RUSH: Ever since, ever since Barack Obama was elected I have watched business and political talk shows about ‘the economy’ as if Barack Obama was not the president and that the Democrats did not control the Senate and the House.
I have watched as all of this economic malaise gets trundled up on George W. Bush and the Republicans and deficit spending and so forth. So-called experts in the first quarter were predicting an uptick for the economy in the spring, in the second quarter. Or they would say that unemployment was ‘bottoming out’ or housing was ‘coming back.’ You see, it’s standard operating procedure for a new president. They called it a honeymoon, and whatever happens bad, the new president is exempt from being attached to it. That’s standard operating procedure, unless the president happens to be a Republican. In this case the president is Obama and it’s double the insurance that a new president normally gets. So all during the first quarter — after the stimulus was passed and after the TARP started being distributed and after we took over General Motors — all these experts said, ‘Yeah, it’s going to come back! We’re going to get an uptick here.’
We didn’t. Unemployment kept getting higher; the economy kept getting slower. None of what was being implemented was working. This was said — all of this phony upbeat news on the economy was said — without knowing what Obama was going to do next to wreck the economy. Everybody Obama has done has served the primary purpose of wrecking the economy. He’s depleting the private sector of capital. He’s got a payment czar that’s going to determine how much Americans can earn. He has taken over the auto companies and essentially given them to the unions. He’s in charge of
the mortgage industry now. He’s basically in charge of the banking business — and now he’s got a fine print czar! He’s in charge of the fine print that companies print on products, consumer applications for product services. This is a War on Prosperity.
It is being waged by Colonel Obama. And even at the time in the first quarter when all these cheerleaders for Obama were predicting all these upticks in economic activity and jobs is going to be when we come back. ‘Oh, yes! We have a great president now. The world respects us and our president. Our president makes sense. He’s an intelligent guy who has great policies, here. Yeah! Federal spending? Oh, we’re going to hire! People are back to work! Caterpillar is going to start rehiring people.’ None of it happened, and these people that were making all these false, phony predictions had to go silent for a while. But they were making these predictions without knowing what Obama was going to do next. They’d say that the gross domestic product would show growth in the third quarter. Really?
Just yesterday the San Francisco president of the Federal Reserve out there said (doing pompous bureaucrat impression), ‘We’re going to come out of the recession in the fourth quarter of this year. It’s going to end by X, but it’s going to be a very slow recovery and unemployment will lag severely.’ Well, that doesn’t sound like much of a ‘recovery’ to me. But how does she know? (I think the San Francisco Fed chairman is a woman.) How does she know? She doesn’t. Nobody knows. We have proven that $10 trillion of deficit spending does not jump-start or spark or stimulate an economy. All it does is jump-start and stimulate government. How is that hope and change working for you? Got a job out there? We’re headed to 10% unemployment. So all these experts are making these predictions and they can’t possibly know. They’re making these predictions based on their belief that government’s good and all this injection of spending, at some point, is going to pay off.
We’ve been doing this almost a year. We’re coming up on a year of all these bailouts and TARP stuff that started in the late summer of 2008. We’re coming up on a year of this. I think we learned six months ago that the political solution to a bottomed-out economy isn’t working, and it’s now time for a practical business solution. Of course that will never happen with this administration. So the GDP is going to start showing growth in the third quarter? Now the GDP is going to start showing growth in the fourth quarter! Employment is going to still be a problem. It’s going to lag. All the charts and graphs I saw in the newspapers, all these television shows — the charts and graphs going back to the twenties — are null and void.
They’re irrelevant. They mean nothing! Obama was not the president 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Nancy Pelosi wasn’t running the House. These people who are making economic projections — this is my point — are not taking into account the destructive wrecking ball on the private sector being waged by today’s Democrat Party from Obama on down. How in the world can any sane, credible economist or financial analyst predict an economic recovery with cap and trade lurking to be passed and nationalized health care about to be passed? Folks, there will be no such thing as a private sector economic recovery if either or one of these two pieces of legislation gets signed into law. How in the world these people can start predicting all this wonderful uptick stuff….
I’ll tell you what it is, it’s malpractice on the part of people who are supposed experts — economic experts, finance experts — because anybody who has just a semblance of education and an ability to critically think can look at this cap-and-trade business and see how destructive it is. It’s a jobs-killing bill. You do not revive an economy by killing jobs. Net job losses are what we’re going to have. I don’t care how many phony baloney new jobs building windmills, solar panels, or these little whatever kind of putt-putt cars are going to be. The job losses… Look at Ohio. Marcy Kaptur has just seen to it that the coal industry is gonna head south. In fact, we knew this. This is Barack Obama. I have a couple sound bites here, February 26th, 2008, in the campaign. This is in Cleveland during a Democrat debate.
OBAMA: It’s not going to be easy to have a sensible energy policy in this country. ExxonMobil made $11 billion last quarter. They are not going to give up those profits easily.
RUSH: I remember that debate. I remember when he said it. I remember coming in here and having the proverbial cow. ‘They are not going to give up those profits easily’? He’s telling us who he was; he was telling us what he’s going to do. He looks at profit as evil. Profit is unused cash to him. It’s unused. It’s a surplus. Profit’s a surplus, and he can go grab it as the Central Planning Authority. He looks at the private sector as a golden goose that never dies. ‘It’s not going to be easy to have a sensible energy policy in this country. ExxonMobil made $11 billion last quarter. They are not going to give up those profits easily.’ But he’s damn certain they’re going to lose ’em, if he becomes president. He told us. Get this. This is January 17th, 2008. This is during an interview with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle. Barack Obama was asked about using alternatives in energy, including coal. This is what he said.
OBAMA: What I’ve said is that we would put a, uh, cap-and-trade system in place that is more — that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re gonna be charged a huge sum for all that, uh, greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
RUSH: So as a candidate… Dawn, do you remember us playing these sound bites during the campaign? (interruption) Yeah. During the campaign, that’s January 17th, 2008. He says: ‘I’m going to run the coal business out of business. I’m not going to stop you from building a coal-fired plant, but you’re going to go broke doing it because I’m going to tax your ass something like you’ve never seen. So go ahead, build your coal-fired plant, but you’re going to get hit with so many pollution charges,’ (laughing) and he says it with joy. And then there is this. During the same interview with editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle talking about his energy plan.
OBAMA: When I was asked earlier about, uh, the issue of coal, uhhh, you know, under my plan, uh, of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.
RUSH: He’s telling us what’s going to happen, and the critics of the cap-and-trade bill have been saying, ‘Your energy…’ Electricity, by the way, your home utility bills — the Heritage Foundation people looked at this. It’s been confirmed two or three other people have looked at this — 90% your home utility bills are going to go up. And don’t take my word for it. Listen again to audio sound bite number three. President Obama saying so.
OBAMA: When I was asked earlier about, uh, the issue of coal, uhhh, you know, under my plan, uh, of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.
RUSH: They’re going to have to go up. He wants them to go up! Don’t take my word for it. He is, with such ease, implementing all of these agenda items. There’s nobody to stop him. There is no way to stop him.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: My point is very simple. It’s not complicated. I’m telling you pay no attention to anybody who is promising an economic recovery any time soon because they are not factoring in the passage of one or both of cap and trade and socialized medicine, nationalized health care. If one or both of those things happen, forget economic growth, forget it. These experts need to shut up and be concerned about their credibility here. There’s no way anybody could predict economic growth knowing what’s headed down the pike. One more Obama sound bite, ladies and gentlemen, from his interview on January 17th, 2008, with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle.
OBAMA: Regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers. If you can’t persuade the American people that, yes, there is going to be some increase in electricity rates on the front end —
RUSH: Ninety percent.
OBAMA: — but that over the long term because of combinations of more efficient energy usage and changing lightbulbs and more efficient appliances, but also technology improving how we can produce clean energy, that the economy will benefit, if we can’t make that argument persuasively enough, you — you can — you can be Lyndon Johnson, you can be the master of Washington, you’re not going to get that done.
RUSH: Well, he’s doing it. There’s no way to stop him. He doesn’t have to be persuasive. Who was it that complained about the Republicans overreaching on health care? Oh, yeah, that’s right, the Puffster. Yeah, Tommy Taxes. Tom Daschle and John Podesta, they got all bent out of shape the other day over the fact that the Republicans are not joining the effort to nationalize, socialize health care and they said the Republicans are overreaching out there. Overreaching? Republicans are not reaching, period. The Republicans can’t stop anything. And now that the Democrats have a 60th vote in the name of a genuine lunatic in the Senate, there’s nothing that can be done to stop ’em if they stay unified. The Republicans can’t do one thing. Why do you think Tommy Taxes and Podesta are so desperate to have Republicans sign onto this garbage? That’s another reason why these eight Republicans made a bad, bad move on cap and trade. They want cover. They want to be able to say, ‘Hey, don’t blame us. Republicans joined us on this thing,’ when it all crashes down.
That’s why the Republicans ought to not join any of this. Let the Democrats and let Obama own it. By the way, it is his economy now. We’re into six months, it’s his economy and the polls are showing that the American people know and think it’s his economy and the more he continues as a child blaming his predecessor or predecessors, more and more people are going to start saying, ‘Grow up.’ So he’s just told you here again change your lightbulbs, energy bills are going to go up, there’s no question they’re going to go up, we gotta make the argument persuasive. He doesn’t have to make the argument, period. He can pass this stuff without ever showing up on television. Folks, it’s a matter of math. The Democrats have the votes. Now, I realize that not all Democrats are unified behind Obama on some of these things, but they’ve got, you know, the consigliere in there, Rahm Emanuel, and they’ve got Pelosi and her henchmen in the House. They could whip these people into order real fast if they need ’em on things. Republicans can’t overreach. They can’t stop anything, so Obama is all worried about how persuasive he is. He doesn’t have to be, even though some people believe that he is being persuasive.