OBAMA: Two million mothers and young children would be cut from a program that gives them access to healthy food. There would be 4500 fewer federal grants at the Department of Justice and the FBI to combat violent crime, financial crime, and help secure our borders. Hundreds of National Parks would be forced to close for part or all of the year. We wouldn't have the capacity to enforce the laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the food that we eat.
Rush, and eventually Ryan, said this:
OBAMA: Ronald Reagan -- who, as I recall, is not, uh, accused of being a tax-and-spend socialist -- understood repeatedly (sic) that when the deficits started to get out of control, that for him to make a deal, he would have to propose both spending cuts and tax increases. He did it multiple times. He could not get through a Republican primary today.
RUSH: That is a crock. That is something that a bunch of Republican establishment types say today after they say, "The era of Reagan is over." Reagan did get snookered twice on tax cuts for spending cuts. They never got the spending cuts. They never happened. And he vowed to never do it again. Here's Obama. The GOP budget is "a Trojan horse for social Darwinism."
OBAMA: It is a Trojan horse disguised as deficit-reduction plans. It is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It is thinly veiled social Darwinism. It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who's willing to work for it. A place where prosperity doesn't trickle down from the top but grows outward from the heart of the middle class.
RUSH: I really am at a loss to deal with this, because it's so far from reality that an attempt to analyze this from a base of reality isn't possible. This is the purposeful meandering and wandering so far from the truth as to make it practically impossible to put this in any kind of context. All I can tell you is that none of this is true and I don't even know what he means by "social Darwinism." Social Darwinism to him is, "You're on your own! That's what the Republicans believe in, and to hell with you -- and it's never worked. The only thing that's worked is what we've done in the last three-and-a-half years."
See, but the architect of the worst economy in the nation's history... Do you remember 1992? The Clinton campaign, what was its slogan?
"The worst economy in the last 50 years."
Which, of course, it wasn't.
This may well be. Obama's economy is the worst economy in the last 50 years. See, the problem is, this is what he wants. He's the architect of this. He gave us this economy. He gave us this recovery. He wants more Marcias, but he doesn't want them escaping. He wants them in welfare. He wants them in a state of perpetual dependence, bcause that means they need him. And that means they'll vote for him. It's a cynical plan and it's no more complicated than that. It's dehumanizing. There is nothing uplifting. There's no social justice here. There's no economic growth whatsoever. There's no opportunity, no prosperity with the Obama budget, with the Obama way of life. They don't believe it's possible anyway unless they are in total charge of the command-and-control and assigning it to people.
So let's move forward to Paul Ryan. He was the folks of this. Last night, he was on Larry Kudlow's report on CNBC. Kudlow said, "I'm not sure I even understand what he means by 'social Darwinism,' Congressman Ryan. I remember the Trojan horse from my Greek mythology, but somehow he was pretty nasty to you. What is your first reaction to Obama's attack on you?"
RYAN: Virtually none of the claims he makes about our budget are actually true. We've kind of come to expect this from the president. This is fairly common for him these days. He's distorting the truth, he's dividing the country, and he's becoming more bitter and partisan by the day. Frankly, it's kind of sad to see. I think his office is bigger than this. I think if you look at the tone of his speech, the substance of his budget, it's beneath the office that he occupies. And so what we're getting here is not solutions. We're just getting demagoguery. We're getting desperation. We're getting partisan attacks from a campaigner-in-chief. Not solutions from a leader who sees a debt crisis coming. Because we're the ones who are actually proposing a fix to prevent this debt crisis. He's not, and therefore he's attacking us. And I just don't think that's leadership.
RUSH: No, it isn't leadership. But, see, even Ryan is struggling with a way to characterize this. It is so beneath the dignity of the office of the presidency that coming up with ways to characterize this are really difficult, other than to say what Ryan said. I don't know that saying -- this not a criticism of Ryan. I hope it does, but I just don't know that that kind of critique penetrates with people who think Obama's wonderful. It's a real challenge, folks. I'm telling you, it's a real challenge, because this is not the only time we're going to have to do this. This is one election of many that we are going to have to win. And then after the elections are won, we're gonna have to have the right policies implemented and passed and signed into law, and then supported.
Here's more Ryan. Kudlow said, "He got pretty specific in this speech, saying that your budget is gonna end research and development; is gonna end infrastructure; gonna end prescription drugs. That you don't want to forecast the weather anymore, won't be able to know about hurricanes. You're against education and training. You're basically gonna get rid of everything but the Washington Monument. What is your response to that?"
RYAN: This is surreal, really bizarre. He has to put this assumption to make all those claims that's not an assumption we have in our budget. So they're literally just making this stuff up. What he's trying to do is, he's not offering solutions, so he's gotta distract the country, divide the country, and attack those of us who's offering solutions. And I think it's his only chance left to try and win reelection. And so he's resorting to these very sophomoric tactics. And it's just very unbecoming of the presidency of the United States, if you ask me.
RUSH: It is. It is unbecoming, but how many people that vote for Obama think that it's unbecoming? How many of 'em think that he's actually defending them, supporting them, protecting them against dirty water? I mean what we're up against, I don't know anybody who actually thinks -- no, I take that back. I am pretty safe in assuming there are people who think Republicans want dirty water and that doesn't compute with me. I don't know how anybody can believe it. I know that they do, but I can't make an intellectual trail that someone could follow to get there. Where there isn't any intellect in this. This is simply blind obedience. But Republicans want dirty water, to poison the air, and people believe it. Take away your health care.
You can hear Ryan, too. He's nonplussed by this. Not nonplussed. He's bewildered. Paul Ryan doesn't want to take away anybody's clean air and clean water. The idea is, frankly, absurd. To even have to say that is insulting. Kudlow: "On top of all that, he said you want to destroy Medicare with what he calls vouchers. You call it premium supports. That you will destroy Medicaid. That you're going to prevent people from getting emergency room care. That you want people to die. That you don't want college students to go to school. In other words, at what point does this stuff become so ridiculous, or do you think some of the public buys this, Congressman Ryan, and his label of you is as an extremist will stick?"
RYAN: It's beyond the pale of ridiculousness. We're keeping program levels where they are. We're just not having this massive increase and then a funding cliff like he does. We actually save Medicare. We don't have a board of 15 bureaucrats that are unelected, unaccountable, that he puts in charge of rationing the program. What I think we're getting from here is sort of a desperate political attack so beyond the pale. What I get out of this is it's sort of a desperate move, which is, if you go with these Republicans, they're gonna feed you to the wolves, it's gonna be a dog-eat-dog society. It's a false choice, and it's for a lack of leadership that it's taking place. And I just don't think people are gonna buy it. I don't even really know how to describe all of this stuff, but I think he's just getting sort of desperate and demagogic. And it's just part and parcel of the kind of campaign I think we're gonna expect this fall.
RUSH: Well, that's true, that's true. But how many of his voters, if you go out and say, "The man's just a demagogue." "What?" And then you define it for 'em, and they still don't know what it is, then what do you do?
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