Folks, I’m going to take a flier here and I’m going to assume that most of you in this audience have bank accounts and checking accounts and I’m going to assume that many of you when you get paid do so by direct deposit. Others of you get your checks and you go to the bank and you deposit them. I can’t imagine, how many people in this audience — and I refuse to believe that I will be surprised — how many people in this audience get their paycheck and head to one of these — (interruption) What do you mean, culturally insensitive? Let me just ask you, Snerdley, would you take any check that you have and go down to the bail bonds area and find the check cashing store, hand it over, and say cash this for me? Hell no. I don’t think I’ve ever known anybody that’s done that. Is that the wrong thing to say? I’m not saying there aren’t people that do it, obviously. Clinton and Schwarzenegger are writing a column in the Wall Street Journal about the unbanked! You got experience with this, Brian? Oh, that’s why they go there? They go there because they get their money earlier? You go and get the cash right away, rather than putting it in a bank and wait for the float? Is that what you’re talking about? Give me a break. (interruption) They give you an advance on your paycheck if you just take it on your pay stub? (interruption) I know the interest rates are like loan sharks. Well, all right.
I still say that this whole piece focusing on the unbanked, that’s the term here, the unbanked — yeah, the entire American dream threatened because of unbanked are not banked and we need Clinton and Schwarzenegger with a proposal to get the unbanked banked? Of course we know who we’re talking about here. The illegal immigrants.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Mary in Onalaska, Washington, you’re nice to call. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush, can you hear me all right? Rush?
RUSH: Hi, how are you?
CALLER: Hi, just fine. Listen, I wanted you to know that not everybody who doesn’t use a bank is a drug dealer. Not everybody has bank accounts. Not everybody has credit cards.
RUSH: Wait just a second. Are you calling from a McDonald’s drive-in?
CALLER: No, sir.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: Not everybody has these things: credit cards, bank accounts, iPods, cell phones, computers. We don’t have any of these things. I get my news from listening to you, to Michael Savage, and to (unintelligible). That’s all I do is listen to you guys.
RUSH: That’s all well and good, but why don’t you have a bank?
CALLER: Because they suck!
RUSH: I hope that’s suck with an ‘s’?
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: Have you seen any black helicopters lately?
CALLER: No, sir.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I like living under the radar. There’s nothing on the computer, there’s nothing on —
RUSH: I understand.
CALLER: — anything.
RUSH: I get it now.
CALLER: I write letters. I read books.
RUSH: All right, all right. So you don’t want anybody knowing anything about you?
CALLER: We deal with just cash, and we never have any of it!
RUSH: Yeah. So you are the unbanked. Do you agree with Clinton and Schwarzenegger that people need to make it easier for you to go get a bank account?
CALLER: No! They’re idiots!
RUSH: Thank you, Mary.
CALLER: You’re welcome.
RUSH: (laughter) I shoulda asked her who she was going to vote for. I’ll bet it’s McCain. (laughter) She could just as easily have been from Rio Linda. In fact, pundits, they have been getting everything else wrong in this campaign. I don’t know why I should expect that they should get it right about me. Why shouldn’t they get it wrong about me? I mean you heard Chuck Todd. He thinks that this program and you were largely predisposed to Fred Thompson. I didn’t support anybody on this program. And yet, a large part of the audience thinks I supported Fred Thompson. Then the other large part of the audience thinks I supported Mitt Romney, and the people in Rio Linda think I supported Huckabee. (laughter)
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RUSH: To Casper, Wyoming. This is Jay. Nice to have you on the EIB Network, sir.
CALLER: Greetings from the Cowboy State, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: On the check cashing centers, I am not able to get a bank account due to circumstances beyond my control, and I would be dead in the water without the check cashing centers, and they — they — they do, uh… They do rape you when you use them. I try to use Wal-Mart more than anything else.
RUSH: You know, I have to make an observation. This is the third call today. The first two callers both used the word ‘suck.’ You just used the word ‘rape.’ There’s something out there today.
CALLER: (laughter)
RUSH: Okay. So you said these payday check catches places, they ‘rape you,’ and so you try to go to Wal-Mart?
CALLER: Yeah, and I wish the Democrats would leave Wal-Mart alone.
RUSH: Yeah. What happens at Wal-Mart? What’s the difference at Wal-Mart and these other places? You only get ‘mauled’?
CALLER: Well, Wal-Mart charges you a flat three bucks no matter how big the check is.
RUSH: Three bucks?
CALLER: Three bucks.
RUSH: What do these other loan shark places charge?
CALLER: It could be as much as 50 bucks for a check that’s less than $500.
RUSH: Why in the world are you in this circumstance? Do you feel like you can divulge it in 25 seconds?
CALLER: Ex-wife overdrew an account just before a divorce and I got reported to Check Systems, and the bank refuses to take me off. That’s been over ten years ago.
RUSH: Even though you’re divorced now and she’s moved on?
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: How long is that going to last?
CALLER: As long as the bank wants it there. It’s already been over ten years.
RUSH: Good Lord! We found a whole new class of upstanding citizens: the unbanked. This disheartens me, because I’ve been such a staunch family values, supporter-of-marriage guy. To learn this, why, this shatters me.