RUSH: Folks, I’m profoundly embarrassed. I had a couple of audio sound bites Friday, and I didn’t know I had them. This is very, very embarrassing. I got home after work, and I immediately started… This is Friday. It’s about 4:30, and I started working on today’s show.
I ran across a video, and so I copied the link to the video; I sent it to Cookie, and I said, “You gotta get me this.” It’s 2:20 total. Put it in two bites. I need this on Monday.” She writes back — and I could read the tone in her email. “You had it today. I gave it to you today.” I said, “What?” So I went and I grabbed the email with the roster of sound bites, and lo, there it was. I said, “How in the world did I miss this? I had it!” The only excuse I had… They were sound bites 19 and 20, and sound bite 18 went with those two.
But it wasn’t the same person, so I didn’t go to the next page and so I didn’t even know that I had them. You know, things get really hot and heavy here and once the program starts, news is breaking and I get all distracted from what was originally planned. So, you should have heard the tone in her email, “You had them today. I gave them to you today.” I don’t blame her. Here she’s been sweating and slaving, watching all this garbage on TV so that I don’t have to.
She puts together the sound bite roster and then three hours after sending it to me, I ask her for something that was already on it. You know, I should get fined for something like that, except I never fine myself. Anyway, I want to get to these two that I should have aired on Friday, ’cause a lot of people have used it by now. But I think some people are missing the point, or at least not making a point that I would make.
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RUSH: The audio sound bites are from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She was on The Daily Show (which is a pseudo-comedy show on the pseudo-Comedy Central network on Thursday night) and she was Medicare for everybody — well, everything for everybody — and that she had talked to an economic Nobel Prize winner and that she had it figured out how we’re gonna pay for everything she intends to give away. Now, as you listen to this — and I apologize if you’ve heard it, but the one thing you haven’t heard is my take.
The really important thing about this to understand is this woman has a degree in economics from Boston University. Not Boston College. Boston University. Boston University 30 years ago, 25 years ago had a great president. His name was John Silber, and he was fantastic in education. He had done… John Silber did study of American high school textbooks, and he released the results of his study — and one that I will never forget. He said in one of the most common high school history textbooks, the longest reference to Abraham Lincoln he could find was two paragraphs. Two paragraphis in an American history textbook for high school students.
He was sounding the alarm 25, 30 years ago on what’s wrong with American public education, what students are being taught, more importantly, what they’re not being taught. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a graduate from Boston U, she has a degree in economics, and it’s clear she doesn’t know anything. If this level, this degree of complete economic ignorance can get you a degree in economics from a major American university, then something is drastically, terribly wrong. Here is the first illustration. Question: “Even if they reverse the Republican tax deal, that’s only gonna make up 5% of what we need to pay for Medicare. How do you pay for education for everyone and all your other ideas?”
OCASIO-CORTEZ: This is an excellent, excellent question — and, in fact, there’s a lot of back-of-the-envelope stuff based on our values. So, for example, I sat down, ummm, with a Nobel Prize economist last week. I can’t believe I can say that! It’s really weird. But one of the things that we saw is, if people pay their fair shore — share. If corporations and the ultrawealthy… For example, as Warren Buffett likes to say, if he paid as much as his secretary paid, 15%… If he paid a 15% tax rate, if, uh, corporations paid… If, uh, we reverse the tax bill but raise our — our corporate tax rate to 28%, which is not even as high as it was before. Um, if we… If we do those two things and also close some of those loopholes, that’s $2 trillion right there.
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, this is wandering aimlessly through our vocabulary in dire search of coherence. This is entirely incoherent — and to call it ignorant is to give it too much credit. But that’s not all. There is more.
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RUSH: Back now to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. There are two ways I want to discuss this. A, from the standpoint that she is ill-educated — she’s uneducated — and combine that with the fact that she thinks that she is an expert. She’s a Millennial. She’s been told how special she is. The Democrat Party right now is making her think she’s the queen of the country. I mean, they’re willing, many of them, to say she’s the future of the party. You can’t blame it for going to her head, even though she hasn’t accomplished anything yet other than to win this primary.
But let’s look at this. Forget ideology for a second and let’s just look at some readily available facts. We have just come off eight years of economic stagnation. No economic growth to speak of. We have had tax increases out the wazoo in the past eight years, including all of the new taxes brought on by the government taking over health care with Obamacare. We had the president of the United States, Barack Obama, running around to places like West Virginia, Indiana, and Ohio and telling people out of work:
(impression) “It’s too bad, but your jobs are never coming back — and if someone tells you that your job will be coming back, he’s waving a magic wand, but what’s he gonna do? What’s Trump gonna do? Just wave a magic wand? You gotta get ready for the fact those jobs are not coming back.” So rather than have a president that inspired people, we have a president who tried to convince them that this was the new America: A nation in decline. We didn’t really deserve our robust past, and we needed brilliant people like him to manage this decline so that resources — which would be dwindling — could be distributed more fairly and equally to the population at large.
In other words, “Forget about American greatness. Those days are gone. It’s a new world. It’s a new America.” We had eight years of this, and it depressed people, it dispirited people, because people live in America and know they’re Americans. They know what’s possible. They want a better life for their kids than they had. That’s standard operating procedure, and here’s Barack Obama and his administration basically telling people that, “Nah, I wouldn’t count on that anymore.”
And telling people like a woman at an ABC health clinic in the White House who wanted to know if under Obamacare, her mother in her mid-nineties would be given health care to sustain her life because of her will to live. Obama says (impression), “Well, no, we can’t. No. No. Will to live? We can’t use that as a basis! We’re just not gonna have the resources. It may well be the most compassionate thing we can do is give her a pill and make her comfortable.” By gosh! I cannot believe this when I watched this on ABC TV. First off, a woman asking the president if her mother can live. Two, the president deeming to tell her no!
Okay. So we’ve come off eight years of that kind of thing, exactly what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to return to. In just a year and a half of a presidency that believes in American greatness, that believes lost jobs can be brought back — who believes that this economy can once again grow and that people’s incomes can increase, that standard of living and wealth can once again start going up. In just a year and a half it’s happened. Does this woman have the ability to look at facts on the ground? The government today…
Have you looked at the latest revenue that has been collected by taxes? It’s a record high. The government is collecting record tax revenue after Trump’s tax cuts! This also happens every time it’s tried. It’s simple math. More people are working than under Obama, and thus more people are paying taxes. So even per capita taxes may be down and the amount of money individuals are paying, it’s more than made up by all the new taxpayers that are happily working, whereas a year and a half ago they weren’t.
There are stories… I have a story in the Stack today that one of the big problems that employers have today is there just aren’t enough people to fill jobs that are open, and so employers are getting ready to scrub the idea that prior experience is necessary. They need work done! There’s more job openings than there are people to fill them right now. Now, where is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? She’s an economics graduate from Boston University. Does she have the slightest idea what’s going on now?
I mean, we’re collecting record tax revenue. That’s what she says we need to do. Warren Buffett needs to start paying more taxes than his secretary. His secretary makes 75 grand a year. Warren Buffett’s a gazillionaire. The idea that Warren Buffett is not paying as much in taxes as his secretary is flat-out absurd! The idea also that she’s talked to Nobel economists and that she cannot believe. (impression) “That was… That was… That was really weird. I can’t believe it! Can you believe I talked to a Nobel? Oh, man.
“But one of the things we saw is if people pay their fair share…” The Democrat Party has been whining and moaning about people “paying their fair share” for as long as I’ve been alive listening. “If corporations and the ultrawealthy…” Then she gives the Warren Buffett example, 15% tax rate. “If we raise the corporate tax rate…” If we raise the corporate tax rate, we’re gonna shut down the economic activity that’s going on! We’re gonna simply stop this economic growth!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her education — economics degree — would literally kill this economy, and she is clueless! She hasn’t the slightest idea, because all she has been educated to understand is liberal cliche. Let me share with you a tweet I have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “The GOP is: – weak on fighting for working class Americans.” Really? Working-class Americans are doing better than they have in the last 15 years, after just 1-1/2 years of being escaped from Obamaism.
The GOP is “weak on crime.” Really? Who is it that wants to let felons out of jail so they can vote? The GOP is “weak on equal rights.” The GOP is “weak on national security.” Who is it trying to secure the border? Who is it that’s trying to make illegal immigrants don’t get in and national security is maintained? Who is it that wants to get rid of customs and ICE? It’s the Democrats, and they claim they are tough on national security? The GOP is “weak on rejecting racism.”
Let me tell you who the real racists are. The real racists today are Democrats, and they are racist against Republican blacks. The most vile invective, the most insulting racial epithets uttered in America today are uttered by black Democrats at black Republicans and conservatives. The GOP is “weak on family values.” That probably means the GOP doesn’t think LGBTQ define… I don’t know. But this is also absurd. Weak on family values? The country with a party that tries to keep families together by limiting the number of babies killed is weak on family values?
The woman is a… I mean, I’m sad to say, but she’s a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance who doesn’t know it. But who else doesn’t know it? Do you realize people listening to her on The Daily Show are standing up and cheering? That host, Trevor Noah, probably thought it was fantabulous that he had such an exclusive, such brilliance? I cannot emphasize enough this woman got an economics degree at Boston University. She doesn’t know anything about economics!
She can’t even observe what is happening economically and properly judge it and explain it, because she is so poisoned with her ideological cliches and dogma that she is literally incapable of seeing what’s right in front of her face. But, you know, even if she were able to see it she would still reject it because her enemies, political enemies are proposing it and succeeding with it — and we simply can’t have that. There’s one more. She’s not done. And I’m not gonna spend nearly as much time analyzing this one, ’cause these things speak for themselves.
Here is her continuation of the brilliance that she shared with America on Comedy Central last Thursday night….
OCASIO-CORTEZ: It’s gonna take three to $4 trillion to transition to us a hundred percent renewable energy economy. We got $2 trillion from folks paying their fair share — which they were not paying before the Trump tax bill. They weren’t… Note… Like, they weren’t paying that before the Trump tax bill. If we get people to fay… pay their fair share, that’s two trillion in 10 years. Now, if we implement a carbon tax —
RUSH: Wait a minute. Stop the tape! How many Democrat tax increases have there been on the basis that we need to make people pay their fair share? The bottom of 50% of American taxpayers don’t pay any income tax! The top 10% of taxpayers are paying 90% of all income taxes, and the federal government is collecting record tax revenue. It’s an all-time high with the Trump tax cuts. She does not know what she’s talking about, and she is the face of the Democrat Party going forward. Resume here…
OCASIO-CORTEZ: — on top of that so that we can transition and — and financially incentivize people away from fossils. If we implement a carbon tax, that’s an additional amount of, umm — of — of a large amount of revenue that we can have, and then the last key, which is extremely, extremely important, is the reprioritization. Just last year we gave the military a $700 billion, uh tax — budget increase, which they didn’t even ask fooooor! They’re like, they don’t want another fighter jet!
NOAH: (giggling)
OCASIO-CORTEZ: Like… They’re like, don’t give us another nuclear bomb.
RUSH: You believe this? That $700 billion increase, that was the budget, and they didn’t ask for another nuclear bomb and we gave them one anyway? And they didn’t ask for another fighter jet but we gave them one? They’re asking for all that and more! So she’s gonna raise taxes left and right. She’s gonna get rid of the corporate tax cut, bring it back. She’s gonna raise taxes on the rich and not paying their “fair share.”
Now a carbon tax because we gotta do get rid of fossil fuels, with which she will kill off the economy. The elimination of fossil fuels, if that ever happened would kill the U.S. economy. Simply bring it to a screeching halt. She’s clueless, has no idea, and this is what she’s an taught — which means she’s not the only one, which means other Millennials whoever watching this on Comedy Central — or I imagine this has had its own YouTube meme.
I’m sure a lot of people have seen this, and depending on who’s watching it, they’re standing up and cheering, “Man, this babe is great. Listen to this! She’s really got everything we want down pat.” Other people, like me, who have at best rudimentary understanding of economics, this is scary as can be. This is exactly what so many of us have been scared to death about with what’s been happening to the education system for the last 50 years. This is what we get. I mean, a literal know-nothing — blindingly ignorant — who believes she has all the answers and is a guarantee to destroy an economy if she ever got her hands on it.
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RUSH: Now, back to what I was originally gonna talk about before the backup call screener asked me this question about Rudy. And that is back to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her economic ignorance. There’s an interesting news story out today about what Medicare for All would cost. It’s an AP story. Headline: “‘Medicare for All’ Projected to Cost $32.6 Trillion.” She’s for this. She is for Medicare for All, and then a guaranteed annual income, and then food stamps for everybody and free tuition. What am I leaving out?
Food stamps, free Medicare, free health care. Uh… Free food stamps. Free education. Well, free everything! Medicare for everybody, $32.6 trillion. You what the national debt is? The national debt’s around $20 trillion! It’s taken us 200-plus years to get there, although Obama ran up $6 trillion of it in his eight years. Anyway, it’s ridiculous. “Kenneth Thorpe, a health policy professor at Emory University in Atlanta, authored one of those studies and says the Mercatus analysis reinforces them.
“‘It’s showing that if you are going to go in this direction, it’s going to cost the federal government $2.5 trillion to $3 trillion a year in terms of spending,’ said Thorpe. ‘Even though people don’t pay premiums, the tax increases are going to be enormous. There are going to be a lot of people who’ll pay more in taxes than they save on premiums.’ … Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan would boost government health spending by $32.6 trillion over 10 years…. That’s trillion with a ‘T.'”
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The other story here in addition to the Medicare for All being a $3 trillion a year in addition to our spending — $32.6 trillion over 10 years — there’s a story from the AP. “Trump Hails Illinois Steel Mill as an Economic Success Story.” Now, this story from the AP, three-fourths of this story is about Trump’s tariffs, and it’s slamming him, beating Trump up on his tariffs. But the other 25% of the story is really what the news is.
“On the outskirts of the St. Louis [Granite City Illinois] more than 2,000 workers from Granite City Works were given layoff notices just before Thanksgiving 2015.” That’s 2-1/2 years ago, almost three years ago. “U.S. Steel cited low oil prices — the mill produces steel for oil refineries and the auto industry — as well as the availability of cheap, imported steel.” So 2,000 people were laid off 2-1/2 years ago under Obama.
Now, 2-1/2 years later, Trump is president, “Granite City Works is now near its 2015 employment level of 2,100,” they’ve rehired everybody, “with a second blast furnace to be operating by this fall. Jobs there mean dozens more at steel-processing plants throughout the city that bend, cut, coat or reshape the raw product, said James Amos, Granite City’s economic development director.”
So just a year and a half of Trump and we’ve got 2100 jobs back here in grant city, automobile jobs, other manufacturing jobs all over the country — in Rust Belt states, traditionally that vote for Democrats. We have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying the solution for our economic woes is to go back to what Obama was doing and then do that on steroids, in the face of economic growth, employment growth this country hasn’t seen in 20 years!
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