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RUSH: Moving on to Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, yesterday at the Gamesa Technology Corporation Obama spoke. During the Q&A an unidentified guy said, “You’re talking about the rise of gas prices…” Oh, before that, let me grab this AP story. This is outrageous and hilarious at the same time: “Shoppers shrugged off higher gas prices and cool temperatures to give retailers a surprisingly strong March.” Did you know that? Did you know that you just “shrugged off” high gas prices? Did you pull in the pump, see gas prices and say, “Eh, no big deal. I gotta go to the mall?” Would you ever?

Gas prices are nearing the $4-a-gallon tipping point nationwide. They’re already at $4 in certain states. Would you ever see a story like this with a Republican president: “Shoppers shrugged off higher gas prices”? Well, the fact is, shoppers and voters are not shrugging off higher gas prices. This guy at Obama’s town hall yesterday in Pennsylvania said to him, “You were talking about the rise of gas prices. I know back in the seventies they were going from our license plates, odd to evens, days we could get gas. I know we’re not at that stage right now but they did lower the prices after that. Is there a chance of the gasoline price being lowered again?” Now, listen to Obama’s answer.

OBAMA: I’m just gonna be honest with ya. There’s not much we can do next week or two weeks from now. (snickers) If you’re getting eight miles a gallon you may want to think about a trade-in. You can get a great deal. I — I promise you GM, or Ford, they’re — or Chrysler, they’re — gonna be happy to give you a deal on — on something that gets you better gas mileage. Gas prices? They’re gonna still fluctuate until we can start making these broader changes, and that’s gonna take a couple of years to have serious effect.

RUSH: He’s talking about his “green” energy programs, and they will not be anything productive in two years or 30 years. Oil is it! But that’s not my point. Here is a guy who has an SUV who’s asking about gasoline prices, and Obama says, “Hey, you know what? Eight miles a gallon? You better go get a trade in.” This is a total disconnect. It’s as disconnected as it gets. So may I have the attention of all Americans? All of you who make a living using your trucks, pickup trucks, vans, four-wheel-drive vehicles? All of you painters, you construction workers, delivery men, cabdrivers, even soccer moms?

Those of you who depend on large vehicles for your business or for the safety of your family, your president has just told you to trade it in for some electric job that his company happens to make. Trade in your vehicles. Go out and buy a subcompact. See, that’s how this works for you. Problem solved, according to Barack Obama. I want to go back to 2005, 2006. The gas price was getting up to four bucks a gallon and George Bush gets a question about it. He says, “Why don’t you go trade in that gas guzzler of yours, pal?” What would the news reports be? They would certainly be focused on the insensitivity of Bush.

“Well, he doesn’t care what gas costs because we don’t have to buy it and he’s in a limousine that only gets eight miles to the gallon!” Well, so is Obama. Obama’s limo gets eight miles to the gallon. His fleet of security vehicles, Suburbans, they’re not gonna switch out. It’s a classic illustration here of how statists live and work, and you don’t get to play in their league. So you just gotta go trade in your car. You gotta go get a subcompact. You gotta go out and get another car if you want to spend less on gasoline. We’re not gonna drill. We’re not gonna increase our own supply of oil.

No, we’re gonna hold out for a worthless so-called green energy solution that does not exist and won’t exist for decades — and don’t doubt me. He’s not gonna try to lower prices, he’s not gonna try to lower taxes, he is not gonna lower the corporate tax rate, he’s not gonna take any action that will make the cost of living less because he doesn’t want to. What we need to do is trade in Obama! We bought the wrong president. You have to go trade in your car. He didn’t get an Obama-approved vehicle. Oh, let’s not forget about students and those making at or near the minimum wage.

If you don’t have a high mileage car, you’re screwed. The president doesn’t care. You got that? Your gas prices are not going down. He doesn’t care. He’s on record as saying he didn’t mind a $4-a-gallon national gasoline price. He was a little upset at how fast it got there, but the overall effect of the price didn’t bother him at all. So what are you gonna do now? You show up, you tell the president of your concern but get eight miles to the gallon, and he tells you to go trade in your vehicle. Well, you might not be able to afford to drive to the polls in 2012 and vote for the idiot who loves high gas prices. That’s what you should tell him.

Now, this is from a guy who says he “remembers” pumping gas when he was young. We have the audio sound bite. I can’t find it real quick, but he said he remembers what it’s like to pump gas, and that’s when gasoline was cheap. He remembers what it was like to buy gas before he became president, when Bush was president. Gasoline has doubled in price since Obama hit town, and he says buy a new car. The federal deficit has ballooned since Obama hit town. He tells you to trade in your car. He says Sarah Palin is an embarrassment? Yeah, Sarah Palin is an embarrassment. Meanwhile, Obama is destroying the little guy: High gasoline prices, high food prices, inflation on the way. Try that one out, seasoned citizens. All of you on fixed incomes, gas prices are not going down and food prices won’t, either.

Welcome to Obamaville!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s go to Zanesville, Ohio, as we start on the phones with Joe. Thank you for calling, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: How you doing, Rush?

RUSH: Good.

CALLER: I just came up with the idea that — you hit it on the head when you said let’s not trade in our cars, let’s go one step further, let’s not trade in our cars, let’s not trade in our lives, let’s trade in Obama.

RUSH: Trade in Obama. Absolutely right. I’m glad you like that.

CALLER: I come from a state — actually, there’s a picture in the New York Times of Kasich in a little ice cream restaurant in Zanesville, Ohio, and that was the one where I work. I’m actually general manager there, and my boss is not actually a conservative, but he was in Kasich’s boat, and so was I. Now, the thing I come up with is I’m from a state that uses and harvests natural gas, and we’re huge on coal, and alls I hear is we can’t drill for it, we can’t mine for it, and Obama says go trade in your car. Well, I don’t want to trade in my car and he says you can’t do anything about it. Well, you can’t tell me that if he said, okay, go ahead and drill, that the price of gasoline wouldn’t plummet.

RUSH: Oh, it would. You have to understand. Look, it’s very simple. You’ve laid it out pretty well here. You gonna use coal? No, not gonna use coal. Gasoline, natural gas? No, not gonna do that. Too dangerous, could destroy the planet, blah blah. What do you have? What does all this add up to? You’ve got a guy and a regime full of people who agree with him that their objective now is to preside over the decline of this country to that of a European type socialist state. That’s their objective. There’s a war on prosperity. It’s happening every day and it’s in their policies. There’s a war on prosperity. There’s no doubt about it. We’ve got two and a half years under our belt of regime policies and we see the results of regime policies.

Now, anybody who really cared about reversing this would see that after two and a half years their policies aren’t working. They would engage to improve them, maybe alter them a bit so that you get a different result. No, we’re doubling down on the same stuff that got us where we are. So you go to a windmill company, a guy asks you about eight miles to the gallon in his SUV, and the president says, “Trade it in.” And he goes to Sharpton’s group says, (paraphrasing) “Yeah, look, you can count on me. I know what it was like to pump gas.” When did he ever pump gas? We’ve been told in his books that the only job he’s ever had working one day at a Baskin-Robbins. Now, we do know that he felt like he was across enemy lines working at some law firm for a while. But he worked at a Baskin-Robbins, which is why he claimed he hated ice cream, which turned out to be another lie. He loves ice cream.

Now, don’t you think that if Obama pumped gas that we would have some of the people he worked for and worked with coming forward to brag about it? “Oh, yeah, I pumped gas with Obama.” I mean this Titcomb guy out there soliciting prostitutes, he’s a good buddy of Obama. Maybe this guy can recall the days that Obama pumped gas. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is another made-up story, just on the fly, wasn’t on a prompter, so all bets are off. “Yeah, yeah, I pumped gas,” like the one about him being conceived by his parents while they were in Selma. He actually said that. He said that his parents got the idea when they were in Selma. He said it when he was in Selma, talking about the movement. We borrow $4 billion a day from China and we are arguing over the difference between 30 and $70 billion in cuts here and whether or not we are going to shut down the government over this.

Obama said, “At a time when the economy is still coming out of an extraordinarily deep recession, it would be inexcusable given the relatively narrow differences when it comes to numbers between the two parties, that we can’t get this done when it comes to numbers between the two parties that we can’t get this done.” He said that last night at the White House. I guess he wants to own the budget negotiations now, like owning the mob in Egypt. But he goes away all day, comes back late at night, then summons everybody to the White House for a meeting to make it look like he’s intimately involved in all of this, but note the priority. The priority was the reelection campaign and shoring up what apparently is a weakening support in the black community.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, the AP has scrubbed Obama’s eight mile per gallon remark from their story, the comment that he made. The original article read, “The president chided one questioner, saying: ‘If you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting 8 miles a gallon, you know, you might want to think about a trade-in.'” Let’s grab that sound bite. This is what Obama said, the original AP story reported this.

OBAMA: I’m just gonna be honest with ya. There’s not much we can do next week or two weeks from now. (snickers) If you’re getting eight miles a gallon you may want to think about a trade-in. You can get a great deal. I — I promise you GM, or Ford, they’re — or Chrysler, they’re — gonna be happy to give you a deal on — on something that gets you better gas mileage. Gas prices? They’re gonna still fluctuate until we —

RUSH: That’s enough, that’s enough, that’s enough. So you heard it. If you’re getting eight miles a gallon, you may want to think about a trade-in. The AP reported that Obama made the comment laughingly, but the quote has been scrubbed from the story that they link. It’s been scrubbed. AP just took it out. They just took it out. We’ve got it here. They just took it out of there. (laughing) Obviously there was no prompter. The question is did AP do it on their own or did somebody from the White House call ’em? I bet they got the call, too, but I’ll bet they woulda done it on their own. I bet there was somebody at AP that said, “You know, this is really kind of bad.”

By the way, folks, my car gets eight miles to the gallon and I’m honored. I’m proud. I chose my car for that reason. Well, no, I can’t honestly say I chose it for that reason. But I chose it knowing full well. That didn’t deter me at all. No, it did not deter me at all. And I love my car. Finest car I’ve ever driven. No, if I trade it in it’s gonna be for a new one of the same kind ’cause it’s three years old now. It’s got 11,000 miles on it. (laughing) You should see Snerdley and Dawn. (laughing) I do. Folks, I’ve got a Mercedes SL 65 AMG, it’s a convertible. This thing, it’s the same engine as the Maybach has, it just weighs about one-third the Maybach, but it, too, if it had the weight would only get eight miles to the gallon. That car has about 8,000 miles on it. But we have six in the fleet. Mostly we got four SUVs. I don’t drive those, but I would bet you my fleet, combined gas mileage, is nine. I am not going to trade-in anything I’ve got for one of Obama’s cars.

You know, I see Priuses. There’s people driving these Priuses and I know that some of them probably think they’re helping, but other people are doing it just to make a statement. It’s like wearing one of the red ribbons or blue ribbons. I love giving those cars enemas. I mean I love getting just as close to ’em as I can in the back, and they’re looking at me in their rearview mirror, and I just wave at ’em. And these people generally always drive like four to five miles an hour under the speed limit, so, you know, I love pulling out, going parallel with them and then goosing it awhile, just to say, “Here, breathe my fumes. Look at me destroying the planet.” Oh, I love it. I absolutely do. But as I say it’s time for a trade-in, maybe. And if I do get a new version of that, because I’m sure that they’ve upgraded the electronics in it, the gadgetry on the dashboard and stuff.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Eric in Chittenango, New York (not to be confused with Chattanooga, Tennessee). Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Great to speak to you.

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: Rush, with Obama being the smartest man in the world saying that he can’t control the price of gas and we gotta get used to it, he just needs to look back two years when gas was at $4.12 in June — $4.12 — and then immediately in June, George W. came out and told Congress that we need to searching for more oil in the states and the gas then plummeted to the end of the year to $1.61.

RUSH: Well, that’s partially the reason for it. Spectators also had a lot to do with the price of oil jumping up to $150 a barrel, but just to show you it again — because you’re right — Obama, when he says there’s nothing we can do to lower the price of oil or gasoline, then what would be the point of releasing oil from the strategic reserves, which Obama has called for a number of times? We don’t have a shortage. We’ve never a shortage of gasoline or oil. Well, we did for a couple days after Katrina, but in terms just fundamental, systematic shortage we’ve not had. Yet when the price was skyrocketing up to four bucks I think it was Obama who joined the chorus of releasing oil from the strategic reserves. Why? Because the additional volume, theoretically, would lower the price — although there isn’t enough volume in our strategic reserves to significantly lower the price, and certainly not for any protracted length of time.

RUSH: Ralph in Fort Scott, Kansas. You’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Rush, hello. It’s an honor to talk to you, sir.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I just wanted to make a comment. You were talking about how our president told that gentleman he should trade in his eight mile to the gallon vehicle. Well, I happen to have one of them myself, and nicely enough it’s paid off, and I can’t see trading it in on the cost of a new vehicle between 30 and $40,000, and in the part of Kansas where I live, sir, that will buy you a house.

RUSH: (laughing)

CALLER: I mean if our president decides to trade in one of his limousines for a Smart Car —

RUSH: How big a house? I gotta know this. How big a house?

CALLER: Oh, you could get a two, three, four-bedroom house for that kind of money in some places in Kansas.

RUSH: That’s incredible. Well, you know, I did, I bought a little property in Missouri just to be loyal to the state about four years ago, bought a little property there, and — (laughing) — I get my property tax bill for it, and I think, “This can’t be.” I mean it’s less than my gasoline payment every month.

CALLER: I’m gonna be in so much trouble for talking to you, Rush.

RUSH: Why?

CALLER: Well, my mom listens to you every day down in New Mexico, and she’s probably hearing me right now so I’m probably gonna catch it later.

RUSH: Why would your mom be upset with you listening and talking to the program? Does she think you’re at work or something?

CALLER: No, no, no, she loves listening to you every day, and, I don’t know, she might be a little bit ticked that I got in.

RUSH: Oh, oh, oh, the jealous anger? I got it. I got it. Okay, well, let me run through this again because we’re in sort of a jocular mood here today, but this four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline comment, I mean it’s not enough to say it’s insensitive. It’s an in-your-face kind of thing. How many people drive SUVs because they have to for their jobs or their families? How many people make a living with their pickup trucks, their four-wheel-drive vehicles? You’ve got contractors, painters, construction workers, delivery people, cabdrivers, soccer moms, for crying out loud, car poolers. Not everybody can start tooling around in one of these little matchbox jobs that gets 75 miles, whatever they get, not everybody can do that. That’s what they want, though. They want us all in these little matchbox cars or on mass transit. That’s what they want because they’re central planners. It’s just better that way. It’s better for the environment; it’s better for congestion; it’s better for traffic. It doesn’t matter whether it’s better for us or not.

Obama’s part of this crowd of people that just loves bossing people around, and more and more bureaucracies, federal and state, are made up of people who just like bossing other people around. But there are a lot of people who depend on large vehicles for their living and for safety, and the president seems to have literally no understanding of that, and if he does understand it, he doesn’t care, which is either just as bad or worse.

News from the AP. Just flashed. “White House says that the Republican one week budget extension is a distraction –Obama has threatened to veto it.” So it’s nice to see that a continuing resolution that would allow the Army to keep getting paid is a distraction. You Republicans have got to focus on this. They did not succeed in separate legislation to fund uniformed military personnel. They will not be paid if this shutdown happens, and this shutdown is gonna happen because of a Barack Obama veto. A Democrat is gonna veto a one-week continuing resolution. It’s not a budget for the entire year, a one-week continuing resolution with a differential spread of $30 billion.

Chump change. Now, this convinces me even more that they’ve got polling data that shows that the Republicans, I guess, are gonna end up taking more blame for this than the Democrats. What else could it be? What else could explain the total change in attitude from yesterday to today? Yesterday it was the Democrats scared to death. Starting last night into today they are just excited as they can be about this shutdown coming. But it’s nice to see that a continuing resolution that would allow the Army to keep getting paid is a distraction. Social Security recipients are gonna get paid. Medicare/Medicaid, they’re gonna get paid. Military people will not be paid.

Thank you, President Obama.

Steve, Bakersfield, California, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Pleasure to talk with you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: It’s been awhile. Rush, the clip you played of Obama dealing with the eight mile a gallon car the guy was driving.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: You or Paul Shanklin have gotta put together a used car salesman clip, commercial, using that clip.

RUSH: Make Obama out to be a used car salesman?

CALLER: He sounded like one. (imitating Obama) “Come on in. We got a deal for you. It’s about time you do a trade-in.”

RUSH: (laughing)

CALLER: “Come on down to Obama Motors!”

RUSH: “I’m sure they’ll make you good deal,” right.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Well, let me ask you something. Were you motivated to go trade your car in after hearing Obama say that?

CALLER: Oh, yeah.

RUSH: You were?

CALLER: Oh, yeah, there was a line around the block.

RUSH: All right, I wasn’t. I don’t think he’s that good a salesman. But you’re right, it’s worthy of a parody, “Come on down, have we got a deal for you.” Great you called, Steve. Thanks much.

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