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<\/p>\nRUSH: Lawrence in Columbus. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hi. <\/p>\n
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call. <\/p>\n
RUSH: Make sure, Mr. Snerdley, line one, you either get a number or make sure she holds on. Yeah, what\u2019s up, Lawrence? <\/p>\n
CALLER: I wanted to talk about the Carrier piece. I needed your opinion. First of all, I applaud Trump and Pence for getting it done through — you called it tax deferment — not deferment — tax relief. <\/p>\n
RUSH: Tax relief. <\/p>\n
CALLER: And that\u2019s great. He said it, he did it, and he saved jobs, and he saved them domestically, and I think that\u2019s the most important thing. I also read somewhere in a story that talked about this that United Technologies, which owns Carrier, was concerned that Crazy Bernie Sanders was gonna introduce legislation that said if you were a company that shipped jobs overseas, you wouldn\u2019t be eligible for government contracts, which is worth six billion to them. <\/p>\n
RUSH: Right. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CALLER: I think Bernie\u2019s nuts, but I think he\u2019s right here. I think he\u2019s a hundred percent correct, and I wanted your opinion — <\/p>\n
RUSH: What do you mean? Right about what? Right about what? That if they leave they should be punished? <\/p>\n
CALLER: Why should you give government contracts to companies that leave this country and ship their jobs out? <\/p>\n
RUSH: Oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh. I see. <\/p>\n
CALLER: A, is it true? And, B, what\u2019s your opinion on it? <\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, my opinion is rather generic. I am automatically suspicious, automatically suspicious of government contracts to begin with, because it\u2019s rife for cronyism. And government money is guaranteed, it\u2019s a guaranteed overcharge, it\u2019s guaranteed this. I would much rather have corporations making it on their own. <\/p>\n
Now, some people, like defense contractors you have to have some relationships, some corporate relationship to the government. But I think the punishment — Bernie Sanders was talking about punishing. He wasn\u2019t talking about good economic policy. He was talking about punishing. And that I think I don\u2019t sign on to. That whole belief! <\/p>\n
RUSH: Man, oh, man, is my email popping. “What do you mean, you don\u2019t believe in punishing corporations? What do you mean? You just told that caller you don\u2019t believe in…” I understand how that sounded. I had 10 seconds to answer the guy. Let me explain what I meant. This is about the Carrier deal. We had a seminar caller right before the end of the hour. “Hey, I love what Trump did! Man, I love what Trump did. It was great! It was great! It was great! But I really like what Bernie Sanders said. <\/p>\n “Bernie Sanders said if they send their jobs overseas and they\u2019re a defense contractor and they get government money, you punish \u2019em and take the money away from them! Whaddyou think of that? Whaddyathinkofthat?” I said, “I\u2019m not big on that kind of punishment \u2019cause that\u2019s what Bernie Sanders wants to do.” Bing! Hour ended. Let me explain. This goes to overall corporate attitudes, as far as I\u2019m concerned. There are all kinds of people trying to figure out the intricacies of the Carrier deal. <\/p>\n Carrier has a parent, United Technologies. United Technologies does business with the government. And some of the speculation is… Like one of the email said, “Rush, what are talking about? Trump was gonna punish them! I mean, was he talking about tariffs on everything they brought back in the country.” I understand that. Trump\u2019s telling manufacturers of automobiles and their products, “Fine, you take the jobs outed here and you build the product, you want the product to come back in, 35% tariff. You\u2019re not gonna be able to sell that product if you don\u2019t make it here.” <\/p>\n People were pointing out to me that that\u2019s punishment. Another form of punishment is what the caller cited as the Bernie Sanders scenario, and it is if the parent of Carrier, United Technologies, does business with the government, and they\u2019re threatening to leave, then you go in there and say, “Fine. You\u2019re gonna leave? Then you\u2019re also going to leave your government-related business here. We are canceling all contracts with you.” That kind of leverage would be acceptable to a lot of people. The tax relief that might have been on — which, there was tax relief. <\/p>\n That did not happen. Carrier had leverage. Trump wanted something. United Technologies, in that circumstance, would be foolish to not try to get something. They at least got the tax relief — which, as I say, roughly adds up to $700 a job. There\u2019s also the fact that United Technologies does have contractual relationships with the United States, and if Trump said to the CEO either at Carrier or United Technologies, “If you leave and if you take the jobs — if you shut down that plant — then you can say good-bye to the government contracts that we have with you.” <\/p>\n And if that kept Carrier here, if that was part of the decision making, then you might be saying, “Well, why didn\u2019t Obama do any of this? Where is the magic in Trump?” And it might be a logical question. If Trump was able to do this simply by pointing out the leverage that the United States government has, why didn\u2019t the Democrats try it? All during this campaign Trump\u2019s out there saying he\u2019s going to make sure Carrier doesn\u2019t leave, ditto Ford Motor. It would have been easy for Obama to pull the rug out from under Trump by simply going in and making this very deal with Carrier. <\/p>\n “You take those jobs outta here and we\u2019re canceling government contracts,” or, “I\u2019ll give you tax relief of $700 a job.” Obama could have done it. He could have done it in Hillary\u2019s name. He could have done it and given Hillary credit for it and they could have pulled the rug right out from Trump. Why didn\u2019t they do that? (interruption) No, no. I\u2019m asking an open-ended question. They\u2019re clearly smart enough to. They\u2019re clearly crafty enough to. Maybe they weren\u2019t taking Trump seriously. <\/p>\n Maybe they didn\u2019t think they had to engage in things like this because Trump had no chance of winning anyway so why burn political capital this way? Who knows, but they didn\u2019t do it, and they easily could have. They could have stolen this right away from Trump, if this is what\u2019s happened. Trump and Pence went in there and trended United Technologies with the loss of existing government contract or browbeat them and bullied them but did not give them any tax relief… Whatever happened. <\/p>\n Trump went in there. Whatever the arrangements are, Obama could have done it, and in Hillary\u2019s name, or Hillary could have done it with Obama. They could have had a credit-sharing arrangement, I\u2019m sure. Why didn\u2019t they do it? Anybody have an answer? (interruption) Snerdley? Have an answer? Why didn\u2019t they do it? If it\u2019s this easy, why is any company leaving? If all you\u2019ve gotta do is bully \u2019em, threaten \u2019em with, say, a tariff or with yanking their government contracts away from \u2019em or not offering them tax relief. <\/p>\n Corporations are not people. Citizens United. They hate and despise it, unless they can find some crony arrangement with the CEO of a particular corporation. I mean, look at their enemies list. Their enemies list is every successful American industry, not just individual companies. They hate Big Oil. They hate Big Pharmaceutical. They hate Big Retail, Big Auto. All of these big industries they accuse of destroying the climate or of killing their customers or not caring about the health and welfare of their employees or what have you. <\/p>\n So a guy like that or a woman like Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, in charge of corporate health? I don\u2019t think so. A guy like Trump who believes in corporations, who understands them because he is one — understands their motivation, understands the leverages that he has with them — does not want to harm them, does not want to put them out of business… Unless they\u2019re direct competitors, of course, then it\u2019s a different. But as president, he can\u2019t engage in that anyway. So attitudinally, these things matter to me. I\u2019m not copping out on the answer. <\/p>\n I\u2019m honestly asking: If any of these arrangements I\u2019ve described are what happened to save the jobs at Carrier, why didn\u2019t Obama do it? Trump\u2019s been talking about saving the jobs at Carrier for a year and a half. Do you realize…? I mean, they\u2019re trying to tell you that it\u2019s easy. It could have been done. Anybody could have done it! Trump went in there and did it. Why didn\u2019t Obama do it? If it\u2019s this easy, if it\u2019s a matter of threatening the loss of government contracts, if that\u2019s all it takes to keep a company for relocating to Mexico — and if Obama had done it — can you imagine the effect on the Trump campaign? <\/p>\n What would Trump\u2019s answer have been? And then Obama goes off and meets with Ford and does the same thing. Why didn\u2019t that happen if it\u2019s this easy? Don\u2019t tell me they\u2019re not crafty enough to pull it off. Well, if you… Look, if somebody has an answer for me I\u2019d be more than happy to hear it. But the bottom line is, what does everybody know? At the end of all this, the news is: Carrier is not moving jobs to Mexico. <\/p>\n And the only guy that was talking about making that happen was Donald Trump. So Donald Trump just ends up getting the credit for saving a thousand American jobs, and he\u2019s not even president, and that\u2019s the story. Now, you can go on and on about the machinations of it and the intricacies of it, but you\u2019re not gonna get people to pay attention, \u2019cause that\u2019s not what they\u2019re gonna hear, because nobody else did it. And nobody else tried. Only Trump was talking about it, and it looks like only Trump and Pence tried. So Trump\u2019s gonna benefit from this no matter what you naysayers want to try to make of this. <\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" RUSH: Lawrence in Columbus. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hi. CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call. RUSH: Make sure, Mr. Snerdley, line one, you either get a number or make sure she holds on. Yeah, what\u2019s up, Lawrence? CALLER: I wanted to talk about the Carrier piece. I needed your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"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":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/01125112.Par.89380.ImageFile.jpg\"\/)
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