If the Budget Deal Is a Great GOP Victory, Why Are the Democrats Celebrating?

Tuesday - May 02, 2017

RUSH: So the football team from the Air Force Academy is at the White House. There’s a Rose Garden ceremony going on right now. How many players didn’t show up? I haven’t seen any news reports on players not showing up. I guess the Air Force Academy, I guess they’re all there. Probably a safe bet.

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh, behind the Golden EIB Microphone, heading down the way, three hours of broadcast excellence at 800-282-2882, and the email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us.

President Trump, a couple of tweets today. Let me read them to you. Dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut. Tweet number one: “The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate, which are not there.”

He’s talking about the budget deal. Well, how about going the route of reconciliation? Which was designed for budget deals. Reconciliation means you only need 51. Well, why not veto it? The 60-vote rule — are we serious about this? Let’s see. Sometime during Obama’s term we were told, “Well, you know, we can’t really do anything here without the Senate.”

Okay, here’s the Senate.

“Well, you know, we really can’t do anything here without 60 votes in the Senate, plus we don’t have the White House.”

Okay, here’s the White House.

Now we’re back to “We can’t do anything ’cause we don’t have 60 votes.” But we can. We can veto it or we can blow up the filibuster here and say we’re gonna go budget reconciliation just like they got Obamacare passed. I mean, if we really wanted to do this. I heard Dr. Krauthammer — I didn’t hear Dr. Krauthammer say it. I read that Dr. Krauthammer said last night on the Fox News All Stars — oh, by the way, if anybody wants to know what’s going on at Fox, all you gotta do is ask me. We’ll get to that later. Bottom line is, Dr. Krauthammer said (paraphrasing), “Well, man, they just got rolled. Trump, Ryan, McConnell, they just got rolled.”

With no intended disrespect for Dr. Krauthammer, they didn’t get rolled. They’re not dumb people. Are we really supposed to think here that Ryan and McConnell were outsmarted? That’s not what happened here. And I’m not sure that this so-called fear of the government shutdown is the only thing that explains this.

There’s something much greater, much deeper behind all this, as I expressed yesterday. They didn’t get rolled by anybody. Chuck Schumer didn’t outsmart Mitch McConnell, and Nancy Pelosi sure as hell did not outsmart Paul Ryan. I don’t care what you think of Ryan, he’s not an idiot, folks. These people are not dumb. They’re not sitting up there thinking, “All we gotta do is be nice to the Democrats and the media.”

They don’t think that. They know full well what they’re doing here. And they have their reasons. The second Trump tweet — dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut — “We either elect more Republican senators in 2018 or we change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good shutdown in September to fix this mess.” If a shutdown is gonna be good in September, why isn’t it better now? Well, let me just explain to you, 2018 is next year. That means midterm elections.

Now, we know that a government shutdown is gonna blamed on the Republicans no matter who, what, when, where, why. You want to give the media ammo going into 2018, how the Republicans hate government, the Republicans hate you, the Republicans want you dead, the Republicans want your kids dead, the Republicans want you breathing dirty air, poisoned water, and all this stuff, a shutdown in September, it would actually be in October, because that’s — I don’t mean to pick hairs here, but a shutdown would be in October if it happens.

But if it’s good then, why not now? We’re not gonna have 60 votes in September. We’re not gonna have 60 votes in October, and we might not have 60 votes a year from now, depending on how the midterms go. At one time it was theoretically possible the Senate could end up with 60 Republicans. That’s the bad shape the Democrats actually are in electorally. And that hasn’t changed. They are. But for crying out loud, as I said yesterday, if this is what happens when you vote Republican, then why vote Republican?

Now, they’re saying today, “No, no, no, no, no, no, there’s some secret stuff in this that we smoked the Democrats on,” and what they’re saying is, my friends, that we got double a — well, we didn’t double. We got a significant increase in defense spending without having to also increase social spending.

So Trump said in the Rose Garden earlier today before the Air Force Academy ceremony there that they got rid of the parity rule. Which, for all intents and purposes, says that if we’re gonna spend, say, $15 billion more on defense (which this budget does) then you also have to spend $15 billion on social programs, welfare programs, whatever. Apparently, that didn’t happen. The Democrats bit the dust on $15 billion of social spending they didn’t get. But we did get $15 billion additional defense spending. Have you seen the latest headline on CNN? Well, let me find it. Let me get it exactly. I typed it out here.

“Trump Invites Admitted Killer to White House.” What, did they let John Wayne Gacy out? Who did he vote? It’s Duterte, the maniac that runs the Philippines. (laughing) Did you think it was Kim Jong-un? How about that headline: “Trump Invites Admitted Killer to White House”? My only point here is, folks, if we need 60 votes, we’re not gonna have 60 votes the next go-round here. Another thing that they’re saying is, “Hey, look, Rush, this is actually a big deal. This is the first time…” Ready for this?

“This is the first time a newly inaugurated president has had any impact on a current budget.” What that means is that normally when a president’s inaugurated in January, the budget for the first calendar year of his term or the first nine months is already done. So from January 21st all the way ’til October when the new budget’s done, the president has to deal with the previous Congress’ budget and has nothing to say about it. What they’re saying is that Trump has had a record-breaking, never-before-seen thing by having an impact on the budget in his first year.

Well, that’s because the government was out of money ’cause we haven’t had budgets. We’ve had continuing resolutions, and those things expire. So we either had to renew it or shut down the government. So we renewed the continuation resolution, which meant we continue to pay for refugee resettlement, we continue to pay for sanctuary cities, we continue to fund Planned Parenthood, we continue to increase spending for liberal priorities in nondefense-related issues.

The EPA was saved from any budget cuts. We bailed out Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program, and spent $990 million increase for the Food for Peace program. I guess we cut Michelle Obama’s garden. You hear about that? The Democrats are distressed. The Democrats are upset over repeal of Michelle Obama’s school lunch rules, and also we’re shutting down… No! No, no, no! We’re not gonna shut down the garden. I take it back. Melania Trump’s gonna keep the garden. It’s the school lunch rules that got blown away.

So I guess those rules, now we’re gonna move over to the Food for Peace program. I’m just kidding. Food for Peace. It’s an African aid program. Health and Human Services: $2.8 billion boost in spending. “Green energy programs at the Department of Energy that Trump’s agenda would have eliminated, received a modest spending increase.” The refugee settlement includes “a total of $3 billion towards migration and refugee assistance, roughly the same that was spent in fiscal 2016, $50 million.” None of this is the Trump agenda. Look, I don’t need to go details.

None of this is Trump agenda. The Democrats are out there celebrating. The headline in the Washington Post today: “Democrats Confident They Can Block Trump’s Agenda After Spending Bill Win.” They think now they can stop Trump’s agenda for the next 3-1/2 years. They’ve shown how to do it. The agenda tied to the budget. The budget tied to government shutdowns. The Republicans cave at the first mention of a government shutdown; ergo, they’ve shut down Trump. That’s what they’re thinking.

The losers of the 2016 election are celebrating. I mean, they’re having a grand old time. They can’t win elections, but (chuckles) what does it matter? What does it matter? Audio sound bite. Dave Brat, Republican from Virginia. He’s a guy like Trump. He was elected in the Trump wave to show up there and to replace the establishment, to drain the swamp, to do certain things. He’s not happy, either. He was on Fox Business Network’s After the Bell last night with the cohost Melissa Francis, and she said, “Give me your take on the budget deal, Congressman Brat.”

BRAT: I’ve got a mini-list here. “Congress deal funds sanctuary cities, Obamacare, EPA, Planned Parenthood; doesn’t fund the wall.” Rush Limbaugh was teeing up that thing about two o’clock. On the ride up here, I turned him or for a minute, and he’s not a happy camper. He’s like, where’s the Trump agenda? He just won the presidency. The major Trump initiative we’re not paying attention to, and no money for the wall. And so it’s a head scratcher. The only good part is this only goes through September. I hate to say, “Next time, we’ll do better,” because this is not good enough. President Trump won a major victory on a fairly clear agenda, and it’s not embedded in the budget.

RUSH: Dave Brat, by the way, is the guy who took the seat of Eric Cantor. Remember that? Eric Cantor was number two in command in the House. He was behind Boehner. They had grand plans that Cantor was gonna be top dog at some point and he lost in the primary to this guy, Dave Brat. And the Republicans, I guess they got over it pretty quickly, because (chuckling) they haven’t made many modifications.

Here’s Paul Ryan this morning, at a press conference to announce the victory in the budget deal. And after his press conference announcing the victory, a reporter said: “Speaker Ryan, do you agree that the country needs ‘a good shutdown in September’ to fix this?” By the way, the graphic headlines all over cable news today, “Trump Advocates Government Shutdown in September.” Anyway, here’s how Ryan answered the question of, “Do you feel the country ‘needs a good shutdown’ to fix this mess.”

RYAN: I feel very good about the wins that we got with the administration in this bill. Under the Obama rules, if you wanted to help the military, if you wanted a pay raise for the soldiers, if you wanted to buy new airplanes and new ships and more munitions, a dollar for that, you had to have a dollar domestic spending. We just broke that parity. That’s the biggest victory we could have had: $25 billion year over year for our military, to begin to rebuild our military, without that kind of corresponding increase in domestic discretionary spending. So that to me is very important. But look at the other conservative wins we have in here. Our pro-life rider is preserved; school choice advanced. We knew we needed a big down payment on border security. We knew that with a five-month bill the wall is really more about next year, and that fight’s gonna be this summer. There’s a PR machine that the Democrats are pushin’. I’d say don’t look at the press releases; look at the bill, and when you look at the bill, there’s a lot of good conservative wins here.

RUSH: Yeah, how many of you people are gonna read it? How many are gonna download the bill from a government website, pore over it and read it? Or how many of you are gonna go to a PR website which summarizes the bill and read that? Where have we heard this before: You gotta read the bill to find out how good it is? Nancy Pelosi said it. That’s right. So, anyway, that’s Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House. And a recitation of the things in the budget deal that constitute a victory. We have the vice president, Mike Pence, coming on here the bottom of the hour, after the break the bottom of the hour.

We’ll delve into this further. We’ve got stuff beside the budget out there, too, folks. But we’ll spend some time on it with the vice president. North Korea. The health care bill. I’m beginning to wonder what’s going on, ’cause you know what Trump said way, way, way back? He said it many times during the campaign. He said the smart thing to do would be just let the thing implode, let it collapse, let it fall apart. And the blame would fall all on the Democrats. He said, “That would be the smart political thing to do.

“Just let this thing be demonstrated for what it is, a total flop. And when that happens, then we move in and we put it back together in a smart, right, correct way.” What if that’s really what’s going on? Maybe all this rigmarole about trying to pass Obamacare, repeal and replace, is just a bunch of maneuvering; at the end of the day, nothing really changes? Well, I don’t know. (sigh)

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: To the phones! Michael, Toms River, New Jersey. Great to have you, sir. Welcome to EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Thank you for having me. I’m flabbergasted — and I’m a Trump voter — because you tried to put a dent in the armor of Mike Pence, and he stuck to the talking points on this budget like it was scripted on his part. You couldn’t make a dent in him! I didn’t vote for Trump for this budget that they passed.

RUSH: You mean the military spending increase, the “Arsenal of Democracy” increase? You’re not…? That’s not why you voted for Trump?

CALLER: No! I voted for jobs; I voted for the wall being built. I voted for that. That was my main concern.

RUSH: You voted for enforcing the law.

CALLER: Exactly, sir.

RUSH: You voted for draining the swamp and getting rid… You voted for beating Democrats!

CALLER: Thank you! That is exactly what I voted for.

RUSH: And that did not happen here.

CALLER: I voted for putting them in a ditch!

RUSH: Exactly.

CALLER: It’s not happening!

RUSH: And it didn’t happen here and that’s why you’re ticked off. I understand it.

CALLER: Is there any way that we can get rid of Paul Ryan?

RUSH: Let me tell you something. (laughing) It wouldn’t matter! Whoever replaced Ryan’s gonna be answering to the same people! You better find a way to get rid of the Chamber of Commerce and then get rid of the donors and close down K Street. That would be the answer to your problem. If you could become Paul Ryan’s number one donor, then he would do what you want him to do.