Simpletons Shocked to See Debt Deal Had No Impact on AnythingAugust 3, 2011
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RUSH: Man, the spin that is going on out there today is unbelievable. It's impossible to keep up with it. On the one hand, the left is supposedly ticked off at Obama because he got rolled in the debt deal, and they're fed up. A lot of leftist blogs and websites that I've looked at think Obama gave away the store. And then on the other side of the table you got people thinking the Tea Party were big winners in this debt deal. Others think the Tea Party got rolled, are losers. I've been trying to keep up with this. It actually developed into a stack, one of my stacks of stuff has to do with all of this. It's mind-boggling because it's such a joke. The country lost in this debt deal. There were no winners in this thing. Everybody lost, is the way to look at this. I don't understand the left thinking Obama lost. I do not understand the left thinking Obama got rolled. Well, they didn't get the Bush tax cuts rolled back.
Look, the left is a bunch of Marxists these days. They're not even Keynesians now. You know, Keynes, his purpose was not to destroy the private sector. His purpose was not to destroy the economy. He was actually trying to level the economy out to eliminate business cycles. These guys aren't Keynesian. These guys are Marxists and Obama is just not doing it fast enough for 'em. So, okay, so he didn't get the Bush tax cuts rolled away, and they think a ton of government jobs are gonna be lost. They think there's been a lot of cuts in spending. There haven't been any cuts in spending. There wasn't one dime in spending cut. The baseline alone guarantees that. Obama's free to spend 2.1 or $2.4 trillion right now. It's mind-boggling to listen to some of these people on both sides that talk about who won and who lost. This is such a mess. It is such a structural mess. Try to make sense of it today as the program unfolds.
Moody's is downgrading, ladies and gentlemen, and that means they're downgrading Obama and his performance because Obama created this debt crisis. "Moody’s Investors Service said the U.S. credit rating may be downgraded for the first time on concern that fiscal discipline may erode, further debt reduction measures won’t be adopted and the economy may weaken." May weaken? It is weakened. It is weakening further. There are no debt reduction measures that have taken place. Zilch, zero, nada. There's not one debt reduction measure that took place, and anybody who tries to tell you that there was is lying to themselves.
There was no reduction in spending; there was no reduction in the debt; there was no attempt whatsoever. This is a classic Washington deal to kick the can down the road. Now, Wolf Blitzer, this is kind of funny, poor old Wolf is devastated. You know, the market, it's down another 150 points today. These guys inside the Beltway are so predictable. And, folks, they're stupid. They really do not have any intelligence. They don't have any inquisitiveness. They are not curious. They live by narratives and templates and timelines, and they just simply do not think for themselves. And yet they set themselves up as the arbiters. Listen to this. Wolf can't get his mind around the fact that the big deal didn't do anything on Wall Street.
BLITZER: People are just shocked. They thought at least for a few days the removal of this threat to the US economy would give Wall Street a badly needed boost. Eight straight days in a row. I must say, I was surprised. I thought there would at least be a little bump as a result of this deal. Didn't happen.
RUSH: Why, Wolf? What in this deal is gonna make anybody think that the United States is stronger in any way? We didn't default? They think we didn't default. And so we didn't default, then that means everybody's gonna be clapping their hands and going yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, okay. That proves my point. Obama saved us from default, okay, proves my point. Default, default, default became the narrative. It became the template. We can't afford it. The Republicans got scared to death about it, as per usual, scared to death there was gonna be a default when there wasn't gonna be a default, and then scared to death they were gonna be blamed for it, so they're operating totally out of fear. Everybody thinks there's gonna be a default.
There was never gonna be a default, but everybody thinks so. They really did. I mean, they really did. People like Wolf, they really did think it; and so, when this nothing bill gets signed -- a substantively nothing bill gets signed -- then they think, "Nirvana! Oh, wow, no default! Markets are gonna love us! Moody's are gonna love us!" The stock market plunges. Why did the stock market plunge? The stock market plunged because? Well, the stock market plunged because Bernanke hadn't yet promised that they're gonna start printing money yet again, QE3. The stock market will be back when Bernanke starts printing money with QE3. That's what the stock market's waiting on. The stock market's waiting on nothing else.
The stock market's not out there thinking that anything positive happened here. There was no reduction in debt, there was no reduction in spending, they didn't do anything on taxes one way or the other, and everybody knows that tax increases are coming with Obamacare. Wolf, there's nothing to celebrate here. There was absolutely nothing to celebrate. People with skin in the game, people with money in the game (i.e., people in Wall Street) know full well what an absolute, total joke this whole thing was. But you're sitting there and the rest of you guys in the media are sitting there following indoor template, following your narrative, whoever starts it. It's embarrassing; the single-mindedness, the narrow-mindedness, the simpletonian aspects of the way these people think. So Wolf is shocked, stunned, can't believe it, because Wolf is not able to think for himself.
Let's go back to illustrate here. A little flashback. Wolf was hyping Armageddon if we didn't do a deal. This is July 25th on CNN.
BLITZER: (montage) One week to go and counting! Democrats and Republicans, they are scrambling to avoid a devastating national default! ... The desperately rate against the clock to secure what President Obama is calling "America's national credit card." Just a little more than seven days from now the country could face unprecedented default if Congress is unable to agree on a deal! In just three hours he'll address the nation from the White House on the looming US debt disaster! ... The stakes in Washington could not be higher right now! A deadlock has left the country facing what some believe could be an economic calamity! ... The United States right now is in imminent threat of default. I never expected to hear a president say that. ... I'm very gloomy about the prospects. ... It is possible there won't be a deal.
RUSH: There was always gonna be a deal. The calamity is Obama himself and his policies and here's Wolf all worried, hyping Armageddon. You know, CNN is now a countdown show? It's Countdown to Armageddon every day, whatever the Armageddon is. Three hours and counting to the new approval number for George W. Bush! CNN breaking news! Three hours, and President Obama will address the nation on whether or not we're going to default! It's two hours away from President Obama! President Obama is soon to address the nation on whether or not the Republicans are gonna succeed in destroying the country and the world as we know it! Stay tuned to CNN! It's an hour and a half now away!"
That's all it is anymore. So they all got their deal, and the market said, "(raspberry) you!" and the Wolf and the rest of the media can't believe it, and we're still gonna get downgraded. Look, I hate saying "as I said" or "I told you," but I did -- and a lot of people did. A lot of thinking, engaged, smart people knew there wasn't gonna be a default and also knew that this deal was not gonna avoid a downgrade in the credit rating. Our credit hasn't improved. The ChiComs and the Russians, hell, they're back at it now. They're all upset at all of our borrowing. Obama's off now to party time, his birthday. You know, "presidential birthdays," that means fundraisers and so forth.
So we face our first downgrade on debt from Moody's. It's happening. It's probably going to happen, and this deal had literally nothing to do with it.
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RUSH: How can an increase of our debt by $2.4 trillion -- which is what we did! We raised the debt limit by $2.4 trillion. How can there be any debt reduction in that? And, by the way, for all this talk about winners and losers, there wasn't one thing done on entitlement reform. And that's where all the problems are. There wasn't one thing done on it. Zilch, zero, nada.
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RUSH: Everybody says there's not gonna be any tax increases. How is $2.4 in new debt not a tax increase? Somebody explain that to me. Never mind, never mind that Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years and got things in exchange for that agreement. They're still ticked off about it. I know that everybody is of the mind that the Bush tax cuts are going to expire. I'm not yet convinced that the Bush tax cuts will end. I know Obama's gonna campaign on it, and I know that he would do it if he could. Here's the way to look at it: If indeed this economy stays where it is -- and, folks, let me give you some details of the economy. Here's a story from Reuters: "US Debt Relief Replaced With Recession Fear." You see, we move from one Armageddon to the next?
"In a matter of days investor relief that the US avoided default has been replaced by fears Europe's debt crisis is deepening and the world's biggest economy may be slipping back into recession." You see this? Every day is a new Armageddon! So we go through all this Drive-By stuff on the debt limit and on default, and on Moody's and Standard & Poor's downgrading us -- and we finally, at the end of the day, we come together with a big deal, and everybody is happy, and everybody proclaims that everybody's a winner and that everybody's a loser, but we staved it off! We're not gonna have default!
The very next day, two days later, "US Debt Relief Replaced With Recession Fear." Oh, yeah! Now we're faced with going into another recession. Hey, the dirty little secret is we never came out of the first one. We're still in a recession, and it is deepening. It is worsening. There hasn't been any economic improvement. There hasn't been any economic recovery. "The debt ceiling bill signed by the president," yay! "US economy sliding back into a second recession." Oh. "In a matter of day investor relief..." There wasn't any investor relief. There wasn't even any of that. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down for eight or nine days in a row. Where's the investor relief?
These people in the media can't tell us the truth to save themselves. So "US debt Relief Replaced with Recession Fear," and then from this story is this little paragraph: "The alarm bells may already be ringing. Most worryingly for financial markets, the U.S. administration's commitment to fiscal spending cuts could make any U.S. downturn worse. 'The slide in U.S. growth expectations clearly comes with very poor timing,' said Commerzbank strategist Rainer Guntermann." Now, it was just... This is Tuesday. It might have been last week, it could have been yesterday. The days run together. I told you, I predicted that what would be said is after this deal is done that all of these massive spending cuts could not revive the economy.
And Obama would say, "See? I tried it! I tried the Republican way. I tried it. We went with these massive spending cuts," of which there really weren't anyway, "and it hasn't worked, folks. We need more stimulus! We need now to raise taxes," and so, lo and behold, it's already here. "The alarm bells may already be ringing. Most worryingly for financial markets, the U.S. administration's commitment to fiscal spending cuts..." There aren't any spending cuts, and this administration doesn't have any "commitment" to any. But that doesn't matter, because nothing in the news is truthful!
Cutting spending will be said to have triggered an economic collapse. What is the story, "US debt relief replaced with recession fear" (gasp!) and what is the recession fear? The spending cuts in the deal. (Gasp!) "Oh, no! You see? You see?" The way the Republicans want to do this is gonna destroy our economy. Cutting spending will be said to have triggered an economic collapse. In just two days we're back to a new Armageddon, and the new Armageddon is that all these spending cuts -- and there aren't any -- is now leading to a US downturn to a recession. Poor Obama has no choice, has to raise taxes. I can see this coming down the road, folks.
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