{"id":13295,"date":"2013-02-06T18:51:09","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T18:51:09","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-02-06T18:51:09","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T18:51:09","slug":"liberals_nervous_over_sequester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/02\/06\/liberals_nervous_over_sequester\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberals Nervous Over Sequester"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I think the time is right to tell you the details, the relevant details about this sequester business. Because it\u2019s another news story or budget story that is being misreported, it\u2019s being presented as the next crisis, we may not be able to survive it, it contains massive spending cuts, oh, no! And none of that is true.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I mentioned squaring this whole business on the sequester, because it\u2019s another thing that\u2019s being demagogued, and it\u2019s another thing that\u2019s being portrayed as “Draconian spending cuts” that people may actually get really hurt by! (sobs) “Oh, my God, we gotta avoid the sequester! Oh, gee!” It was Obama who told us we would never go through the sequester, but now they\u2019re getting concerned over at NBC. On the Today show, cohost Savannah Guthrie spoke with White House correspondent F. Chuck Todd, and she said (Gasp!), “The sequester, those automatic spending cuts set to go in effect in a few weeks. For a while both sides seemed to fear them equally. That was supposed to push them to the bargaining table.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“Now you hear Republicans say, ‘Maybe these defense cuts, we can live with.\u2019 Is that a negotiable (sic) tactic or will that possibly happen and the sequester goes into effect?” (impression) The sequester means automatic cuts in Medicare and defense. But now, Chuck, we\u2019re hearing the Republicans say that maybe they can live with these defense cuts! They aren\u2019t any big deal. Chuck, are the Republicans negotiating? Is that what they\u2019re doing? Or do they really mean it? You think that would possibly happen? Chuck, do you think the Republicans are serious? They don\u2019t care if the defense budget\u2019s cut and so sequester could go into effect, Chuck? Could that really happen?<\/p>\n

TODD: There are a lot of newer members, Tea Party conservatives, those folks who\u2019ve come to Washington in the last four years who simply said, “Hey, if this is the only way President Obama is gonna cut spending, then why not?”<\/p>\n

GUTHRIE: (frightened grunt)<\/p>\n

TODD: Maybe they\u2019re not happy that it\u2019s on the defense budget. Why not? So if Republicans go in that direction, I don\u2019t see how it is stopped. I don\u2019t see how. If House Republicans decide to let \u2019em go, I\u2019m not sure where the president has leverage here.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, no! Obama doesn\u2019t have any leverage. Oh, noooo! There might actually be some spending cuts. Oh, no! Savannah Guthrie was asking F. Chuck, “Do the Republicans mean this, Chuck? Do they really not care there would be spending cuts, or are they just negotiating? Could this possibly happen, Chuck?” Chuck says (paraphrased), “Yeah, it could really happen. You got these Tea Party kooks and these fruitcakes in there, and they don\u2019t care! They don\u2019t care about anything. They don\u2019t care with the country. They don\u2019t care about themselves. They just want to cut spending!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“These people are insane, and if this is what it\u2019s gonna take to cut spending then, yeah, they\u2019re all for it. And I don\u2019t see how it stops, Savannah. I don\u2019t see how it\u2019s stopped. I don\u2019t see how! If the Republicans in the House decide to let them go, I don\u2019t know what leverage our president has here.” So they\u2019re in panic. The Drive-Bys are actually showing some concern here in a way that they haven\u2019t in past battles between Obama and Congress. They\u2019re really worried here that the Republicans might win this because they just don\u2019t care anymore. Now we move over to CBS This Morning. The cohost Norah O\u2019Donnell spoke with the political director, John Dickerson.<\/p>\n

This is the guy who wrote that piece about how Obama should just annihilate the GOP while he can, and Dickerson\u2019s worried. He says Obama seems nervous now. Norah O\u2019Donnell said, “Another deadline in Washington, another proposal for a short-term fix without any specifics about how to do it and thousands of people facing job losses,” John! (impression) They\u2019re actually talking about spending cuts. Do you know people might starve? They might lose their jobs! People might lose their health care. They might lose their cars. We might have to close some highways. The schools might be shut down! What are we gonna do, John? If the House Republicans don\u2019t wise up, I mean, this is serious. Are the House Republicans gonna be able to gain the political upper hand here, John, or is the president gonna be able to?<\/p>\n

DICKERSON: What Republicans see in this latest move from the president is a little bit of nervousness on his part, which is to say that the economic damage of these constant battles is actually something he\u2019s now more worried about than, say, he was in the last fights we had over the debt limit and the fiscal cliff.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, my heart bleeds. I feel so sorry for Obama. I feel really bad here, because John Dickerson just said here that the president, he\u2019s a little nervous about “the economic damage of these constant battles.” It\u2019s “something he\u2019s now more worried about.” He ought to be worried about the economic damage that he has wrought, and the fact that he\u2019s not worried about it convinces me that he\u2019s not worried about this. Now, as best I can explain this to you — and there may not be anybody better.<\/p>\n

By the way, Snerdley thinks I\u2019ve moved up to number eight on the HuffPo worst person list because of my story on the woman who lost her purse and her food stamps. I\u2019m only halfway through the show and I might have moved up two spots. (interruption) Really? What was bad about that? (interruption) I read what was in a newspaper! (interruption) Well, the poor woman. She lost everything! She lost her purse, she lost her wallet, she lost $800 in cash — and, of course, in journalism they tell you what\u2019s in the last part of the story is the most important — she lost her food stamps! That poor woman. (interruption) I was mocking her? (interruption) I was not mocking her loss of food stamps. What I was mocking was the absurdity that the woman has food stamps. (interruption)<\/p>\n

Okay, I moved up to number seven with that list.<\/p>\n

Okay, I\u2019ll keep going if that\u2019s all it takes.<\/p>\n

Anyway, here\u2019s the sequester. As you know, the sequester is a form of punishment or threat. When the two sides, a year and a half ago or two years — Boehner and Obama — were arguing about the debt limit extension at that time, they came to an agreement that said if they don\u2019t get together and come up with some serious compromise on spending and the debt limit and so forth, then X is triggered. It\u2019s called the sequester. What gets triggered are automatic cuts. I think it\u2019s $500 billion in defense cuts and $500 billion in Medicare cuts over like ten years or 12 years or some such thing, and the reason that was supposed to have worked is because the Republicans just love the military!<\/line><\/p>\n

They just love launching missiles and firing bullets and killing our enemies.<\/p>\n

And the Democrats love giving people health care and curing them of sickness and making sure that life is utopia. So since neither party would like to be denied what it really likes doing, killing people and saving people, they would come together, there would be an agreement, and the sequester (automatic spending cuts) would not happen. Obama promised in one of the debates: Sequester is not gonna happen. He promised it\u2019s not gonna happen. He said, “Don\u2019t worry about it. It\u2019s not gonna happen,” meaning that he was intent on coming to some kind of a deal with the Republicans in the House that would come up with other ways to control spending and the debt, so sequester wouldn\u2019t get triggered. Now the media\u2019s all worried that that isn\u2019t gonna happen, and the sequester will get triggered.<\/p>\n

The Republicans have the upper hand because they don\u2019t care that the military will get cut.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all it takes.<\/p>\n

All the Republicans have to do, act like they don\u2019t care, and on the other side, the media says Obama\u2019s feeling nervous now. So where we are now is that the thing the Republicans supposedly love the most, the big, vicious armed, mean killing machine, the US military, okay, go ahead and cut it, we don\u2019t care. That\u2019s making the Democrats nervous. So what is this, really? All of these spending cuts — defense, Medicare, social spending, whatever, they\u2019re being portrayed at Draconian, as every spending cut always is. And it\u2019s gonna be really painful. There are gonna be a lot of people really hurt by these spending cuts. I mean, they\u2019re really big, and they\u2019re really drastic. But, as usual, they aren\u2019t, because of the current services baseline. <\/p>\n

See, the current services baseline is the magic that makes sure there is never, ever a real budget cut. And so it will be in this case. Now, the current services baseline calls for the federal government to spend $44.8 trillion between now and 2022. In other words, they go ten years out with all these budget projections. The budget every year is done for that next year, but there is always a ten-year projection. Nobody\u2019s ever held to it because you can\u2019t constitutionally bind future Congresses in items like the budget. That\u2019s why there has to be one every year, there has to be a vote by law. Democrats have not done it, but there has to be. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So the latest ten-year projection calls for — and this is Obama, CBO, doesn\u2019t matter which, the ten-year projection, current services baseline calls for the federal government to spend $44.8 trillion between now and 2022. That is on the books. Now, you know what the baseline is, current services baseline, it is the magical device by which every line item in the budget automatically increases anywhere from three to 8% every year, regardless how much money was spent on that line item previous year, just automatically goes up. <\/p>\n

So let\u2019s say that the spending on road repair, just to give you an item here, was scheduled to go up 8% next year, but it actually only goes up 5%, that\u2019s when the Democrats start howling about a budget cut. And they accuse the Republicans of massive, Draconian budget cuts, when in fact we\u2019re gonna spend 5% more than we did last year, just not the 8% that the baseline called for. Okay, so the baseline says that for the next ten years we\u2019re gonna spend $44.8 trillion. The sequester that everybody is panicking over, the sequester, part of the debt deal, the sequester, these automatic spending cuts, would reduce the increases to the baseline budget by $1.16 trillion. <\/p>\n

So, instead of spending over ten years $44.8 trillion, we would spend $43.7 trillion over ten years. Amortized over ten years, it is a rounding error. It is inconsequential, like every supposed spending cut always is. In reality, even if the sequester goes through, if it happens, the federal government is gonna spend $2.14 trillion more in 2022 than it does today, in inflation-adjusted dollars. So even if the sequester happens, the federal government\u2019s gonna spend more money. <\/p>\n

The annual spending on discretionary programs will still increase by $90 billion over the next ten years. After ten years of the sequester, by 2022, spending will consume 23% of GDP. And the sequester was Obama\u2019s idea, by the way. Let\u2019s not forget that. It was his proposal to get everybody to come to the table and negotiate in good faith. So, yes, there are reductions in spending, but they are, as always, for the most part reductions in the rate of growth, and they\u2019re amortized to spread out over ten years. It\u2019s chump change that we\u2019re talking about here, as every spending cut always is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I think the time is right to tell you the details, the relevant details about this sequester business. Because it\u2019s another news story or budget story that is being misreported, it\u2019s being presented as the next crisis, we may not be able to survive it, it contains massive spending cuts, oh, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nLiberals Nervous Over Sequester - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/02\/06\/liberals_nervous_over_sequester\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Liberals Nervous Over Sequester - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I think the time is right to tell you the details, the relevant details about this sequester business. 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