RUSH: Hey, have you heard the latest news out there, folks? Well, the latest news out there is that the taxpayers are not going to get their money back on the bailouts. They just announced this today, that we’re not going to get the money back on the bailout of Chrysler or General Motors, and we’re not going to get the money back on TARP. That’s news to me, but whoever thought we were going to get our money back, and, by the way, what does that mean, the taxpayers get their money back? Even if the taxpayers got their money back they’re not writing us a check for it, it’s going back into the Treasury where they’ll continue to spend it. The taxpayers will not get their money back?
Greetings, my friends, and welcome. Rush Limbaugh and the EIB Network. Great to have you here, already the middle of the week here on the fastest week in media, fastest three hours.
The special inspector general for Treasury’s financial sector rescues, a guy named Neil Barofsky, he oversees the $700 billion TARP program and he says that the cost to taxpayers will be a lot greater than the government’s letting on and that we’re not going to get our money back. He said the bailout has several hidden costs. Now, inspectors generals are supposed to be independent and they can say whatever they want, but this guy is not long for the world. One is the hard cost of borrowing money to fund the rescues of banks and other companies. Oh, by the way, Obama’s bailing out some more banks, smaller banks and small businesses, more bailout cash, more failure topped upon more failure. Now, the other hidden costs, according to Barofsky, ‘are less tangible but no less important: The danger that comes with rewarding companies that took excessive risk, and the loss of the government’s credibility with taxpayers.’ (laughing) That’s a hidden cost? A hidden cost, all this, is the loss of the government’s credibility with taxpayers?
Obama’s numbers are plunging. Even CNN has a poll. Half the country oppose Obama’s policies, half the country. His approval index at Rasmussen is minus 13. That’s between the strongly approve and strongly disapprove. The strongly disapprove are 13 points higher than the strongly approve of Obama right now. ”You can’t just think of this program in terms of dollars and cents,’ Barofsky told CNNMoney. ‘We try to bring attention to these other costs, which have the potential to dwarf the monetary loss in dollars.’ To be sure, the monetary loss will likely be substantial: Barofsky cites the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Troubled Asset Relief Program will ultimately cost taxpayers $159 billion,’ which is BS. It’s going to cost us 700 or a trillion! A $700 billion bailout, we’re not going to get any money back from it, that’s $700 billion ultimately cost. Where did they get $159 here?
Anyway, I just wanted you to know, folks, that they’ve now officially said that we’re not going to get our money back, taxpayers will not get their money back. Barofsky also said this: ‘I think we are already seeing the political costs of people losing trust and faith in their government, such as the palpable anger this summer in response to health care. It requires a certain amount of good will to support extremely important and expensive programs like bailouts.’ How long has this guy got for government service? How much time left does this guy have? Hidden cost is the possible loss of trust between the taxpayers and their government? (interruption) Have they lost my trust? Oh, hell, yes, they lost my trust decades ago. My lost trust is just being compounded now. This is such a joke. It’s such a joke.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I, Rush Limbaugh, live in Barack Obama’s head rent free. Listen to this next sound bite. He just got a through referring to me (not by name, of course) and saying he doesn’t understand people who want him to fail. What’s up with that? Here’s the next bite.
OBAMA: Sometimes Democrats can be their own worst enemies. Democrats are an opinionated bunch. You know, the other side, they just kinda…sometimes do what they’re told. Democrats, y’all thinking for yourselves. I like that in you, but it’s time for us to make sure that we finish the job here. We are this close. And we’ve gotta be unified.
RUSH: Well, there’s a gold mine of stuff in this bite! Obama is now saying that the Republican Party’s a bunch of mind-numbed robots taking marching orders from me. This is the 21-year-old playbook that they have used regarding me, and of course Democrats think for themselves, but he also admits here, ‘[W]e’ve gotta be unified.’ His party is falling apart, folks. The State-Controlled Media doesn’t make it look that way but his party is falling apart. Now, I have a question. Where is and when is the commander-in-chief going to act like the commander-in-chief? Here he is up there being purely ideological in a campaign mode, at a fundraiser, in the midst of what his vice president has now called a ‘depression,’ and he’s yucking it up, and he’s taking potshots at me and Fox News, and the Chamber of Commerce.
We are his number one enemy. He can’t let go of us. I live in his head rent free. Meanwhile, we have tens of thousands of Americans fighting a war in Afghanistan that Obama himself said is ‘crucial.’ Yet today he’s campaigning for Corzine in New Jersey after doing a fundraiser with millionaires last night. Now, I wouldn’t much care, obviously, but for the fact that he’s leaving our soldiers on the battlefield without the support that the commanders have asked for, and he just doesn’t seem to care that someone’s child or husband or wife or father or mother is facing down this enemy without the support they need. He just doesn’t seem to care! But ooooh, they gotta marginalize me, a private citizen talk show host. They gotta marginalize Fox News.
They gotta go after the First Amendment and people who are using it to dissent from the radicalism represented by Obama. When will this president put aside his ego? He says, ‘I like that in you. I like the fact you think for yourselves. I like that in you.’ When will this president put aside his Max Headroom ego — his arrogance, his political agenda — and do the right thing just once? I get attacked here for taking off now and then to play golf. I do. My own audience says, ‘Stick to the issues!’ when I want to talk about football. But I get attacked when I go out and take a day off to go play golf with my buddies. We have a president who plays golf all the time. He travels all over the place playing politics, doing this and that and all the rest, but is never criticized for failing to do his job — and that includes supporting our troops and winning this war!
And they’re still saying think may not be able to make a decision on this even after the runoff and the results from the runoff (which is November 7th) and the results will be weeks after that, so we’ve got soldiers dying in Afghanistan and he doesn’t care. He has absolutely no concern about it. Victor Davis Hanson today in The Corner, National Review Online: ‘Voting Present is Not an Option — While our Narcissus-in-Chief is frozen gazing at his perfect image in his private pool, choices have to be made in Afghanistan. Consider the following: (a) We have a Democratically controlled Congress that by and large has supported, since 2004, the Kerry-Obama-Hillary Clinton narrative of a ‘good’ war in Afghanistan,’ as opposed to the ‘bad’ war in Iraq, ‘supposedly shamefully neglected by George Bush’s neo-con adventure in Iraq, but absolutely vital to the security of the United States, and one entirely winnable — if only we allot sufficient resources.
‘(b) We have a proven command in Generals McChrystal and Petraeus and their circle of subordinates, who crafted a winning counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq that defeated the terrorists, ensured stability for the fragile constitutional government…’ Do you know…? I saw a story up there on Drudge that our troops in Iraq… What are they doing? You know right when I want… Oh! They’re taking salsa classes. Our troops in Iraq are bored; they’re taking salsa classes, which is a sign of the success of the strategy in Iraq that the troops there are bored. They’re not bored in Afghanistan; they’re getting shot at. They need support troops and they’re not getting them. ‘Cause our president doesn’t care.
‘(c) We have thousands of battle-hardened, experienced veteran soldiers and their officers, who know far more about the Middle East in general, and counter-insurgency in particular, than was true than when we first deployed to either to Afghanistan in 2001, or Iraq in March 2003. (d) The Islamic world is much less in thrall (polls tell us that) to bin Laden and his advocacy of suicide bombing and terrorism than it was five years ago … (e) The president has a domestic opposition — entirely unlike that of George Bush’s — that is eager to support President Obama to fulfill his promise to win Afghanistan by devoting more resources to the effort. (f) We have a media mesmerized by Obama, that will withhold criticism of him in Afghanistan in a way that was simply not true of the Bush effort in Iraq, that, nonetheless, proved successful.
‘(g) We have a split public, but one far more amenable to a surge in Afghanistan than was true in late 2006 of the proposed surge in Iraq. (h) We should be bolstered by our success in Iraq, and the enemy demoralized by its failure; rather than vice versa. Given the above, and given that George Bush made a far more difficult choice that saved Iraq, it is hard to figure out why Obama can not make a simple decision to send troops requested by commanders on the ground.’ Well, see, Mr. Victor Davis Hanson, it’s simple to you and it’s a simple decision to us, but it’s impossible for somebody so inexperienced and so feckless as Obama. Because he doesn’t care, Mr. Hanson. He doesn’t care about the troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
He cares more about getting propagandized news articles in the mainstream press demonizing me and the Chamber of Commerce and the insurance industry and Fox News. That’s what he cares about. He cares about my saying, ‘I hope he fails.’ It’s still on his mind. He cares about making sure his radical left doesn’t abandon him over health care — and that’s why Afghanistan represents a problem to him because if he ramps up the war in Afghanistan he fears losing his radical left. But basically we have a commander-in-chief here who refuses to act like one. So you could actually say, ‘Where is the commander-in-chief?’ By the way, I want to go back to my first item of the program today, the bailouts and how we’re not going to get our — taxpayers aren’t going to get their –money back.
Ha-ha-ha. Never forget, the automobile bailout was a Democrat idea, and they promised we’d get our money back. This is from the Washington Post on November 11th of 2008, almost a year ago: ‘Obama Asks Bush to Back Rescue of Automakers — President-elect Obama yesterday urged President Bush to support immediate aid for struggling automakers and back a new stimulus package even as congressional Democrats began drafting legislation to give the Detroit automakers quick access to $25 billion by adding ’em to the Treasury department’s TARP program.’ It was a Democrat idea, bailing out the car companies. It was a Democrat idea and they promised we’d get our money back. We haven’t. So next time he starts whining about all this ‘mess that he inherited,’ it’s time for people to start reminding him: You voted for every dollar of that mess, and you thought Bush wasn’t spending enough! You can’t say you ‘inherited’ a mess. You voted for it, Mr. President. And now you’ve turned the mess that you voted for and supported into an absolute disaster. It’s more than a mess now. And now he’s running around… He must love this mop analogy. Now, I think I figured out why he loves the mop analogy and he’s running around talking about cleaning up the mess with his mop and so forth. I have a story… The Wall Street Journal has even been chickified today. The Wall Street Journal! Are you ready? Wait for it. Wall Street Journal today with a story on how the more housework you do, the more enjoyable sex will be in your relationship. The Wall Street Journal! Now, maybe that is why Obama is talking about his damn mop so much.