RUSH: Yesterday on CNBC, Herbie Allen’s got his Big Media confab going on in Sun Valley in Idaho, and I can never figure out why it really happens. I’ve never been invited, and I’m Big Media. Without me there, I don’t know how anything that matters can get done. Well, Warren Buffett goes out there; Bill Gates goes out there, the guys from Microsoft; Apple goes out there; from the record companies, the presidents, they go out there; Brokaw goes out there; Dan Rather used to go out there, Bob Iger from Disney ABC goes out there; Rupert Murdoch goes out. Big Media confag. Herbie Allen does this big bash. I’ve been to Sun Valley, beautiful, beautiful place. I got a friend who lives there not far from where John — well, I’m sorry, Teresa Heinz Kerry owns a house, and Kerry lives there when he’s in town. The hotel accommodations are not five star in Sun Valley. I don’t know where they all stay. No big deal. I’m just thinking aloud.
Anyway, Buffett’s out there, he was interviewed on CNBC yesterday. Essentially he said that we’re playing Russian roulette with ourselves if we don’t raise the debt limit. Rick Santelli, remember him? Original Tea Party guy on CNBC, he lost it. He went nuts after Buffett appeared. He was on Street Signs on CNBC yesterday, they’re having a discussion about Buffett’s remarks about government playing Russian roulette with these debt negotiations, and Rick Santelli and an author of a book, A Million Is Not Enough, Michael Farr, had this little exchange.
SANTELLI: I so disagree with Warren Buffett, so disagree. Who’s holding who hostage? You know, any addict, you can’t bend the rules. There’s the steps you follow when you’re an addict. It isn’t anything you can bend. In November there was an election. People in the House were sent there because the voters had an appetite for less spending. They wanted DC to control their spending. And if whatever comes out of these meetings doesn’t satisfy the electorate, guess what? November comes in a calendar once a year, and maybe the next election will make the midterms look like child’s play.
RUSH: Okay, this is where this Farr guy gets involved.
SANTELLI: If not now, when? Now is the time. Now, now, now.
FARR: Now is the time, but they can’t use this gun.
SANTELLI: Oh, let me tell you something. Nothing will pass the House if they stick together. End of story. That’s the way the game works.
FARR: So where does compromise come from, Rick?
SANTELLI: I don’t believe in compromise on spending. There’s no compromise.
FARR: Hey, Rick, Rick.
SANTELLI: Stop spending. Live within your means.
RUSH: It’s exactly right. Don’t compromise on spending, and that’s what this is talking about. Why compromise here on the future of the country? It’s absurd, and this is not why these guys were elected. They kept talking. This is not over.
SANTELLI: Do not ask taxpayers —
FARR: Okay, but you got —
SANTELLI: — for more money or an increased debt ceiling ’til you give us a darn budget.
FARR: ‘Til you give us a budget. But we’re running out of time. I mean somewhere in here they’ve gotta figure this —
SANTELLI: And whose fault is that? What have they been doing for two years?
FARR: — fault, but it’s a practical problem, right? I mean we still have to —
SANTELLI: It’s a practical problem.
FARR: — come up with a practical solution.
SANTELLI: We can pay our interest payments. The rating agencies —
FARR: That’s right.
SANTELLI: — unlike Europe, aren’t going to come after us. Be plenty of people that aren’t going to get programmed money. I understand that. But maybe the programs need less money, need to be streamlined. It isn’t a question —
FARR: Absolutely.
SANTELLI: — about whether you need to tackle Social Security; it’s how long do you think that bullet’s gonna take before it comes out of the revolver?
RUSH: That’s Rick Santelli with a Limbaugh echo on CNBC yesterday talking about no need to compromise on spending, and that we’re not gonna default. We’re not going to be unable to make debt payments if we don’t raise the debt ceiling. Keeping on doing the same damn thing is not compromise. Obama and the Democrats want to keep on doing the same damn thing, and that isn’t compromise. It’s doing the same damn thing. The Democrats are saying let’s compromise. Let’s keep doing things our way. The answer to the Democrats is we’re not gonna keep doing things your way, and we’re not going to compromise on spending, and we are not going to raise taxes. And we don’t care what Richard Cohen says and we don’t care what David Brooks says, and we don’t care what the establishment says about this. It’s gonna come down to who the congressional Republicans are gonna listen to. It’s gonna come down to whoever they think they have the most to fear from.
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RUSH: John in Daytona, Florida, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: (garbled cell connection) Hey, Rush, would it be wrong of me to say that Warren Buffett should butt out of the American economy because at this point I don’t remember him being elected for anything, and he doesn’t have $12 trillion; his company’s worth $25 billion. Huh huh huh.
RUSH: Well, no, because, that would be like telling any citizen to butt out of it. No, you can’t tell him to butt out of it. We are a representative republic. He’s on TV and he can say whatever he wants. He doesn’t have to be right, he can say what he wants.
CALLER: Look, he is confusing because I do respect his business sense, and I don’t think he would run Berkshire Hathaway the same way. He wouldn’t run it this way. He wouldn’t run it (garbled).
RUSH: No. No. He doesn’t. That’s the thing. The Kennedys didn’t run their businesses the way they make everybody else run theirs.
CALLER: No, they didn’t.
RUSH: The liberals do not send their kids to public schools.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: The liberals are not out there driving battery powered cars. It’s no different. So you say, “Why do they do it?” Well, it’s the age-old class warfare: This is how they relate or try to make the average, middle class American think that they support ’em, that they’ve got their back. It’s no more complicated than that. Pure and simple. Now, where you’re right is: Okay, Warren Buffett has — I forget, $43 billion — $50 billion; and he and Gates and some of these other high-rollers have signed this pledge to give all their money to Gates, basically, when they die. (laughing) To Gates’ charity! Stop and think of that. (laughing) That’s fine, but don’t tell me I have to. If you don’t want to keep what you’ve earned for your family when you pass away, that’s fine, but don’t tell me that I have to give my estate away.
Fine. Now, there’s one Democrat that ran his business like the Democrats do. In other words, the Democrats don’t send their kids to public schools, the Democrats don’t drive electric cars. The Democrats don’t do all these things that they’re suggesting, particularly economically and fiscally. They don’t. The Democrats do invest their money in the stock market, but they don’t want you to. The Democrats fly corporate jets. The Democrats do all these wealthy, rich things. They just don’t want you to know about it. There’s one Democrat who ran his business like the government does (and there have been lesser ones) and that’s Bernie Madoff. Bernie Madoff was the one Democrat who solidly through — from front to back, start to finish, top to bottom — ran his business the exact way the Democrats run the government.
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