RUSH: I hate to be an “I told you so,” but we did the story last week that Obama has saved the day. Members of Congress and their staffs, if you recall as part of Obamacare, were supposed to face the same laws, regulations, restrictions that all of us face in acquiring health care and health insurance. We were supposed to go to the exchanges; they were supposed to go to the exchanges. Remember the story, members of Congress, particularly their staffs, complained out the wazoo because they couldn’t afford it. These people make anywhere from 70,000 to $174,000 a year. They couldn’t afford it. They needed subsidies. They needed the taxpayers to subsidize their health care.
These are the people in large part who helped write Obamacare. Many of these staffers are Democrat staffers. They help lobby for the bill. And then they’re out there last week, actually the past two weeks, crying and moaning about how it’s too expensive, and they were demanding relief. And, remember, Obama went in and basically just waved his magic executive order pen and exempted them. And so they’re going to get, members of Congress and their staffs, 75% subsidies on the health care costs that they face under Obamacare. But not the standard Obamacare subsidy that is established as part of the law. This is a brand-new subsidy that is going to be paid by the Office of Personnel Management.
You remember the story. And it was outrageous. It’s along the lines of the House bank scandal, the House post office. And it clearly establishes the Washington versus the rest of us mentality. It establishes ruling class versus country class. And I remember going through the story, and Snerdley said, “This is gonna blow up. This is gonna cause a tidal wave. People are gonna storm Washington, the pitchforks.” I said, “No, they’re not. It isn’t gonna be a big deal to most people. Most people aren’t gonna care about it. Most people aren’t gonna know about it?”
Guess what? Nobody cares about it. Nobody’s done anything about it. There is no groundswell of opposition to this. This outrageous carve-out did not get any attention in the Drive-By Media over the weekend. It’s just being accepted as a done deal. I have a Wall Street Journal editorial about it, and it’s pretty tame. The Wall Street Journal editorial is not filled with outrage about this. It does mention that the deal is completely illegal, just like the Obama employer mandate delay is completely illegal. But, when you have a president who doesn’t care about the law, or probably more accurate to say, he doesn’t think the law applies to him. And if he doesn’t want the law to apply to anybody else, then he can make that happen, too, and that’s what he did do here.
He just said that the Obamacare law will not apply to congressional staff. ‘Cause it’s too expensive. They can’t afford it. They’re gonna have to get help. They’re going to need 75% subsidies. Now, the rest of us, well, we either pay the fine or we get the policy. We either get it at work or, if we don’t, we go to the exchange and try get a deal there, and, if there’s no exchange, we gotta somehow get it ’cause if we don’t we pay fine. Now, you may opt to pay the fine the first couple years ’cause it’s cheaper than getting a policy, but that won’t last long. But my point is, it didn’t get any attention. There is no outrage, even among low-information voters. They don’t even know about it.
The Wall Street Journal editorial basically says it’ll be amusing to watch Obama break the law. It’s like people mesmerized with the way Clinton could lie so easily to them. They were just impressed. They were dazzled. They knew he was lying to ’em, and they were just dazzled by how smart he was at it, and how talented he was at it. In this case, it’s gonna be amusing to see how Obama breaks the law. I’m not trying to irritate anybody, but I just wanted to let you know that my instincts on this once again have been proven correct. Not a big deal.
Nothing is a big deal to people anymore. Nothing that government does is a big deal to anybody. I don’t think a government scandal’s possible. Unless it’s got Republicans in it somehow. I’ll betcha if the House bank scandal erupted today — well, it might matter ’cause the Republicans run the House, but my guess is, if the House bank scandal became known today, you wouldn’t have a lot of people all that upset about it. Different times. The country has changed and is changing.