{"id":7569,"date":"2014-12-10T19:23:37","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T19:23:37","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-12-10T19:23:37","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T19:23:37","slug":"the_gop_leadership_has_left_us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/12\/10\/the_gop_leadership_has_left_us\/","title":{"rendered":"The GOP Leadership Has Left Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

RUSH: Here\u2019s John in Winter Haven, Florida, as we head back to the phones. Hello, sir.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Rush, what an honor. I go back with you from the day I found you on the dial 30 years ago or so. But I feel like I\u2019ve gotten a PhD in not only conservative politics, but what I call Founding Father values.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right, you have. We don\u2019t award any degree. Degrees are not given, but you have the equivalent of one. If you\u2019ve been there that long there is no question you have a tremendously high education here as a result of steady listening to this program. You do.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I appreciate what you\u2019ve done all these years and are continuing to do. It\u2019s a huge sacrifice from a time perspective, but you do it with one hand, you know, tied behind your back or your brain.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Half my brain tied behind my back, yeah. But I don\u2019t sacrifice anything. Believe me. There\u2019s no sacrifice.<\/p>\n

CALLER: You do it so well. Snerdley advised me to get to my point, and I will. I often hear you opine about the fact — and I totally agree — that our GOP establishment just sits mute as issue after issue is handed them on a silver platter. You never hear them take it up and run with it or articulate a point. I just have a theory, much like the Limbaugh theory. This is sort of a baby, tiny, not even to be compared to the Limbaugh theory. But do you suppose that they sit back knowing full well that you are going to articulate the point they should be making to your audience? I mean, we see the midterm elections go our way, and it obviously is not because they are making the point as elected people. I just long… I\u2019m observer of politics like you are —<\/p>\n

RUSH: I think that used to be the case. I think it used to be that Republican\/conservatives leaders would rely on me and others in the so-called conservative media to take the arrows for them. We would be the ones to explaining. We would be the ones to inspire. We would be the ones to fire up. We would be the ones to basically take the hit when there was reaction to it. In other words, they relied on us to inform their voters who they were. They relied on us to tell their voters what they were gonna do.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t think anymore that\u2019s the case because they don\u2019t do what their voters believe they\u2019re gonna do, and clearly I no longer espouse what they believe. So I don\u2019t think that is a factor. It was I think not long ago. The last three years, last four years there\u2019s been a transformation that\u2019s taken place among the Republican leadership. It\u2019s kind of complicated here, really, because the Republican Party has never really been enamored of conservatives. The Republican Party has been tolerant.<\/p>\n

But for the most part, the Republican Party did not like Reagan. I mean, the establishment wing of it did not like Reagan and don\u2019t like conservatives. One of the reasons why — and there are many reasons I\u2019m sure I haven\u2019t even thought of. But one of the basic reasons is that the mainstream Republican Party does not oppose a big government. They want to run it. The mainstream of the Republican Party… My brother wrote a column about this phenomenon just this week. A lot of conservatives make the mistake of thinking it\u2019s just the Republican leadership.<\/p>\n

But there are a lot of Republicans, voting Republicans who are perfectly fine with Obamacare. There are a lot of Republicans, mainstream Republicans who say, “Look, let\u2019s not do too much here on immigration.” There are a lot of mainstream Republican voters who embody the same fear that Republican leaders do. “Oh, we can\u2019t make the Hispanics mad at us!” I\u2019ll give you an example. There are a lot of mainstream Republican voters who are embarrassed by Sarah Palin. Now, Snerdley\u2019s looking at me with a frown and a look of disbelief on his face.<\/p>\n

But I think it\u2019s something that we have face.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the Republican establishment that is unwilling to fight Obama. There are plenty of mainstream Republicans who are unwilling to as well. My point here is that not every Republican voter is a conservative. That\u2019s my point. There are a lot of moderate Republicans out there. You know it as well as I do. You can sit there and frown all you want, but you know it as well as I do. (interruption) Lost influence? Those voters had lost influence? (interruption) I don\u2019t know that they\u2019ve lost influence.<\/line><\/p>\n

Who do we keep nominating in our presidential primaries? (interruption) But here, back to the original point. It\u2019s no just the Republican establishment, but there are a lot of mainstream Republicans to whom the idea of reducing the size of government isn\u2019t a big deal. They\u2019re not oriented the way we conservatives are about this. It\u2019s okay if we do, but they\u2019re not gonna go to war over it. Now, the Republican establishment — the elected Republican establishment, actually, and some of the so-called conservative media establishment is actually okay with a big government.<\/p>\n

You can identify those people very easily if you read what they write. They will say things like, “We believe in a strong executive and a big government managed smartly. We believe in smart management, smart government, and we\u2019ll reduce parts of the government that are wasteful and extraneous and unnecessary.” But as an overall operating principle, the idea that government must be reduced? That\u2019s not a Republican Party view.<\/p>\n

They want to run the Big Government.<\/p>\n

They want to be Senate committee chairmen.<\/p>\n

Do you realize…? Look at it this way, just the way they do. If you are a Republican senator, you control, you have access to (in a way of thinking) 1\/100th of United States budget. You don\u2019t have to be on the Finance Committee. You don\u2019t have to be in the banking committee. You vote on all the legislation. There\u2019s a hundred people in this club. So that means the full force, size, power, and wealth of the US government is held in the hands of hundred people — and most of them have no desire for that big pie to get smaller.<\/p>\n

They want to run, they want to be in charge of who gets that money, because that\u2019s where the power resides. They want to be in charge of being able to write legislation that offers tax break over here, tax break over here, tax increase here, you name it. But that\u2019s where the power is. That\u2019s why I\u2019ve always believed that real tax reform isn\u2019t gonna happen with people that are gonna be running for reelection, because the purpose of the tax code is not to raise money. It\u2019s social architecture. The purpose of the tax code is how members of Congress wield power.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not going to willingly vote it away.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Now, if you have a Civics 101 belief — if you believe that most Republicans believe in small government and believe in less obtrusive government and believe in individual liberty and freedom — then you would think they would all be hell-bent on reducing the size of government, expanding the public and private sector, expanding the free market and free enterprise economy, expanding entrepreneurism and opportunity.<\/p>\n

But you would be wrong. That is not a guiding principle of the Republican Party. It\u2019s out there to be seen. Some people don\u2019t want to admit that because then you get close to, “Well, there\u2019s no difference in the two parties,” when there clearly is. But that\u2019s a big dividing line, to have them agree on things. That\u2019s a big issue to have the Republicans and Democrats agree on things. What just happened here? What just happened? Let me spell it out for you.<\/p>\n

We just had the second midterm landslide, however you want to call it: Victory for the Republicans\/defeat for the Democrats. Either way. Both are true. The Democrat Party in 2010 lost 700 combined seats all over the country, and had massive similar size losses last November. The American people finally sent the Democrats packing in the Senate and next month the Republicans are gonna run that. The Republicans are gonna run the House, they\u2019re gonna run the Senate. Half the Democrat senators left who voted for Obamacare.<\/p>\n

Half of them who did are gone. The American people clearly have gone to the polls twice in midterm elections and said, “Stop this!” What just happened today, or yesterday? The House Republicans just fully funded Obama\u2019s amnesty — well, Homeland Security — up through February 27th, and fully funded Obamacare. They had a clear opportunity to say, “Nope, we\u2019re not gonna let Democrats write next year\u2019s budget,” or the remainder of this year\u2019s. This budget year stuff gets confusing because when I say “next year,” I mean, next calendar year.<\/p>\n

Well, we didn\u2019t beyond December 11th, tomorrow. So the question was, “Okay, do we come up with a budget,” an omnibus it\u2019s called, “that will define United States spending through all of next year through September 30th, or do we do one for just a month or two — and then when we are sworn in and run both houses of Congress, then we do the budget for the remainder of the year with our values in it and our economic beliefs in it?”<\/p>\n

Well, they didn\u2019t do that. They essentially threw away all of next year and let Harry Reid have pretty much what he wanted. The Democrats got pretty much what they wanted in this budget. In fact, Harry Reid got a lot of pork for constituents of his in November. And Obamacare? Fully funded. No new money was added, but there wasn\u2019t any effort to defund elements of it or repeal any of it. Not to say they won\u2019t try it next year, but they didn\u2019t do it this time.<\/p>\n

Because out there is this mythical monster called the government shutdown that was gonna eat up all these Republicans if they didn\u2019t give the Democrats, after the Democrats have lost two landslide elections, is that Republican Party thought if they didn\u2019t let the Democrats run this show, the Republicans were gonna be hated. Because they had a poll. They had a poll that said, “If there\u2019s a government shutdown, Republicans are gonna get blamed for it!”<\/p>\n

They had one last year, too, that said the same thing. Republicans won the Senate this year and added seats in the House despite being “responsible” for the shutdown last year. So where is the evidence that the Republicans in any way are willing to fight for a belief in smaller government? Don\u2019t see it yet. Don\u2019t see it yet. And, by the way, they haven\u2019t lost the support of the Chamber of Commerce. They haven\u2019t lost the support of major Wall Street Republican donors.<\/p>\n

This is right along what they wanted: Crony corporatism, or crony socialism. Both parties will play ball in that, and their donors love it both ways, Republicans and Democrats.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right on. Right on. We\u2019re back. Here\u2019s John Boehner, by the way, Speaker of the House, this morning at a Q&A at a press conference basically defending the budget bill. I want you to listen to him and what he says is the big achievement here, what they\u2019re all celebrating over.<\/p>\n

BOEHNER: All these provisions in this bill have been worked out in a bipartisan, bicameral fashion, or they wouldn\u2019t be in the bill. It took this long to put this bill together. When you look at the number of agreements that had to be struck on funding levels, on riders and other provisions, there\u2019s a lot in this bill. And the appropriators did a, frankly, a marvelous job.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: So you see the bragging rights here (imitating Boehner), “Well, hey, all the provisions here have been worked out in a bipartisan fashion or they wouldn\u2019t be in the bill. Yeah, we worked with the Democrats.” Unspoken is, that\u2019s what the American people want us to do. That\u2019s what these establishment Republicans run around and publicly say that they believe the election results mean, that people are tired of gridlock, they want us working together.<\/p>\n

So the Republicans think they\u2019ve really scored some points here. Oh, yeah, they\u2019re bragging about it. “Look, we got a budget for all of next year, and we worked with the Democrats on it. Look, it can happen!” Except that\u2019s not what the election was about. The Republicans were elected by people who want this stuff to stop, and they simply don\u2019t hear that. So you can see, there\u2019s no fealty there to smaller government or any kind of principle or what have you. Nope. Bipartisanship. That\u2019s what they seek credit for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Here\u2019s John in Winter Haven, Florida, as we head back to the phones. Hello, sir. CALLER: Rush, what an honor. I go back with you from the day I found you on the dial 30 years ago or so. 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