RUSH: We have the cash for clunkers program, which, after four days, has been suspended. Wait ’til you hear the sound bites on this. I’ve been doing a little digging to find out what’s really going on here. 
By the way, this billion dollars that they allocated has been the most stimulative thing they have done. And the reason is it’s essentially a tax cut. They’re giving people their money back. Can you imagine, you look at all the activity in dealer showrooms because of this cash for clunker program, just imagine if just half, if just half of the stimulus bill had been returned to people in the form of tax cuts we would be on our way out of the recession. So this is a harbinger. They announced this big plan, $1 billion. Chump change. A $1 billion program is the equivalent of you trying to manage 50 cents in your pocket. And these people can’t do it. And so, you have to imagine what if the only place you can go to get your health insurance is these people.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Two government programs, two disasters. Nancy Pelosi is calling the insurance companies ‘villains.’ It’s the same thing we heard about bankers. It’s the same thing we heard about people who work on Wall Street. It’s what we heard about the automobile executives, and it’s what we’re hearing now about doctors, and it’s what we heard about white policemen. Villains! That’s what you’ve heard from this bunch and the Clinton administration and the Drive-By Media for 20 years: Villains. And yet, it is our government that has run up trillions and trillions of dollars in debt. It is the government — Obama, Pelosi, Reid — who promised millions of jobs that they could spend trillions of your tax dollars, and they have failed to deliver. Thanks to Obama-Pelosi-Reid’s stimulus bill, we are losing millions of jobs.
Four straight quarters of economic contraction! That boondoggle, by the way, was not inherited from George W. Bush, who is Obama’s favorite phony scapegoat and villain. And now we get the cash for clunkers, and care for suckers. Cash for clunkers. Health care for clunkers. You could almost say they’re the same plan. We’re going to get rid of your old clunker car and we’re going to get rid of your old clunker grandparents with Obama’s health care. Cash for clunkers. Death for clunkers. Disastrous government programs that, it should be noted, were not inherited from George Bush, either. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, have the gall to call various groups of Americans ‘villains.’ These greedy compensates who are trying to jam socialized medicine down our throats, which is a law designed to deny health care to those who have paid in the longest.
That’s where this is going to end up. It’s going to end up like Social Security: The young are going to pay for the old, pure and simple. That’s what’s going to end up being. Our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents. What kind of person would design a program to deny care for those who raised us? That’s Obama. That’s Pelosi. That’s Harry Reid. So who is the villain here? Who is the real villain? Cash for clunkers is a public sector disaster. It turns out our cars aren’t clunkers; the program is. Just like Obamacare. You know, I warned everybody. I told you America could not afford Barack Obama. I said, ‘I hope he fails,’ because Obama’s programs are designed to harm this country. You have to ask yourself a question: Why in the world suspend cash for clunkers after four days?
Why suspend it? What is so difficult here? Nobody knows the real reasons here. Heritage Foundation, once again, is hammering out the facts here with no emotion whatsoever. Go to www.AskHeritage.org and become a member and have a marvelous world of scholarship opened up to you. They’re the smartest, brightest people doing the best work inside the Beltway that I know of. ‘Cash for Clunkers, A Case Study in Why Obamanomics Is Failing — If you watch television you’ve seen the ads: ‘So bring in that old jalopy and get up to $4,500 towards the purchase of a new or select used vehicle. That’s right get up to $4,500 for that old piece of junk, plus you keep the rebates. You have to hurry! Since funds are limited for this program it’s first-come, first-served!’ Well we’re about to find out just how limited those funds were.
‘The Obama administration’s cash-for-clunkers program has been such a ‘success’ that in just the first week of full implementation, the $1 billion originally allocated for the program is about to be exhausted already. Does this mean the program is over? We don’t know. Nobody does. And that is just the beginning of why this program is a perfect illustration of why Obamanomics will fail.’ Have they really used up the billion dollars here? Have they really gotten orders or transactions — at, say, maximum $4,500 per car, per trade-in — to exhaust the billion dollars? Because I’ve talked to a lot of people who claim there hasn’t actually been one transaction that they know of. There are agreements, but they really haven’t happened. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. Last night WCBS Channel 2 in New York, News at 11. A car salesman said this about the cash for clunkers program?
SALESMAN ROB BOJARYN: If they can’t administer a program like this I would be a little concerned about, you know, my health insurance.
RUSH: Yeah, absolutely right. If they can’t administer a program like this…? Folks, we don’t know yet that they can’t administer it. We don’t know why they canceled it. We really don’t. No, the Heritage people are right. We don’t really know yet why. ‘Does this mean the program is over? We don’t know. Nobody does. And that is just the beginning of why this program is a perfect illustration of why Obamanomics will fail.’ One of the reasons that they’re giving for canceling the program is they ran out of money, right? Too many people joined in. They didn’t expect it. If that’s true, if the reason they’re giving for canceling the program is true… ‘Oh, my God, we’ve run out of money! We never expected,’ and then there’s a story in the stack. Congressman Sander Levin (D-Michigan), says Congress is going to find more money for this.
Are you ‘finding’ any money lately, folks? Where do you go to ‘find’ money? Maybe the change jar. You already put your hand in your pocket and occasionally there’s going to be a dollar in there. Some days there isn’t. You’re going to ‘find more money’? A billion dollars. They didn’t know what to expect. They had no idea the demand. They don’t understand economics. They’re giving people $4,500 and it’s their own money and they’re getting a new car out of it — and they suspend the program. The only answer, if what they’re saying is true… The only answer for suspending the program is: Obama doesn’t want to give that much more of your money back. Obama doesn’t want to give you — or the country, the citizens — more than $1 billion back.
That can be the only explanation. Otherwise you got a wildly successful program, you have a $787 billion ‘stimulus’ plan of which only five or six percent’s been spent. So if you need another three or four billion to satisfy the demand here — and we don’t know that that’s true, either. We do not know. We just know what they’re telling us. We don’t know that they have had $1 billion worth of demand, but if they have, they don’t need to go find any. It’s right there not being spent yet. Just expand the program. But they cancel it? Or suspend it? On the theory that they were overwhelmed? What the hell do they think is going to happen when they’re the only people you can go to for health insurance?
I mean, people are going to demand that more than they’re going to demand a new car. You know that’s the case. What are they going to do? How they going to administer it? What is being illustrated here, bottom line, ladies and gentlemen, is the program doesn’t work. Cash for clunkers doesn’t work because it’s run by the government. Their computer system is not working properly. The regulations are smothering them. The payments for this program are delayed. They’re running up a debt that might exceed the $1 billion budget for the program. This is how government works: It doesn’t. They can’t even manage a measly $1 billion program. What do you think this national health care is? Obama and the Democrats view the elderly as ‘clunkers,’ too. It’s just a mess, an absolute mess. They are not worth one ounce of our confidence.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s some more facts on the cash-for-clunkers deal, and this is from Heritage: ‘The program has already spent $150 million, has another $800 million to $850 million in obligations.’ Now, what that means is that the nation’s auto dealers have already paid car buyers almost a billion dollars but are still waiting for their cash from the federal government. From USA Today: ‘Carmakers and dealers have booked expensive advertising to capitalize on buyers’ interest in CARS, and now will be left promoting a tie-in with an uncertain government program — one that wasn’t supposed to end until Nov. 1. ‘Disappointed,’ said Chrysler spokesman Scott Brown. ‘It’s too late to recall the ads,’ says Beau Boeckmann of Galpin Ford, the nation’s largest Ford dealer, in Los Angeles. Galpin had done about 100 clunker deals and was hoping for more. ‘We had increased our ad budget to get the word out. We are very heavy on radio, newspaper and getting direct mail together,’ Boeckmann says. ‘Now what do you tell people when they walk in’ for a clunker deal? ‘It’s tough.”
I have a friend who saw a Chrysler ad on TV directly after a Fox News report that the program was canned, and what a waste of money! I haven’t had a TV on the past couple nights — well, I’ve had the TV on but I haven’t been watching news. But it doesn’t work, folks. This is a harbinger. Dianne Feinstein had to call the cops on seasoned citizens at her Los Angeles office yesterday, had to send cupcakes or cookies out there to quell them. They wanted to talk to her about health care and they wouldn’t go away. These old people almost got arrested. Now, if that kind of stuff’s happening in Los Angeles, before the recess even takes place, it’s going to be as hot as hell August. This cash for clunkers thing doesn’t work because it’s run by the government. It’s run by their computer system not working properly. Even in this measly $1 billion program there are regulations that are smothering the government as they process the applications. The EPA keeps changing the allowable gas mileage that will qualify your car as a clunker. They just keep changing. Without coordination with the national highway traffic safety — whatever the hell other bureaucracies — it is a cluster… boy, that was dangerously close. But it is, folks. It’s a cluster circle out there and these people illustrating they can’t even administer a measly $1 billion program. They spend that every second.
Payments delayed, running up a debt that might exceed the $1 billion budget for the program. This is how government works. It doesn’t work. Speaking of adding to the debt: ‘Just this week, President Barack Obama told Business Week: ‘We’re not going to be able to drive the next big stretch of economic growth through debt.’ But the first $1 billion was also deficit spending, and the extra $3 to $4 billion needed to fully fund the program will also have to be borrowed. And much like most government programs, Congress was incapable of actually estimating how much it would cost. They are now facing the prospect of tripling down on a program only a week after it began. When President Obama bailed out General Motors he told the nation his administration: ‘will not interfere with or exert control over day-to-day company operations.” Oh, really? ‘But despite what he may believe, his cash for clunkers program does exactly that: it significantly interferes with the day-to-day operations of millions of companies,’ dealerships nationwide, who are running ads urging people to come in. They’ve plopped over the $4,500, transactions haven’t been processed, cars haven’t been exchanged, now the thing is canceled, the dealerships are out the advertising money and the car companies.
‘In that same Business Week interview mentioned above, Obama says: ‘What you haven’t seen from our Administration is a suggestion of a bunch of command-and-control, top-down, heavy-handed bureaucratic regulations that would bog businesses down.’ But that is exactly what the cash-for-clunkers is.’ There’s so many regulations in this program, it shut down the computer system. Human beings can’t sort through it. ‘The fact that Obama doesn’t understand this basic economic fact should truly frighten all Americans as he plots more non-command-and-control, top-down, heavy-handed bureaucratic regulations” for the health care, energy, and financial sectors. As one auto dealer told CBS News: ‘If they can’t administer a program like this, I’d be a little concerned about my health insurance.”
Reports were running wild all night last night. On ABC they reported dealers were making people sign forms in case the government reneged on the deal. And today on Good Morning America, consumer correspondent Elisabeth Leamy said this about the cash for clunkers program.
LEAMY: Some dealers are actually now making people sign something saying they will return their shiny new car if the government renegs on the deal.
RUSH: What an absolute boondoggle, but damn typical, so typical, folks. But I cannot emphasize enough how tiny this program is. It’s so simple. If you’re going to do this, you know how simple it is? First you have to decide do we really want to do this? There are a lot of people who want a new car. They haven’t been able to get a new car because the economy for a long time, people love their cars. So, bam, here’s a $4,500 trade-in bonus, plus any rebates on the new car you get to keep, you get rid of your clunker and you get a new something that qualifies. Now, you may have to get rid of your F-150 and buy a Prius, but at least you get a new car. Now, somebody in Washington ought to understand there’s going to be a mad dash to dealerships for this just as a mad dash in the first-time home buyer market because they’re being given a tax rebate as well to the tune of eight grand or 10% of the mortgage.
So it’s real simple. If somebody in the private sector were going to do this, okay how much, we’re going to guess we’re going to have this many people, got the money here, people go in, we’ve got the qualifications, your clunkers has to be what we say a clunker is, whatever we say it is, it doesn’t change from that day. If your clunker is, you know, whatever, define it, and if you go in and you qualify as a clunker and you make the trade-in, bam, $4,500, that’s it, done. No regulations, no this or that, no 13,000 forms to sign out, just do it. It’s not possible. I wonder if John Conyers could read the cash for clunkers regulations and understand them without a lawyer. I guarantee you he couldn’t. Debbie Stabenow, senator from Michigan, this morning on MSNBC. The anchor says to her, ‘The billion-dollar program’s run through so quickly, you have a sense of where we go from here?’
STABENOW: I had no idea that it wouldn’t be as fast as it’s been. I knew it would be successful because there are all kinds of people that want to get back into showrooms, that want to buy new, great cars and I hope they’ll all be American made when they’re buying them, but the reality is that it was so popular that the funds, the first billion dollars they’ve gone through just about, I mean as of today, as of now, people should continue to go into showrooms and until the dealers hear otherwise, the program continues to have funds. But we know that it is in fact moving more quickly than we thought. I should tell you that my original bill had a $4 billion allocation. It was set back to one billion and now we’re realizing that we could use all four billion.
RUSH: This glittering jewel of colossal ignorance, the author of the program, hasn’t the slightest idea it’s been canceled? She’s on television today telling people to keep going to the dealerships, that they’ve gone through the money, that there isn’t any more money but she wanted four billion for it first? These people do not understand the consequences of their actions, just as they don’t understand how tax cuts incentivize economic activity. They also don’t understand how tax increases disincentivize economic activity. Stabenow loves this, command-and-control economy. Now, the conversation continued. The coanchor on MSNBC, Richard Wolffe, says, ‘I want to follow-up on the cash for clunkers refund. Could you be a victim in the sense that if you are thinking about buying a car, you may say to yourself maybe Congress is going to have a few more billion out that I can benefit from, so I’m going to delay and defer my purchase decision based on what might happen in Congress and that, itself, kind of distorts the market, makes the press demand until you guys act again. Is there a danger of this kind of intervention?’
Can I translate that question for you? Do you understand that question? Okay, Snerdley, tell me what you think he’s asking her. Hm-hm. Hm-hm. Hm-hm. No. No. No, no. Not the economic data going to be distorted. He’s worried that people are going to wait to go use the program until there is more money in the program, and because they’re waiting, they’re waiting on Congress, that’s distorting the market. Instinctively, he’s right. This guy’s going to get 30 lashes when he gets home to NBC tonight ’cause he’s just explained that Congress is screwing up the program. They’re depressing economic activity. If Congress were just out of this, get the program done, announce it, people go buy the cars. People are going to wait now, the program’s been suspended, is it going to come back. So this kind of distorts the market until you guys act again, what about that?
STABENOW: Let me say, this is based on what has been done in other countries like Germany where their program was wildly successful, increased auto sales by 20% in one month, and they went back and extended theirs as well. We’re talking about a time when people are extremely tight, middle-class families very, very tight, and may be losing their jobs and trying to figure out how to keep the car going and can they afford that new car that they need, this is a way to help stimulate demand. And that’s what a stimulus should be all about.
RUSH: We’re following a European socialist pattern. I will concede, this is what a stimulus ought to be: Give the people their money back. That’s what a stimulus ought to be. That’s not what Obama or your stimulus is, Senator Stabenow. I’m really practicing mature, professional broadcast restraint in not telling you what I really think of people like Debbie Stabenow. Talk about clunkers. And that’s just being mild about it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, I tell you, folks, I cannot tell you how literally stupid the people running this government are. In addition to being dangerous, the danger they pose is doubled by their abject stupidity. You know, I’m tempted to say when I listen to Debbie Stabenow, ‘Just shut up! Just shut up, cut taxes for everybody. Cut taxes $4,500 for everybody has a chance to use their money or all kinds of things. Why is it just focused on cars anyway?’ I’ll tell you why it’s just focused on cars. They want to get rid of these big cars that you like and they’re only going to make you able qualify for some little puddle-jumper that you don’t want. I got an e-mail from a woman who went into someplace in Texas and she wanted to get rid of her clunker and she wanted to get a little Jeep for $21,000 that might hold three people. It didn’t qualify. It wasn’t eligible.
She couldn’t trade in her clunker for that. These people are just stupid. Just cut taxes and let people spend their own money, and she will never support tax cuts across the board because she’s an idiot. I’m sorry. It just… Idiot! A frigging idiot! Why should people only be incentivized to buy cars? What about clothes? What about appliances? What about restaurant meals? Why not allow people to keep more of their money so they can do whatever the hell they want with it? That’s how you expand an economy. But Stabenow opposes it because it expands something else, and you know what that is? Liberty! She may just be too big an idiot to understand any of this. Look, let’s take it business versus government.
A business spending $787 billion that’s not working and another business spending $1 billion — a business, one business, one business spending $787 billion — that’s not working and is spending $1 billion that is working would do what? Would get rid of the $787 billion failure and standpoint capitalizing on the reasons why the $1 billion business is working! You take away the money from all this Porkulus business that isn’t working. There’s a story from AP today: We’re not even doing bridgework yet, infrastructure work. We’re doing pothole repair! None of what that money was intended for is even being spent. We were lied to about that. I’ll tell you. And here’s Christina Romer. She’s on CNBC this morning, and Mark Haines asked her a question. ‘I’m told the Department of Transportation within the last few minutes has issued a statement saying the program’s not suspended. Can you add anything to that?’
ROMER: I can reiterate that. Uh, we just got a note from our legislative folks that absolutely if people are going out, want to buy a car this weekend, that program is still there. It is, uh, not been suspended. Uh, eh, ah, I can tell you there’s a flurry of activity this morning, working with the agencies, working with Congress to make sure that there’s the funds for it. You know, the — the good part of this story is, ah, how much people are responding to this program. Uh, we think it’s great for the environment and great for the auto industry. So that’s good news.
RUSH: ‘Great for the environment.’ Great for the…? What else did she say? Great for the environment, great for the whatever. Auto industry. Heritage, by the way, says: ‘Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are open to allocating more money for the program, but only if the rules are changed so that the program might actually do something for environment; because right now it is not. Edmunds.com auto analyst Jessica Caldwell explains why: ‘What you buy has to have an increase in fuel economy from what you traded in. But in some cases, that increase can be minimal.” So it’s a boondoggle. And listen to Christina Romer! Well, we gotta get Congress here, the various agencies and the bureaucracies.
Now, if you’ve heard since last night the program’s suspended, and the news has been all over the place. Now you hear that it’s not suspended. What do you do? More than likely you wait to find out what the truth is. In the meantime, if you have any sense yourself, you realize you’re dealing with a bunch of frigging idiots. And then you realize it’s the same bunch of frigging idiots that wants to administer your medical treatment. Not just your insurance, your medical treatment. And then you’ll realize it’s the same bunch of frigging idiots that claims global warming is being caused by you and that you gotta pay even more taxes to be punished for that. And then you gotta realize that these are the same frigging idiots that say they’re going to rebuild the economy with ‘green jobs’ in this new environmental technology sector, but you haven’t seen an ad for one of those jobs ’cause not one of them has been created.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Christina Romer, Debbie Stabenow, Sander Levin, they are all frigging idiots. This whole thing, this whole administration, is no more than a Charlie Foxtrot — and if you don’t know what a Charlie Foxtrot is, ask your nearest military person and they will tell you what a Charlie Foxtrot is.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This cash for clunkers thing, can I put this in perspective for you? This is a transaction that everybody over the age of 16 in this country understands: trading in an old car for a new one. You go to the dealer. You make a deal. You get your new car. You go tell your friends how you screwed the dealer, how you had inside information on the real wholesale price, not the lies on the sticker. It’s an American tradition. Everybody understands how to do it. And it’s so simple. And yet it has been turned into one of the most complicated, bureaucratic mazes possible because a bunch of idiots who think they know better how to improve everything in this country are in charge of it. We don’t even know if it’s suspended or not; we’re hearing both. It is; it isn’t. It was, but it has been reenacted or reemployed or what have you.
Now, I don’t want to upset people here on this but the clunker program is a subsidy for United Auto Workers and government-owned General Motors and Chrysler. You think it’s a subsidy for you, but it’s a subsidy for them. The other car companies are going to get some help, too, but this is a subsidy for Obama Motor companies and the union workers who work there. That is why they don’t want to give away too much money; they don’t want to return too much of your money. The American people want tax cuts, deep, permanent-as-possible tax cuts that will allow people to buy new cars, old cars, or no cars. Go out and buy clothes, buy a new dishwasher, whatever people want. It’s staring them right in the face.
This program alone is, right-in-the face, telling them what they need to do to really stimulate this economy. Of course they won’t expand on this because they want to be in command and control, and they don’t want to you having too much freedom. Now, I have a couple of stories here. The first story is from a mega car dealer who owns 21 dealerships, and I’m told that customers responded by going to showrooms in droves. This dealer had about 100 applications for the cash, for the trade-in, in to the government. This dealer, who has 21 stores, who had about a hundred applications has heard back on two customers, both rejected by the government. He has spoken with other dealers around the country, and he says he doesn’t know of one approval.
Now, that’s not to say there haven’t been any approvals. It’s just this guy talking to other mega dealers can’t find one approval. Not one deal’s been completed he can find out about. Not one government check has been written yet to his dealership or to any of the other dealerships that he knows. Here’s another. This is a clunker e-mail, a family trying to take advantage of the program. ‘We have two old cars.’ I referred to this earlier in the first hour. ‘We have two old cars. When the clunker thing was announced I thought surely our 13-year-old unreliable money pit would be a clunker. Then Chrysler that says they’ll match the $4,500. That’s nine grand, $9,000 off a new car, so I start kind of looking and I decide Chrysler has a $22,000 Jeep, a stripped-down Jeep that will hold my family and then $9,000 off, why, it might be worth raiding the 401(k) again, right?
‘I’m even a little giddy at the thought of getting $4,500 of my money back for a change. It’s not like I don’t pay lots more of that in taxes every year.’ Well, evidently this person’s clunker didn’t qualify. The 22,000 stripped-down Jeep does not qualify, either. The 13-year-old car didn’t qualify, and the 22,000, stripped-down Jeep didn’t qualify. Well, the good car does, but the Blue Book is more than $4,500, so it’s stupid. But here’s the rub, according to this person’s experience: ‘Nothing that Chrysler makes, that qualifies, will hold my soon-to-be three teenagers anyway. That’s why Romer and Stabenow are talking about how great this is for the environment ’cause the cars that qualify don’t hold families.
The question is this, folks — one of the many questions is this: Why is it any of Barack Obama’s business or Debbie Stabenow’s business or Christina Romer’s business what kind of car you drive? Your taxes go up to subsidize $1 billion that went to other people to buy new small cars, is what this is going to end up being if it works. Otherwise people keep driving clunkers and pay more taxes. And this is how health care is gonna work. This is the blueprint for all of the mess that’s going to exist in health care. What business does Barack Obama have determining what doctor you see? What business is it of his what kind of treatment you seek and get? What business is it of Barack Obama’s what car you drive? He’s making every aspect of your life — or as many aspects of your life as possible — his decision, his business.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We’re going to start in Pittsburgh, Bill, great to have you with us, sir, the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. It’s a pleasure talking to you.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: I heard you talking about this cash for clunkers and I just had to chime in and just kind of tell — you hear how the government is saying they shut it down, then they didn’t shut it down, and last night while I was at work we actually could not process any more applications because the government computers were shut down, you couldn’t even access them.
RUSH: You’re a car salesman, right?
CALLER: That’s correct.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: And I’m not running for Congress, by the way.
RUSH: Okay, so you work in an auto dealership.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: And last night, you heard the government’s shutting down the program, so take it from there again?
CALLER: Well, they started showing us news reports, you know, the general manager’s a very conservative guy, and, you know, Republican, and kind of printed out something from the news, and we all looked at it and shaked our heads. There were customers in the showroom. Well, you’re supposed to take these applications of people that want the cash for clunkers whether it’s the $3,500, $4,500, and then you take their clunker and put it in the back and then you take this application and you’ve gotta put it all through the computer. Once you find out that they’re approved to get either one of those rebates, then you have to take it and the whole application and it’s really a lengthy thing you have to fill in in the computer. And they went and tried — we had a backlog of about nine or ten applications last night, and they couldn’t even put ’em in because the computer — you just can’t access it. They were shut down last night.
RUSH: The computer system shut down, it was overwhelmed. But I want to know the mechanics of this. Let’s say I come in and I think I’ve got a clunker and I want $4,500 bucks for it, for a new car from your dealership. I have to leave the clunker with you at that moment even if I don’t get to drive off with the new car?
CALLER: Oh, sure, well, basically what they’ve been doing is (unintelligible) new car go with you but put a dealer plate, in other words, it’s (unintelligible) plates —
RUSH: Okay. But when do I get the $4,500 bucks? And what happens if after I drive off you hear back from the government after the whole process that I didn’t qualify?
CALLER: Well, see that’s where it’s all being questioned. Even the dealers are not sure they’re going to get — unless we get a definite approval — and we have on some, they have driven away already, okay, but now it’s pending because I walked in yesterday and they said they’re not sure if some of these are going to go through, so we have to actually call those people back because, you know, a dealership’s not going to get strapped with $4,500 ten times — you know, you’re not going to let somebody walk out, you know, and not —
RUSH: Okay, so —
CALLER: We have to get the money. The government gives us the money.
RUSH: On the $4,500, it’s the dealership that gets reimbursed by the government, right?
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: You deduct that from the price of the car, the new car buyer gets that taken off, walks out, drives off, you then are on the hook for the $4,500, and —
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: — if it’s not approved and you’ve got a car that supposedly is now used, and it’s been driven and you gotta get it back.
CALLER: Well, the only ones we’re letting drive away on a certain finished, done deal are the ones that have been approved by the government.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: So now we have backlog, and we’re a small dealership. Let’s say we have a backlog of ten of them that we couldn’t put in last night, but more people come in today, I’m still not sure if the computers are up or not, I haven’t checked. But, yeah, we’re on the hook for that, on the average $4,000 okay? It just depends on how much mileage you’re saving on the vehicle you pick.
RUSH: Yeah, good luck getting it.
CALLER: (Unintelligible).
RUSH: Yeah, I understand how all that works.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: John in Westminster, Maryland, it’s great to have you on Open Line Friday, hello, sir.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. You know who should be very terrified right now are first-time home buyers and home builders, realtors, anybody who’s planning on taking advantage of that $8,000 credit that the government supposedly is promising and guaranteeing until a certain date, because a lot of these people are planning their business decisions around this, and their lives, where they live, you know, some of the people who are buying —
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait. Cut to the chase. Why should they be afraid of it?
CALLER: Oh, they might just pull the plug at any time. You never know. The same people mismanaging the cash for clunkers program are the ones who are administering that program and —
RUSH: I don’t know why you would think that. Just because this bunch is goofing up this program doesn’t mean they’re going to goof up that program. That program lasts until November.
CALLER: Supposedly.
RUSH: I have to admit, this is a relevant point that you’re making, $8,000, max 10% of subsidy for your mortgage, if you are a first-time home buyer buying a new house. But don’t worry. Obama is working on a bipartisan solution to the cash for clunkers program. What the hell, bipartisan solution? Have you ever had to have anything bipartisan to get a trade-in done? It’s a trade-in! Except now, instead of the factory, instead of the corporate outfit taking care of the dealer on whatever rebate or incentive, you’re dealing with a government agency or a series of them doing it, and they can’t keep track of it, and it’s a tiny $1 billion program.
Aaron in Chico, California, nice to have you with us on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, conservative dittos.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: And I wanted to give you a quick anniversary present. I recently just became a member of Ask Heritage and I renewed for a two-year subscription to your 24/7.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: So thank you for everything that you do.
RUSH: Thank you. I appreciate that very much, sir. It’s good for you, too.
CALLER: Yes, it is. Thank you. But my comment this morning was regarding Bill Kristol apparently was on The Daily Show earlier this week, and apparently Jon Stewart got him to admit that government-run health care works but through the auspice of working through the military. And this was brought to my attention by a liberal friend of mine at work and I didn’t get a chance to say, because we were kind of back and forth as far as working, but what I didn’t get a chance to tell her is that the government owns you and you are property of the government, and they want you in and out, taken care of so you can be put back in your position as far as working in the cog and the machine of the military. I was in the military and I know what it’s like, but she didn’t get the point that the government owns you, and you have pretty much no real say.
RUSH: Wait, wait. I need to go back. You said that Bill Kristol was on The Daily Show?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: What’s The Daily Show, first?
CALLER: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart?
RUSH: Oh, the Comedy Central thing that most young people think is real news?
CALLER: Yeah, exactly.
RUSH: Okay. I was having a mental block here. Okay, so Bill Kristol goes on with Jon Stewart and did you say that Stewart gets Kristol to admit that government-run health care works using the military as an example?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And so your point is, well, of course it works because they own you and they get you in and out as fast as they can. I have a lot of complaints from military people about their health care at the hospitals, the VA, a number of other things.
CALLER: Well, this is as far as like when you go to the TMC as far as your basic treatment or your basic care or what have you, as far as like if you’re sick, if you break a bone or whatever, they get you in, you go to the TMC, they send you back to your unit, you’re set with a certain amount of, you know —
RUSH: What’s a TMC?
CALLER: It’s the medical center for on site, wherever you are on your base.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: There’s a certain number it’s called the TMC —
RUSH: Sort of like the hospital of the PXs?
CALLER: Yes, in a way. But they send you to the one that’s at your unit, you go in, you wait, you’re seen, they prescribe you whatever for your duty that you can and can’t do, and then they send you back to your unit. But they send you in and send you out so you can go back to do your task that you were meant to do in the first place.
RUSH: But in these same circumstances these are also military personnel who are the doctors and the nurses, correct?
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: You’re not dealing with the private sector at all.
CALLER: No, not at all.
RUSH: No.
CALLER: There has been sometimes where people want, whether it be for like pregnancy, or certain related things where they’ll have hospitals just outside the base hospitals that people can go to because it’s closer to their home, some are traveling, some —
RUSH: But the point here is that you think Kristol got tricked into admitting it works and you’re trying to tell us it doesn’t?
CALLER: Right. Because it’s a small little niche situation where it’s specifically controlled where —
RUSH: Well, you know, the thing that gets me about this, I mean I know Jon Stewart’s a state-run lib Democrat, and if he’s having to resort to pointing to the military as something that works in order to sell a program, that’s a huge sellout. These people hate the military.