RUSH: Dave in Des Moines, Iowa. Dave, welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you with us.
CALLER: Hi!
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: Responding to your article, “My Warning on Illegal Immigration” in your March Limbaugh Letter?
RUSH: Yes, I have the Limbaugh Letter of which you speak right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
CALLER: (Laughing.) I thought you might. I’m wondering why you assume Bush’s motivation behind his guest worker plan is to get Hispanic votes and not just because he believes it’s the right thing or that it might solve all the problems that everyone is complaining about?
RUSH: Well, I think it’s political because I think it’s political. Let me give you… Immigration is an interesting thing. You know, immigration divides two big Republican constituencies. The two big constituencies are pro-business and the anti-immigration people — call them “cultural conservatives,” whatever you want to call them. But the pro-business conservatives
There’s the word “illegal.” I also know that what Rove and Bush are — I support this, by the way — Rove and Bush have as one of their grandiose schemes, one of their plans to really destroy the Democratic Party today as it’s known, as a functioning opposition. They’re trying to splinter it and one of the ways they’re doing it is trying to get a certain percentage of a number of different constituencies that vote Democrat. They’re trying to get a percentage of the black vote; they’re trying to get a percentage of the Hispanic vote; they’re trying to get a percentage of a number of different groups. The Democratic Party is an amalgamation of a whole bunch of different — constituency groups and you’ve heard it said before, if the Republicans can just peel off 5% to 10% of the black vote and say 5% to 10% of the Hispanic vote, the Democrat Party is finished, and I have no question that that’s part and parcel what’s going on. I also think I’ve heard it said, “We can’t possibly identify them all. We can’t round ’em up and we can’t kick ’em out, because we can’t find ’em. We don’t know who they are. So the best thing we can do is to come up with a policy that will eventually grant them amnesty and will eventually allow them to be guest workers where if they stay here long enough, keep their noses clean, then they’ll be able to be known as legal.”
CALLER: Could I make a point about the word “amnesty”? People — Congressman Steve King can’t stop using it for example. “Amnesty” is where you keep the same law but you take a group of the people who are violators of it and forgive them but keep the law in place so that people continue to be violators.
RUSH: Amnesty would be fine except one half of what you just said we’re not doing. We’re continuing to allow the law to be broken. We’re making very few efforts to actually stop the swarm!
CALLER: Right. But amnesty obviously is a problem because it just creates more incentive for people to come up, swarm up north. But that’s not what anyone is proposing nowadays. It’s not what Bush is proposing. We’re proposing changing the law, and changing the law is not amnesty. Every time you change the law, you make some people who violate it so that they’re not violating it anymore, and vice-versa. I share the concern that the security problem isn’t going to be solved just by brute force, but Bush’s plan creates positive incentives for people to come out of the woodwork.
RUSH: And identify themselves.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: And then become eventually legal after they’re granted amnesty.
CALLER: And if that plan were combined with a lifting of quotas to the extent that qualified people come up, and if there were positive incentives such as S. 1387 had last year for people to get off welfare, learn English, get education, stay out of jail.
RUSH: You’re talking these all pie-in-the-sky things. These are things that used to happen automatically. Immigrants would come here and they would acculturate. That’s what you just described. They would acculturate. That’s not what’s happening. They’re coming here and they’re not acculturating at all. We have to use second and third languages to register people to vote, send out emergency warnings or whatever. There’s so little acculturation going on. The law is still being wantonly violated. Then when people finally reach the point where they’re not going to take any more, they pass things like Prop 187 in California, Prop 200 in Arizona where they say, “Fine, if you’re not gonna keep illegals outta here, we’re going to pass laws that say we’re not required to pay taxes that will grant them welfare status or health care or whatever.” You know, and I know one of the arguments, “Well, these illegals are coming and then they’re having kids here and those kids that are born here are naturalized citizens, natural citizens, and so what do we do with their parents?” and so forth. But what the people see, I’m just going to tell you this: I don’t like be critical of the president on this. You have to understand this. I’m going to tell you something, folks, and I’ve said this over and over and over again. You know, we talk about how the Democrats are screwing themselves and the Democrats are using a 30-year-old playbook and the Democrats are sitting around and not learning from their mistakes or continuing to make the same old mistakes and they’re nothing but negative and seething with rage and hatred — and all that’s true and we also know the Democrats are sitting around hoping and waiting the Republicans blow it on something.
They’re not really advancing their own agenda on Social Security or anything else they’re being critical of. They’re just trying to put a giant brake on whatever the Republicans want to do and here hoping in the process the Republicans make some mistake and screw up. I am telling you — I don’t think that this is something that the Democrats are immune from either. I think both parties are going to be shocked and stunned at what eventually happens to both of them in this country if neither one of them stands up and takes this seriously from the citizen point of view. On the one hand we are telling the citizens, “You’ve gotta get informed and you’ve gotta get knowledge and you’ve gotta take action. The judiciary is out of control!” On the other hand, the same people are saying to the people who they want to be informed and educated on the judiciary, they’re saying to those people at the same time, “What you think about immigration doesn’t matter,” and these people are fed up and they’re fired up about it, and it’s not just border states anymore, and it doesn’t help when you’ve got this group called the Minutemen going down to monitor just trying to call attention to the problem and the president says they’re “vigilantes,” and then you’ve got this group from Central America, this gang bunch going to come up and start busting heads if they can, just to make the Minutemen look bad.
The American people are speaking. The American people are trying to speak as loudly as they can — through the ballot box, through public protests — that they don’t like what’s happening here. It’s something. They better be listened to, because this cry of anger is going to keep getting louder and louder and louder if it keeps being ignored. There has to be politics involved in this. It’s impossible that there wouldn’t be in something like this, and I’m not saying politics involved in things is necessarily bad, but you asked me why do I think that there’s politics involved, and because I think there is. There’s no question about it. A happy balance needs to be found here. If you’re going to have politics involved you gotta listen to the politics of the people of the country who are complaining about it because they’re the ones being forced to pay for it. At the same time they’re being told, “Well, you better be thankful for this because your food is so cheap.” So you’ve got the rift in the Republican Party split down the middle, and the Democrats are going to make the same mistake by thinking this is strictly a Republican problem. If they don’t get on board — it’s an issue waiting for them to take over, by the way. If they did it could present problems for the Republicans down the road. Mark my words, folks: Keep an eye on this illegal immigration, because it’s a potential powder keg.
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RUSH: Now, about immigration here. “The Senate is bracing for its first fight over amnesty for illegal immigrants in nearly ten years after the chamber’s parliamentarian ruled that a debate over granting legal status to illegal agriculture workers will be allowed on the pending emergency spending bill,” and so, what did I just tell you? I just told you, the agribusiness bunch, there’s a split on the Republicans on this. The dirty little secret is that for all the “cheap food” we think we’re getting because of illegal farm labor and so forth, how much are our taxes going to pay for all the benefits and the education and blah, blah and everything else? You know, so, yeah, cheap food one thing or another, but there is no cheap anything. Everything costs. There’s a balance for it. When the government is involved, let me ask you: Does the government ever do with less money? If the government ever learns that your food costs going down, guess what? They’re going to think they can raise taxes because you’re getting a break somewhere. If gasoline prices plummet, want to know what they worry about? They worry about taxes that they’re going to have to fix roads. Or if you stop using less gasoline to save yourself money, guess what? They’re going to raise your gasoline taxes.
If the price of gasoline comes down and some governor somewhere is going to say, “You know what? These people have got some extra money. We need to raise taxes.” It’s famous in New Jersey. It’s famous all over the place. Meanwhile, when your gas price goes from $1.50 to $2.10, does the government say, “You know, what, the people’s prices are going up. We need to cut taxes.” Does it ever happen? It never does! So here’s the Senate: “Bracing for its first fight over amnesty for illegal immigrants in nearly ten years, the parliamentarian has ruled that a debate over granting legal status to illegal Ag workers will be allowed in the pending emergency spending bill. The $81 billion emergency spending bill covers costs associated with the war on terror. The House has already passed a version with provisions restricting asylum claims and cracking down on illegal immigrants’ ability to use driver’s license. The parliamentarian in the Senate said that those provisions open the door for Senator Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, to offer as an amendment to his bill commonly called Ag Jobs to legalize the 500,000 to one million illegal immigrants now working in the agriculture industry.” So he can simply offer as an amendment his bill, commonly called Ag Jobs because the parliamentarian’s rules that 500,000 to one million illegal immigrants working in the Ag industry will be legalized.
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