RUSH: Federal Reserve. ‘The Federal Reserve Bank’s latest forecasts for the US economy are gloomier than the ones released three months earlier with an expectation for higher unemployment and a steeper drop in economic activity. The Fed now says unemployment will be between 9.2% and 9.6%. The previous forecast was between 8.5% and 8.8%, and we’re already at 8.9%.’ Ha-ha-ha. Well, I’m not laughing at that. I’m laughing at their bad prediction. ‘They say that the GDP will drop between 1.3% and 2%. The previous estimate was 0.5% to 1.3%.’ So their previous high is now their low and the GDP dropped.
Now, I have a question. And this is a question that’s born of simple logic, ladies and gentlemen. How can economic forecasts…? Key word: ‘forecasts.’ How can economic forecasts get gloomier after the Porkulus bill and the Earmarkulus bill were passed and the bailout of the auto companies and shakin’ it to the banks and taking it to AIG and ‘fixing’ Wall Street? How can the forecasts get worse after all of these stimulants, these stimulants — the make-work jobs, the shovel-ready jobs, the roads and bridge repair, all the repair work on the schools, all of the new jobs that are going to be ‘saved and created.’ How in the hell can that not be happening after all that we have stimulated this economy with? We have stimulated this economy so far to the tune of a $2 trillion deficit this year and a grand total of $11 trillion in deficits over the next ten-years if this stuff doesn’t change. And we were told by Barack Obama that only government — the government was the only entity that could — fix this problem.
Obama and Pelosi and Dingy Harry and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd said that we had all the answers, that we can borrow and spend our way out of this. In fact, that’s the only thing that we could do! The only solution we had was to borrow and spend our way out of it. So they spent all the money and then some, and things are getting worse and they’re forecast gets worse? Okay, so let’s add it up. This crowd was wrong about Iraq. They’re wrong about Guantanamo Bay. They were wrong about General Petraeus. They were wrong that Americans want bigger government and higher taxes. The odds are that this bunch is wrong about the economy, too.
I still cringe when I think of Obama’s commencement speeches. Shouldn’t college graduates be encouraged to go out and create jobs, instead of working for nonprofits? Shouldn’t college graduates be encouraged to go out and work and produce and lead the next generation to prosperity so that fewer and fewer freeloaders have to run around begging for grants? In fact, with the economy in the 
tank, not-for-profits will be not-in-existence if Obama gets his way much longer — and the same thing for nonprofits, if the economy keeps tanking. How can the predictions get worse? And then I want to ask you a question. Every time President Obama goes out to talk about the economy when he talks about unemployment — and I’m serious. I want you to think back in your memory.
As you’ve watched him talk about unemployment or all these economic woes, do you get the sense he really cares about it? See I don’t. Do you get the feel he’s really concerned, or is it just platitudinous speeches establishing an image of a wonderful utopia ‘down the road’ if we pay the price now. I don’t think he really cares. It’s getting worse? There are ways, by the way. ‘Oh, what Mr. Limbaugh, would you have done differently to stop this?’ I already announced it. There’s a way to stop all of this right now. There’s a way to bring it to a screeching halt and start the reversal toward growth — and it’s not complicated, but the problem is, it will not stimulate Barack Obama. And it won’t stimulate Dingy Harry. And it won’t stimulate Joe Biden. (Of course not much does.)
It won’t stimulate Chris Dodd or Barney Frank. What has to happen here, folks, is you gotta turn the American people loose. You have got to remove on them the burdensome regulations and taxes that they face, employment taxes, investment taxes, capital gains taxes, corporate taxes. Reduce those, not increase them. You stop talking about nationalized health care in the midst of a giant economic downturn. You stop talking about all of these plans to nationalize this business and that business. And you turn the American people loose. It’s the American people that make the US economy, not a bunch of politicians and arrogant egghead elites Central Planning things in Washington, DC.
Get this. You know, the cap-and-trade program — the cap-and-tax program — is called the Waxman-Markey bill. And this is horrible. You know, after you get through with Obama ‘fixing’ the car business and this new $1,300 additional cost per car which is going to be much more than that by the time 2016 comes around — and don’t think you’re going to save money on gasoline because you’re using less, ’cause they’re just going to have to raise the gas tax. The government never does with less. You’re walking into tax increases if you do everything they tell you to do. You’re just taking dead aim right into tax increase after tax increase — and this cap and trade is even worse.
What it will do to your utility bill every month is double what’s going to happen to the price of your little putt-putt car, your clown car that you’re going to be forced to drive in. ‘Today, in anticipation of Friday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee vote on the Waxman-Markey legislation,’ cap-and-tax, ‘the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) released a new study that determines the potential economic impacts of the federal cap-and-[tax] system outlined in the bill. Compiled by CRA International, the analysis determines that by 2030 the law would: reduce national GDP roughly $350 billion below the baseline level; cut net employment by 2.5 million jobs (even after accounting for new ‘green’ jobs); and reduce earnings for the average US worker by $390 per year.’
This is the National Black Chamber of Commerce coming out against Obama’s cap and tax. And while the Fed’s reporting all these horrible forecasts for economic activity and unemployment, at the same time, ‘Some Federal Reserve officials are open to raising the amounts of mortgage and Treasury securities that will be purchased beyond the $1.75 trillion they’ve already committed to buying, according to minutes from the Fed’s April meeting. Officials, meanwhile, projected an even deeper recession than they expected,’ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They want to buy even more mortgage and Treasury securities.
Now, you’re supposed to look at this and say, ‘Oh, goody! Oh, goody! Oh, goody! They’re going to secure it and they’re going to take care of it. They’re going to back it up.’ Let me tell you, is the housing business doing well right now? Who’s been in charge of fixing it? Whatever these people in Washington tell you they’re going to fix, is it worse? It is worse. Is it forecast to get worse? It is forecast to get worse! The housing market is forecast to get even worse than it is now, that we’re nowhere near the bottom. But the Wizards of Smart, they’re the ones fixing all this by buying up ever more of the private sector.