — this water rule, clean water rule. It’s like every other piece of legislation; its name is intended to sound wonderful and compassionate. Who could oppose the clean water rule? Well, it wasn’t about clean water. It was a massive government land grab. And the land grab primarily impacted farmers, agriculture people, and even people in your own backyard. And Trump just undid it.

And this is another dramatic promise that was kept. And there are gonna be more things like it. These little things, appear to be little things, are major, major irritants to the left, who get what they want this way without it ever having to go through Congress, without it ever having to be debated, without it ever having to actually be voted on. All of these cockamamie things should just be reversed.