{"id":13517,"date":"2013-01-14T17:25:49","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T17:25:49","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-01-14T17:25:49","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T17:25:49","slug":"obama_republicans_are_deadbeats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/01\/14\/obama_republicans_are_deadbeats\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama: Republicans are Deadbeats"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

RUSH: Well, it doesn\u2019t happen often here, folks, but I have to tell you that I am totally confused now. I am thoroughly pretzeled, I\u2019m tied into knots after having listened to President Obama explain the debt limit. He\u2019s got his press conference going on. It was supposed to start at 11:15. I knew it wasn\u2019t gonna start at 11:15. It started closer to 12 noon, which is when this program starts. <\/p>\n

Folks, I have so many congratulatory e-mails over the weekend from friends and listeners wishing me happy birthday<\/a>. I mean, it was a record. I can\u2019t respond to them all unless I prepared a stock, canned answer to everybody, which wouldn\u2019t be good. They\u2019d compare notes and see it\u2019s the same thing in a form answer. So I just want to thank everybody, friends and even foes and listeners alike. I mean, we\u2019re in the thousands here of people who sent me happy birthday wishes, and I just want to thank you. It\u2019s never happened to this degree. <\/p>\n

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Okay, listening to President Obama today, press conference, talk about the debt ceiling, you would almost think that raising the debt limit is not spending. It does not require any new spending. Raising the debt limit has nothing to do with new spending, and not only that, raising the debt limit is fiscally responsible, and not only that, it takes great courage. And the Republicans don\u2019t have any courage. And the solution here is for the Republicans to just punt. <\/p>\n

If they don\u2019t want the courageous hard work of raising the debt limit, which has nothing to do with spending, then Obama will do it. He just said (paraphrasing), “Look, I could coast in my second term, but I am willing to take on even more responsibilities. If they can\u2019t make the tough choices, and if they can\u2019t make the tough votes,” the Republicans in the House, primarily, but also in the Senate, “then go ahead and give me the authority on the debt limit and I\u2019ll take care of it. I\u2019ll do it in a balanced and responsible way, which is what the American people said they wanted last November.” <\/p>\n

This caused Chuck Todd, NBC, to stand up and say, “Well, why don\u2019t you just use the 14th Amendment?” Even Obama realizes how laughable that is. It would be very easy to say, “Okay, I\u2019ll use the 14th Amendment to do this.” It\u2019s what Pelosi and Reid want him to do. That would be bypassing Congress. That would be basically usurping the control of the debt limit, which is spending, which constitutionally all spending has to come from the House of Representatives. What Obama\u2019s actually asking the Republicans to do is, say, you know, change the Constitution, just write a law and say that all spending bills… but, see, this is why I\u2019m confused. We\u2019re not talking about spending. The debt limit is not about spending. <\/p>\n

Are you confused, too? Let me try this way. The president said, and he said this many times today, very repetitive in this in order to make his point. He said that raising the debt ceiling does not authorize us to spend any more money. All it does is allow us to pay our bills. And we\u2019re not gonna be a deadbeat nation, by God, by gosh, we\u2019re not! We\u2019re not gonna be a deadbeat nation. We\u2019re gonna pay our bills. So we have to raise the debt limit to pay our bills. Now, correct me if I\u2019m wrong here. I\u2019m so confused, I don\u2019t know anymore. The debt limit is essentially equal to the national debt, is it not? When you reach the debt limit, what it says is that you can\u2019t borrow any more without a law being passed authorizing it, but we\u2019ve already spent the money. <\/p>\n

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So we have to raise the debt limit to accommodate what we\u2019ve already spent. But it doesn\u2019t have anything to do with spending. The debt limit doesn\u2019t have anything to do with spending. But Congress is a bunch of deadbeats, because they\u2019ve already spent the money. That\u2019s nothing to do with spending. But they\u2019ve already spent the money, now we\u2019re gotta pay our bills. So we\u2019ve gotta raise the debt limit to pay our bills. That\u2019s all it does. That\u2019s all we\u2019re talking about here is allowing us to pay our bills, which of course means your Social Security check, your Medicare check, your food stamps, your other entitlements. But isn\u2019t that previous spending? <\/p>\n

The debt limit does not authorize us to spend more. Yet the deficits keep getting bigger. Why? We\u2019re spending more. And the national debt keeps getting bigger. In fact, that\u2019s what everybody\u2019s asking for here, would you please raise the debt limit so the national debt could get bigger. But it doesn\u2019t have anything to do with spending. We\u2019re talking about paying bills here, avoiding being a deadbeat nation. Now, why is the national debt going up if we\u2019re not spending? Well, no. Why is the national debt going up if we\u2019re not doing any new spending? Because we\u2019re paying our bills. But what is paying our bills? When you pay your bills, what are you doing? It\u2019s spending, right? But it\u2019s not about spending. Not about new spending. So I guess Obama\u2019s talking and wants to freeze the budget after we pay our bills, wants to freeze the budget, is that what he\u2019s talking about? No, I don\u2019t believe so. <\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m also confused because of this. I saw it on television. How many pieces of legislation over the past four years had a promise in there to lower the deficit? Obamacare was gonna lower the deficit a lot, as well as your premiums. The stimulus<\/a>, that was gonna lower the deficit. I mean, there\u2019s been deficit reduction in practically every piece of legislation. So it seems to me there wouldn\u2019t be any need to raise the debt limit because we\u2019ve been — I know the deficit has been going up, but that\u2019s just a technicality. The reality is we\u2019ve had all this deficit reduction in all of this legislation, and yet somehow we need to raise the national debt limit so that we can pay our bills. So we\u2019ve had a bunch of spendthrifts. <\/p>\n