RUSH: From The Politico is one of the stories. ‘White House: We’re Not Anti-Business — The White House has launched a coordinated campaign to push back against the perception taking hold in corporate America and on Wall Street that President Barack Obama is promoting an anti-business agenda.’ Well, remember what’s being said at the Aspen Institute this week. John Malone, who’s at the Aspen Institute, has now joined all of this. He’s a cable television, Liberty Media, DirecTV, cable TV, is a mogul — and he’s a great guy, by the way.
I have met Malone on a number of different occasions. ”The US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world,’ the cable king said. Given the global nature of his business, he observed, ‘We could move out of Colorado.’ It wasn’t clear whether he was suggesting a move might still be under consideration, whether he was thinking of moving out of the US or simply ranting against high taxes.’ A lot of people are talking about this. They’ve come to the conclusion. Mort Zuckerman we quoted. People are realizing it’s not an accident. They’re realizing this is not good intentions gone awry. They’re starting to realize nobody would do this unless they meant to be doing this. This is not accidental. This is not naivete. This is not utopia-panacea meeting reality. This is anti-capitalism meeting reality, and the capitalists are starting to figure out that they are in the crosshairs even if they have donated considerable sums to Obama’s effort.
So White House, coordinated campaign: We’re not anti-business! Now, folks, you cannot make this stuff up. We have a pro-business or pro-growth — that’s the term he’s using now, by the way. Which, you know, don’t tell me they don’t listen here. Pro-growth? A pro-growth president with a campaign to counter the notion that they are anti-business? So you have a guy, he’s making a speech now or he finished it. He’s a pro-growth president, pro-business president, adamant about shutting down oil production in the Gulf, eagerly awaiting the largest tax increase in history. But he’s pro-growth and he’s pro-business! You can’t make this stuff up. Now, obviously what’s happened here is that the White House did a focus group and they figured out that the private sector wants to hear about growth. Obama figures they’re all a bunch of suckers, so he’ll try to appease ’em with talk about growth. But the ‘pro-growth’ claim is so absurd, given Obama’s policies. He’s talking about trade now? He’s talking to all these things. It’s too little and too late, and it’s phony. So, given his policies, versus his rhetoric, this is gonna end up like a fever blister on his lip because it’s the only place there’s going to be results from all this rhetoric.
To claim to be pro-growth while simultaneously working to overturn a court order that reverses your moratorium on drilling in the Gulf, to claim to be pro-growth while simultaneously refusing to extend the Bush tax cuts, that is carefully calculated anti-growth behavior. What we have here is carefully structured, calculated anti-growth policies. Not the accidental mistakes of some poor, overmatched, befuddled young man who for the first time is encountering reality to go along with his flawed theory. Anybody with a brain knows there can’t be real growth if you shut down oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and if you start raising taxes on everything that speaks, walks, or moves — and then add new regulations to punish people on top of that. So all this talk, all this talk about growth is nothing but lies, nothing but false hope, trying to get a boost in the approval numbers here. Let me tell you something: If liars could fly, the White House would be an airport.
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RUSH: Yesterday in Kansas City, Obama, in a very listless and unenergetic address on the economy, seemed to be introducing a new slogan, ‘yes, we did,’ instead of ‘yes, we can.’ By the way, folks, do you understand the irony here? This is a guy, Obama and the Democrat Party, the American left, if you look at their enemies list, who is it? Big Retail, Big Drug, Big Food, Big Oil, Big Defense Contractor, Big Radio, I mean every private sector business that is big and successful is on the top of the enemies list. And now all of a sudden here’s Obama out saying he’s pro-business. They accuse Republicans of being pro-business. When they say Republicans are pro-business, they’re attacking them. They’re attempting to impugn them. Now all of a sudden Obama wants to wrap himself in the pro-business robe? Ha!
So he wants to introduce his new slogan ‘yes, we did.’ Yeah, okay, fine. ‘Yes, we did destroy the economy. Yes, we did take over the automobile industry. Yes, we did squander a trillion dollars, and we’re going to squander a trillion more. Yes, we did triple the US deficit, and yes we did it all on purpose. What are you going to do about it now? (Raspberry) Yes, we do want to stop drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and in Alaska. Yes. Yes, we did do that.’ Here’s Mort Zuckerman. We quoted him earlier from the Aspen Institute. He was on MSNBC yesterday, the hostette, Chris Jansing talked to Mort Zuckerman. He is the editor-in-chief and publisher of US News & World Report and the New York Daily News. She said, ‘Do you think these are policies that he misled the voters about or is he following a plan that might have been expected, maybe it’s not working as quickly or as well as he might have hoped?’
ZUCKERMAN: I don’t think anybody anticipated that there was the kind of details in a national election campaign that indicated whether it was going to be X or Y. But when you get into the program and you find out what you need to get this economy rolling again and you get a program that is two-thirds basically driven by politics and not by policy, there is going to be disappointment, and I think there really is disappointment and dismay. Niall Ferguson and I were the two speakers at the opening session talking about this, and I would say that a year ago 90% of them would have been throwing tomatoes at us. They were not. They agreed.
RUSH: That’s exactly right. This is what I was telling you yesterday, I led the show with this. Maybe it was a couple days ago, Aspen Institute. This is where Barbra Streisand agreed. You know, when Barbra Streisand is making more sense than the Republicans it’s noteworthy. So Chris Jansing said, ‘Are you even surprised by some of the people who are in that group with you, critics of the president?’
ZUCKERMAN: There is a level of dismay with the leadership of this country now, and it’s the failure of its policies to address the problems that we’re having. Those employment numbers really are in the worst shape that we’ve had. There is a real disappointment in what these programs have been, and I’m not just saying this now, because, frankly, as I say we endorsed the president, but I’m saying there is real legitimate grounds for disappointment, and I’m not quite sure how to explain it all.
RUSH: Well, he’s not at a loss on how to explain it all. He just doesn’t want to say yet that it’s purposeful destruction. He doesn’t want to say it. But he knows it. Don’t doubt me.
Caroline, somewhere in Florida, you’re up first on Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s an honor to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Yeah, you know, I’m just very frustrated. I’m a very small business owner, and we are shut out from things left and right and we teach kids science. Parents love our programs, kids want to do the programs and yet we’re shut out left and right from being able to provide them because we’re a for-profit, and that’s pretty much the only reason. I had a big company that was gonna give us a —
RUSH: Wait a minute. I have the solution for you.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: The Morning Update today or yesterday was on this very subject. The Democrats passed a new law denying earmarks to for-profit companies, so the companies that were denied earmarks opened a subsidy that was a nonprofit, same address, same CEO, and they got the earmarks. So what you need to do is simply change your — well, don’t change your for-profit, but open a nonprofit with the same name, and then you will get your earmark.
CALLER: Unfortunately I can’t because it is a franchise, and our corporate office — we can’t do that, unfortunately.
RUSH: Oh.
CALLER: But it’s frustrating because I had a company that was going to give us a large sum, $25,000 fund to teach kids science, go around and do things, and as soon as they found out we were a for-profit, they said, ‘Oh, sorry, we can’t.’
RUSH: It wasn’t that. It’s that you’re wanting to teach kids science, and that’s competition for the public schools. That’s why they froze you out.
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RUSH: I’m reading here from the Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell and they found an interesting story in the Washington Post written by columnist Fareed Zakaria in which ‘Fareed Zakaria endeavored to find out why America’s 500 largest nonfinancial companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash,’ and you probably have heard about this phenomenon. There are many, many companies are doing this. Apple, Inc. is sitting on $50 billion in cash. A lot of companies have a lot of cash. They have not spent it.
They’re just keeping the cash in bank, a series of banks. They’re not investing it anywhere, they’re not spending it, and Zakaria wanted to know why. Now, Zakaria might have genuinely not known why given he’s a leftist, and he might seriously have had the question: ‘Why are they sitting on all this cash?’ Now, people like you and I can understand the question without having to have it asked in order to understand the answer. If they’re sitting on cash, and they’re not doing anything with it, they’re obviously hoarding it, they’re saving it. Why would anybody do that? It’s no different than putting the money under the mattress. Why do you think people do that? Because they’re scared to death if they do anything else with it, they’re gonna lose it. But leave it to the Washington Post to send somebody out to do an investigative column on why these eeeevil corporations are hoarding their cash.
So Fareed Zakaria went out and spoke to them. These ‘Business leaders told Zakaria that it comes down to economic uncertainty surrounding new laws, regulations and taxes; the expansion of federal agencies’ authority; and the unknown implications of Obamacare, financial reform and cap-and-trade. And the kicker? Zakaria notes that most of them had voted for Obama yet all of them now believe he is ‘at his core, anti-business.” You know, folks, when I read this, I’m stunned in one way. It is a wonder that American business has progressed as dynamically as it has in the last two decades, given that apparently most business leaders are total dumb asses when it comes to politics, public policy, and what governments can do to them. I don’t have a Harvard MBA. But I don’t need to head up some giant corporation or small business to understand that I’m dealing with the enemy in this regime. All you have to do is listen to them when they start talking about redistribution.
Now, maybe, maybe these guys got caught up in all the crony capitalism thinking they would be on the inside. (interruption) Well, Snerdley says that they’re not dumb, and I guess technically they’re not dumb. I know that technically they’re not dumb but this is like I said the other day: We need to redefine smart. How is it that these bright-eyed, bushy tail business people know exactly what to do to grow their own businesses and see what is being done to kill that growth by the government that regulates them? I don’t understand it! Where is this relationship that government is good? I think they’re scared to death of them and they try to make deals with them, crony capitalism and this sort of stuff. But with this bunch we’ve never had an administration like this. We’ve never had such an anti-business administration. Not in our lifetimes. (interruption)
Well, see this is… (interruption)I bet that’s it. Snerdley is saying, ‘Who could possibly believe it?’ Well, I don’t have any problem believing it, Snerdley. (interruption) Well, that’s right. I know these people, but how come I’m the only one knows ’em? I’m no special brain here. Liberalism is easy to understand. Liberalism is socialism is Marxism, and it’s failed everywhere it’s been tried. Central Planning doesn’t work. It’s nothing special to know who liberals are. Now, I know a lot of people are not ideological as I am. I understand that. And that’s gotta change. Well… (sigh) You know, going back to ‘I hope he fails’ and everybody’s reaction to that. Snerdley, it was not they couldn’t believe it. I mean, they knew. Everybody knew what he meant. They just couldn’t believe I said it, but they were all hoping it, too. They just wouldn’t say it.
That’s the difference. I maintain to you that most of these business titans are hoping to hell none of this stuff worked. It’s too late now. But they wouldn’t say it. ‘Cause they’re scared to death. They’re regulated by the government in so many different ways, from Equal Employment Opportunity to quotas, to who knows how many ways the government can come get you. The regime… (interruption) Well, I’m a different ball of wax. I don’t know. I don’t care, but I don’t have to answer to anybody but me, and there aren’t any shareholders out there. The staff can’t tell me what to do. So… (interruption) But… (interruption) Uhhhhh, are you asking me that? (interruption) Oh, no. You mean when I got fired all those times did it scare me? (interruption) No. No, I have never been scared to say what I believe. (interruption) No, that’s true. I’ve never been scared to say… (interruption)
Okay, fine. Maybe that’s unique. I don’t know. But forget all that. Forget that. The thing that continues to amaze me is now all these guys out at the Aspen Institute are realizing or at least they’re admitting, ‘You know, these policies, this is not just an accident,’ but they don’t want to say that yet. They are honestly legitimately criticizing the policies, but when it comes to motivation they don’t want to go there yet. They don’t want to say, ‘This guy’s out to destroy us. This guy’s got a big chip on his shoulder about something to do with this country!’ They don’t want to say that. So the Washington Post, to close the loop here, sends Fareed Zakaria out, and he says, ‘Why are you guys sitting on all the cash?’ and they say (summarized), ‘Well, we’re afraid of losing it! If we put it somewhere, we’re afraid somebody’s gonna take it.
‘We don’t know what’s coming. You know, we plan our businesses years ahead. We have business models and strategies, and we can’t make my plans because we don’t know what’s ahead. What it looks like is is not good. So we’re holding onto our cash to make sure we’re still in business and we’ll be able to weather whatever storm comes our way,’ and then Zakaria was stunned when most of them had voted for Obama, and now believe he is at his core anti-business. Remember the Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg? We mentioned this earlier this week. He said, ‘By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses.’ What’s Obama done? What’s it produced? It’s lost three million jobs. There’s nothing good that’s been produced from any policy that he has implemented.
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RUSH: Jeff in Summit, New Jersey, it’s great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Great to be here, Rush. Mega fellow married man, taxpayer, cracker dittos to you.
RUSH: I’d prefer to be cookie, but if they call me cracker I guess that’s what it is.
CALLER: Well, maybe a graham cracker, I don’t know. A little sweeter. When you were mentioning before some of Obama’s appointments, people like Carol Browner and Van Jones and the fact that there are a number of people out there who say, ‘Gee, you know, he didn’t pick those people because of ideology. They must have slipped by him.’
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Let’s assume for a moment if that’s true.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: Then one of two things exists.
RUSH: Yep.
CALLER: Either he is the most incompetent chief executive we have —
RUSH: Yep.
CALLER: — because these people have slid right by him —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — and if he recognizes that their viewpoints are opposed to his, then he’s the most ineffective chief executive for not removing them. I’ll let him explain which one he is.
RUSH: That’s a good point. It’s a good point. Well, what do you think? Obviously you are well-tuned on this.
CALLER: What I think is that he has chosen these people specifically for an intended purpose.
RUSH: Damn right!
CALLER: They’re like useful idiots.
RUSH: Damn right. They’re not there accidentally. Nobody is undermining Obama and sabotaging him. Everybody he’s… Look at all the czars! The czars are precisely czars because they don’t have to be confirmed. Nobody knows who they are, what they think, until they start implementing policy, and nobody knows what they’re being paid. It’s unprecedented. It’s literally unprecedented. Jeff, I’m glad that you called.