RUSH: Here’s Richard, El Segundo, California. Welcome, sir. Great to have you.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. How are you today? Thank you for taking my call. By the way, the entertainment waiting on the telephone during the breaks is outstanding.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate that.
CALLER: I called you on September 11th and discussed my concerns over Republican attendance for this current election, and that’s another issue. I’m speaking to you today about Proposition 30, that’s three-zero, not one-three, in the state of California. You expressed a desire last week to sort of track the aftermath of that. Well, you lived here, and you know what California’s all about, but I’m still here, and it’s been some years since you have been. It’s even worse. It’s a bottomless pit. The state lottery 25 years ago was supposed to handle all educational costs forever. That’s what it was sold on, and of course that’s a myth. We’ve got something like $500 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, and a number of other expenses and —
RUSH: Okay, wait. Let’s go through this.
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: This will be an interesting exercise. I’m not gonna be able to complete it before we have to take a break. I need to ask if you can hold on through the top of the hour break.
CALLER: I’d be honored.
RUSH: In Prop 30, citizens of California voted to raise taxes on themselves. And so Mayor Willie Brown, Speaker Brown, “Oh, this will work, this will work ’cause the people are behind it. They voted this themselves.” Okay, so we got that. Number two. He said, “Yeah, the lottery, 25, 30 years ago, supposed to pay for all education.” As far as most Californians are concerned, there’s nothing wrong with it. The schools are still open. Unfunded liabilities, pension liabilities? They may be unfunded, but people retire, they’re still getting their pensions. We haven’t gone over the cliff on anything. None of that explanation’s gonna convince anybody that there’s a problem. That’s my point.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to go back to the phones. I want to go to Richard in El Segundo, California. Richard, you’re still there, right?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: I’m not trying to diminish the hell that you’re going through living in California. From the perspective of people that don’t live there, even some of the people that do, Richard, for all of the problems that you can describe, and Prop 30’s clearly a problem, and, by the way, they’re gonna erase Prop 13 next, I mean they’re gonna get rid of adjustments made long ago by Howard Jarvis on property tax. You’re just getting started with tax increases ’cause this is not gonna close any budgets. You talk about the unfunded pension liability, you can talk about all the money from the lottery that is supposed to pay for education. And I love that state. I could live there, but Richard, my contention to you is that the vast majority of people who live there don’t think anything’s wrong. They keep voting the same way. I know there’s a group that… prop… oh, what was it, no welfare for illegal immigrants.
CALLER: 187.
RUSH: 187. I know all of this. I know everything you’re gonna tell me about the income tax, property taxes, so forth, but you’ve got two states there. You’ve got the elite on the coast all up and down, even up in Eureka County, the elite, the global warming elite. Then you’ve got the interior, which is the agricultural part of the state, and you’ve got anarchy. You’ve got crime running rampant. You’ve got no police forces and so forth, but what I see is everybody who is essentially responsible for the mess keeps getting reelected and in greater numbers.
CALLER: You just described the entire country.
RUSH: That’s true. Let’s go through what you mentioned specifically. You said 25 years ago the lottery was gonna pay for education.
CALLER: Forever.
RUSH: Forever. And of course nothing’s paid for in California. There is the largest budget deficit, larger than many countries, 16, $18 billion. It obviously doesn’t matter to anybody. Or it doesn’t matter to anywhere near a majority of people. The number of people that don’t care about that dwarf the number who do, and as far as they’re concerned the lottery is paying for education. The schools are still open, and unfunded pension liability? Well, I’ll contend to you that most people don’t even know what that means when they hear unfunded pension liability, including the pensioners. All they know is they’re still getting them.
CALLER: Well, you must remember as well, and I’m sure you do, that this is a parasite’s paradise in California. We have 12% of the population, we eat up 33% of the nation’s welfare money. The illegals cost us $13 billion a year. That’s over one-tenth of the entire country.
RUSH: Right. And I don’t see that anybody cares.
CALLER: Well, we do have our share of those who are, to be charitable, are challenged as far as native intelligence is concerned.
RUSH: It’s more education than anything, but still I know what you mean.
CALLER: Well, for example, the City of Los Angeles is now on the heels of Proposition 30 pushing for another half-cent sales tax within the city.
RUSH: I know. I’ve got the LA Times headline right here.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: “Tax Hikes, Improving Economy Bode Well for State Budget.” Nothing bodes well for the California budget.
CALLER: I agree with you. The socialists in Sacramento now are flush with the smugness that they have a supermajority —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — and are discussing tripling, I emphasize tripling, the license fees on vehicles.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And this is, what, within a week and a half after that proposition passed.
RUSH: Right. And who elects ’em?
CALLER: They pulled the wool over the eyes of the majority of the Californians once again.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: They’re a target of opportunity.
RUSH: Well, who elects them? They keep getting elected, and by the people who are going to pay triple increases in auto registration.
CALLER: It’s totally misunderstood. Sixty to 70% — as a matter of fact, I haven’t seen the school ballot for a bond issue not pass in this state as far back as I can remember. I just scanned the election results on Tuesday night. The local ballots were on screen, and everyone one of the school bonds passed by a marriage of 60 to 70%.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And all they have to do is throw in the moniker of it’s, “for the children,” and they pass.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: So the state is cutting its own throat here. It’s like taking candy from a baby.
RUSH: I don’t know that you’re hearing me, because we’re talking two different things. Yes, in real terms, somewhere down the road the state is cutting its own throat. But it isn’t. None of this pain, none of the damage, none of the penalties, taxes inflicted, are not changing the way people are voting. It’s not changing the way a lot of people are living. And you know as well as I do that when they reach the tipping point, if a Democrat is in the White House, they’re gonna bail the state out.
CALLER: Well, of course, we’re both preaching to the choir here.
RUSH: Well, I’m trying to make a larger point, and I’m in the middle of formulating strategically how to do it, so I’m actually using you as a guinea pig, and I haven’t figured out how to do this. But what I’m trying to say is, we can cite real-world facts. We can paint a real-world picture of the future, but it hasn’t happened yet, even though it’s the process of happening, but in terms of it hasn’t happened, it hasn’t affected people’s lives yet, and apparently, Richard, tax increases don’t bother the people of California, because they’re not new. Property taxes have been high for a long time. State income taxes have been high for a long time. I know the largest share is borne by the rich, but they don’t care, either.
And when I say they don’t care, I know there are people like you, but you’re so outnumbered that it is accurate to say the Republican Party has lost that state forever. And I can tell you when it began: 1988 when all kinds of immigration standards were relaxed, Simpson-Mazzoli, ’86, actually, opened the floodgates with amnesty. It’s not an anti-Hispanic comment. It’s a comment politically on Republicans losing the state, an influx of Democrat voters came in, and we’re facing the same thing happening now nationwide by design and on purpose. We just had four years of an economic uber-disaster in this country, and the party not responsible for it got blamed totally.
CALLER: There’s a level in ignorance in California as well as nationwide, and I’m not giving you any news. I’ve spoken to people here before that say, for example, they don’t care about property tax increases because they’re renters. I’ve also spoken to people who say they don’t like taxes, but they don’t care about bonds because — and this is a direct quote — the government pays for those. So when you’re fighting that level of misinformation with people who cannot connect the dots, we’ve got a real problem, and it’s migrated throughout the entire country.
RUSH: But shouldn’t real life connect the dots? Even if they don’t understand how bonds are paid for and even if they don’t understand how they cannot escape higher costs of living because they rent, at some point shouldn’t the reality of the disaster of the way they’re voting affect the way they live, and thus change the way they’re voting?
CALLER: When they actually write the check, they understand. Until then, and it’s dollar for dollar, they don’t connect the dots. I’ve spoken to dozens and dozens of people on these subjects over the years, and it’s consistent.
RUSH: Here’s the bottom line. California current taxes, right now, highest state sales tax, second highest gasoline tax. This is in the nation. Personal income tax, second highest. Corporate income tax, highest in the west. California has the third worst state business tax climate in the nation, according to a report in the Tax Foundation. And I know, by the way, that lots of people are leaving California. What is it, is it a thousand people a week that are moving to places like Idaho? I know there are people leaving.
CALLER: Well, there’s a huge exodus, and over 5,000 businesses of various sizes have left here within the last two years.
RUSH: Right. And the state’s still functioning, and Southern California’s still beautiful and so is Pebble Beach, and so is Carmel. Everything’s still beautiful. So is San Diego. So is Coronado. So is Palm Springs. So is Indian Wells. It’s all still beautiful. It’s all still a great vacation. San Francisco is still beautiful. All of this is happening, and to listen to us talk, this place ought to be a ghost town falling apart at the seams, and it isn’t. So when we preach dismal, despair, this can’t continue, the people that live there say, “Well, what do you mean it can’t continue? It is continuing. Our education, schools, they’re still open.” They don’t know that they’re underfunded. In fact, every little thing they want, now they’ve got addadictomies paid for, they got same sex changes, everything, paid for. I mean, what could be better for the people who live in these places? Exactly what they want is happening.
CALLER: Look at the impending municipal bankruptcies. We’ve had four or five and there are many on the ropes right now. I know that from firsthand information.
RUSH: Doesn’t matter. My point is it doesn’t matter. Who’s winning every election out there by ever increasing margins? The architects of all this.
CALLER: Well, you’re simply indicting the American public, and I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, let’s call a spade a spade here. If people don’t understand basic economics, how do you explain that?
RUSH: It’s not that I’m indicting the American people per se. I’m trying to acknowledge what California’s become. It’s a socialist welfare democracy that the people who live there want, and everything as far as they’re concerned is fine to the vast majority of ’em. And it’s not so much what they know, it’s what they’ve been taught. California is a microcosm for where we’re headed as a country because of the education system. The long-term fix for California is the same thing it is for the country. We have got to get control back of the public education system. The reason you sit there and talk about the naivete and the ignorance of the people that live there, they don’t know any better. They’ve been taught government’s wonderful, government’s the answer, government’s this, government’s that. To them the worst people alive are Republicans. And therefore everything Republicans say is either a lie or dastardly wrong or mean-spirited or what have you.
CALLER: Well, it may be pie-in-the-sky, but I would expect that some native intelligence would come into play here and that people would begin to understand.
RUSH: Yeah, well —
CALLER: There is a mass exodus of wealth, by the way —
RUSH: Richard —
CALLER: — it’s gonna come back to roost.
RUSH: Maybe so, but it ain’t happening fast enough. You’re looking for this vast reservoir of native intelligence, and I’m asking you, where is it? It keeps electing more Democrats. They just voted to raise taxes on themselves.
CALLER: Exactly. And they put Brown back in the governor’s mansion once again. You may know or may not know that his prior city of Oakland —
RUSH: No. No. They don’t care. They’re getting what they want. This is our challenge. They are not being fooled. We think they’re being fooled. They are getting what they want. That’s our challenge. They’re not having the wool pulled over their eyes. These people are not voting for tax increases because they’re stupid or because they’re being lied to about it. They want it. They believe in it. Only if we accept that, I think, are we gonna be able to deal with this down the road. It’s a contest of ideas. Clearly there’s some people that don’t know what to think and don’t know what they know, because you’ve got that in every group of people. My point to you is that overall a majority of people that vote in that state are not fooled. They know what they’re doing, and they like what they’re getting. And the evidence is undeniable. They keep voting that way in greater numbers every election.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Michael in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Open Line Friday. How are you, sir?
CALLER: Doing great. It’s a great honor to talk to you, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
CALLER: You know, I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I’m not beating up on Romney. I just think you nailed it on the last call. You said it’s a contest of ideas. And, you know, I never did get all the answers I wanted from Romney. I think we’re shooting ourselves in the foot as the Republican Party because the Democrats are running full-fledged true blue Democrats, and we’re running these people who I think are political wimps and they’re afraid to take a risk or say what they really believe.
RUSH: Well, you know what, we’re also afraid of negative ads, because we’re afraid the independents don’t like ’em. We haven’t learned that you can run a truthful negative ad that is not an attack on a person. They run everything. But I know what you mean. We’re in the arena of ideas. There were a bunch of times, and even during debates when Romney’s going through the economic stats as they exist today and how he’s gonna change ’em, and I was longing for him to explain how. Teach!
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: That’s the only thing that was missing. How are you gonna create 12 million jobs, tell us how it works.
CALLER: He was asked several times, “How are you gonna pay for the tax cut?” You know, he said, “Well, we’re gonna eliminate some deductions.” Well, which ones, and he never would answer, and I’m like, just tell us.
RUSH: Well, I’m gonna defend him. He thought it would be minutia and confusing because of the limited time they have in a debate, I understand that, but I agree with you overall.