{"id":30537,"date":"2008-10-02T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T03:15:34","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T03:15:34","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T03:15:34","slug":"senate_bailout_bill_full_of_pork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2008\/10\/02\/senate_bailout_bill_full_of_pork\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Bailout Bill Full of Pork"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Okay, so the Senate bill that passed last night is the size of a novel, 451 pages. You would not believe the pork in this thing. You probably heard about the wooden arrows, and you probably heard about the expansion of bicycle benefits. Oh, yes, you\u2019ll hear about it, bicycle benefits to help people get to work, bicycle storage, tax breaks for businesses that encourage people to ride bikes to work and so forth. There\u2019s also a provision, as we talked about yesterday, that now includes mental health in company-sponsored health care packages and benefit packages, which is going to up premiums and it\u2019s going to make it even more difficult for people to go out and afford and buy their own medical insurance if they want to. (interruption) Well, what\u2019s it got to do with it? You tell me, where the hell is this crisis? We\u2019ve had how many days now that we\u2019re going to have Armageddon if this thing hasn\u2019t passed — it still hasn\u2019t passed anything. It just got through the Senate. All these things are called sweeteners in order to get votes from Democrats or Republicans in the House. It\u2019s a pork bill! It is a pork bill. <\/p>\n

Now, John McCain has the perfect opportunity to dramatically make a point about his abhorrence of pork, which he spent 30 minutes on last Friday night in the debate. To get this bailout through the Senate and the House they\u2019ve added pork — surprise, surprise. So why not, after this debate performance of his on Friday night, why not go out there and make that point, say here\u2019s the point and here\u2019s whose vote was changed by it. He said he was going to name names. If he\u2019s president, he\u2019s gonna name names when a pork barrel bill comes before his office as president. I mean, ‘because of the crisis I\u2019m forced to support this, but I can\u2019t stomach the way it was passed. As a senator, I\u2019m one of a hundred, but as president, I would have told Congress to take names and just get it out of there, take out the pork or I\u2019ll veto it. See if they want to take the heat.\u2019 He refuses to name names here when it comes to the bailout problem, who caused it and so forth. And everybody is asking me, ‘Why won\u2019t he do it? Why won\u2019t he name the names?\u2019 It\u2019s very simple why he won\u2019t name the names. He would have to kick ass against Democrats. He would have to name Democrats if he\u2019s going to name names as to who got us in this position, and that would be partisan, in his view, to attack Democrats. Attacking Republicans is not partisan, but attacking Democrats would be partisan, so he wants to stay above the fray of all of this and that\u2019s where he\u2019s going to end up if something doesn\u2019t happen here.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: So a $700 billion bailout bill becomes $850 billion dollars in the Senate. This is going to end up being a trillion dollars before it\u2019s all said and done, and I want to ask you all to help me out with something here. Greetings. Rush Limbaugh. The Excellence in Broadcasting Network, the fastest three hours in media. Would somebody tell me, \u2019cause we\u2019ve been trying to go back to the recent past, we\u2019ve been trying to figure out what was the trigger for this crisis. For example, it wasn\u2019t Lehman Brothers. Lehman Brothers going south. It wasn\u2019t AIG. They bailed \u2019em out. It wasn\u2019t Washington Mutual. Somebody took \u2019em over. It wasn\u2019t Wachovia, Citibank, Citigroup going to take them over. They had $300 billion poured into the system in the summertime, we had a $152 billion stimulus package and little checks to the American people. What\u2019s the trigger for this crisis that cannot possibly wait to be dealt with? The crisis in the credit markets. Ford Motor says, ‘Our sales are down here domestically because customers can\u2019t get credit to buy a car.\u2019 BS. You got good credit, you can go buy a car, for crying out loud. I wish I could divulge personal experience to prove this, but my judgment says don\u2019t do it. But you can get credit if you need to. <\/p>\n

If there is a holdup in credit — I\u2019m going to tell you the answer — the answer is that the credit markets are waiting to see what they\u2019re gonna get out of this bill. They\u2019re waiting to see what these worthless assets they\u2019re holding are going to be valued at. The answer is the government is standing in the way of the market functioning. If you\u2019re in the credit markets or you own a bunch of these subprime mortgages and the government\u2019s talking about buying them from you, aren\u2019t you going to wait around to see what the price you\u2019re going to get is? It\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening here. This has been a crisis that has to be solved today for two weeks. I\u2019ll be damned I can\u2019t find the trigger for this. What one thing — ‘Well, Rush, it wasn\u2019t just one thing, it was cumulative.\u2019 Cumulative what? We bailed out everything that went wrong before this except for Lehman Brothers. Maybe I\u2019m being shortsighted here, but here we are in October, and I think we\u2019ve got our little October Surprise here. We have a Democrat Treasury secretary who went in and convinced the president that this was desperate times, that we can\u2019t wait, we gotta do this. <\/p>\n

Last night when I saw Dingy Harry and Chris Dodd and these guys, these senators come out after they had voted, and I saw how happy Dingy Harry was and I saw him praising the work of Chris Dodd, this would be like Mayor Daley praising the work of Al Capone in cleaning up Chicago. I\u2019m staring at this in suspended belief. I\u2019m saying to myself, these little squirrels got exactly what they wanted. They got the most profound psychological economic crisis in my lifetime. They got it five weeks before an election. They had set it up so that they, the Democrats, fixed this. Eight years of Bush policy caused this. McCain will not name names of the people who actually caused this because they\u2019re Democrats, and to him, criticizing Democrats is partisan. In his debate on Friday night, he went on and on and on about how he would, as president, every bill that came to his office laden with pork, he would name the names of the people who wanted the pork. We got a pork bill here, and he won\u2019t name the names. I don\u2019t even think he made a floor speech. <\/p>\n

Now, let me give you a little wish list here. It will never happen, but it\u2019s going to come up tonight at the vice presidential debate. Both Biden and Sarah Palin are going to be asked about the bailout. Palin is constrained by following the lead of McCain, who is the presidential candidate. But, boy, wouldn\u2019t you just love to hear her say the truth about this? ‘If I were president, this would never see the light of day.\u2019 It will never happen, but if she wanted to ignite this country, if she wanted to turn everything around, that\u2019s one way that she could do it. But it\u2019s not realistic. It just isn\u2019t realistic to expect it because she has to mirror McCain on this and he voted for it. He could very easily have said, ‘Hey, look, here\u2019s the pork and here\u2019s whose vote was changed by it. Because of this crisis I\u2019m forced to support this, but I can\u2019t stomach the way this happened. I\u2019m just one of a hundred as a senator, but I promise you when I am president this will not happen.\u2019 He didn\u2019t say that, and she can\u2019t say it because he didn\u2019t say it. So what\u2019s the tipping point? Today, the Senate is gloating about this, adding $150 billion of pork. I\u2019ll go through some of the pork that\u2019s in this. We got the House not voting on it \u2019til tomorrow night. What\u2019s the urgency, what\u2019s the crisis? ‘Well, Rush, the credit market\u2019s are not lending.\u2019 Yeah, well, I\u2019ve just dealt with that. Something stinks here, folks, and it has always stunk. My instincts on this I fear are exactly right. <\/p>\n

Now, Snerdley said he didn\u2019t know about the bicycle bill. When I read this, ladies and gentlemen, I said, ‘Maybe I\u2019m too quick to criticize this.\u2019 Maybe they did put a crucial provision — I mean, we couldn\u2019t survive as a country without this provision. Isn\u2019t this what this bill\u2019s about, the nation\u2019s financial survival? Isn\u2019t it? Is that not what we\u2019ve been told? Section 211: ‘Transportation Fringe Benefit to Bicycle Commuters.\u2019 That\u2019s the title. ‘The term ‘qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement\u2019 means, with respect to any calendar year, any employer reimbursement during the 15-month period beginning with the first day of such calendar year for reasonable expenses incurred by the employee during such calendar year for the purchase of a bicycle and bicycle improvements, repair, and storage, if such bicycle is regularly used for travel between the employee\u2019s residence and place of employment.\u2019<\/p>\n

Number two. ‘The term ‘applicable annual limitation\u2019 means, with respect to any employee for any calendar year, the product of $20 multiplied by the number of qualified bicycle commuting months during such year. The term ‘qualified bicycle commuting month\u2019 means, with respect to any employee, any month during which such employee regularly uses the bicycle for a substantial portion of the travel between the employee\u2019s residence and place of employment.\u2019 This is in section 211, ‘Transportation Fringe Benefit to Bicycle Commuters.\u2019 What this adds up to, it\u2019s a tax break for employers who reimburse their employees for buying a bicycle to ride to work and for bicycle improvements and repair and bicycle storage while at work. It\u2019s worth $300 per employee to the business who reimburses them. Well, thank God. Now that this is in here, we are ensured that commerce will continue. <\/p>\n

We know people can\u2019t buy cars anymore, so this will allow employees to once again get to work. Had this tax break not been included in this emergency crisis-right-now bailout bill, work would have stopped across the country by Monday, but not now because the bicycle commuters are going to come to the rescue. So we\u2019re nationalizing the home mortgage industry, but at least we have a tax deduction for businesses with employees who like to ride their bicycles. And, by the way, don\u2019t think this is just happenstance in there. What do you bet the odds are that some wacko environmentalist lobbyist got to some senator to put this in there? The real purpose is to get people out of their cars down the road. This is step number one. So, yes, ladies and gentlemen, in your emergency bailout bill, can\u2019t wait another day for this or we are going to just succumb to abject failure, there\u2019s a tax deduction for businesses for $300 bucks who encourage their employees to buy and ride bicycles to and from work. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Okay, so the Senate bill that passed last night is the size of a novel, 451 pages. You would not believe the pork in this thing. You probably heard about the wooden arrows, and you probably heard about the expansion of bicycle benefits. 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