RUSH: Here’s Ryan in Troy, Michigan. Ryan, thank you for waiting. I appreciate it. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call. It’s an honor to speak with you. I’d like to say I live up in Michigan, and as you know we’re really struggling right now. We led the nation in unemployment for three or four years now, and our governor, she’s really just a wacko. We have a Republican primary coming up in August, and one of the leading candidates really set himself apart last week by saying he would make Michigan a right-to-work state.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I’ve heard a lot of different things about right-to-work. Mostly positive amongst conservatives but some of my friends who are union members and even other candidates are saying negative things about it, so, Rush, I’m interested to hear what you think about right-to-work and I guess specifically what it could do for us here.
RUSH: All right, now, this is a classic example. Today, I don’t care. I have literally no interest in the whole topic of right-to-work. Yet I have a challenge. I have a caller who wants to know what I think about it. I don’t give a damn today. Now, normally I would fake it and act like I care and answer your question. Today I’m going to say, ‘You know, I really don’t even want to talk about it.’ (laughing) I’m just kidding, sir. Snerdley, is looking at me like, ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this.’ You want to know whether right-to-work would help Michigan?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Yeah. It would. Republicans would help Michigan. The first thing to do in Michigan is get rid of every Democrat in elective office. If you look at that state, that state has been run unchecked — Detroit, most of the cities — by liberals, by Democrats for how many decades?
CALLER: Almost forever.
RUSH: Exactly. Exactly, and look at the circumstances. You know, one of the problems that the country faces in a number of places is public sector unions are bleeding cities, states, local communities dry with the pension plans that they have, the salaries, and the reason that they’re being bled dry is because it is taxpayers who are paying these salaries and these public sector unions are not producing anything. There’s no production taking place. It’s just a transfer of wealth from the private sector to the government sector is and if you’re going to mandate that people become members of unions in order to work, you’re going to limit the number of people that want to work in certain fields and you’re going to limit the options that people do have once they get in there. You know, I don’t like any prerequisite, ‘In order to do this job you’re going to have to be a member of the union.’ Reality is what it is and it is the case, but I think the evidence is in that it’s time to try something else in the state of Michigan. Why should anyone be denied in any way the right-to-work? Stop and think of this. You asked me, ‘Is right-to-work a good issue?’ The right-to-work? Why should that be an obstacle? Why should we be putting all kinds of things in people’s way? Do we not need people working today? We have people who want to work, why put all kinds of ridiculous obstacles in their way?
CALLER: Definitely. I think we have a —
RUSH: The Constitution says we have freedom of association. The Constitution does not say we have to become a member of a union before we’re free to associate with somebody or take a job somewhere. Even the United Nations, that bunch of wackos says that there is a human right to work. So, yeah, I think it’s an issue. It’s a winnable issue. Anything that is directly linked to liberalism today or the Democrat Party is a winning issue. They’re bankrupting the country right before our very eyes. Appreciate the call, Ryan.