Callers on the Debt Limit DebateJuly 29, 2011
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RUSH: Huntington, New York. Peter, thank you so much for waiting. I appreciate your patience. Great to have you here on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Thanks for taking my call and I want to thank you for what you do for our country and the true conservative cause. Here's my question: Isn't the big issue that Obama has shoved into the post-2008 budget this $800 billion in stimulus and leaving that in the budget gives us an $8 trillion over ten year budget shortfall. Where is the discussion of that?
RUSH: We have discussed. That's the baseline. When that gets added to the budget baseline, and 800 and some odd billion gets automatically added every year, that's what was spent this past year, that is why this -- you're exactly right. That is why we were able to say yesterday and the day before that even if the Boehner bill was a straight budget freeze, even if we didn't spend a dime more next year than we're going to spend this year, it would be scored as a $9.5 trillion cut. Because the stimulus and a bunch of other stuff has been added to the baseline. So you're exactly right, it's just another way of illustrating it. Great point. Great way to do it. You couldn't be more correct. Brevity is the soul of wit.
Edgewater, Florida. Linda, welcome to EIB Network and Open Line Friday, hi.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I have a slightly different take on this debt crisis. These are not budget talks. It's a Democratic fundraiser, and I hope the Republicans in Washington are listening to your show, because I'm going to say it again, it's a Democratic fundraiser. That's why Obama and Reid are rejecting everything the Republicans are coming up with. Obama needs a debt limit increase to give hundreds of billions again to his union mob boss buddy who sent the money in the last election to his liberal base. And I think Boner [sic] needs to have some cojones and stick to a balanced budget and decrease, you know, Washington's reckless spending.
RUSH: You say "Boner" needs to have some cojones?
CALLER: Yeah, he keeps changing his bills or whatever he wants to send to the Senate. And, you know, he needs to include the balanced budget and continue on. I mean, we did send Tea Partiers to Washington to reduce government and make way for jobs.
RUSH: Folks, I think Linda's right in part. I think this is a fundraising effort. All this denial is supposed to enthuse and invigorate Democrat donors, and it's also to generate another slush fund so Obama can send to the unions that will then just send the money back to him as far as his campaign. I don't think there's any doubt about that.
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RUSH: Donna. Millville, Pennsylvania, great to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: Well, I must thank you, first of all, for doing what you do every day. It helps to keep my blood pressure down knowing that I'm not alone. But I wanted to bring up the fact that, well, first of all, my husband was a small business owner but now, unfortunately, he has to be on disability. And I would like to draw up eyeball to eyeball to the president and say if you don't want to send a Social Security check, don't, that's okay. I'm not afraid, because this is worth it. This fight.
RUSH: God bless you. I don't think Washington understands how many people like you there are out there. I don't think they understand. I know they think that people are angry. I don't think they get it. I don't think they know that none of them are safe.
CALLER: No, they don't understand. When the president implied that we didn't understand what debt ceiling meant, we live with that in our household every day.
RUSH: Of course.
CALLER: Loon.
RUSH: Exactly right. Exactly right. Look, our Founders put their lives and sacred honor on the line. We can't put a few checks on the line? Well, some of them won't. I was in Boston last weekend and I remembered that call, when I was driving along the Mass Turnpike, from that woman, that mother, grandmother, who was opposed to any tax cut because she didn't want any cuts in her Social Security. I said, "What about your kids?" "Raise their taxes, too. Raise their taxes. I'm not doing without my Social Security." Carolyn in Grafton. That's exactly who it was. Carolyn in Grafton, just off the Mass Turnpike. But if we can't put a few checks at risk to do this, when our Founders put their lives and their sacred honor on the line, well -- (interruption) Yeah, I know, I know, easy for me to say. Even if they take it all away I'm still going to have -- it's not some left, Snerdley. Enough. I'm going to have enough left. Really none of this affects me. I'm not really hitting these guys hard enough. Thank you very much, Donna.
Here's John in Fairfax, Virginia. Great to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, it's nice to speak with you.
RUSH: You bet. Thank you.
CALLER: I think what Boehner and the Republicans need to understand is that the only way to get the Democrats to agree to reduce spending is to force their hand. I think the way you do that is for the House to send a bill to the Senate that orders the Treasury Department on August 2nd, regardless of whether the debt limit is raised, that they have to pay the military and send the senior citizens' payments out, things like that, and that's it.
RUSH: They could have done that. I know that. They could have did it. They didn't did it, I don't know why. But they could have.
CALLER: What I was thinking, if the Democrats block it, they take the blame. Then eventually when the Treasury runs out of money, the president will have no choice but to furlough the bureaucrats at the EPA and the Immigration Department and everywhere else; you won't have any choice.
RUSH: They don't want that to happen. They're all Washington creatures. They're afraid of the blow-back that would happen. Don't discount the relevance, the importance of fear. Wait a minute. Now I'm being told they did pass that. I just got a note that they have passed that.
CALLER: Then what happened? If that's it they shouldn't do anything else. Forget about the Boehner plan. It's not going to do anything.
RUSH: The House passed it. The Senate of course didn't.
CALLER: Of course. When the Treasury runs out of money, the president will have no choice.
RUSH: No, because the Senate didn't pass it and Obama didn't sign. It was introduced by Bachmann. It was called the Promise Act. The House passed it but it went nowhere in the Senate, so it's not law.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: That's why we've got to keep winning elections is what all of this illustrates. You have to keep winning elections. Need more Tea Party people up there. I appreciate the call, John.
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