RUSH: Folks, at this time, 13 congressional liberals are meeting with President Obama to put together a health care bill that will get House Democrats and Senate Democrats to agree. Charlie Rangel’s out there in Roll Call saying we’re in big trouble. ‘We are in big trouble. The health care talks are stalled, we face a serious problem. The difficulty in hashing out an agreement between the two chambers is largely due to there being so many different factions with a stake in the matter,’ Rangel said. ‘Normally you’re just dealing with the Senate and they talk about 60 votes and you listen to them and cave in, but this is entirely different.I’m telling you that never has 218 been so important to me in the House.’ So there’s a secret meeting going on up there between 13 congressional liberals and the president.
Let’s tune in to C-SPAN and — Oh. That’s the Florida House.Oh, let’s go C-SPAN2. Uh, C-SPAN2 has financial inquiry hearings. Okay, C-SPAN3. Do we have C-SPAN3? We don’t have it? Well, that’s probably where the health care hearings are. The health care hearings are not on C-SPAN3? Really?
Oh. I’m sorry, you’re right, C-SPAN3, House Armed Services Committee hearing. But we were promised coverage on C-SPAN eight times.The American people can’t see what’s going on. Republicans in Congress can’t see what’s going on. Not even the poor sap Democrats in Congress other than these 13 liberals can see what’s going on. There is no C-SPAN4! The media of course couldn’t care less. It’s not a health care reform bill. It’s an Obama ego stroke bill. That’s all that matters.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Bill in Southampton, New York. Great to have you on the program, sir.
CALLER: God bless you, Rush, and thank you for all you do.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate that.
CALLER: I am one additional American who is so afraid of what this health care debacle is going to do to our individual freedom and to the debt of our nation. But here’s my question. It has to do with unfunded mandates and this transfer of the costs under the Medicaid program, Rush. In 1995, Congress passed a no unfunded mandates bill which was supposed to prevent them from passing on unfunded mandates to the states. Yet it seems that’s exactly what they’re doing, and that’s why Nelson and what’s her name down in Louisiana is —
RUSH: That would be Mary Landrieu, yes.
CALLER: — yes, are getting these special deals. I’ve been on this unfunded mandate kick for a long time, and I remember it was Senator Kempthorne and it was Gary Condit of California who carried this unfunded mandates bill, and again, whenever they present a bill that’s supposed to cost the states, there’s supposed to be a point of order call to assure that it does not exceed $50 million.
RUSH: Oh, come on! Where have you been? Bill, they have blown up every Senate rule that stood in their way. Why would you expect this one to matter?
CALLER: Well, actually, you’re right. I get you on that, Rush, but I just was curious as to why it doesn’t seem to be a part of the discussion at all and it just seems like somebody could hang their hat on it. Maybe not.
RUSH: It is a part of the discussion. This is why Schwarzenegger is out trashing it. They can’t afford it. So far the unemployment in the private sector is huge. It’s really ten-and-a-half to 17%, depending on how you calculate it. In the construction business alone, unemployment is at 22%. However, unemployment in government jobs is 3.6%. Most of the slushulous, or the stimuslush, or the slush fund, most of that money that has been spent has gone to the states to help them with their own deficits and to get the governors on the side of Obama and so forth. This is what Mark Sanford got in trouble with in, South Carolina, he didn’t want it. The bill allows state legislators to override governors on this, making them take the money. So the states got it. But these unfunded mandates coming along in health care that all these people are complaining about — and, of course, Nebraska has been exempted from new Medicare recipients — this is gonna lead to these states and cities are soon to be outta money because they artificially close their deficits. Well, they artificially reduced their deficits with federal stimulus money, but state tax receipts are down big time because of unemployment.
So this artificial pump-up or artificial reduction of state deficits is going to end soon, and there’s no genuine money being created because so many people are out of work, and the only thing left is for state and city workers to be laid off, to be fired. That’s the next wave that’s going to happen. Now, St. Louis — and this is the way cities and counties do things — St. Louis is saying we’re outta money. They’ve reduced trash collection. They’re picking up the trash much less frequently. All of the trash bins are overflowing. The lids are all open. Of course the citizenry is outraged, demanding that the refuse be picked up and the city says, ‘We don’t have any money, outta money, not much more we can do.’ So the public clamors for the trash to be picked up. Of course that means, ‘Well, we’re going to have to raise some fees, some levies, something.’ The next way they’ll do it is they’ll say, ‘We’re going to have to cut some policemen and we’re going to have to cut some firemen because we don’t have any money.’ This is how they do it. They panic everybody, you get a situation that’s perfect for rats and vermin to swarm in neighborhoods by not picking up people’s trash and the people naturally go, ‘Come on! Come on!’
They never cut the real dead weight. They never cut themselves. They never get rid of the three or four people it takes to do one job and just have one person do it. They always threaten to take away the cops, then they take away the firemen, or have the trash pile up. It’s a well-used technique. So expect all of this to happen as the states and the cities and the counties run out of money because of Obama’s unemployment. No tax receipts, slush fund money has run out, or soon will. All right, folks, I know that this is a program of good cheer and optimism. It’s also a program of literal reality. And if we had a president in these same economic circumstances who was actually employing policies to help people find their own way out of circumstances, then I would be in there as optimistic as I’ve ever been and cheerful and say you make it happen, you’re in charge, you don’t have to participate in this recession if you don’t want to. But this is being done on purpose.
I don’t mind doing a pep talk, because there are ways around this. You know what a lot of people are doing? A lot of people are simply starting their own businesses. They have to. And a lot of them are finally exploring the stuff they really love. They have to. You can still create your own job in this country. Now, existing small businesses aren’t growing because they don’t know what they’re going to be dealing with, but people are starting their own small businesses, very small, and so forth, because that’s the only choice that they have. So there are good things happening, optimistic things to look forward, but it’s gonna involve people doing for themselves and not waiting around for something to be done for them. We already have too many of those. But you need to know the truth here. It’s going to be doubly difficult to overcome all this because we have a president and his political party governing against us. They are standing in our way.