RUSH: Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, Rush Limbaugh, talent on loan from God-d. Kelly in Dubuque, Iowa, you’re next. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, I can’t believe I’m talking to you.
RUSH: Well, it’s your big show biz break.
CALLER: (Laughing.) I’m totally livid, but don’t worry, it’s not the Clinton thing. That’s just silly. I’m mad about the immigration thing, something that actually affects our country. I just feel like our elected leaders are — I just feel like they hold the illegals in higher regard than our country’s own citizen, and that’s considered a… (silence) I’m sorry?
RUSH: I didn’t say anything.
CALLER: Oh, okay. I just feel —
RUSH: Who else are you talking to out there?
CALLER: I’m just talking to you.
RUSH: Well, then what did you hear, because I didn’t say anything.
CALLER: Oh, I guess I just heard an echo. I’m sorry. I just think that to consider it a ‘compromise’ now to secure our borders, but that’s their job! They should have done that already. Now that’s considered a compromise? I feel like we’re just being screwed, that we’re getting nothing and they’re getting everything.
RUSH: I know. That’s what it seems like to me. It seems like we’re going out of the way to apologize to these people for —
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: — stigmatizing them as ‘illegals’ and as ‘aliens’ and so forth, because everybody knows that aliens arrive on spaceships and are holed up in Area 51. Aliens are people that look like James Carville. None of it makes sense. I have asked people about this. I can understand the Democrats. You know, Democrats are running out of victims. The economy is very prosperous. It’s like Nancy Pelosi, once again, ginning up the gouging rhetoric on high gasoline prices. Do you know the gasoline demand, gasoline consumption is increased 2.14% during the last year? What does that mean? People are driving more than ever! The motorists, drivers, they’re not acting like victims and the downtrodden. We get a couple calls from people that are spammers like we got yesterday from Flint, Michigan, but most people are taking it in stride. Gasoline is nowhere near it’s historical high, when you factor the price today into constant dollars. It’s nowhere near the high in terms of its impact on the family of four’s average household budget. People are driving around. Yeah, here’s Pelosi going on and on and on, ‘We’ve gotta stop this gouging!’ We have Mrs. Bill Clinton out there claiming she wants to take all the oil company profits.
By the way, some of you need to know that 30% of Big Oil’s profits occur in the United States, and 70% occur around the world. Here’s another thing: What was Exxon’s reported profit? What was the number? Thirty-nine and a half billion, is that what it was, something like that? You could take their profit and you could divide it equally by whatever number of Americans there are, and you might be able to go out and buy five or six gallons of gasoline with it. If you take away all of their profit, it’s not going to matter, but you start taking away federal and state taxes off of gasoline… That’s who’s profiting, folks, and it’s 100% profit because they don’t do anything to produce it. They don’t do anything to drill it and find it. They don’t do anything to refine it. It’s like we had the story out of Wisconsin last week. A little gas station owner wanted to lower his price two cents a gallon for seasoned citizens and sports teams boosters, and the state says, ‘You can’t do that! You have to charge 9.2% above your wholesale price.’ Well, I never knew that. I understand some of the reason is to protect the independents from the big jobbers who would be able to undercut them price-wise, but still, competition is competition, and the state’s denying it. The governor of Wisconsin is running around saying, ‘Windfall profits! Why, they’re cheating the American people. Why, it’s unfair. We need a windfall profits tax.’ His state determines how much you have to pay above the wholesale price, not Big Oil. His state determines it!
The world’s economy runs on oil. My point about this is, with all this increased driving, people are not victims. There are some people are upset about it, but the Democrats are running out of victims, and all of these illegals, the sooner they can be made citizens that can register to vote, you don’t think the big unions are going to be making moves on them for that? They’re going to become Democrats. That’s what the Democrats care about. The Republicans? I can’t figure it out, other than the Chamber of Commerce and the big business lobby likes the cheap labor. But there are some Republicans who actually believe we’re going to convert these new arrivals, these illegals, to Republicanism and to conservatism because they’re coming here and they’re working hard and they’re wanting the best in life, and all of this rotgut. It isn’t going to happen. We granted 2.7 or three million illegals amnesty in 1986, and it didn’t turn them into Republicans. Why do we think this 12 to 15 million is going to become Republican? It’s not going to happen.
The economy is doing so well — despite what you hear from the Drive-By Media and the Democrats, this economy is roaring. I know you think it might not be. You’re wringing your hands in angst and worried about, ‘Rush, look at the housing bubble and look at the price of gasoline and the price of foods. How can you say the economy is good?’ You compare the way you live today with the way your parents lived. You compare the way your kids are going to live compared to the way you’re living. In every measure you want to make, the vast majority of them will show that we are roaring and in really, really good times here. The Democrats are running out of victims, and they need more. Democrats need dependent victims. That’s what this pool of illegal immigrants represents to them. Plus, they’ve got the Hispanic constituencies that are already part of their party that can be bought off, plus these people organize protests, and what do they protest? They protest America! Democrats love that. This group of people is made to order to them.
But, folks, back to this gasoline business for a minute. The world’s economy