![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/APP-042219-Explained-By-Rush.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRUSH: Folks, the concept of opening the nation\u2019s economy, you know, one of the things that\u2019s missing right now, sad to say, it is really sad to say — and I think I may have been wrong about something. Well, maybe not exactly wrong. Just I might have had some misplaced emotion. You remember going all the way back to April and May and June, after I would miss a week for my cancer treatment, during that week I would see boarded-up businesses, abandoned cities, ghost towns of communities.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I remember coming to the Golden EIB Microphone every day saying, “Gosh. I feel so bad” for you people. In fact, this may have been in early April, late March, I was one of the early advocates, two weeks after we shut down, of opening the country back up. Because I saw the disaster. We can\u2019t shut down this economy. We already shut it down long enough to destroy a three-year economic boom.<\/p>\n
I said, “We\u2019ve gotta open up. And I said the reason we gotta open up is because we\u2019re destroying people\u2019s lives. We\u2019re destroying people\u2019s dreams,” I said. We\u2019re destroying their businesses. You drive by these boarded up places or shut down, closed places, and behind every door is somebody\u2019s dream, somebody\u2019s business. Somebody took out a loan, somebody\u2019s life\u2019s blood is shut down. And I automatically felt empathy and sympathy. I felt sorry for these people who were basically having their livelihoods taken away from \u2019em.<\/p>\n
You know what I misjudged? I misjudged the amount of money we were giving people in COVID-19 relief legislation. It wasn\u2019t as bad as I thought. We were paying people a significant amount of money not to work. And that\u2019s the one thing that\u2019s been missing in this entire shutdown even though we\u2019ve reopened. The one thing that was missing was a national demand on the part of the American people to open it back up. That troubles me. And it troubled me when I realized it.<\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t, there hasn\u2019t been a nationwide demand to reopen the country. Grassroots, I mean. And I have come to the conclusion that there will only be a grassroots push to reopen the country when people stop making more money staying at home than by going to work. I think the number I saw, two-thirds of the people receiving unemployment compensation under the COVID relief bills that are out there, two-thirds of them are making more, they\u2019re getting more than they were earning at their jobs.<\/p>\n
Well, if that\u2019s true, why demand to go back to work? If you can make more by not working, by staying home and watching Netflix all day and all night, why go back to work? And it\u2019s true. The national grassroots effort to reopen has been missing.<\/p>\n
Well, this takes us to a very crucial moment in American legislative history, because the current COVID-19 funding bill is about to expire. I think this is it. This week is the last week, and the average check is 600 bucks. This is the last week. Next week, zilch, zero, nada if the COVID relief bill\u2019s not extended. And there are two bills competing.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/APP-041720-Money-COVID-100-dollar-bill.jpg\")
The Democrats, as I said, have a $3 trillion COVID-19 bill that they want to pass. This is in the House. Because they don\u2019t want people going back to work. They want to convince people that they never have to work again. They want to convince people that socialism is easy. Just get up and cash your government check. And it\u2019s more than many of you will ever earn in your lifetimes, and you don\u2019t ever have to go to work, you don\u2019t ever have to try to get a job, you don\u2019t ever have to get fired. Just let us Democrats take care of you finally once and for all. That\u2019s what they\u2019re trying to accomplish here.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just give people enough money to keep them unemployed through November and to keep them from demanding the economy reopen. They\u2019re trying to convince people that socialism is something that it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s endless money, no matter how much you need, the government will have it for you. Because at some point this is gonna all implode on itself.<\/p>\n
At some point — I don\u2019t know when — inflation is gonna happen and the dollar\u2019s gonna be worth 60 cents compared to what it\u2019s worth today. We\u2019ve printed $6 trillion in COVID-19 relief legislation just in the past four months. There\u2019s nothing backing it up. We just printed it. And neither party cares about it from a spending standpoint, from a responsibility standpoint. Both parties are looking at it purely from a political standpoint.<\/p>\n
And the politics of it, “Give people something and they will love you. Give people something and they will vote for you.” So the race now is who can give people the most. And even at that, the Republicans are proposing a $1 trillion package. This is what they were meeting with the president about today in the Oval Orifice. The Republican package that they want to extend is a trillion dollars, and that\u2019s being called cutthroat and minimal and — Good Lord, a trillion dollars, minimal? Our values are suffered such a blow.<\/p>\n
At any rate, Republicans are literally trying to come up with a package that does not pay people enough that it offers people a disincentive to work. We need people going back to work, folks. The economy is not going to grow in substantive terms if it\u2019s the result of government printing money that it doesn\u2019t have and sending it to people.<\/p>\n
Now, there will be some consumer spending, obviously, and that will cause some economic activity, but it isn\u2019t going to result in any productivity. The money people are getting is not gonna be paid to them because they\u2019ve done work and have earned it. It\u2019s just a welfare transfer payment with nothing backing it up. As such, there isn\u2019t going to be any genuine economic growth attached to it. There can\u2019t be. The government\u2019s having to print the money to get it. It\u2019s not like it exists somewhere and we\u2019re gonna go get it from somewhere and transfer it.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/APP-042220-COVID-04.jpg\")
We don\u2019t have it. Three trillion, one trillion, we don\u2019t have it. But at one trillion, the amount of relief that people get will not be enough to enable them to sit around watching Netflix all day. They\u2019ll have to go back to work. And we need people back to work. That\u2019s the only way the economy is going to begin legitimate growth and returning to where it was.<\/p>\n
The Republicans, including Trump, have been operating under the assumption that people want to go back to work. I did too. I did too. I thought after a month of this, people are gonna be clamoring to get back to work, back to their businesses, back to their dreams, back to what they borrowed money to start, back to their livelihoods. And, no, they were being, quote, unquote, paid enough not to.<\/p>\n
So what the Republicans can do, politically, they\u2019re gonna have to find a way to make it look like they don\u2019t want to take money away from people. So maybe they agree to 80% or 75% or whatever it is, what the Democrats are proposing. Because the politics of this, sadly, is — Democrats have staked it out — we want to give you enough that you don\u2019t have to worry about a job. The Republicans are not saying that. The Republicans are openly saying, “We want people to go the back to work. We need to incentivize people to go back to work.”<\/p>\n
It used to be when America was America and we had our strong, unique American culture and value base, that would have been the winner. Send America back to work; Americans want to work; Americans want to achieve; Americans are not afraid of work. That, sadly, may not be as universal an American value as it once was.<\/p>\n
But 600 bucks from the Feds on top of the state unemployment payment, which averages around 400 bucks. So most people are getting 50 grand a year on unemployment, not to work. So you can see what we\u2019re up against.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Here\u2019s Kate in Carson City, Nevada. Hey, Kate, welcome back. How are you doing?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m doing well, Rush, and let me tell you: Prayers, rosaries, novenas. The whole Catholic thing, you\u2019re getting from Carson City.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank you. I think it\u2019s working. Thank you very much.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I am so grateful. Thank you. You know, I\u2019m calling because I know people that own small and mid-size businesses here and in Truckee and Lake Tahoe, and they can\u2019t get people to come back to work. In fact, I asked one friend. I said, “When are you gonna open up your dine-in?” \u2019cause it was allowed to be open. She said, “I can\u2019t get my servers to come back.<\/p>\n
“They\u2019re making more money on unemployment than they would make if they came back to work.” So the bottom line and my message to the Republicans is, “Don\u2019t you dare. Don\u2019t you dare keep that $600 going. If you do that, you\u2019re going to completely kill mid-size and small businesses in this country, because, you\u2019re right, people, unfortunately… Here in Nevada they\u2019re making over a thousand dollars a week, 52 grand a year, to do nothing.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, it\u2019s human nature. Why would you do anything to upset that? If somebody\u2019s gonna give you 50 grand, why would you stand up and say, “No, I don\u2019t want it. I\u2019m better than this. Don\u2019t give it to me”? It\u2019s not gonna happen.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/APP-041620-Trump-Economy.jpg\")
CALLER: Now, actually, I do know people who have done that. They\u2019ve actually gone back to work and taken pay cuts because they want to work. So there are those Americans out there.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank goodness. Thank goodness. I understood there\u2019s more of that than I realize.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah, they\u2019re out there. I\u2019m telling you, you incentivize this…<\/p>\n
RUSH: But the Republicans think they\u2019re losing this politically, that they\u2019re gonna somehow have to be seen as wanting to give or continue this amount of give away or else they\u2019re gonna lose it politically. They\u2019re thinking that this is not the time to make a stand on this hill of the old work ethic value. Anyway, Kate, it\u2019s always great to hear from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: You know what I misjudged? I misjudged the amount of money we were giving people in COVID-19 relief legislation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":345021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n