{"id":13607,"date":"2013-01-03T18:28:06","date_gmt":"2013-01-03T18:28:06","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-01-03T18:28:06","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T18:28:06","slug":"searching_for_something_positive_amid_the_theatrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/01\/03\/searching_for_something_positive_amid_the_theatrics\/","title":{"rendered":"Searching for Something Positive Amid the Theatrics"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

RUSH: Don in Chicago. Let\u2019s grab a quick call here. Great to have you on the program, sir. Welcome back. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Thank you. Thank you, Rush. It\u2019s a great honor to be the first caller of 2013. I\u2019ll try not to disappoint. Rush, I don\u2019t believe that this is a great deal — and, in fact, Larry Kudlow today gave it one star out of possibly three. But I think there is one victor in this whole thing, and I think he\u2019s a guy in Texas named George W. Bush. Because for 98% of the people in the United States, George Bush\u2019s tax cuts are now the law of the land. They will not sunset, and it\u2019s gonna take both the House and the Senate to get anything changed. So I think there is a victor. I think we have to be optimistic, like you always say, and one step at a time.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, look.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

CALLER: This the best deal we could get.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait. I\u2019m all for optimism, but… Uh, what…? (sigh) Tell me, I need to know: Where\u2019s the value in saying, “Bush wins, his tax rates are unchanged”?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, for all these months and even years, the president has been saying that George W. Bush\u2019s tax cuts have caused the recession.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: They have caused the inflation, have caused all this other stuff, and now —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Look, Bush\u2019s “tax cuts for the rich” did that. These middle class tax cuts, these 98% you\u2019re talking about whose tax rates are not gonna change? There\u2019s an asterisk: “Until we get a Democrat House of Representatives.” If we get a Democrat House of Representatives, those go up. Those tax cuts are not permanent \u2019til the end of the world. The next Congress can change them. They can change them tomorrow if they want! They can change them in a debt limit deal. You get a Democrat House of Representatives to go along with Obama and a Democrat Senate, and those rates are going up. It\u2019s in the cards. Nothing, nothing is safe, folks.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: By the way, Democrats, ladies and gentlemen, are talking about going back to pre-Reagan income tax rates, which were as high as 70%. There are Democrats talking about how the economy can withstand that. There\u2019s a total transformation taking place here that the Republicans still do not get.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: We had a caller in the first hour, a nice guy. He\u2019s like a lot of you, I assume, looking for something positive to grasp onto, which I totally understand. I am the architect of such thinking, such behavior. At the same time, it must be tempered with realism. So the Bush tax rates remain the same for 98% of the country. Fifty percent of the country is not paying income tax. What we had last week, this fiscal cliff deal?<\/line><\/p>\n

It was nothing but a bunch of theater, folks, drama and theater, and it happens with regularity now. This is what you get with no budget. Every budget item ends up being a crisis, and every solution now is the Republicans giving away a core belief. Every solution is the Republicans giving away a core belief while admitting that that core belief was the problem. And the Republicans have been falling right in line.<\/p>\n

So all of this tax theater last week — and that\u2019s exactly what it was. All of this tax theater, Obama and his cheering pep rally? It\u2019s going to generate $60 billion a year. We\u2019re now going to have the fifth consecutive year of a trillion-dollar-plus budget deficit. And all that tax theater, all that drama, raises what amounts to a rounding error. It is insignificant in terms of dealing with the real problem. But the theatrics and the image?<\/p>\n

Why, it\u2019s major what Obama pulled off here in his desire and his effort to transform this country into something it was never intended to be. This was a major step forward he accomplished, under the guise and under the illusion of solving a problem. No problem\u2019s been solved. We are simply exacerbating existing problems and creating new ones. All the while the American people are being misled and being told that we\u2019re solving some of these things. It\u2019s really breathtaking to watch. I wonder how many…<\/p>\n

As I listen to the inside-the-Beltway media, including conservative media, I have to wonder how many of them don\u2019t really understand what\u2019s happening, either. And then, to be quite honest, in the past week I\u2019m asking myself, “Am I really this out of touch? Am I really one of only a hundred or so people who think what I think anymore?” I really was asking myself that, because no matter where I turned, no matter what I read, no matter what I saw, I heard people saying things that, to me, made no sense.<\/p>\n

I saw people saying things and read people writing things that bore no relationship to reality whatsoever. I\u2019ll give you an example. I say that we keep throwing away our core beliefs in order to get to what matters. Well, what really matters, apparently, is spending. “What really matters is out-of-control spending, and that\u2019s what we really have to get our arms around, and this tax business? Ehhh, we were never gonna win that. Let\u2019s throw that away.<\/p>\n

On how many other things have we said, “Yeah, throw that away. Let\u2019s throw away our stand on immigration. Let\u2019s throw our stand on abortion. Let\u2019s throw away our stand on the social issues. All these things are causing us trouble, don\u2019t you see, Mr. Limbaugh? We\u2019ve gotta get rid of all these things we\u2019re gonna lose on anyway and get to what matters: Spending!” I don\u2019t know where they get this thought process that somehow we\u2019re gonna win that.<\/p>\n

While we lose everything else and throw everything else away and give up on everything else, we\u2019re gonna win the spending argument? This is what I don\u2019t understand. I\u2019d like for it to happen, don\u2019t misunderstand, but I don\u2019t think our people get it. I\u2019m all for optimism when there are things to be optimistic about. John O\u2019Sullivan, the former editor of the National Review, points out that optimism is a state of mind; it is not a principle for governance.<\/p>\n

Optimism is not a solution. Optimism is not a policy. It\u2019s a state of mind. And it can be helpful. But principles and policies and solutions come from understanding and admitting what\u2019s going wrong. Only then can you come up with effective policies to fix, solve, resolve, reverse, or what have you. Now, there\u2019s a popular piece of conventional wisdom inside the Beltway. It goes like this: “Okay, we\u2019ve thrown the tax debate away.<\/p>\n

“We got the taxes off the table. They\u2019re no longer a distraction. Obama got his measly little tax increase on the rich, and now we can get down to the real nuts and bolts of spending and the country\u2019s fiscal future.” The inside-the-Beltway thinking is that because the Republicans, for the most part, won the fiscal cliff deal… Yes, that is the inside-the-Beltway thinking. Dawn, let me ask you a quick question.<\/line><\/p>\n

Please be honest. I\u2019m not trying to put you on the spot. And if you don\u2019t know, then tell me you don\u2019t know. Do you think — and forget what you\u2019ve heard me say today. But when you got here today before the show started, did you think the Republicans won the fiscal cliff showdown? (interruption) You didn\u2019t? (interruption) Brian, did you? (interruption) Both are saying now “no.”<\/p>\n

The conventional wisdom inside the Beltway is, “Well, we might not-a won, but I\u2019ll tell you: We did better than the Democrats did because the Democrats now have a problem, because the Democrats are now gonna be forced into talking about cutting spending.” What? Who\u2019s gonna “force” them? The media? Republicans? Who? I\u2019d love for it to happen, don\u2019t misunderstand. (interruption) Why weren\u2019t the Democrats throwing any parties?<\/p>\n

They are secretly throwing parties over this. Obama is! He\u2019s doing pep rallies. Obama went back to Hawaii to finish the vacation. That\u2019s another slap in the face, by the way. He gets back on Air Force One as soon as the Republicans caved. He didn\u2019t even sign the bill. You know what? Obama used the autopen in the White House to sign the legislation. He didn\u2019t even personally sign it.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t really even have to come back here. He just did that for the theatrics of it all. So now the table is somehow set for us to kick butt in the spending debate that is gonna come up on the debt limit? Last I saw, Obama is demanding no debt limit whosoever. He just wants to get rid of it, wants to be able to set it himself. But apparently there are people that think now that the table is set for all kinds of spending reform, since the Republicans got all the distractions out of the way.<\/p>\n