The Limbaugh Plan: We've Tried It Your Way For 60 Years Now We're Going To Try It Our Way Alert

RUSH: I want to warn you, some of you people out there are loaded for bear. I've been reading the e-mail today, and I just want to warn you, I'm in a fabulous mood today. I'm in a good mood, so don't expect me to be fit to be tied and angry and all that sort of stuff. I understand a lot of you are. A lot of you think, "Well, whatever, what's the difference now between conservatives and liberals, Rush? I mean big spending, big spending, what the hell, it's over with." I mean, I've just got reams of e-mail here. I don't know how many of you in the listening audience have the same view that this speech last night was a disaster when it comes to the future, and of conservatism or government spending, the size of government and so forth. But I do have a plan to deal with this.

Remember, the president made a proposal last night. It's going to go through the legislative process. But one of the things that, again, I want to emphasize, is don't get caught up in the moment. There are far deeper currents that are taking place here, and you know, you talk about the Roberts hearings and the reshaping of the judiciary that is taking place, I can't tell you how crucial that is, as you well know. And the Democrats, folks, are just wandering aimlessly in the desert. They don't have a Moses. They are in deep trouble. What the president did last night, I think a lot of you have a view that this was, "Okay, the president said to hell with conservatism and it's over with." He didn't do that. If you just look at the total amount of money being spent and you listen to the ways you hear it being spent, you might think, "Oh, God, we're just chucking it," but we're not. I think a subtitle of what the president's speech last night was could be this: Okay, libs, we've tried it your way for 60 years and now we're going to try it our way. He was talking about enterprise zones, school vouchers, turning renters into owners, rebuilding this place without rebuilding slums. They're not going to rebuild it the way it was with the same architecture and the same structure politically and everything else. It is a pretty decent opportunity here. I think also, this has now been ranked as the worst, in terms of economics, the worst disaster in the history of this country. And I think all the Americans look at this as not something that the residents of this place did to themselves. This is something that was brought about by a confluence of events that were ignited by a natural disaster. And so you have here essentially innocents. You have victims from all walks of life who are essentially innocent in terms of the loss. Now, you can get into arguments, "Well, yeah, but they could have gotten out, they could have done this, they could have fixed the levees." They didn't, so you don't deal with what-ifs. You deal with what is and what's going to happen now to fix it. And I told you, remember, I was laughed at and I was impugned and I was criticized on the first or second day after this hurricane went through, and even before and after the levies broke. I said, "You watch what's going to happen here. The can-do spirit that has defined this country is going to take over, and you're going to have a massive rebuilding effort, and it's going to be built back better than it was before." And I was not trying to be artificially optimistic. I know my country. I know what's going to happen here. Now, in a situation like this, I don't know, in the long haul, who can do this, if not us? That's what the federal government is. This is massive. It involves two states and parts of a third. And it covers a huge, wide area, and there's a tremendous opportunity here for a whole bunch of things which are positive.

By the way, I thought one of the things that would aggravate the left more than anything in that speech last night that I have not yet found -- they may have done it -- but I haven't yet found a reaction to and it's a huge "See, I Told You So." The president actually said we've learned now that the US military is the one element of our government and the bureaucracy that's best equipped to handle this. And he went on to say that we need to empower them more in circumstances like that. I thought the left would be throwing up red flags, yellow flags, green flags, pink ribbons and everything. You start empowering the military and those people start having babies out of wedlock. Their cows start having babies. I mean, they just lose it. And I haven't heard any reaction to this at all. In fact, get this (story). This is the Pelosi/Reid response, the Democrats in the House and the Senate, "The Gulf Coast region does not deserve to be treated as a laboratory for political opportunism or ideological experimentation. Now is the time for unity." What? What has it been for the last 60 years? It has been nothing but political opportunism and corruption and a demonstrated failure of ideology and that failure is liberalism. And they know what the president said last night. They listened between the lines. That's why they put out this panic-based statement. The president said we tried it your way for 60 years; we're going to do it my way now. He didn't put it in those words but there's plenty of conservative policy in his speech last night in terms of how to go about spending this money and rebuilding it. And you're going to see these policies, these philosophies, put into place. They've worked in other places. Enterprise zone, for example, that's going to be targeted here in this region.

But, for crying out loud, the left is stuck, folks. All they can do is go back to their age-old playbook. I don't care if it's John Roberts, I don't care if it's this disaster. John Kerry's out there (story). John Kerry, who failed at every opportunity to provide leadership said, [Lurch impression returns] "Well, you know, a speech two weeks after the fact, that's just a speech. That's not leadership." What would he know about it? And tell me, do the people down in Houston who are evacuated from New Orleans give a rat's rear end what John Kerry thinks about anything today? Or do they care what Reid and Pelosi are saying? Are they even hearing what they say? If they did hear what they say, would it register? No, it doesn't, because they're a bunch of naysayers and negativists and doom and gloomers who are not moving forward at all. They are scared to death that what's going to happen down there is the, once and for all, exposing of the utter failure of the liberal utopia that it should have been. You had liberals running that state and that city for 60 years. It should have been a Utopia. There should have been no unemployment; there should have been no racial discrimination. There should have been no unhappiness. Instead what do we learn we had? We had misery, we had poverty, we had hopelessness, we had corruption, we had incompetence at the highest levels of government. It's on display and they know it and they're afraid that what Bush's plan is going to do is expose that while at the same time illustrating the superiority of conservative ways of dealing with this. So they come out with this idiotic statement that the Gulf Coast region doesn't deserve to be treated as a laboratory for political opportunism or ideological experimentation. The idea, the gall of these people. They sit there in their superiorist, condescending way and essentially say, "We need to put it back just the way it was." Well, nobody wants it back the way it was.

Now, I knew going in, folks, and I told you this two weeks ago. I knew going in the president was going to write the checks. All presidents do in these situations. Cha-ching, Cha-ching. But as I say, Bush essentially was saying, "Okay, libs, tried it your way down there for 60 years, now we're going to try it our way. Enterprise zones, attempts to get poor people into ownership of homes and businesses, et cetera." And I think that this has paralyzed the left even more. I think it's screwed them. What can they do? What can they do? It's exactly what they would have done, minus the conservative aspects. All they can do is complain and moan, as Kerry, Reid, and Pelosi are already doing, and guess who's moving forward? George W. Bush and those who joined him. And folks, I'm going to tell you something. At this stage, I am for anything, almost anything that wipes out the American left, because I have had it with the American left. If the American left hadn't dominated down there, even with this storm, the losses would not have been to the extent that they are. So anything that wipes these people out is fine and dandy with me. Anything that renders them politically impotent is fine with me, at this stage. You know, you balance all these things that we face in the future, and I'm telling you something. Liberalism/socialism, I don't care what you think about it, it represents a bigger enemy than whatever government spending and the way it's going to be spent in putting back together an American city in the Gulf Coast region.

Folks, the bottom line is that we've been pouring money into into this state and this region and putting it in the hands of Democrats for I don't know how many generations now, and you see where it has gotten us. You see where it's led. It has created a permanent underclass, with no hope, no opportunity, no nothing. You can find all over the newspapers today surveys of evacuees all over the country, and, you know, half of them in one poll, 60% in another poll say, "I'm not going back. Don't want to go back." It's their home. It's all they've known. They don't want to go back (story). Some do, but some don't. The place was not a panacea. The place was not a utopia. All right. So it gets destroyed essentially by a hurricane and the levies breaking. The federal government is required by statute to respond to a disaster of this magnitude. The federal government is required by statute to bear most of the costs of reconstruction. The question now becomes: How does this response manifest itself? Are we going to throw money into the same corrupt hands that we have done before, or are we going to get it straight to the people who can rebuild their lives? If it's the former, it's going to be a failed effort. If we try the same old redistribution tactics, it isn't going to work. If we try it another way, though, as required by statute, then the opportunity for success here is tremendous.

So, I don't know the bottom line of how this is all going to work out, but I do know this: That taxpayers are going to expect this, with this amount of money. They're going to expect results. They're going to expect that this work is done as honestly as possible, the money's spent as wisely as possible, and therefore, the president said last night he was going to have a whole bunch of people down there, inspector generals, whatever, reviewing all of the expenditures. So what are the options? Well, as I said, I think the opportunity here exists for the president to end up kicking the rear ends of the left at their own game with conservative twists. The speech was great last night, within, you know, the limitations that we know exist. The table is set for a complete rout of the American left. They can be blown away. We can make this a Category 5 hurricane destruction of the left if this is done right. If the GOP can pull this off, they will increase majorities in both houses and they do it with a leadership plan that would cold-cock the left and the media. And I'm going to give you some elements of it.

Now, I don't pretend to tell you I think this is going to happen. I am rather pessimistic that it's going to happen. But there's no sense in being overcome by the pessimism. We may as well try for it. The GOP leadership in the Congress needs to propose to cancel and redraw the highway bill, the energy bill, and the farm bill. There's $26 billion of pork in the highway bill. Pork, by definition, giveaways and throw-aways to areas that, yeah, would like to have it, but here's a place that actually needs it. And we're all so worried about spending more money than we have and having to raise taxes and having to cut services here and there. Well, we don't ever cut services. We always raise taxes. And interestingly, I haven't heard the left say, "We haven't heard the president say anything about increasing taxes out there." I don't know where they are on this but give them time. They haven't mentioned that. They will. But, you know, there's plenty of pork to cut out of the highway bill. And you can re-look at that bill and all the spending in that bill in light of new priorities now. Energy bill. Take the royalties from ANWR over the life of the site, maybe even sell energy bonds backed by ANWR and give that money to this rebuilding effort. The farm bill is $190 billion, and we know that there's all kinds of pork in the farm bill. So it is there. These are just three examples. There are countless other examples where already on the books federal spending exists or soon to be planned federal spending is on the drawing board that it could be reallocated here.

At the same time that this is happening, the way the money is distributed and the purposes for which it is distributed should have some serious thought put behind it to maximize the actual rebuilding of the lives of individuals. There's just a tremendous opportunity. To me, when I look at this, every hand is a winner, and every hand can be a loser, too. You've got to know when to hold them, when to fold them, and, yes, when to bet the ranch. But this seems to me like a hanging curve ball of an opportunity here, a hanging curve ball of opportunity for conservatives to define finally, in a little area down here in the Gulf region, how it works, to illustrate how it works. And don't just get caught up in, "We're spending way too much money. We got to pare down this." We're going to spend the money. It's required by statute that you rebuild these things after disasters. The key is how it is spent. It has always been the key. And here, this is, to me, a great opportunity.

Now, let me read some of the e-mails from people who are Doubting Thomases about all this because I know you're out there. I don't want to ignore you, and I don't want you to think that I'm not paying attention to what you're saying. "Hey, Rush, let's give them scrub land in Texas. Then they'll need water. Then they'll sue to divert water from the cities because the land they were given is worthless without water. Then those living in the city will be without water. Their properties will be worthless. They'll be offered land to appease their unhappiness then they'll sue for water against those that have the water. Where does this stuff end?" That's just one.

"Rush, Bush's approval numbers were at 47%. That's the base. The conservative base that stayed with him. Now he's lost that. I wouldn't be surprised if his approval number is at 1% as the base leaves en masse."

"Hey, Rush, my land, 40 acres, just became worthless. Worth less than it was worth because of the Zimbabwe type land giveaway. Didn't Zapatista in Mexico do this also? Give the peasants land? And even this isn't enough for the Democrats. I give up."

Don't even listen to the Democrats right now, folks. The Democrats, it's laughable. It is literally laughable to listen to the Democrats complain and whine and moan about this. The reason it's funny is because you can read between the lines. They are just scared to death at what's going to happen here. What they are really afraid of and they've been afraid of for a long time, they know conservatism works. They know liberalism doesn't work, but they don't care. But the one thing that they cannot risk is an on-site display and illustration of conservatism working. As long they can keep conservatism as something that's just argued about, and just something that's spoken about, talked about, "Well, they don't fear it that much." But boy when there's an opportunity, like tax cuts, they work every time they're tried. They raise revenue. And yet the libs continue to lie and tell people that tax cuts reduce revenue and tax cuts only help the rich and it's a total lie and you know it. And they go into revisionist history mode each time there is a tax cut plan. But the truth is in the numbers, and the numbers are there.

Now, I also got a couple of e-mails from people who said, "Rush, I don't like what I heard when the president said about racism that there are age-old reasons for this and they must be dealt with. I got the impression I was listening to the president talking about race the way the Democrats talk about it." Let me address that here, just give you my thoughts on it. We have the story from James Taranto who is doing the examination of race in America on his blog, the Best of the Web today at Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal's blog. It's Opinionjournal.com. And as he correctly points out, the black population in this country are really outliers right now. They they see the country and the world in an 180-degree different way than any other group of people in this country. And it's illustrated by polls that have been taken in the aftermath of the hurricane. Nine out of ten Americans who are not black, nine out of ten say there's no way race was a factor here. Race had nothing to do with the federal response, the time it took, the hurricane hitting that area. Race had nothing to do with it. Eight out of ten blacks think that race had everything to do with it. That's a divide. I mean, that's two groups of people going in whole different directions. Now, the black population, 12 1/2%. They're truly outliers here. Now, we can debate why that is, and we know why it is. It's because they've been listening to the wrong people, the race industry leaders who only profit when black people think this way. But you talk about playing the race card. Okay, if you play the race card, it doesn't do you any good unless you get some white people to go along with you. Playing the race card on this episode doesn't work because nine out of ten Americans who aren't black don't think race has anything to do with it. You play the race card, you're automatically going to get the majority of black people to agree with you. But if you're going to play the race card, you got to go out and get some sympathetic white Americans that say, "Yeah, I think there's a little racism here and I don't like it." They don't see it at all. They don't see racism in this at all. And there's a clear reason. I mean there are many clear reasons.

So I think because of all this, I think they know in the White House, they can't win an intellectual battle on the reasons for blacks being poor in a liberal Democrat state and a city. And certainly last night's not the time to say so. These people are sitting over in the Astrodome or whatever, that's not the time to say, "You know why you're here? Because for 60 years, your leaders have let you down." That's not the time to do this. I think what the White House wanted to do last night was get their attention with the speech. And focus them on the efforts that are now being made to bring them back home and to make them whole. As I said earlier, Bush is saying, "Let's do this our way now." And I think that he knows that an illustration, a demonstration of how we look at these things, a demonstration of our intentions, coming to fruition, is far better evidence to anybody than just telling them and getting into an intellectual back and forth. We will see.

By the way, folks, back to my plan. I left out a key ingredient in my plan here. Not just reexamine the highway bill for pork and reallocate that pork to this mission, and not just the energy bill, and not just the farm bills. How about immigration reform? How about all of the money we are spending on social services for illegal immigrants? Reforming illegal immigration, getting serious about the borders, and limiting the number of illegals that get into this country would end up saving some money. That money could be spent on American citizens. We've been throwing money away around the world left and right on the disadvantaged and the poor. Don't you think it's about time to take care of some of our own who got wiped out in a natural disaster through no fault or cause of their own? And if you do all of these things, and particularly if the Republicans do and add immigration reform to it, then they own the future.

The Limbaugh Plan: use the Left's love of Big Government to destroy them. Its funny as hell thinking about it and the beauty of it is the Democrats won't know they've been suckered!

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

2 posted on 09/16/2005 3:55:26 PM PDT by Christian4Bush (The modern Democratic Party: Attacking our defenders and defending our attackers.)

The real beauty is that even if they know, they won't be able to help themselves... their behavior is below the level of consciousness. They may see what's going on but their own rabid natures will prevent them from changing course.

This is fun to play with but if you think Rush is the first one to consider this, you're wrong. Still, I'll give him all the credit for promoting it well.

This is what I gleaned from the speech as well. Bush is taking all their ammunition away from them.

They wanted big government spending. So the President said OK - but on MY terms. So he's left the Democrats sandbagged again looking small and petty. Bush was underestimated again!

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

So, instead of a liberal boondoggle, it will be a conservative?

Give everyone a shovel and set up dumpsters and tell the people to clean it up. Self-help at the lowest level.

How will Bush get rid of Davis-Bacon, Affirmative Action, etc. in the cleanup? The Reverend caught on very quickly and said no way.

I am a social conservative. And I have faith that social conservatism mixed with proper resource allocation and funding will yield excellent social dividends. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.

Thanks, Rush.

This is my rebuttle to those who only heard big spending. It was NOT an LBJ-style "Great Society" speech. The basic conservative themes of faith in God, hard work, ownership and free enterprise were all there.

My rebuttal is : We we're actually pouring millions into NOLA in HUD housing....We might even come out money ahead....and the slum lord's (Ala William Jefferson) have just had the rug pulled out from under them.

Do you think it is a coincidence that Moon Landrieu has head of HUD under the Carter administration?

What I said last night. This is really just an extension of his "Ownership Society". Or inserting private accounts into Social Security. Or giving the Left Money in "No Child Left Behind" only if they exchange improved test results.

Yes, it's Big Government. Yes, it's Big Spending. But absent the two complaints, his suggestions on how to use each promote conservative policies and conservative enterprises that end up exposing the Failure of FDR's New Deal with a program that encourages private enterprise, self dependence, decreases the causes of poverty, etc.

Rush was reading FR last night and stole my repsonse to the President's speech!!
Just kidding but it is great to know I think like the great one sometimes.

My Post:

"The more I think about it, the more I believe this is a great night for the President and his party and a very bad night for the Democrats.

It is like he said, "You Democrats have had 70 years to live up to the ideals in the "New Deal" and YOU HAVE FAILED.

Now we Republicans will show you how to do it the RIGHT way.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1485376/posts?page=1708#1708

The GOP leadership in the Congress needs to propose to cancel and redraw the highway bill, the energy bill, and the farm bill.

Well of course all three bills are loaded with pork. The Republicans put it there. And Limbaugh thinks that they're going to change the habits of a political lifetime and take it out? Is he back on drugs or something?

I heard tonight on Brit Hume's show that Davis-Bacon has already been nulified in LA by a Bush Executive Order.

Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda Cool." --Paul Begala ...

"Don't you think it's about time to take care of some of our own who got wiped out in a natural disaster through no fault or cause of their own?"

If you want to live on land that is below sea level right next to the ocean, that's fine with me, but don't expect me to pay for it.

The same holds true for those living on the San Andreas fault or any other fault line. If you want to live in these places, you should assume the risk, not your fellow countrymen, or should I say comrades?

Coming up next, watch the government bail out all the morons that are buying housing in bubbleland using interest only and negative-amortizing loans when the bubble bursts.

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