RUSH: Barack Obama this morning, as usual, right before the program began, with another series of lies about the economy and his administration’s efforts to do something about it. Productivity, by the way, nonfarm US productivity declined for the first time in one and a half years during the second quarter this year. Labor costs barely edged up, according to a Labor Department report today that underlined the slowing pace of economic recovery. They keep saying we’re in a recovery, and they’re basing this on the fact that GDP is positive, like one half of 1% here, 1% there. But there really is no economic recovery. Consumer confidence is way down, people are not hiring other people, they’re not expanding their businesses. People who are working, unless they work for the government, are not getting raises. The insecurity that people feel over their jobs is not abating at all. And now productivity declined by an annual rate of 0.9% after rising at a revised — everything is revised. We can’t even believe what they say initially, 3.9% rate in the first quarter. ‘The weak productivity figure is in line with other broad signs that the economic recovery is losing momentum.’ There never was a recovery!
We are a country on life support! There isn’t a recovery. We need a bunch of pacemakers just to keep going! And, of course, Obama is in Texas yesterday blaming Bush, goes down to Austin, Texas, and no Democrats greeted Obama when he gets off the airplane. Not one. The governor was down there, Rick Perry, the Republican governor made sure to show up to illustrate the fact there were no Democrats greeting Obama when he got off the plane. It’s an interesting thing. I had a meeting on Sunday night, and I told some people, and it was interesting, too, I got a nod of heads when I made this point. It’s something I make to you each and every day on the program. This is purposeful. Nobody in their right mind would continue these policies if their objective was to grow the economy. I said a lot of people still have trouble accepting the fact that we’ve elected a president who doesn’t like the country, who’s got a grudge, thinks the country’s been immoral and unjust and it’s about time to change it. I got some nods and there were some people, I could see in their faces they were uncomfortable — and these were, quote, unquote, Republicans. I know it still sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.
They’re talking about these tax increases now, they’re necessary. They got all these former Treasury guys, O’Neill, the Federal Reserve guy is gonna come out, Geithner, more tax increases. Government will go broke if we cut taxes or extend these tax cuts. It’s just mind-bogglingly insane. These people are not insane. Now, well, you might want to say they’re idiots. You might want to say, ‘Well, Obama’s naive and young and inexperienced and arrogant, doesn’t know what he’s doing.’ Sorry. I refuse to accept that. I think that there are policies in place here that are purposefully damaging the country. Look at the threats from the Democrats if they lose the House. They’re going to come back and do a lame duck session to ram through even more. They know the country doesn’t want it. They know they’re governing against the will of the people, pure and simple. But we have 40 to 50%, 40 to 46% of the American people on the dole. And so it’s a tipping point.
Now, Obama — we got a couple sound bites here, but let me summarize, he just finished giving remarks where he said that this $26 billion bailout will not add one penny to the deficit. The bill does not even have a name? Do you realize it’s a no-name bill? And it is supposed to be paid for in part by $12 billion dollars taken from the food stamp program in 2014. Now, does anybody believe that that’s actually going to happen? The food stamp program, nor is any other federal program going to have $12 billion taken from it to pay for this. This is nothing more than keeping unions employed. This is not even bailing states out. This is about state and local union jobs, not private sector jobs. The shell game that’s being played here, you have the long con and you have a short con. And this is a short con. The long con is the entire Obama administration. The long con, as in con game, the long con is the four years of Obama, and they’re made up of a bunch of short cons, and this is a short con game. Are you gonna pay off your debts with money you earn or don’t spend in 2014?
They always say: ‘We gotta spend this money because we have to get rid of firemen and police and teachers.’ Let me ask you a question, all of you, a household budget question. When you are facing tough times, do you turn off your electricity? Do you cancel all of the necessities that you have or do you go to the luxuries? You maybe not go out to dinner as often or you maybe don’t go to the movies or you don’t buy another television or cell phone or whatever. You cut back the cable bill, but you don’t turn off your electricity. You don’t cut off the things that are necessary to live. The idea that we can only cut firemen and police officers and other such things is a trick that has long been used to get people to go along with budget-busting spending when there is no responsibility being exhibited by the spenders in any way, shape, manner, or form. And, by the way, TheHill.com has a story from August 8th: ‘Liberals Vow to Back State Aid’ — this is the current bill, the no-name bill here — ‘Restore Food Stamp Funding — Liberal Democrats said they will vote for a $26.1 billion state aid bill when the House reconvenes this week but are committed to restoring the food-stamps program funding that is being used to pay for it.’ It ain’t going to happen.
Here’s Obama, first of two sound bites today, in Washington, in the White House Rose Garden.
OBAMA: We do nothing, these educators won’t be returning to the classroom this fall. And that won’t just deprive them of a paycheck, it will deprive the children and parents who are counting on them to provide a decent education. It means that students in Illinois and West Virginia who count on Rachel and Shannon are going to be not getting the education they deserve. It will deprive countless cities and towns of the law enforcement officials and first responders who risk their lives to keep us out of harm’s way.
RUSH: Everything in that statement is a crock. How much money is unspent from the original Porkulus bill? This is nothing more than another slush fund, and it’s a slush fund that is aimed at local and state union workers, keeping them employed. It’s not about your kids or your kids’ education. If it were about your kids and your kids’ education they’d shut down half the public schools in the country. If it were about your kids and your kids’ education they would not have shut down the voucher program in Washington, DC, that was letting minority kids and urban kids go to the private schools that Obama sends his kids to and the Clintons sent their kid to and Algores sent their kid to. It’s not about the kids. It’s not about education. It’s not about anything other than keeping government employees, be they state, local, or federal, employed, plain and simple.
Byron York has a great point today in a piece that he wrote for the DC Examiner: ‘Cut Deficit Without Cutting Services? Start Here — Whenever a conservative suggests reducing the federal deficit by cutting spending rather than raising taxes, there’s always someone to ask: Well, what would you cut? Americans may say they want less government spending, the argument goes, but they don’t want anyone to touch their services and subsidies and monthly checks. Fair enough. But there’s a persuasive counter-argument going around in conservative circles these days: You can start cutting government spending without cutting anyone’s services or subsidies or monthly checks. Just bring the pay of federal workers into line with pay in the private sector.’
The Heritage Foundation has done a study, we’ve told you about this. ‘The average federal worker (excluding the uniformed military) makes $78,901 a year in wages and salary versus $50,111 for the average private sector worker.’ So you could say here that the federal worker makes $29,000 a year more, average, than private sector. ‘When you count generous health and pension benefits,’ which, as we know for government workers, are through the roof and sky-high, ‘the average total compensation of federal workers comes to $111,015 a year versus $60,078 in the private sector.’ So essentially public employees, federal government workers are making $51,000 in total compensation benefits pensions, et al, $51,000 a year more than people in the private sector. You may say, ‘What’s wrong with that, Rush, you’re all for people doing well.’ Yeah, I am, but nobody in the public sector is producing anything. You talk about productivity, productivity falls for the first time since — they don’t measure that in the federal government ’cause there isn’t any. There is no production.
What does the federal government produce besides paper? Regulations, laws, obstacles, shackles, but they don’t produce anything tangible, they don’t grow anything. So it’s the people who are earning $60,000 a year who are paying the people who earn the $111,000. So the point is just cut federal pay to equal private sector pay at an average basis and look at the money you could save. You wouldn’t be firing anybody; you wouldn’t be getting rid of teachers; you wouldn’t be closing schools; you wouldn’t be getting rid of the cops. All you’d be doing is bringing federal pay in line with private sector pay. It’s an excellent point. And the fact that it will not happen and the fact that it would be strikingly opposed is proof positive of the objective of the Democrat Party and this administration.
The three wealthiest counties in America today are the DC suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. People who live and work in Washington are doing well. People living and working for the government are doing extremely well. And, meanwhile, Obama’s out $26 billion, a new slush fund in order to keep firemen working and police working, the first responders and to keep teachers working. It’s all a crock. Two-hundred fifty thousand federal jobs have been added the last year and a half under the Obama regime while we’ve lost three and a half to four million jobs in the private sector. And, remember, the average pay, the average of those 250,000 new jobs is $111,000 a year paid for by those of you who are out of work or who are working who are earning an average of $60,000 a year. Here’s the second sound bite from Obama claiming this is a jobs bill.
OBAMA: It will cost us jobs at a time when we need to be creating jobs. In other words, that will take us backwards at a time when we need to keep this country moving forward. This proposal is fully paid for in part by closing tax loopholes that encourage corporations to ship American jobs overseas. It will not add to our deficit. And the money will only go towards saving the jobs of teachers and other essential professionals.
RUSH: We’ve been spending more and more. The federal budget is over three trillion. It goes up and up every year. And have you noticed every year it has to go up or else we’re going to lose teachers and firemen and cops, and that’s why the analogy, you don’t turn off your electricity and you don’t shut down your house when you’re faced with tough economic times. You get rid of the luxuries and so forth. By the way, USA Today says the average federal worker makes $123,000 with pension and benefits, not the $111,000.