RUSH: This is Charlie in Jacksonville, Florida. Hello, Charlie. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush.

RUSH: Good afternoon. You can address me as Mr. Tea, if you wish.

CALLER: Mr. Tea, okay.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: Mr. Tea, I was listening to Sean Hannity’s show on Monday. John McCain was on.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And I think you’re right, it’s a done deal. They’re gonna pass this thing.

RUSH: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s a done deal they’re gonna raise the debt ceiling. It’s not a done deal — but it’s not by any means a done deal yet what —

CALLER: Well, they need to stick to their guns on the Cut, Cap, and Balance and we need to play hardball. I almost wrecked my truck because I was thinking to myself, if I was in the Republican leadership, I’d walk into Barack Obama’s office and I’d say, “Look, if you try and veto Cut, Cap, and Balance we’re gonna go to the American public and we’re gonna tell ’em, take your money outta your 401(k)s now before it gets snatched,” cuz that’s what he said on the radio, “We don’t want the American public to lose their money in their 401(k)s if we don’t pass something,” and it’s just fear all over again.

RUSH: It is. It is.

CALLER: I mean they’re just playing on our fear, Rush, we should take the offensive and use blackmail, whatever it has to be to get a balanced budget amendment through there.

RUSH: I know exactly how you feel. This is what we expect to happen every time our side wins elections, and they don’t do it, and so we say, why, and we end up ticked off. You and I know that we hold the cards here. We know that Obama couldn’t get elected if the election were today. We don’t need to act like losers. So what’s the answer to this? The answer is the DC establishment wants higher taxes, they want more spending, they want bigger government, and they want it redistributed. And the DC establishment consists of people who call themselves Republicans but aren’t, people who call themselves Democrats but aren’t. They just call themselves that. They are just statists, ruling class people, they just decide which party they’re gonna belong to, all to keep us thinking in a certain way. It’s what all this illustrates.

You and I both know that if you strip away all of that gunk, that we do, the Republican side, the conservatives hold the cards here. They’re having to manufacture polls now to show Obama winning this. It’s all a big lie. It’s all a giant smoke screen. And the frustrating thing is it gets played out day in, day out for decades. Anyway, appreciate the call out there, Charlie. Thanks much.

This is Brian in Albany. Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Mr. Tea.

RUSH: Hey. Thank you, sir.

CALLER: We know it’s in the Democratic playbook. My question, Rush, is what is in the McConnell-Boehner playbook?

RUSH: Well, there isn’t a playbook. See, this is the thing. If there is a playbook, it’s got two words: wait and react.

CALLER: Yeah. So how do they find their way?

RUSH: Fear. Fear from their voters. It’s worked. Look, the voters stopped meaningful, comprehensive immigration reform. The voters stopped it. The voters stopped Harriet Miers. The voters can intimidate elected officials. Not every time, not every issue. But it can happen.

CALLER: So what is gonna happen with Mr. McConnell and Mr. Boehner?

RUSH: I have no idea. I’m like you, we’re waiting here to see. Right now Boehner and McConnell are not on the same page.

CALLER: No, they’re not. Could I ask you one more question, quick?

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Nine Republicans voted against the Cut, Cap, and Balance. One was Michele Bachmann. Why did she vote “no”?

RUSH: Because it raises the debt limit.

CALLER: Okay. Good. Principled.

RUSH: That’s why all nine voted against it, because it raises the debt limit. And they have promised, those nine have made it very abundantly clear that they are not gonna go along with anything that raises the debt limit.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: Even massive spending cuts. Five Democrats voted for it, by the way. This is what you don’t hear, five Democrats voted for Cut, Cap, and Balance. You don’t hear about that compromise, do you?


BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Hey, Snerdley, we had a caller that wanted to know what was Boehner and McConnell’s playbook, and I said, “There’s one word,” and then I changed and I said, “No, it’s actually three words.” I’ll tell you what the one word was: “Duck!” (interruption) No. No, no, no, no, no. The word in the playbook is not “cave.” It’s “duck.” Look, here’s where we are. We had a massive landslide election victory last November. We sent a bunch of conservatives there. We took control of the House of Representatives. But the leadership didn’t change in the last election. The leadership is the same bunch. The leadership is pre-Tea Party.

The leadership is still of the old skrool, and they still have the “let’s make a deal” mentality. “We gotta do a deal! We gotta do something!” That’s the mentality: “We’ve got to do something,” and they don’t. They really don’t have to do anything. I don’t think it’s incorrect to say that until there is Tea Party leadership, you’re not gonna see significant change. Why are we still sitting here worried about the caving? You know, why do I tell you at the opening of every program, “Republicans are very nervous?” It’s because it’s the same leadership, and they are of the “let’s make a deal” mentality. If we had Allen West, for example (just to pick a well-known name for the Republican freshman class) running the House, if we had the Tea Party brigade running it, we wouldn’t be anywhere near this deal the way we are at present.

It would be an entirely different dynamic if there was different leadership. It’s just the way it is. It’s just what happens. It doesn’t really need to be complicated. Ronald Reagan called them tax-and-spend liberals, and that’s what they are. That’s what they’ll always be: Tax and spend. You don’t have to call them Marxists or communists or statists or socialists or doofuses or whatever. They are all that, but they’re tax and spend — and if that’s what you’re for, they are your people. Tax and spend. So Moody’s (or at our good friend Stuart Varney says, “Moodis”) has just sided with the doofus and said that McConnell’s plan B as a nonstarter — and the reason McConnell did plan B was to get Moody’s approval! That’s the irony here.

They’re trying to get the approval of all these people. “We want them to recognize that we are responsible adults when it comes to the debt ceiling and we are not going to default,” and Moody’s looked at McConnell’s plan B and said, “Nope. It won’t fly with the doofus and so won’t fly with us.” Plain and simple. The president who votes “present” on the $14 trillion deficit, national debt is smitten. He likes the Gang of Six bill. He’s smitten with the bill that doesn’t exist because, as I say, TheHill.com: “Key Democrats’ Gang of Six Plan Won’t Be Ready for Debt Limit Beal By August 2nd,” much less Ramadan on August 1st. At this stage of events, you almost have to conclude that Obama needs the crisis more than he needs campaign money.

You know, Goldman Sachs released what I think is bombshell news, and here’s their version: “Following another week of weak economic data, we have cut our estimates for real GDP growth in the second and third quarter of 2011 to 1.5% and 2.5%, respectively…” . They originally were forecasting US economic growth at 2% and 3.25% in the second and third quarters. They say, “Our forecasts for Q4 and 2012 are under review, but even excluding any further changes we now expect the unemployment rate to come down only modestly to 8-3/4% at the end of 2012.” The ChiCom growth rate is 9.5%. We’re talking about the United States and these people are predicting a growth rate of 1.5%. We’re being outgrown by a communist country.