RUSH: Here’s Barry in Atlanta. Barry, it’s nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.
CALLER: How are you doing? My name is Barry Brooks, from Atlanta, and I had a couple things I wanted to talk about.
RUSH: Fire away, my brother.
CALLER: All righty. I — I believe that Obama is really gaining momentum by the negative press that you’re giving him, as well as other talk show hosts. I believe his trip to across seas has — I believe the negative comments and just what you have to say about him has put a magnifying glass on him and he’s actually gaining momentum from this. That’s what I believe. And I know —
CALLER: Say what?
RUSH: It might be an interesting theory, except he’s not gaining momentum. This is the problem. He can’t get over 50%. He can’t close the deal. The Democrats are worried. He couldn’t close Hillary Clinton out and he’s having trouble here. With all of this attention, all of this press coverage his momentum is largely in the media because, you know, they’re his disciples. But it’s not materializing out there in a lot of other places, especially with women.
CALLER: I believe it will materialize, because the focus is on him across the world and in the United States.
RUSH: Yeah, but the world doesn’t vote here.
CALLER: No, the world doesn’t vote here, but it helps him. And I think the nation is going to vote for him.
RUSH: You know, I’m going to tell you something, Barry. I actually think that Europeans idolizing this guy and going gangbusters over this guy is going to hurt him more than it’s going to help. The American people are sick and tired for the last five years, hearing how we’ve gotta bend over; grab the ankles for the Europeans — and now we’ve got a guy running for president who has just done it. And the American people do not think of their country the way Obama and many of his supporters do. The American people do not think that we need to exist so that Europe likes us. If you want to think of anything that is going to slow him down, he’d better stop cultivating all of this worldwide support from people, the American voter will be offended when you tell them we’ve gotta emulate.
CALLER: Me personally, I would rather have a president that is liked worldwide. I think it’ll help United States out.
RUSH: We do. We have a president who’s liked.
CALLER: We do?
CALLER: Now, Castro doesn’t like him and Hugo Chavez doesn’t like him. The tyrannical dictators of Iran and the Middle East don’t like him, but why should they? Why do we want a president that all these reprobate, thug dictators are going to like?
CALLER: Well, I mean, we have to build our allied support.
RUSH: What is it about Obama you like?
CALLER: I like — I like Obama’s — I like — I like what he’s going to do for the US as far as our pockets.
RUSH: What is that?
CALLER: I like his idea about raising taxes on the rich. It’s going to give me a break. I don’t make over $250,000. It’s a lot of Republicans out there that —
RUSH: Barry, Barry, wait a second. You gotta hear me on this, if the taxes on the rich go up any more, we’re going to get — the rich are maxed out. Rich are already paying 40%; the top 1% are paying 40% of all taxes. If the rich get another tax increase, which will happen, it’s not going to change your life at all. How is it going to change your life?
CALLER: It’s going to change my life because I’ll get a tax break being in the middle class.
RUSH: No, you’re not going to get a tax break. Nobody’s going to get a tax break!
CALLER: Well, it’s going to help the lower class and the middle class.
RUSH: No, it’s not. It’s going to cause job losses, Barry, because the people who hire in this country are going to be paying money to the government they can otherwise pay to hire people. This is the thing.
CALLER: We can’t lose any more jobs than we already lost under the administration than we have now.
RUSH: Barry! Barry! We’re practically at statistically full employment in this country.
CALLER: Well, if you count McDonald’s and Wendy’s, yeah, but we got a lot of people out here that lost at IBM and a lot of major companies that are having to take lesser-paying jobs. I understand that. That’s why the economy is the way it is today. I mean, they’re giving out all these extra refund checks to pump money back in the economy, and that’s the reason why.
RUSH: Those are bribe checks, Barry. That’s Democrats and Republicans bribing voters in an election year. Those are just bribes. They’re not ‘stimulating the economy’ at all. But if Obama does what he says he’s going to do, you’re going to get hurt, Barry, not helped.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Donald in Valley Stream in New York, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: Good, sir, thank you.
CALLER: Congratulations on 20 years. I gotta tell you, I’ve been listening to you for all 20 years and you’re like a member of my family. I feel like you’re my brother.
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you so much.
CALLER: I love you like a brother, I really do.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: You’re very welcome, sir. The reason for my call, part of it was sparked by two callers ago, you had this guy talking about he really likes Barack Obama. There is a series of articles this week in Investor’s Business Daily, and it’s called the ‘Audacity of Socialism.’
RUSH: I’ve got one right here called ‘Obama’s Global Tax,’ and it talks about what I mentioned earlier, his Global Poverty Act, which is pure, global socialism.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: He wants tax increases on the American people to quit and retire poverty around the world. No mention of free markets, no mention of market economics at all to boost people’s lifestyles, no, nothing like that. Did socialism create the United States of America as the greatest, most prosperous nation in history?
CALLER: Not at all.
RUSH: Not at all. So why does Obama and his party want to spread socialism all over the world and bring more of it to this country?
CALLER: Well, part of it has to do with yesterday’s part of the article, which is his ties to socialism and communism to his mentors, which brought him to this space where he is today, the place where he is today. He also wants to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour and pin it to inflation, which would kill small business. I’m a small business owner. It would kill me. I can’t believe this guy is even thinking of doing this, and if he gets control as president and then has Congress following him, my fear is that they will change things, that we will have no way out of these things that he sets up because nobody’s going to come in and say we’re going to take these things away because we’re going to have to this fear of starving children and hurting the poor and everybody —
RUSH: I know, if it’s as drastic as you say, they won’t work, and one of two things will happen then, the Democrats will lose en masse in elections, and then stuff gets fixed, but the problem is it’s going to take a long time to roll it back, if it ever gets implemented to the degree that Obama wants to. You saw this news story yesterday that the Los Angeles city council voted to ban any more fast food restaurants in south Los Angeles because of obesity.
CALLER: Oh yes I did.
RUSH: Right along the lines of what you said, who do you think is employed by these restaurants? The very people in south LA who need jobs. This is liberalism on the march. This ban ostensibly to keep people healthy and stop them from eating any more fast food is actually going to lead to more people not having work.
CALLER: I agree with you, but, you know something, it brings me to another point I would like to make.
RUSH: What’s that?
CALLER: And here’s my fear. The Democrats, after being truly out of power for the past few years, I really believe will never want to relinquish power again once they get back in. If they control both houses of Congress and the presidency, it’s going to be a dream state for them. And my fear is that they somehow will set up some kind of a commission or something to monitor elections so that we don’t have any hanky-panky in elections and set it up so that Republicans never win and that way we’re trapped in this endless stage of Democrats constantly winning and perpetuating these things because if they instituted any of these things they would fail like you say. It would be like Jimmy Carter all over again.
RUSH: I know a lot of people that have that fear, that the Democrats, once they get their power back, they’re not going to go through another eight years like this, they’re not going to let a Bush get elected, it’s not going to happen. They’re not ever going to let the House of Representatives go. They’re not going to go for the 14 or 15 years not in power, that’s not fun, it’s their birthright, blah, blah, blah. The thing about that, I guess it’s understandable fear. The thing that worries me about that is not what the Democrats are going to do, but rather what’s becoming of the Republican Party. The Republican Party doesn’t seem to have any desire to contrast itself with this extremism. They instead seem to have people who want to go in that direction because that’s where they think the American people are. They think the American people want bigger government with more entitlements and more benefits, and they don’t. And so the idea the new Republican Party is going to pander and show those Americans out there that we don’t think they’re bad, and we don’t have any hard feelings for them, we want to give them what they want, and we’re better at it than the Democrats. That’s the thing that bothers me, because this is a golden opportunity for contrast with the right candidates to wipe all this stuff out. This is not a guaranteed win for the Democrats. So many Republicans think that it is. Look, I appreciate the call, Donald. Thanks very much.