RUSH: Have you seen the story (Politico has it): “Senate GOP Ponders Ceding Power to President Obama”? Did you see that? Now, when you see that headline, and if you don’t know anything about — if you have nothing to put that headline in context — that’s gotta look weird. “Senate GOP Ponders Ceding Power to President Obama.” No, no, no, it’s not surrender. What it is… Well, I’ll tell you what it is after this.

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RUSH: Clearly, if you see a headline: “Senate GOP Ponders Shifting Power to Obama,” and if that’s all you read, you’d be forgiven if you thought that it meant the Republicans are caving in, giving up, surrendering. “Go ahead, Barack, you do it!” But I have a different take. You know what I think this is? I think this is the result of the Republicans having heard my theorem, and I’m not talking to you from a standpoint of ego here. I think what this is is an effort to make all of this Obama’s responsibility. I think this is an effort to shift the perception of who’s responsible for this to Obama, because he is the one who chooses what gets cut in the sequester.

For four-and-a-half years, Obama has gotten away with no accountability. For four-plus years, the entire time of his presidency, he has gotten away with a perpetual campaign where he is not seen as having any relationship to what’s actually happening in the country. His agenda, his policies, the American people, low-information voters do not associate the policies of this administration with the realities of life in this country. Obama has gotten away with portraying the Republicans, be it George Bush or Boehner, McConnell, whoever he wants to name, as the villains. They’re the guys destroying everything. They’re the guys responsible for you not having a job. The Republicans are why your house has no value. The Republicans are destroying the planet. The Republicans, they’re doing it. Obama is valiantly fighting it. He creates that perception with the perpetual, never-ending campaign.

This is the Limbaugh theorem. I think the Republicans have heard it ’cause here’s the story. “Days before the March 1 deadline, Senate Republicans are circulating a draft bill that would cancel $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts and instead turn over authority to President Barack Obama to achieve the same level of savings under a plan to be filed by March 8.”

What they want to do is basically cancel the sequester and then reinstitute it on March 8th with Obama, by virtue of legislation, in total control of it. Now, it’s nothing more than a PR move, because Obama already is in charge of whatever spending cuts take place after the sequester. I’m not making that up, and I’m not offering it as criticism. It’s just a fact. And it doesn’t matter if the president were Rin Tin Tin. The way the law is written, when the sequester happens, it’s the president — that’s why there’s such outrage over Obama releasing 30,000 criminals, illegal alien criminals. He doesn’t have to do that. He doesn’t have to lay off Border Patrol agents. He doesn’t have to not deploy an aircraft carrier. He doesn’t have to partially lay off or furlough 800,000 Pentagon employees.

He can cut money wherever he wants to. He could cut money in areas that are duplicated, redundant, and would never be missed. There’s so much waste and fraud in this budget you can’t count it all. He could eliminate some of that. But no, even before the sequester has gone into effect, he’s released thousands of jailed, imprisoned criminals. Folks, that’s the kind of thing that Saddam Hussein did. Saddam Hussein did that exact thing on the eve of our invasion of Iraq. He just opened the doors to his jails and let every reprobate that he was holding loose. He created total panic and havoc in Baghdad and throughout the country. That’s the kind of thing Obama’s done here, and it’s totally unnecessary.

So I think — and I could be wrong — but I think what’s happening here is that the Senate Republicans want to officially, in a way that makes everybody aware: Obama is in charge of these cuts. Because right now, they are getting the blame for it. And I think they’ve become aware of the Limbaugh theorem. Look at the Limbaugh theorem as a scouting report. If you want to put this in a sports analogy, I’m a scout. I’ve gone out, I’ve scouted the opposition. I’ve filed my report with the Republicans.

I said, “Here’s what the guy’s doing. He’s making it look like everything happening is because of you. He’s been president for five years, but the people do not associate his agenda and his policies with life in America. The unemployment has nothing to do with Obama’s policies. Obama is seen as valiantly trying to create jobs. You are the guys destroying jobs. Now, with the sequester, you’re the guys closing the Pentagon. You’re the guys that are forcing him to release prisoners. You’re the guys forcing him to go lax on border security.”

I think what they’re trying to do here — it’ll never work, but it’s the optics — I think they’re trying, via legislation, to actually get people aware of what already is fact anyway, and that is whatever cuts made are Obama’s and his alone.

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RUSH: All right, look, I know Obama is saying that he can’t change the cuts by himself, but in fact he can. In reality, Obama’s the only one who can change where the cuts take place, by virtue of the law.

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RUSH: No, I’m not kidding. Saddam Hussein released every criminal in his jails before the invasion of Iraq. Fidel Castro did it, too. What do you think the Mariel Boatlift was during the Jimmy Carter years? South Florida was flooded with a flotilla of the worst hardened criminals Castro had. I’m telling you, that’s what Barack Obama is doing. It’s ridiculous to even say it’s unnecessary. It’s like everything else. This is being done on purpose.

This is action being taken not just against the Republicans. This is action being taken against the country. There are many areas, in a budget as big and expansive as the United States government budget, to cut. To say with a sequester that is requiring $44 billion of cuts, you’ve gotta let 30,000 illegal aliens out of jail and you’ve gotta furlough 800,000 civilian employees in the Pentagon and you can’t deploy an aircraft carrier to Persian Gulf?

“This is madness.”

Bob Woodward is exactly right. “This is madness,” and you can define “madness” however you want. It is sheer madness to be doing this. It’s petulant. It is childish. It is (sniveling), “I’m not getting my way! I’m gonna take my ball go home. Here! Here! Watch this,” and Obama’s out trying to claim that he doesn’t have any control over the cuts that he can make, but he does. In reality, Obama is the only one who can change where these cuts hit.

I just think it’s the height of irresponsibility, it’s childish, and it is action that is unnecessarily punitive against the people of this country who haven’t done anything. They’re just getting up every day and trying to get by. That’s why I think the Senate Republicans have this idea. “Days before the March 1 deadline, Senate Republicans are circulating a draft bill that would cancel $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts and instead turn over authority to President Barack Obama to achieve the same level of savings under a plan to be filed by March 8.”

Now, you’re probably saying, “Why are they doing this if the authority already rests with Obama?” Because nobody thinks so! Nobody understands it. Nobody believes it. Congress “would retain the power to overturn the president’s spending plan by March 22, but only under a resolution of disapproval that would demand two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate,” which wouldn’t happen.

“The proposal would require — like the sequester — that no more than $42.6 billion of the cuts come at the expense of defense programs.” We’re spending… I don’t know what the defense expenditure is, but I’m telling you: $22 billion from defense… Look, I’ve know we’ve got uniformed military personnel listening. Folks, we’ve had calls. The office has received calls from people I’m not gonna name.

You don’t know who they are, but they are requesting anonymity, and they’re telling us that the cuts that are planned against them are real and that they are cuts that will negatively affect our ability to prosecute war, to project power. Now, that’s not necessary. Those kind of cuts aren’t necessary. Those, in fact, are the kinds of cuts that Obama relishes. Those are the kinds of cuts that Obama wants to happen.

I think all that’s happening here is that the Republicans in the Senate are trying to show low-information voters that Obama really is in control of where these cuts hit. The high-information voters already know it. It’s probably gonna be a failed effort, but they’re still going to make the effort to have this understood. Look at this. Brian Preston at a website called PJ Media. “Barack Obama Pulls a Move Almost Worthy of Saddam Hussein —

“Shortly before U.S. troops stormed Iraq to oust its dictator, Saddam Hussein released thousands of prisoners from Iraqi jails. Some were petty criminals, some were hardcore, some were terrorists. Hussein unleashed them to build his own popularity and to sow chaos. Today, Barack H. Obama’s Department of Homeland Security is doing this: ‘[T]he Obama administration already is making the first cuts, with officials confirming that the Homeland Security Department has begun to release what it deems low-priority illegal immigrants from detention.'”

This is before the cuts have even hit.

These actions that Obama is taking, these tactics are to punish the people of this country, because Obama’s not getting his way. Bob Woodward says, “It’s a kind of madness.” The New York Times: “Mass Release of Immigrants is Tied to Impending Cuts — Federal immigration officials have released hundreds of detainees from detention centers around the country in recent days in a highly unusual effort to save money as automatic budget cuts loom in Washington, officials said Tuesday. The government has not dropped the deportation cases against the immigrants, however.

“The detainees have been freed on supervised release while their cases continue in court, officials said.” Of course there’s no way they can slip away while they’re being “supervised.” Does anybody think these people are gonna be rounded back up and put back in jail? They’re gonna skedaddle. “Supervised release.” So this is what’s happening. Let’s go to the audio sound bite number four. This is Obama yesterday afternoon in Newport News, Virginia, at the Shipbuilding Company. He was speaking about the impact the sequester will have on jobs and so forth, and said this…

OBAMA: (godlike echo) People have been sayin’, “Well, maybe we’ll just give the president some flexibility. He can make the cuts the way he wants and — and that way it won’t be as damaging.” The problem is when you’re cutting $85 billion in seven months — which represents over a 10% cut in the defense budget in seven months — there’s no smart way to do that. Do I close funding for the disabled kid or the poor kid? Do I close this Navy shipyard or some other one? And the broader point is, Virginia, we can’t just cut our way to prosperity.

RUSH: Why would we cut our way to prosperity? Another straw man argument. Who is saying that? That’s not even what this is about. We’re only at this point because he came up with this idea of the sequester in the first place! In the second place, it’s not $85 billion. It’s half of that, and then half of that again for defense. We’ve already been told from Panetta we’re laying off, furloughing, 800,000 civilian employees of the Pentagon — for one day a week.

Instead of working five days, they’re going to work four. But you see how this shapes up? “Why, that’s 10% of the defense budget! Why, there aren’t any cuts to be made. That’s right, Virginia. There’s no way we can cut anything, ever, out of this budget.” The fact of the matter is — if I may be so bold — a 10% real cut in the defense budget is an Obama wet dream, and the reason he doesn’t want it to be any less is because he can’t wait to make these cuts in defense.

He’s even promised his base.

Hell, his base is expecting this!

The Department of Defense is going to be cut $20 billion from a budget of $1 trillion. So we’ve got $1,000 billion that we spend on defense, and $22 billion will be cut. The idea that that cannot happen, the idea that that’s impossible to do, the idea that if we cut $22 billion from a $1,000 billion, we can’t deploy aircraft carriers, that we have to furlough 800,000 employees on the defense department, that we’ve gotta shut down a shipyard somewhere, that we have to release prisoners/illegal aliens who are in jail?

It’s a 4% cut! You have to deal with this all the time in your own life, and you get by, and you survive. Barack Obama wants you to think that your government can’t survive. The sad thing is that there are so many people now that are wholly deponent on government that they are as invested in the government not being reduced in size as the Democrats are. But I don’t know, folks. It’s just like Woodward said: It’s madness.