Byron York asked Rush Limbaugh to respond to the President’s remark that Republican politicians ought to quit listening to him and get on with crafting the stimulus plan. Readers can read Limbaugh’s response themselves. Both Limbaugh and Obama infer that political motives are shaping the policy debate. Obama by accusing Republican politicians of being cowed by the Limbaugh crowd, and Rush by suggesting that the huge expenditures carry the danger of creating a permanently expanded — hence Democratic — government.
But at least Rush wants the focus returned to where it should be: the stimulus plan itself. And this is important, because much of the Republican Party, with the exception of people like Fred Thompson, seems to have accepted the assumption that we should spend our way out of the current economic difficulties. And even among the spending advocates there is a terrible fuzziness about how we should do it. In Rush Limbaugh’s response, his plea to refocus on the issues is mixed up with a number of themes, so I’ve tried to filter out that particular signal by highlighting the relevant parts in italics.
There are two things going on here. One prong of the Great Unifier’s plan is to isolate elected Republicans from their voters and supporters by making the argument about me and not about his plan. He is hoping that these Republicans will also publicly denounce me and thus marginalize me. And who knows? Are ideological and philosophical ties enough to keep the GOP loyal to their voters? Meanwhile, the effort to foist all blame for this mess on the private sector continues unabated when most of the blame for this current debacle can be laid at the feet of the Congress and a couple of former presidents. …
AdvertisementTo make the argument about me instead of his plan makes sense from his perspective. Obama’s plan would buy votes for the Democrat Party, in the same way FDR’s New Deal established majority power for 50 years of Democrat rule, and it would also simultaneously seriously damage any hope of future tax cuts. It would allow a majority of American voters to guarantee no taxes for themselves going forward. It would burden the private sector and put the public sector in permanent and firm control of the economy. Put simply, I believe his stimulus is aimed at re-establishing “eternal” power for the Democrat Party rather than stimulating the economy because anyone with a brain knows this is NOT how you stimulate the economy.
Now let’s focus on the stimulus package itself. Look at the language of a stimulus package, cited below, which was aimed at reversing the effects of a slowing economy, deal with the effects of the housing bubble, infuse liquidity into the banking system, “put money into the hands of people who will spend most of it when they get it”. And then look at the date. It’s not the package which is going to save us all in 2009, it’s the one that was going to save us in 2008. We know how that worked out.
January 29, 2008 —
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:I am happy to be here this morning to urge Congress to enact a stimulus package quickly. In brief, I believe that:
* A well-designed stimulus package is needed now as an insurance policy to reduce the risk of recession or mitigate its severity if it occurs;
* The compromise worked out by the President and Speaker Pelosi is well-designed to stimulate spending quickly, because it focuses on low- and moderate income people, and should be enacted as soon as possible;
* The Congress should resist the temptation to delay the package by adding other elements, however worthy, at this time;
* Risks posed by the package—that it will aggravate inflation or add to the long-run deficit—are worth taking to help stabilize the economy in the months ahead.
This text of the 2008 stimulus package, taken testimony cited by the Brookings Institution website, referred to the $168 Billion Bush stimulus package of that year, about which a Forbes Magazine commentator wrote at the time:
Congress and the White House recently settled on an economic stimulus package with unusual speed, pushing the throttle to pull the economy out of a nosedive. Is this just election-year grandstanding, or does economic stimulus really work? And if it can work, what works best?
While some experts argue that priming the economy now is unnecessary, ill-timed or even counter-productive, those who support the concept applaud the design of the recently approved $168 billion package, centered on rebates of $600 to $1,200 for more than 130 million households. “They have moved remarkably quickly, so maybe this time it will, in fact, be well-timed,” says Nicholas S. Souleles, finance professor at Wharton. Souleles conducted a study titled, “Household Expenditure and the Income Tax Rebates of 2001,” that found a 2001 stimulus package did indeed help the economy recover from recession.
Now we are told that another package, an order of magnitude greater, but of similar philosophy is necessary to save us. Yet another deal worked out between the President and Speaker Pelosi. One which may contain strong income redistributive elements and major tax implications. Will it save us?
Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Maybe it is a case of “the more things change, the more they remain the same”? Or perhaps things are different this time? I don’t know the answer, but it seems reasonable to focus on the question. Whatever one may think of Rush Limbaugh he is definitely correct to assert that Barack Obama should focus more on the substance of the stimulus plan than on whether Republican politicians going in are listening to a talk radio host.
I’m not a big Limbaugh fan – he comes across as a blowhard to me, and he’s made it clear that he’d use the government to punish my private lifestyle choices just as much as the Dem’s would use it to confiscate my private earnings, BUT…
He is right on this point: if Obama can grow the federal and state employees’ unions (and that includes teachers’ unions, too), and use the Federal treasury to bribe infrastructure construction contractors, he will succeed in entrenching the party in Washington for many cycles to come.
Sounds like O’s preparing to fill up the trough, and he’s telling Republicans that if they want some of the slop, then they’ll need to play the game. So much for “PorkBusters’” well-intentioned campaign against earmarking revenues for favored constituencies – they meant well, but they didn’t get very far, did they?
Oh, and, according to Secretary Reich, “white” construction firms need not apply, so look for the compulsory “affirmative action” hires to start appearing on the bidding firms’ roles.
Say “good bye” to what’s left of the competitive meritocracy, and “hello” to the racial one. Post racialism: Can Mellow Yellow firms apply, I wonder.
Barack Obama is intellectually unable to carry Rush Limbaugh’s jock strap. The Harvard University graduate who resides in the White House cannot even begn to compete with the famous radio talk show host who did not even earn a bachelor’s degree from Southeast Missouri State University, a “school nobody has ever heard of.”
What the heck, I might as well challenge Kobe Bryant on the basketball court. That would be just as ridiculous.
Don’t you think Obama’s attack on Limbaugh is the first prong of his overall strategy to shut down freedom of speech? That if you listen to Limbaugh you must be anti-AMerican and a hater, and therefore you can be ignored at best or prosecuted at worst. Obama is really Really REALLY used to being surrounded by a group-think mind-meld so it must be doubly upsetting to him to have people like Limbaugh actually on the air and being popular among a broad swath of voters. He’ll try to shame Republicans into throwing Limbaugh under the bus (his favorite tactic), and then if that doesn’t work, look for legislation harmful to Limbaugh’s radio program, IRS tax audits of his station, and a Nixonian enemies list of people who call or write in to comment.
B. Hussein Obama using the divide and conquer tactic. So much for reaching across the isle. Rush’s reference to Rule 13 of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is dead on. Keep the pressure on the great one, call your congressperson.
If Barack Obama can run for President and win, then why can’t Rush Limbaugh?
Right now, I don’t see anybody else on the horizon who might step forward and assemble the scattered, discredited and disoriented warriors of the Republican Party for a counter-offensive.
But apparently Obama himself already recognizes the greatest threat to his own re-election. Perhaps Obama inadvertently done the GOP the favor of pointing out its next leader.
Limbaugh is just a talker who doesn’t have any executive experience?
Limbaugh’s only experence is organizing a community to reform itself?
Limbaugh is too far from the center of public opinion?
Limbaugh is a demagogue?
Limbaugh used to consume mind-altering substances illegally?
But we saw on November 2, 2009, that a candidate with those “limitations” can elected to be US President.
The Republican Party has problems that are so much larger than which radio programs Senator do or don’t listen to. Just what do Republicans stand for anymore?
Rush Limbaugh seems to be about the only prominent Republican who wants to win on the battlefield of ideas. Obama is smart trying to get the remaining Republican elected officials to forget about even trying.
We are not even a week into the Obama administration and the signs of a potential head-on collision between him and the 1st Amendment rights of his political opponents are already emerging.
My virtual “tripwire” alarm bells are ringing loudly and letter writing commences tomorrow. This is unacceptable.
Good to see Rush back in the fray. He seems to be a lot more interesting when the left is in power. He often seemed to carry water for the GOP not as bad as Hannity, but pretty boring.
Might as well enjoy him while he’s there before its 24/7 NPR.
Tom McClintock, the man who should have become Calif. Governor instead of Arnold Kennedy, says Obama promises 3.5 Million New Jobs will be created by spending another 850 Billion dollars.
(pre-Pelosi starting figure)
…he wonders why no-one hasn’t pulled out a pocket calculator and done the Math:
Even if it truly did create those jobs, and did “only” cost $850 Billion, that would be about
$270,000 per job!
Rep. McClintock
$350 Billion in Bailout Funds…No Way
Rep. McClintock gave the following floor speech in support of H.J.Res. 3, which was a Republican measure to deny the authorization of the remaining portion of the $350 billion in bailout funds.
—
“…Government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy that it has not first taken out of the economy.
It’s true that if I take a dollar from Peter and give it to Paul, Paul has one more dollar to spend and that dollar will ripple through the economy.
But we forget the other half of the equation: Peter now has one less dollar to spend, meaning one less dollar to ripple through the economy. In short, it nets to zero.
In fact, it nets to less than zero, because you are shifting enormous amounts of capital from investments that would have been made strictly by economic calculations to investments that are made entirely by political calculations.
We are not helping the economy with these bailouts – we are hurting it.
If they actually worked, we should by now be enjoying a period of unprecedented prosperity and economic expansion.
To those who say, “Well, it’s just the way Bush administered it,” let me pose this simple question: when in the entire history of civilization have such bailouts actually worked?
They didn’t work in Japan in the 1990’s. They didn’t work in America in the 1930’s. And they aren’t working today.
Fortunately, we know what does work. Reductions in marginal tax rates and reductions in taxes on investment consistently do stimulate the economy.
They worked when John F. Kennedy used them in the early 1960’s and they worked when Ronald Reagan used them in the early 1980’s.
When taxes are reduced on productivity, productivity increases.
But how typical of government to resist what we know works and to embrace what we know doesn’t work.
This resolution offers the House one last, fleeting chance to admit its mistakes, to step away from rigid adherence to failed policy, and to offer the change that the people of this nation deserve”.
“why someone hasn’t…”
SteveAZ,
That has already happened in California. The public employees’ unions and their Democratic legislative allies have devoured the hudgets of state & local governments, and are now wrecking the state.
Our prison guards union is a true gangster union – immunue from official oversight due to bribes in the form of campaign contributions. Their officials even pursed an FBI informant into an FBI office and tried to drag him away. The FBI agents had to draw their weapons to scare the gangsters off, whereupon they drove away in their Department of Corrections vehicle.
Steveaz:
he’s made it clear that he’d use the government to punish my private lifestyle choices just as much as the Dem’s would use it to confiscate my private earnings
Hogwash. Whatever are you talking about?
What the last election proved is it’s real easy to make idiot voters out of ignorant people by promising them free stuff. That magic bean has been used by communists since Karl Marx to effect the same change.
Obama’s main goal is to shut down any criticism of himself as a “hate crime” and end the ability of talk radio to mobilize citizens, last seen in the Shamnesty deal.
His point is to criminalize all opposing opinions. The ladies on the View applaud no doubt.
BUT … Obama has a problem. All his spending are “No White Men need Apply.” Robert Reich made that VERY clear and Rush will point that out, to his audience, made up of … White men.
Most politics is pure patronage. It’s shoveling the money to enough supporters to buy votes. Obama has no idea on how to construct patronage pork that appeals to the majority population. He has only experience in bringing home the pork to a Black population in his IL State Senate district. Nothing approaching Clintonian pork and so on.
He’s not FDR — FDR made sure money/programs were “White First” and indeed, pretty much “White Only.” Not because FDR was “an evil racist” though perhaps you could argue that, but because it was sound politics for the day. People think Obama will last for 4 terms or longer. Please.
At best he’s a one-termer. He’s picking fights he doesn’t need to, with Rush and others. He’s making it clear it’s “No Whites Need Apply” from government help and bailouts in a big Depression (over 9% unemployment here in California). He and his party are approaching things like good times are rolling, not a tough fight over pork. He’s also betting it all that if we get hit with a major attack, he can roll America into surrender ala Spain, the UK, and the Netherlands. A chancy bet at best.
Obama has continually rolled the dice and come up a winner every time. His campaign was one giant roll of the dice. BUT … you can’t get lucky ever time. Sometimes the breaks will come up against you, and eventually you will get snake eyes not double sixes. You can rely on luck.
My guess is that Mexico and Pakistan go belly up. Iran gets nukes and either hits Israel or Israel hits them first. We lose a major American city due to terrorist nukes. The economy collapses further. Bailouts go ONLY to non-Whites per Reich’s words and website posting. Bitter fights over the Fairness Doctrine and collapsing public support.
What was G W Bush’s ratings after the Gulf War? Something like 90%? Collapse can come fast, and even faster now. Obama does not have a media only environment to cover for him. Rush is a powerful force. Hannity too, and he’s taking after Obama “big time.” In many ways oppositional politics is easier than ruling, since the ruling class rules out any deviation from PC and Multiculturalism.
WTF, at least El Rushbo is constitutionally qualified to be President!
Time may prove me wrong, but I am increasingly of the opinion that Obama’s “stimulus package” is really just a disguise for him to spent a lot of money on his own special interest agenda, with no strings attached. The money has no budget or accountability behind it, as Doug points out with a basic calculator.
What does it take for a country to go bankrupt?
Tom, you put it well.
I’m a California refugee who left many Cali friends still trapped in the mire. They simply CANNOT leave.
Sacramento’s Civil Service Degrees-for-Debt-for-Votes racket is the trap my thirty-something friends got sucked into. Now with fewer and fewer civil service positions available (Cal’s laid off thousands recently) it is becoming less likely that they can repay their student loans, and the purposely-crafted incentive to vote for the party who’ll pay-off their debts is stronger and stronger.
I call it “engineered Stockholm Syndrome.” It is a sickening feedback loop that only benefits the entrenched political class in the end, and the victims stay in the state whose seal appears on their cert’s, and, Patti Hearst abetting her kidnappers, they continue to vote “D.”
(Funnily, isn’t student loan assistance part of Pelosi/Obama’s “stimulus plan?” Now we all get to pay for California’s follies!)
Mongoose, luv ya, dude, and I expected your question..but I’m a gonna leave it up to your ample imagination!
Freedom!
#17 should read:
[...]and, just like Patti Hearst abetted her kidnappers, they continue to vote “D.”
Cheers!
Mongoose,
A President Rushbo wouldn’t endorse the practice of partial birth abortion.
My imagination is not too ample. What else could Steaveaz fear from a Rushbo regime?
#14 Whiskey, I live in a farming community on the Central Coast of California and the current unemployment figure is 21.7% !!!
I should add that that unemployment figure only reflects the situation here locally in the Pajaro Valley.
Part of the damage inflicted by a recession is the inevitable splurge of additional government spending and intervention. The leadership of neither party can or even wants to resist the temptation to use a downturn like this one as an excuse, so this was always going to happen.
Only the spending in the first year has any prospect of making a positive impact, and this time around it looks as though that will be only about 10% of the total. Even less, if we count the new spending programs which we will still be paying for even 30 years from now.
Eventually the economy will turn around in spite of rather than with the assistance of the politicians, unless this time they go too far with the spending, taxation and anti-business measures (as they did in the 1930′s). Japan’s experience over the last cycle should be a warning to us about this, but nobody in Washington is listening.
@Doug #9: Tom McClintock is more properly known as “The Dread Scot”.
Put him in charge of budgeting and the Republicans will all require massive intravenous injections of Prozac.
The Democrats will perish of apolexy.
“The Democrats will perish of apolexy.” I’d buy tickets to see that.
I never took Rush Limbaugh that seriously but his analysis couldn’t be sharper.
One must also think for a moment on the degree of insecurity it takes for a leader of our nation to single out an American citizen in the way Obama just did Limbaugh, something George Bush did not do in eight years despite a continuous onslaught of deeply and incomparably personal hate speech authorized at the highest levels of the opponent party.
Rush Limbaugh is an extremist. When Phil Donohue critizied the war during his TV show, Bush had his show cancelled. Obama should do the same for Limbaugh. This man is negative. He has nothing positive to bring to the American people. He should have a beer with John Hagee and look at themselves in the mirror = losers, bad seed.
Bush and Limbaugh had a combined I.Q. of around 70. Obama is much, much higher than that. Conservatives should all go to hell. They all voted for Bush and look what that loser did to your country. To those fanatic evangelicals, it will take much more than your Jesus and God to fix your country.
More proof Obama is a rank amatuer. He might eventually get around to trashing the First Amendment, but this attacking Rush was pure hubris mixed with pure freshman stupidity.
combined I.Q. of around 70?
sounds like projection claudia
Gee,Claudia.
How witty.
Sure you’re in the right place?
Er Claudia , I ‘m just a bad seed with an IQ of way less than 70, so yer gonna have to explain it real slowly exactly how that Bushitler got good ol’ Phil cancelled? I’m kinda slow and cornfused about that again.
Gee, I knew Bush was a wimp, but couldn’t he kinda gone after somebody like NPR or Keith Olberman or Chris Mathews first? I mean like somebody important? Or maybe Cindy Sheehan? like somebody in the news or somethin.
Boy, but like he really hammered them New York Times guys after they released that classified data and all and probably got some of our boys kilt, didn’t he? I mean they sure all are gonna remember that mean whoopin.
Ya ,ya know that Bush was so mean and Hitleresque and all, like why his defense of his policies was absolutely so vicious. I mean .. I mean, like when he defended his policy in Iraq that time ………., oh! wait!….damn it! I can’t remember when he defended his policies……again…. or did he? I jus don’t know anymore, I ‘m so cornfused.
Well yer know what I mean, I mean you know that the media is always tellin us that Bush was so evil and all. Like all that torture and stuff. And how we are so hated by all the world cuss we are the Imperialists and all.
Claudia, can you splain to me what ‘s it mean to be an “Imperialist”? I jus don’t get it, does that have to do with all that foreign aid money we send out? Must be…like to have some for my self.
Well, anyhoo, it must be all better now that we got Barack in office….. he’s gonna heal us all real good and pay my mortgage and my gas money too! I’d seen that on TV so it must be true. Maybe he’ll get my job and wife back for me too! And Claudia, could you put in the good word for some more beer money ? I sure could use some more beer right now.
I wonder what country claudia is from to be so au courant and well-informed.
Claudia, did it ever occur to you to wonder why Bush would go to the trouble of cancelling an over-the-hill talk show host and leave in place the terribly popular Saturday Night Live, home of Tina Fey and her bruising impersonations of Sarah Palin?
25. rrpjr
Very asute. Personally I find Limbaugh’s bombast a bit hard to take but I thought it kind of petty of the President to mention him by name.
Anyone else find that video of him signing the Presidential orders a bit creepy with all those, as our “Progressive” friends like to call them, “Old White Guys” hanging off his shoulder? Weird.
After saying that about Rush in my last comment I read his reply and I was actually impressed. I’ll say this, the new President has already made dissent more intelligent than it ever was in the last eight years.
Bush cancelled Donahue’s show? Was that before or after he turned you into a newt?
For an in-depth look at some of the economic issues/theories involved, here is Bruce Bartlett in Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/22/stimulus-keynes-taxes-oped-cx_bb_0123bartlett.html
The other side of the coin is, of course, political and El Rushbo lays out his case quite well.
Claudia: Are you serious?
oh she’s serious, she posted her own brand of fantasy based reality over here http://lawhawk.blogspot.com/
another well reasoned blog I pay attention to on a daily basis.
Really, Claudia? REALLY?! Do you really, honestly believe this or are you just making it up because you have nothing better to do?
Oh, and please note the use of the word “extremist.” When leftists are threatened by ideas they use that word or “hate” as tools to shut the other person or people down. It is intellectually dishonest. It is also immoral and certainly unconstitutional.
The left may not like what Rush has to say but they can not legally shut him up. They will try and they may succeed in getting him off the air. But it will hardly be legal. But as King Barry has pointed out, he won. Dissent, it seems, is only patriotic when conservatives are elected.
rrpjr and Andrew,
My first thought exactly: Obama is flailing at Rush.
Love Rush, kinda think he’s alright, or hate him – the fact that he’s gotten O!’s knickers in a knot makes my day.
Claudia, take the media-lampshade off of your head, and climb down from the chandelier! It’s a new day and there’s plenty of rot, graft and corruption festering in DC now for all of us to focus on.
I’m gonna guess Claudia is Canadian.
Yes, Canada does have gooberment control of media and the ability to “cancel” programming that does not coincide with gooberment policy.
They also have “CHRC” Canadian “human rights” commission. AKA the thought Police.
But that still doesn’t make up for #26 and #27 being the dumbest thing ever written on the intertoobs.
Good troll though.
Jim
“But that still doesn’t make up for #26 and #27 being the dumbest thing ever written on the intertoobs.”
Were you here when Russia was being mean to Georgia, and sent out squads of cyber-ops to convince us all that the Russian soldiers *were* competent, well-armed and good guys?
I should know better than to respond to these sorts of things, but…
Rush won’t run for President, he doesn’t care for the pay cut.
He is probably enjoying the attention which 0 has given him. As an entertainer, and especially one involved in satire, having the object of your barbs respond (“ouch”) has to be delightful.
And … for those who don’t understand, a great deal of the Rush experience is about satire. He’s a very skilled entertainer who happens to have an agenda. I don’t know why, but it seems that a lot of folks get caught up on the persona, etc. It’s all part of the schtick.
Beyond that, the truly unfortunate thing is that R’s/Conservatives in general have become so demoralized that 0 has to single him out as the “last man standing”. If our elected leaders had the intellect and brilliance they’d like us to believe they do, they’d have the courage to stand up and oppose this guy, rather than letting the mantle of opposition fall to a talk show host.
“…he doesn’t care for the pay cut.”
Isn’t that the issue with all of them? Guiliani, Thompson, et al? Anyone who is good doesn’t care for the way politics are played in America considering the meager amount of money involved. So that leaves those who are independently wealthy and insanely ambitious.
Schwarzenegger would have the intelligence, the stamina, the education, the name-recognition, the ambition, and lots and lots of money to throw into a campaign. And he’s a centrist Republican. I suppose it’s too late for him to lose his birth certificate.