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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: A question has been raised, ladies and gentlemen. A question has been raised. What are we going to do with all of the cars that are on all the lots at all these dealerships that are going to be shut down? Now, it’s a legitimate question, and it’s an interesting one, too, because Chrysler, 3,300 dealerships. General Motors, 1,100, so that’s 4,400 dealerships. Now, I don’t know about you. When I’m tooling around and go by an auto dealership, I happen to see a lot of cars on the lot. We’re in a recession. There’s a lot of cars, a lot of inventory. We had a caller in the last hour say, ‘Well, when they move that inventory, Nissan and Toyota, all these others are going to move in and take over the dealerships.’ Fine and dandy. But how are we going to move that inventory? Where is it going to go? Let me ask you. Would you buy a car from a dealership that is going to be closed? A lot of people take their cars back to the dealership for warranty work, service, and just to hassle the salesmen. But if they’re going to close the dealership where you bought the car, and the nearest dealership to you that, say, is a Chevy or Chrysler dealership, say it’s 30 or 40 miles, what are you going to do?

So the question then becomes, are they going to have fire sales to get rid of the inventory? I mean, you just don’t close the dealership, lock the doors to the building and walk away and leave the cars there. But as always, we here at the EIB Network, ladies and gentlemen, are thinking about this. And I think we ought to put these cars that are on all these dealership lots that are going to be closed, put them under the umbrella of the Community Reinvestment Act. For everybody in America who has a house that can’t afford it, everybody who has a house, whose mortgage is being paid by everybody who can afford it, in other words, all these people in the subprime crowd, why don’t we just give them a car, too? Because, after all, folks, we are here to return the nation’s wealth to its rightful owners. And after we give away — I’m sure there aren’t enough cars to go around — well, there may be. I mean you go nationwide, 4,400 dealerships, gotta lot of cars out there, you might be able to give everybody who can’t afford their house, a car. Go ahead and make them a loan, and they won’t have to pay it back because they can’t pay it back, just the house.

So loan them the money to buy a car and then never make ’em pay it. If you have any cars left over, well, there’s Africa, any number of places around the world that could use ’em. Seriously, what are we going to do with the inventory? This guy also asked a question. He said, Obama’s going to get rid of as many SUVs and trucks as possible, at least those manufactured by American makers, and the CAFE standards are going to be such that down the road it’s going to be pretty difficult to manufacture a large truck or SUV. Americans like them, what you going to do? That’s why I brought up the story of this stupid all-green house in Michigan. Nine-hundred grand, it hasn’t opened yet because there’s no electricity, there’s no gas. It uses the wind and the sun, ladies and gentlemen, to heat it. And over the winter, $16,000 in floor damage because the pipes burst, nothing to keep ’em warm. So it’s just like we’re going to put everybody in these cracker-box houses, and when it doesn’t work, we’re going to go back to right where we are now, the same thing when everybody is driving around in little Smart cars doesn’t work, we’re going to go back to SUVs. Because everything liberalism tries bombs out at some point, and it’s a worthless exercise that we’re going to have to go through.

Speaking of all this, yesterday on CNBC on the Maria Bartiromo show, which is called Closing Bell, she had an interview with the executive director of the Labor Research Association. That is a union group. The executive director of the Labor Research Association is Jonathan Tasini. First question: ‘When you look at the number of industries dominated by unions –‘ I made this point yesterday, by the way — ‘When you look at the number of industries dominated by unions, the performance is not that great, right? Airlines, autos, teachers. Why is that? Is there a connection to a business or an industry being heavily unionized and the industry being in the toilet?’

TASINI: You cannot blame unionized workers for the state of the auto industry. That was pure mismanagement, not the least of which is continuing to refuse to have a single payer Medicare for all health care system which would have relieved ten of billions of dollars of health care costs from the auto industry and the steel industry. The problem of much of the industry in America, the industry you’re talking about, has nothing to do with wages, nothing to do with union workers. UAW —

BARTIROMO: What are you talking about? The autos had all those legacy costs in place. They’re paying people who are putting their feet up and just relaxing at home on the sofa, and they’re not on the assembly line.

TASINI: — the way you solve the problem of the auto industry and the steel industry, many industries, is you have a national health care system.

RUSH: Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Boy, she hit it right between the eyes. Well, you’re paying people to sit at home with their feet up on the sofa, their feet up on the table, they’re not working, they’re not on the assembly line, and the union guy comes back and says the way you solve problem in the auto and steel industry and any other, is you nationalize the health care system, which is right out of the Obama plan. That’s where all the waste and fraud in our government is, did you know that, if we just get health care costs under control everything miraculously gets fixed. And so Bartiromo then says, ‘Health care is 17% of GDP. You’re telling me that it’s going to go lower? I don’t think so. It’s going to be a higher percentage of GDP.’

TASINI: There are two reasons states are in trouble in terms of their budget. One is the overall collapse of the economy, thanks to Bernie Madoff, Wall Street, AIG, and all your other friends. If we went back to more progressive taxation system and taxed just the top 1%, we would have about eight or nine billion dollars more, which would solve the crisis here in the states.

BARTIROMO: I can’t allow you —

TASINI: That’s a fact.

BARTIROMO: — to fan the flames of class warfare on this program, okay? You said — you said —

TASINI: Class warfare.

BARTIROMO: — Wall Street and all your other friends, who is ‘they’?

TASINI: Are you telling me you don’t think there’s class warfare in this country? We have the biggest gap between rich and poor that we’ve ever had probably in a hundred years, productivity in the last 30 years has skyrocketed, and workers have gotten no benefit of that. That is the definition of class warfare.

RUSH: Workers haven’t benefited? This is Obamaism, folks. These are his buddies. These are his buddies. If the collapse of the economy is due to Bernie Madoff, that’s $50 billion, and Bernie ripped off the rich! Bernie Madoff, Wall Street, AIG, all your other friends? This is the kind of class warriorship that Obama is stoking. Here you have this union thug out there saying to fix this go national health care, raise taxes on the top 1%, and raise eight or nine billion? Eight or nine billion would solve the crisis? So Maria Bartiromo says, ‘We are paying for benefits, we’re paying salaries for people who are no longer on the assembly line. I mean, look, it’s not just having a job for life, it’s not a concept I understand because at some point you’re not getting paid for life. Maybe you do in Europe. That’s a socialist concept.’

TASINI: I actually think we could learn a lot from the way Europe treats its people —

BARTIROMO: Oh, so you want us to go the European way? The economies in Europe have been in the dumps for years, even before this economic slowdown even started. You think the socialist measures have anything to do with that? What is redistribution of wealth going to do for productivity? What is the idea of the American dream of working hard and achieving something, and knowing that half your wealth is going to someone who didn’t do that? What’s that going to do for productivity, is my question.

TASINI: Well, when I talked about my proposal for a different taxation system here, I talked about affecting the top 1%. We’re talking about redistributing wealth a little bit, 5% in this state to — from the top 1%.

RUSH: They’re bold. This is Obamaism. That is precisely what’s headed your way. We should get paid for life, and we should make the rich pay for union workers to get paid for life even when they’re not working. I know, it’s astounding, it’s astounding. It’s as astounding as when you hear Obama say and throw himself under the bus, when he rips his own policies as being destructive and ruinous for the country, as he did in New Mexico. You know, I listen to all of this, I listen to Obama talking about budgets, and I listen to him talking about his budget cuts, a $1.8 trillion, almost $2 trillion budget this year, and Obama, ‘I got 17 billion, maybe a hundred billion dollars in budget cuts,’ and then he talks about his jobs created and his jobs saved. Let me give you an analogy. It would be like me saying, ‘Folks, I’ve been on a diet, and I’ve lost 51 pounds.’ But then I get on the scales and you look and you say, ‘You haven’t lost 51 pounds, you’ve only lost one pound,’ but I’m telling you I’ve lost 51 pounds. And when you challenge me on the fact that I’m saying I’ve lost 51 when I’ve only lost one pound, I say, ‘Yeah, but that 50 pounds is 50 pounds I wouldn’t have gained if I hadn’t gone on the diet.’

So I’ve lost 51 pounds even though I’ve only lost one. Well, I created and saved all these jobs, we’re going to pay all these people to not work, we’re going to raise taxes on the rich, we’re going to redistribute a little bit and so forth. I mean that’s how ridiculous this is getting, that’s how phony and unreal it is. And the thing is, you know, I’ve done enough diets, I know if you tell yourself enough this kind of thing, you can believe it. If I wanted to, if I’d go on a diet, I’d lost one pound, and I come here and tell you I’ve actually lost 51, it’s either ’cause I think it’s going to happen at some point so I’m just getting a head start on telling you the truth, or saved 51 pounds I haven’t gained because I went on the diet, which has made me lose one pound. I know you’re scratching your heads. You should be. That’s every bit as convoluted as any explanation Obama is providing us for how what he’s doing is going to work.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, folks, time to hit ’em right between the eyes here. Maria Bartiromo talking to Jonathan Tasini, who is the union guy that was complaining and whining about all the productivity, all the productivity, but the wage gap, the wage gap is… Productivity is way up. Productivity has skyrocketed in America for one reason. Do you know why, Snerdley? (interruption) Tell me. What’s…? (interruption) No. No. No. Wrong. That’s not the answer I’m looking for. You may be right about it, but it’s an esoteric answer. Some economics professor might give you an A but it’s not the real world. (interruption) Dawn, why has productivity skyrocketed in the private sector? Why has it gone up? (interruption) What? (interruption)

No, it’s not that. It’s because only 8% of the workforce is unionized, because only 8% of the workforce in the private sector is unionized. We all know that union contracts negotiate less productivity. You get paid with your feet up on the chair after you quit working. This is Maria Bartiromo’s whole point. That’s why productivity is skyrocketing. If union membership was 15%, that would be fewer people productive. It’s only 8%. Now, to prove my point, if you’re offended, the percentage of government employees unionized is 37%, and you want to tell me the government’s productive? You can’t. You cannot. When you have to interact — or, as they say, ‘interface’ — when you have to interface or dialogue with government, don’t you want to pull your hair out after the first 20 minutes?

They send you to this room, that room. You gotta get in that line, go to that line. Going through an airport, TSA security check? Even though I don’t know what it’s like, I know what a lot of people complain about it. The productivity, I’m telling you, skyrockets because only 8% of the private sector is unionized. This guy talks about the wage gap. Well, you know what? I’m looking the other day. There is another wage gap. Well, yeah, it is a huge wage gap. The gap between the earnings of the average Hollywood movie star and the average moviegoer is the widest it has ever been. Hollywood actors and actresses, their average pay is so far above the average income of a moviegoer. Why, according to the union thugs, this should mean massive tax increases on Hollywood actors, right? I mean, if the theory works, the theory works.

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