RUSH: I have a little think piece for you. You know, ladies and gentlemen, back in the old days, the fifties when I was growing up, my mother was happy to see my brother and I walk out of the house in the morning and not come back ’til afternoon — and she wasn’t worried about us running into a purse snatcher or a mugger or rapist or any of that. I know that’s not the case today. But if we fell off the bike… I remember my mother sent me to the Snack and Pack, which is our version of the 7-Eleven. Snack and Pack? That wasn’t the name of it. Pack and Snack? Whatever it was it was about six blocks away on a bicycle.
She sent me up there for something, and I was ticked off. I didn’t want to go. So I got on the bicycle, and I headed up there and I got the stuff she wanted. I put it in the sack and it’s on the left side of the handlebars dangling down and as I’m coming down the hill on Keller Street right behind the stupid grade school I didn’t like. My left knee on the bicycle struck the bottom of the sack, and the handles went sharp left and I went tumbling head-first off the bicycle. I cut my forehead and I’m sitting there and I’m ticked as hell. I’m… I don’t know. What am I seven, ten years old and I’m just mad as hell that this happened. I didn’t call an ambulance. I didn’t. I got back on the bike. (interruption)
No! I mighta cried, I don’t remember, but I was ticked off. I was ticked off I had to go in the first place; I was ticked off that this happened. I remember when I got back home (this is the point of the story) and told my mother what happened, she said, ‘Grow up! Be a man about it!’ Now today if that happened, whoever owned the house that I had fallen off the bicycle on, that parent would be sued for not having a warning sign or something out there. Here’s my only point: We all know this is the case.
Playing Little League Baseball, I’d already made it, so the next year during tryouts I’m the catcher during batting practice tryouts. The batting practice pitcher is not particularly good throwing. He’s throwing wild pitches in the dirt. One of them gets behind me and I run back and cut the top of my head on the fence, you know, on the backstop. I go to the coach and said, ‘Coach, I’m bleeding back there.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it, son,’ grabbed a handful of dirt, rubbed it in there and said, ‘You’ll be fine.’ Today that coach would be strung up and probably fired for putting dirt in an open wound. You know, I’m not longing for the old days. I’m just pointing out how things are different. As a prelude to this, the Associated Press had reported that unemployment has been over 9% for the longest stretch in history. Fox News said that unemployment has been over 9% for the longest stretch since 1948.
Now, in any case, how long do you think unemployment benefits were back in 1948? Well, I don’t know if you know how long they were in 1948, but I can tell you this: Unemployment benefits did not exist for 99 weeks back in 1948. Did they? You know they didn’t. Did the economy manage to grow anyway? It did. Did a lot of people die on the street in 1948? Did we cancel Christmas in 1948? I mean, we are told here that we’ve got horrible, rotten circumstances and that we’ve gotta extend unemployment benefits, and you go back during tough economic times in our nation’s past… (interruption)
Yeah, it was the Pack-a-Snack. My brother is reminding me.
The Pack-a-Snack was owned by Porter and Edna Stubbs. That’s exactly right. That was the place. Pack-a-Snack owned by Porter and Edna Stubbs. And that’s where my mom sent me that day where I ended up cutting myself falling off the bike, which wouldn’t-a happened if she hadn’t ordered me up there. Anyway, there weren’t 99 weeks of unemployment back in 1948 and yet everybody seemed to survive, and we had Christmas, and people ended up going back to work. Now we’re supposed to believe that all of a sudden the left now is very concerned — so concerned! — about the deficit that they’re even willing to increase taxes on the rich. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. (laughing) Some things never change. They’re so concerned about the deficit! Oh, yeah, they’re so concerned about it that the solution is increased taxes on the rich. That’s how much they care about the deficit.