Unofficial Summary of the Rush Limbaugh Show for Monday, April 22, 1996 by John Switzer This unofficial summary is copyright (c) 1996 by John Switzer (jswitzer@limbaugh.com). All Rights Reserved. These summaries are distributed on CompuServe and the Internet, and archived on CompuServe (DL9 of the ISSUES forum). The /pub/users/jswitzer directory at ftp.aimnet.com contains the summaries for the past 60 days. Distribution to other electronic forums and bulletin boards is highly encouraged. Spelling and other corrections gratefully received. Please read the standard disclaimer which was included with the first summary for this month. In particular, please note that this summary is not approved or sanctioned by Rush Limbaugh or the EIB network, nor do I have any connection with them other than as a daily listener. ************************************************************* April 22, 1996 BRIEF SUMMARY OF TOPICS: Louis Farrakhan tells 200,000 black college students not to behave in a "wild and savage" way; Republicans are supporting the bill to increase the minimum wage, and Bob Dole thinks there's no way this bill can now be stopped; Clinton shows Boris Yeltsin around Moscow and then praises how the world is now safer than ever from the threat of nuclear weapons; Ross Perot implies Republicans asked him to fund a $1 million dirty tricks campaign in the 1994 elections; Lawrence Phillips gets picked sixth in the NFL draft but all the ESPN reporters can talk about is how he beat his girlfriend; caller thinks coach Tom Osborn was hypocritical in letting Lawrence Phillips play after he seriously assaulted his girlfriend; if poverty is calculated by what people consume, as opposed to their income, only 2% of Americans are living below the poverty line; conservative caller says she thinks the minimum wage should be raised to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor and to save the shrinking middle class; Rush suspects Democrats are sending plant callers to his show; the bill to increase the minimum wage should be called the "Say No to Entry Level Jobs Bill" because it will destroy many entry-level jobs; caller says increasing the minimum wage will push up the costs that working people have to pay for everything from daycare to their prescription drugs; Republicans won't point out the flaws in increasing the minimum wage because they want it to pass so that they can get credit from the people for it; caller suggests Rush start using his "America Held Hostage" promo again; caller reports that protestors at the state capitol this morning got all the coverage, despite being outnumbered by Gingrich supporters; caller thinks increasing the minimum wage is a legitimate thing to investigate; caller thinks Perot has a grudge against the Republicans because they threw out House Speaker Jim Wright, who was helping Perot out; former business owner doesn't think government should be telling businesses how much they should be paying their workers; caller reports that the April 22nd issue of the National Review shows that the middle class is shrinking, but only because those in the middle class are moving upwards; caller is tired of hearing people talk about how poorly they are doing, instead of going out and improving their lives; caller thinks raising the minimum wage could make welfare less attractive; caller recommends Henry Hazlett's book "Economics in One Lesson"; caller thinks many Republicans will be asking for a "trial separation" from the party if it keeps shooting itself in the foot; caller warns that raising the minimum wage will increase unemployment; caller thinks establishing a "livable wage" for those who support a family is a conservative idea; caller notes that raising the minimum wage gives raises to productive and non-productive workers; Clinton blames himself for trying to do too much with his health care plan; Justice Department survey finds that crime costs $450 billion a year, and Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY) says this means spending only $1 billion on a federal anti-crime program is "just a drop in the bucket"; Algore admits he will be running for President in the year 2000; Louis Farrakhan says he has Jewish blood in him; caller thinks the minimum wage should be $17.30 an hour because that would match the flat tax; caller thinks Republicans are caving in on the minimum wage issue because of the pressure being brought on them by the press; Republicans cannot please the press by caving in to the liberals; caller thinks the Republicans should put the minimum wage on the backburner because there are more important things to discuss and because the minimum wage should stay low to give workers an incentive to do better; caller is worried that raising the minimum wage will increase inflation; the minimum wage is a bogus issue and the focus should now be on why conservatives aren't standing up to oppose it; caller has hopes Republicans will load up the minimum wage bill with all sorts of needed reforms, but Rush fears they will cave on those things, too; caller is hopeful that Dole's character and sincerity will win him the 1996 elections; caller fears the Republican revolution will die because Republicans are supporting the minimum wage increase but Rush fears the revolution might be already dead; caller thinks Republicans have to get the word out to the people about why raising the minimum wage is a bad idea, but Rush notes that even if Republicans could find a way to get the word out, they don't seem able to reach those who think this is a good idea; caller warns Republicans that they'll never get the Democratic vote by agreeing with Democrats, as George Bush proved in 1994; caller says Republicans are just using the minimum wage to broaden their voter base, as Democrats have done for years; caller who's lived overseas under socialism and dictatorships has seen how the minimum wage is a true socialist idea that does not work. LIMBAUGH WATCH April 22, 1996 - It's now 1251 days after Bill Clinton's election, but Rush is still on the air with 660 radio affiliates (with more than 20 million listeners weekly world-wide), 210 TV affiliates (with a national rating of 3.7), and a newsletter with more than 500,000 subscribers. His first book was on the NY Times hardback non-fiction best- seller list for 54 consecutive weeks, with 2.6 million copies sold, but fell off the list after Simon and Schuster stopped printing it. The paperback version of "The Way Things Ought To Be" was on the NY Times paperback non-fiction best-seller list for 28 weeks. Rush's second book, "See, I Told You So," was on the NY Times hardback best-seller list for 16 weeks and has sold over 2.45 million copies; the paperback version was on the best- seller list for 11 weeks. WHITEWATER WATCH o Pending and Possible Indictments: White House lawyer and Presidential adviser Bruce Lindsey (according to the May 5, 1995 USA Today, received target letter from Whitewater prosecutors). o Indictments: Herby Branscum, Jr. and Robert Hill (conspiracy, misapplication of bank funds, and failing to file correct statements with federal regulators and examiners); James McDougal for fraud and conspiracy concerning Madison Guaranty S&L and Capital Management Services; Governor Jim Guy Tucker (D-AR) for fraud, conspiracy, taking out $300,000 in SBA loans under false pretenses, and defrauding the IRS; Susan McDougal (for allegedly embezzling $150,000 from conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife). o Convictions: David Hale (felony fraud-March, 1994); Robert Palmer (convicted of falsifying appraisal documents related to Madison Guaranty S&L-December, 1994); Webster Hubbell (convicted of mail fraud, tax evasion, and overbilling clients of at least $394,000-December, 1994); Charles Matthews and Eugene Fitzhugh (bribery-January 1995, defrauding the SBA-April 1995); real estate broker Christopher V. Wade (pleaded guilty to lying to a bankruptcy court and filing false loan applications to buy Whitewater property-March, 1995); Little Rock banker Neil Ainley (pleaded guilty to reduced charges of willfully delivering false documents to the government-May 1995); Arkansas college professor Stephen Smith (pleaded guilty to misusing federal funds to help pay off a loan he took out along with James McDougal and Governor Jim Guy Tucker); Larry Kuca (pleaded guilty to defrauding the SBA of a $150,000 loan together with David Hale-July 1995). LEST WE FORGET The following are from the Rush Limbaugh show on Monday, April 25, 1994: o Richard Nixon died and the press over the weekend was full of mean-spirited things to say about him. Yet Rush found a 1975 NY Times column by William Safire titled "The Things Nixon Never Did." Safire listed crimes and abuses that Nixon had yet to be accused of, such as ordering the murder of a fellow chief of state, as JFK was suspected of doing with Castro. Nixon also never ordered the Justice Department not to prosecute a case which the IRS sent over for exactly that reason; John and Bobby Kennedy, though, did this in the case of Sherman Adams. Nixon never ordered the extended wiretapping of a civil rights leader for the sake of getting personal dirt to leak to the press, as the Kennedys did with Martin Luther King, Jr. so they could document King's infidelities. Nixon also never amassed millions of dollars while in public office. In fact, Nixon refused Secret Service protection after he left office, refusing to waste the taxpayers' money in such a manner; he paid for his own aides, and he did not have Secret Service agents protecting him. Nixon also didn't use the CIA or FBI to spy on political opponents, as did previous administrations. He also never lied to the people about his health just before an election, as did JFK, who lied about having Addison's disease. Rush predicted Nixon would go down in history as a great foreign policy President - he opened the doors to China and created detente with the Soviet Union, not to mention that he ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A column by Nixon biographer Stephen Ambrose in the Wall Street Journal also noted something remarkable about Nixon: "It was struggle that gave Richard Nixon's life meaning, not victory. Given that he never abandoned the struggle, it could be assumed that he died a happy man, a man at peace with himself." Rush also read a quote from Nixon's last book "Beyond Peace" about the Clinton health care plan: "The Clinton health plan is less a prescription for better health care than a blueprint for the takeover by the federal government of one-seventh of the nation's economy. It would represent the ultimate revenge of the 1960s generation." o Al Franken, a good friend of Bill Clinton and head writer for Saturday Night Live, was the guest entertainment at the White House Corespondents Dinner, and he personally attacked and trashed both Bob Dornan and Pat Buchanan. When it came time to trash Rush, Franken said that there was a thin line between journalists and entertainers, and that all journalists were "infotainers." Franken said, however, that Rush was the notable exception to this because he was a "dis-infotainer" - all Rush did was "spread disinformation." Predictably, this line got great applause. o Hillary Clinton held a press conference about Whitewater the previous Friday at 3:45 p.m., a bizarre time to hold a press conference if you wanted anyone to see it. The conference was held in the State Dining Room in the White House, and Hillary was seated beneath a portrait of good, old "Honest Abe." Saturday's NY Times featured a photo of Hillary sitting underneath this portrait, mimicking Lincoln's pose almost perfectly, and it was obvious that it was a staged setting. Hillary had also changed from her hairdo from that of the previous day, which critics had claimed was unflattering and looked "too old and too fiftyish." She also sat in a chair that was elevated over the press corps, assuming an air of regalness. She did not stand behind a podium, as was usual for press conferences, but sat on the chair, hands folded, legs demurely crossed, appearing to be nothing less than a First Lady of Old. Hillary repeatedly used the phrase "my husband" in her 66-minute press conference, and it was clear she was trying to put herself out of the power loop, positioning herself as nothing more than the President's wife and "little woman." Hillary also wore soft pink with shoulder pads, and all the questions she took were softball ones; she answered nothing, instead saying that no evidence existed, that she was just providing for her family, and so forth. She didn't address the charges themselves, nor did she deny anything, but simply said that no evidence existed. In one telling moment, one reporter asked how Hillary would account for the decline of public support for her health care plan and whether Whitewater coverage was responsible. Hillary responded that she thought this was "a real important question," adding the following: "I do believe that some of the opponents of health care have certainly tried to use Whitewater as a proxy for their opposition to health care. I think in the last several days, some of the leading opponents of health care have even said things that seem to suggest that. I find that very regrettable. I mean, if someone wants to argue about the future of health care in our country, I think the debate saying `I don't alliances' or `I think we ought to have a different benefits package,' that's fine. That's what democratic debate should be about. But I do think that some have tried to use this to undermine support for health care." Meanwhile, Irwin Stelzer of the NY Post wrote the following about how the Clintons were handling Whitewater: "That's why Whitewater and the President's sinking credibility matter and are so dangerous - it's simply because they have no reservoir or trust left. They lie about everything, and because they have no credibility, there is no credibility." o Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich descended on Oklahoma City, shutting down the Dayton Tire Company plant and thereby, in a state that had 7% unemployment, putting 1,100 workers out of work. Workers were told to leave the building, taking everything of theirs with them, giving the unmistakable impression that they weren't coming back. Reich did this with a Temporary Restraining Order, which could be gotten almost routinely without any proof being needed to show its necessity. The order was dissolved 24 hours later, though, because the Labor Dept. could not justify Reich's actions at a formal hearing. Rush noted that the Democrats had introduced the Comprehensive Occupational Safety and Health Reform Act (COSHA) of 1994, which would take the federal courts out of the plant closing process, allowing Reich to act at will on closing any plant he wanted. This bill would not only give the Labor Secretary the power to close down plants with alleged safety violations, but would require all family farms, including those with less than 10 employees, to adopt OSHA safety standards. o The Sunday Washington Post reported that United We Stand was falling apart because of a series of internal battles. At least six elected state chairman had been removed from office, and other power struggles between the grass roots levels and the Dallas-paid staff were continuing. Mark Benson, who had quit as congressional district leader in Florida, complained that "Perot in fact really does want to put together an organization of automatons who are out there as window dressing, whom he can use as window dressing and whom he doesn't need as anything else." Pat Powers, who resigned as the Tennessee state chairman noted that everything he wanted to do was considered a "bad idea" by the Dallas office. He added that local members of the group could get along fine with the national leadership as long as "you sing Dallas song." o The Center for Science in the Public Interest condemned movie theater popcorn made with coconut oil. According to the self-proclaimed consumer activist group, a medium-sized bucket of theater popcorn made with high-fat coconut oil contained 900 calories and had so much fat that it was the equivalent to eating "three or four hot dogs." The groups wanted theaters to switch to air-popped popcorn. o There was good news for environmentalists - the drive to ban CFCs, including freon, was working. A commercial for the Smog Pro auto repair stores in the greater Bay Area advertised their air conditioner recharge special as costing only $19.95; however, the ad included a disclaimer saying "of course, freon is at a substantial extra cost," which meant that the supply of freon was dwindling to the point where the laws of supply and demand were driving up its costs. o The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 6-5 to levy a new 3% tax on gun dealers within the city. A variety of witnesses, including the father-in-law of Kurt Cobain, insisted that anything which would make it harder to get a gun would "save lives." Hank Harrison, estranged father of Courtney Love, widow of the late Kurt Cobain who was killed by a self-inflicted shotgun blast, read several lyrics from Nirvana songs, showing how guns had become idealized in popular music. Harrison, who was writing on a book about Cobain, said he wanted to start a foundation in his son-in-law's honor to help prevent suicide and drug use. ******** MORNING UPDATE Rush hopes those in the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut area - the markets most recently served by a NY radio personality who was fired for characterizing certain groups in an uncomplimentary fashion - pay special attention to this morning's Morning Update. Last weekend was "Freaknik" weekend in Atlanta, where 200,000 black college students showed up for spring break, and last Thursday, Nation of Islam Leader Louis "Calypso Louie" Farrakhan gave a speech in which he addressed these students, warning them not to give authorities an excuse to use force against them: "They have marshalled an army here in preparation for the Olympics. If you have to be used to show the world how they will quell any disturbance, then they will use you to show how prepared they are for the Olympics. . . . I would advise you not to be a wild and savage group, as you have been in the past because you're only giving an enemy an excuse to do to you what they've been doing all their lives. Help the city get through this weekend as peacefully as possible." Rush repeats that it was none other than Louis "Calypso Louie" Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, who told 200,000 black college students "not to be a wild and savage group, as you have been in the past." To hammer the point home, Rush repeats Farrakhan's words a couple of more times, noting that it was Louis Farrakhan who said them while addressing 200,000 black college students. FIRST HOUR Items o Rush's cold has gotten worse, but thanks to EIB's disgronification circuitry, his voice sounds normal, without any of the nasal sounds that his voice has today. However, while his energy is sort of low, Rush is still ready to get to work, unlike lesser hosts who would call in sick. o The "Say No to Entry Level Jobs" bill, also known as the bill to increase the minimum wage, is on the fast track to approval and becoming law, thanks to the strong bipartisan support it has gotten. Rush will thus have much to say about this, and how Republican leaders, such as Senator Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY), have jumped on board the minimum wage bandwagon, evidently forgetting the conservative principles involved here. Even Senate Majority Leader and presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Bob Dole said on "Face the Nation" yesterday that there didn't look like anything could stop this bill, which, Rush notes, would destroy many entry-level jobs in America. o Bill Clinton's been attending a summit in Moscow, and one clip of him shows him walking through Red Square with Boris Yeltsin, acting like a tour guide, pointing and gesturing here and there, undoubtedly reminiscing about his good, old days at Oxford, when he was able to visit Moscow. After the summit, Clinton praised the work down in the talks about reducing nuclear arms and said "today we took another step back from the nuclear precipice. We must not rest until these dangers are reduced and the cloud of fear has been lifted." Rush, though, thinks if Bill Clinton wants to get rid of the "cloud of fear" hanging in America, instead of worrying about banning nukes, he should ban Democrats, given that it's the Democrats who have been scaring the American people to death lately. As to nukes, nobody is really worried about them - five or ten years ago, the anti-nuke crowd would be coming out in force for Earth Day, holding die-ins everywhere, but now you have to look long and hard to find these guys because this fear no longer consumes people's attentions as it used to. o Ross Perot was on "Meet the Press" yesterday, and Rush wonders whether Tim Russert and David Broder lost control of the show or whether they decided to just sit back and let Perot run loose. Rush suspects the latter is the case, and Perot got off on a roll, overwhelming the hosts. Among other things, Perot returned to the accusation he has made about how one of the two major parties had wanted him to donate $1 million to finance a dirty tricks campaign during the 1994 elections. Perot still refused to officially identified who asked him for this money, though, saying that he probably wouldn't reveal who it was until this fall. However, Perot "let slip" that Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican National Committee, would be surprised by what he would reveal, which implies that someone high up in the Republican party had made this offer. Perot said: "Haley Barbour was not directly involved. But in this case, I would suggest that he do a little bit of due diligence up and down the chain of command, and I would say after about 15 minutes, you know, one of the two parties is going to say, `Oops!'" Barbour, of course, demanded that Perot identify whom he's talking about, given that Perot has accused someone of breaking federal election laws: "I can state unequivocally, emphatically and with no fear of contradiction that no member, officer, employee or agent of the Republican National Committee ever in 1993 or any other time asked Ross Perot to contribute to a dirty tricks campaign. . . . I call on Mr. Perot to come forward with the names of any such people. This is the second time he has made these claims. It is past time for him to put up or shut up." Everyone is thus wondering what Perot has against the Republicans; the conventional wisdom in 1992 was that he was running for President because of a personal animus toward George Bush, but now it appears Perot also bears a grudge against the entire Republican party. When asked to tell who made this offer, Perot had only the following to say: "I will answer that charge when the time is right. They did that. That was really stupid, but it shows the mean-spirited nature, and the thing I want them to stop. Be for things. Don't try to destroy people. They had plans to just say terrible things about candidates in 1994." Rush, though, wonders if Perot has been paying attention to politics lately, given that it's been Democrats have been raking Republicans over the coals, lying about how Republicans want to starve children, poison the air and water, kick old people out of their homes, etc. If anyone has tried to destroy their opposition by running a purely negative campaign, it's the Democrats, and Perot knows it, but he's instead trying to defame the Republican party. o Rush wants to talk about the NFL draft, which was held Saturday and televised on ESPN. Rush watched the first couple of rounds of the draft and was amazed at how runningback Lawrence Phillips from the University of Nebraska was treated. Phillips was suspended for six games earlier this season after beating his girlfriend and hurting her severely enough to put her in the hospital. He has since gone to anger counseling and other sorts of New Age therapy sessions to control his rage and temper. During the draft, though, the ESPN reporters kept referring to how horrible a guy Phillips was, and yet they continued to wonder when he would be picked. Every time he was not picked, the ESPN reporters acted disappointed, and after giving the football player who was picked a few perfunctory words, they turned the focus of their discussions back to Phillips. One of the reporters even said he had talked to a former head honcho of an NFL team who said if it weren't for football, Phillips would be in jail. This sort of focus is strange because the NFL draft is ostensibly where the cream of the college crop is rewarded for their hard work, but instead of focusing on all the great players being picked, the ESPN guys concentrated their attention on Phillips, simply because he had beat the heck out of his girlfriend. The ESPN crowd spent a good hour and a half talking about whether Phillips would get picked and whether any teams cared about his crime. It seemed that whenever he was discussed it was in this context: about how he beat his girlfriend, how the St. Louis Rams would make sure he continues going to anger counseling, and how Phillips was going to pay $100,000 out of his NFL salary to fund a woman's shelter. It's as if everyone is just waiting until he got another woman in his sights. It's amazing how the focus of the NFL draft was on this guy, who wasn't selected until the sixth pick, and every team before that mentioned that they rejected him because of the character issue. While on one hand it's nice that the NFL cares more about the character of their players than the country cares about the character of their President, the bottom line is that despite how Phillips was portrayed as a horrible human being he still got the majority of attention. All of the first five draft picks were mentioned when they happened, but as soon as the ESPN guys could get away with it, they'd go back to talking about Lawrence Phillips, which basically taught the nation that the way to get noticed is to beat up your girlfriend. It's as if the only way to get noticed in America is to be outrageous or a real bad guy, while those who do really great things are forgotten or ignored. *BREAK* Phone Ron from Costa Mesa, CA Ron says that Lawrence Phillips was a Heisman Trophy candidate at the beginning of the year, but that ended when he beat up his girlfriend and was suspended. When coach Tom Osborn suspended Phillips, everyone praised Osborn for doing so and for being a "Mr. Clean" of football. Everyone was thus shocked when Osborn brought Phillips back six games later, just in time for the championship games. Rush asks what Phillips really did, and Tom says he was accused of beating his girlfriend pretty badly and he pleaded no contest to the charges, essentially admitting his guilt. Thus, when Osborn brought Phillips back, he was called a hypocrite for doing so; however, Osborn said he did this because it was the best thing he could do to help Phillips turn his life around and keep him out of jail. Ron adds that it was Osborn who first said that if it weren't for football, Phillips would be in jail. Rush says he heard Chris Meyers of ESPN mention this quote, but he's pretty certain Meyers was referring to some former NFL staffer, not Osborn. He suspects, though, that Phillips had better hire a PR firm fast, given that the first 45 minutes of this show was all about what a horrible human shred of debris he was, even though the ESPN reporters were obviously anxious to see which team would pick him. Rush was truly amazed at how the ESPN guys detailed all these awful things about Phillips, they still seemed to think the highlight of the day's events would be when some team picked him. They didn't even seem to hear one coach who pointed out that he didn't want to pick Phillips because if he had picked Phillips, he would have to send him to anger counseling, not to mention starting a battered women's shelter with his $100,000 in pay and monitoring him throughout the whole season. This coach gave reason after reason why he wouldn't want Phillips on his team, asking why he should select a problem like this for his first round draft pick. Yet the ESPN guys, even after hearing this, still seemed to think Phillips would be snapped up by the very next team. It just never ceases Rush just how much attention some bad characters in society get, while those who are doing good and great things are ignored at best and ridiculed at worst. Ron says he does think Osborn was hypocritical for bringing Phillips back to the team, just in time for the championship game. The other interesting thing about ESPN's coverage is that they were fascinated by how Phillips was picked by the only NFL team that was owned by a woman. Rush says he noticed this, too - the sports guys did make a big deal about how the St. Louis Rams were owned by a woman, and that this "obviously" meant neither she nor the other members of the team's management were concerned that this guy beat up women. It was a strange thing to see, and Rush thanks Ron for calling. Rush admits he's frustrated today, though, because he's taking over-the-counter drugs for his cold that are tending to make him light-headed. He's thus struggling to put together coherent sentences, and trying to overcome how his voice, particularly his laugh, makes him sound like 85; he points out, though, that he's just going for the Bob Dole look. *BREAK* Poverty has always been measured by totalling a family of four's income and comparing it to some figure that's called the "poverty line," which is a figure that LBJ set up so he could measure how well his War on Poverty was doing. An article by Nicholas Eberstadt of Harvard in today's Wall Street Journal, though, suggests that it's time to rethink this approach and instead calculate what a family of four spends. What people spend is what they consume, and what they consume defines their lifestyle and thus their "poverty level." Material acquisitions and possessions typically define someone's lifestyle, so why not count those things when evaluating whether someone is poor? This change would make a major difference in the official poverty figures. If the poverty rate is based only on income, the number of poor Americans remains about the same, about 13 to 15% of Americans, as it was 30 years ago. However, even so, using this method of calculating poverty shows that poverty was decreasing greatly in the years before the 60s; for example, in 1949 31% of the United States population was in poverty, which means that the poverty rate had been declining from 1949 to the early 1960s; however, once the War on Poverty started, the poverty rate stayed the same. However, if the new method of calculating poverty on the basis of consumption is used, 13% of the American people were poor in 1965, but only 2% were below the poverty line in 1989. Despite how the average pre-tax income was $6,800 in 1989, those people spend an average of $14,000 a year, which does not include food stamps or any other government welfare benefits. The question is how these families can spend more than twice their income, and the explanation is that household incomes can vary considerably from year to year. People can tap their savings accounts, run up credit card debt, take out loans, or sell possessions. Things get even better when this $14,000 figure is added the welfare benefits, which can total up to $24,000 a year. This is why only 2% of Americans are living at or below the poverty line. But the Democrats insist that more and more money must be spent every year on social programs, and that the gap between the rich and poor is widening. Yet if you view poverty on the basis of what people consume, poverty is not that bad in America, but Rush knows that some people won't want to hear this. Rush learned this fact a few years ago when he reported the results of a study by Robert Rector of the Cato Institute about how many "poor" families owned two cars, a home, a microwave, a TV, and/or a VCR. He got all sorts of flak for saying that poverty in America wasn't that bad, but it's guaranteed that the poor in Zaire are not consuming $14,000 a year, nor are they getting federal benefits of up to $24,000 a year. The point is that America has redefined poverty and elevated the standards, but you can't point this fact out without being called heartless and lacking in compassion; it's not permitted to say that poverty in America is not as bad as it is elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, Rush recommends this story to anyone interested in getting the details of American poverty. *BREAK* Phone Sandy from Jacksonville, FL Sandy says she's been listening to Rush for seven years and is thrilled to be talking to Rush, given that he's been there to educate the middle class and speak for them. However, she's concerned about the minimum wage because as a long-time conservative she thinks the minimum wage should be raised. Both she and her husband think the gap between the rich and the poor has widened greatly, to the point that the middle class has disappeared. Rush sighs and says this is definitely not the case - 50% of the income in this country is below $50,000 a year <>. Besides, the supposed gap between the rich and poor cannot be narrowed by raising the salary of a mere 3% of the nation's workforce by only $1 an hour. Sandy says this might be but it would be a start in the right direction in saving the middle class. This also brings up a small bone Sandy would like to pick with Rush, which is that he seems to have lost touch with the middle class. She's thrilled with Rush's success, but it seems that he's no longer in touch with the middle class nor does he feel their situation any longer. Rush wonders if Sandy has attended a seminar held by the Democratic National Committee, given that her complaints are taken right from their handbook. Rush's show is driven by the events of the day, but the "issue" of whether Rush is out of touch has never come up, except among those who seek to discredit him and his show. Sandy says she would never try to discredit Rush, but Rush says calls like this have come up again and again over time. He's discussed this point repeatedly, so he is suspicious because he's heard about the Democratic-sponsored coaching seminars that teach callers how to get past callscreeners and bring such topics up. Whether Rush is in or out of touch is a bogus issue, one that takes the focus away from the main issues that need to be discussed, such as the minimum wage. Rush doesn't believe anyone who's listened to him for seven years and is a conservative could possibly support raising the minimum wage because this means they would want the government to get more involved in telling businesses how to equalize incomes. This is handbook, textbook liberalism, especially when it's followed by the critique that he's out of touch. Rush has discussed this subject time and time again on his show, and he's not going to believe for a minute that Sandy is a conservative; all he wants to know is who put Sandy up. Sandy says she's a real conservative, and while she can understand why Rush is suspicious, nobody has put her up to anything; she is speaking from her heart. Rush asks what he's out of touch about, and Sandy says the middle class is really hurting right now - everyone in her range of income is scaling down and tightening up their spending. Rush asks why Sandy thinks he's out of touch with those people, and Sandy says it's because Rush can't see what's happening - he doesn't seem to understand the middle class is hurting and disappearing. Rush says he disagrees with the notion that the middle class is disappearing, but even if he didn't think the middle class had problems, why would that make him out of touch? For the past several months Rush has tried to uplift and inspire people, motivating them to be more than they can be. If Rush is out of touch because he doesn't see anything but wallowing, whining, and displaced people, he is glad to be out of touch because that's not the America he thinks exists. Rush is not going to pander to people's fears just so they will think he's "in touch," nor is he going to start advocating more government programs and more government "solutions" such as raising the minimum wage. He would be totally dishonest if he were to do this, especially since he thinks the American people can still do more to help themselves than anyone in government. Even liberals know that raising the minimum wage won't help the working poor; it's just an election-year ploy. Rush gets letters like Sandy's call all the time, and while Sandy might not be part of any organized effort, there is one in force, full of predictable complaints. Sandy has uttered the same mantra and words that these others do, spending only a few seconds on the minimum wage before attacking Rush as being out of touch. Rush admits Sandy's call might have been heartfelt and genuine, but he's doubtful anyone who's listened to him for seven years and is a conservative would say such things. *BREAK* Rush wonders if Bo can find him another two hours of callers who think he's out of touch. Bo says he's already getting some such callers, which causes Rush to remark that he can smell planted callers a mile away. It's fishy as all get out for someone to say they've been listening for seven years and have been a life-long conservative, and then claim that the minimum wage must be raised to narrow the gap between the rich and poor. It's one thing if a conservative supported increasing the minimum wage because Republicans have lost the battle and need time to recover from this political defeat before the elections. It's another, though, for them to claim this is needed to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. "Stinko, man!" Rush exclaims. "That's when the odor starts!" And then the odor gets even stronger when they start complaining about how Rush is out of touch. Rush has seen the Democratic memos teaching liberals how they can get on conservative shows and discredit hosts by challenging the host's overall credibility and character, and this is a textbook example of it. This is predictable and to be expected in an election year, and it's why Rush asked what Democratic seminar the previous caller attended. *BREAK* SECOND HOUR Rush returns to the subject of the minimum wage, which he wants to discuss from the conservative point of view. In truth, the bill to increase the minimum wage should be called the "Say No to Entry Level Jobs Bill" since it destroys entry-level jobs. Because of Republican support for this bill, as well as other disappointments, Rush has to admit that he is about ready to call for a trial separation from the Republican party. He is suspicious of what has happened to Republicans and conservatives standing up for the principles they believe in, not just here but with other issues. Rush wants to know why prominent conservatives haven't stood up to point out that the minimum wage is an unfunded mandate, where government is telling businesses how they should spend their own money. This is not what the Republican revolution is all about; conservatives want the government to get out of the people's backpockets and lives. Besides, this bill is just an election-year gimmick, but no Republicans are standing up to object to it on the basis of ideological principle. Rush doesn't know why Republicans are doing this, but he knows their plan won't work, unless they are trying to help the Democrats get more votes. Clinton himself said in 1993 that raising the minimum wage was not the best way to elevate living standards, and the NY Times at one point said the same thing. The Times even that there shouldn't be any minimum wage, something the Wall Street Journal has also said. The minimum wage is just government telling businesses to pick up the tab for an election year political stunt, and Republicans are going along with it - not just the moderate Republicans out on Long Island but even Senator Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY). These guys must think that if they get this sticky issue out of the way, it won't be an issue anymore. This is wrong thinking in and of itself, but even more importantly Republicans are the majority in Congress, so they should be sending Clinton legislation he has to veto, which is what George Mitchell did in 1992. Mitchell sent President George Bush the most outrageous bills, precisely so Bush would veto them, allowing the Democrats to portray him as a President standing in the way and being responsible for gridlock. If Republicans instead send Clinton a bill to increase the minimum wage, it will be a victory for him, one that he can tout long and loud. Some people will claim this won't matter because it's "only April," but what's next? A tax increase? Hillary health care? What other core principles will Republicans next abandon? What most boggles Rush's mind about this is how conservatives have vanished from the scene, unwilling to oppose the minimum wage on ideological grounds. If the Democrats want to increase the minimum wage, let them pay for it themselves, using already allocated moneys - they should steal the funds from Donna Shalala's HHS budget, instead of imposing an unfunded mandate on the nation's small businesses. This bill will only hurt those who need to find an entry into the job market, but Rush seems to be the only one who is saying this. Rush thus wonders if it's time for a trial separation from the Republican party, one that might even lead in time to a full divorce. The fact Republicans would cave in to the Democrats is a stunner. He can understand losing the legislative battle or by going along with the Democrats so that all sorts of other reforms can be tacked along with the minimum wage bill, but if D'Amato and the moderates have their way, this bill will be rammed through solely so that Republicans can get some credit for raising the minimum wage. But who will this impress? Liberals won't ever vote for Republicans, so it's almost as if Republicans have just given up, having been tired of all the bad press they are getting. The revolution thus looks like it's stalled and will have to be started again from scratch some day. If Republicans cannot even articulate their basic principles during this sort of debate, what will happen when a really tough issue comes along? And worst of all is that the Clinton administration will take this as a major victory, so it's curious why the Republicans are so willing to hand it to him. *BREAK* Phone Linda from Rockledge, FL Linda has been listening to Rush for ten years, ever since his days at KFBK in Sacramento, back when Rush had to deal with "Kitty and the squeaky chair." She's calling only now because she's aggravated by how the Democrats have framed the debate over the minimum wage increase. The Democrats claim they want to put more money in the pockets of the little guy, but this increase will increase everyone's costs, too - from daycare to the cost of goods at the local drug store and the cost of utilities, all of these will go up in price because the employees are now being paid more. Nobody is talking about the final impact of the minimum wage and how it's going to hurt everyone economically. Rush agrees and this is why Rush asked where Republicans are on this issue, and why they aren't saying a word about all this, leaving it to people like Rush and his callers. Linda says the CEO of Godfather's pizza might end up raising his prices, as he pointed out during the debate over the Clinton health care plan, but she can choose whether to buy a pizza; she cannot choose whether to use daycare or whether to buy a needed prescription drug. She's thus going to be saddled with higher prices because of this bill. Rush says businesses cannot arbitrarily rise their prices; they are limited by the market, too. Linda agrees, but she wishes someone would show how the minimum wage increase would negatively affect all families, especially young families. Rush says those in Congress don't want to do anything to prevent this increase from passing, so they won't talk about the flaws and problems. This is truly politics as usual, given that the Democrats are pulling off another election year stunt, talking about increasing the wages that are earned by only 3% of the nation's workers, most of whom are teenagers. Only 100,000 of those earning the minimum wage are actually heads of households, and this $1 an hour increase is not going to make a huge difference in their lives. If the Democrats really want to elevate these people's living standards, as well as the living standards of all Americans, they should just cut taxes. However, Democrats won't do this because they refuse to stop spending money, and increasing the minimum wage is a way they can force businesses to spend more money. This is a true unfunded federal mandate, and what should be done is to go to take this money from Donna Shalala's $600 billion Health and Human Services budget in the form of Earned Income Tax Credits. But because the American people seem to want this minimum wage increase and because it's an election year, the government is going to end up telling businesses to start paying their workers more. This is happening because some people view jobs as a benefit and an entitlement, which is why precisely conservatives should be standing up and drawing a line in the sand to oppose it. Since 81% of the American people think the minimum wage wants to be increased, though, Republicans are caving in. This is why they won't point out the flaws of increasing the minimum wage - they want to get the political benefit of voting for this increase. Phone Scott from Oxford, CT Scott thinks Rush should go back to using the "America Held Hostage" promo, given that Republicans are not opposing the minimum wage. Scott agrees with Rush about the folly of this approach, and it's making him wonder how many true conservatives America has in Congress. Rush isn't sure about how many conservatives are in Congress anymore, nor about whether he should start using his old promo, but he'll look into it and he thanks Scott for calling. Phone Tim from Marietta, GA Tim gives "authentic mega-in touch dittos" and notes that Rush's success proves he's in touch. He points out that the Friends of Newt Gingrich loaded up two double-decker busses full of well- dressed working class people, many of whom were wearing Rush Limbaugh ties, and they travelled to the state capitol. When they arrived, they found the saddest looking coalition of liberal special interest groups Tim could imagine - the gays, feminists, unions, pro-choicers, environmentalists, and welfare mothers were all there protesting like they were in the 60s. And of course it was the liberals who got the coverage - two TV stations showed the protestors on their noon news, without showing one picture of Gingrich's supporters, despite their larger numbers. Tim thus held up his boombox to the microphone and blasted the liberals with the "Newt Rap" that Rush played last year. These protestors, though, should get a real job; Rush says these "rent-a-mob" types do have jobs: protesting any attempt to cut government, which is the source of their livelihood and why they get hysterical whenever anything appears to come close to undoing their socialist achievements. The liberals, though, are taking all this very seriously, doing the right things to win and to protect their vested interests. They aren't being honest in why they support what they do or about their liberalism, but they will get the press coverage every time they show up. Phone Rob from Hayward, CA Rob thinks the minimum wage issue is more complex than just looking at the poor people, and he does think it's legitimate for politicians to support increasing the minimum wage. The minimum wage is a legitimate thing, although that doesn't mean it's a good thing. For example, if someone is earning $6 an hour and works more than 40 hours a week, their overtime pay has to match that for the minimum wage. Similarly, anyone working on commission still has to be paid at the minimum wage, no matter how much they sell. It's thus legitimate to look at increasing this wage. Rush disagrees, especially since this sounds like more of "the government has to do things to make life for me," an attitude that supposedly was defeated in 1994. Evidently Rush is wrong in believing that this was the 1994 elections were all about. *BREAK* Phone Jeff from Troy, MI Jeff thinks he knows why Perot is angry at the Republicans - this goes back to how Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in Congress forced House Speaker Jim Wright (D-TX), one of Perot's good buddies, to resign over his bogus book deal. Wright had been protecting Perot's deals in Texas, such as the Ft. Worth airport that Perot's son wanted to build, so Perot is getting even with Republicans over what they did to his buddy Wright. Jeff says this is what he's told by people he knows in Texas; one of his sources knows Perot relatively well, so Jeff is confident in this information. Rush thanks him for this tip and call. Phone Johnny from South Central Los Angeles, CA Johnny used to own a small Mexican restaurant that had a number of employees, and it's not right for the government to tell businesses what to pay their employees. Johnny chose to pay his employees significantly more than the minimum wage because he didn't want to treat his employees like the big burger chains did, as a disposable commodity, and he doesn't like how government thinks it can tell businesses how much to pay their workers. Rush thanks him for calling. Phone Robert from Washington, DC Robert says the woman who thinks the middle class is declining should read the April 22nd issue of National Review, which points out that the middle class is shrinking but only because people are moving up into the upper classes. Rush says he hasn't seen this yet but he does remember someone else making this point a while ago <>. Besides, people move in and out of income levels all the time; some people have good years and some had bad, but overall the middle class is moving upward. Robert agrees and says that the National Review article defines the middle class as being between $15,000 a year and $50,000 a year. Rush thanks Robert for calling. Phone John from Clovis, NM John is evidently "poor" since he's making $12,000 a year, and he's tired of hearing about the middle class, the poor, the blue-collar, the white-collar, and the average worker. Despite the fact he's making only $12,000, has two kids and a wife who's going to school, John and his family are happy. That doesn't mean John doesn't have dreams of improving his life, but he's tired of the "look at me, poor me" attitude people have. Why can't people live their lives and work to do better? Rush says the people whining about the minimum wage are not minimum wage earners - this became a big issue only when the Democrats took up the cause. Nobody was whining about the minimum wage before this point because there aren't that many minimum wage earners to begin with; few people end up earning the minimum wage for that long and there are certainly only a few people trying to feed their families on it. This is purely a political issue, which is what the liberals do - they encourage the "whining of America," using terms like "working families" to make the claim that America is in decline because the minimum wage is too low and because Republicans don't care. There is a lot of whining going on now, but most of that whining is coming from the Democrats and liberals in Washington, DC. Phone Len from Lake Charles, LA Len would love Rush to talk more about economic issues to educate the public. Henry Hazlett just wrote a great book, "Economics in One Lesson," that everyone should read. Len normally would thus agree with Rush about the dangers of raising the minimum wage, given all the side-effects that would result. However, given the welfare state that now exists, raising the minimum wage over time would do a lot to make work much more attractive and welfare not that profitable. This could bring more people into the workforce. Len thus wishes Republicans would make sure that welfare benefits are not indexed to the minimum wage, so that they can stay low, and eventually those benefits will be so low that welfare recipients will be forced out into the workforce. Rush understands the logic of this, but his problem with it is that it's still using more government to manipulate the social architecture. A better approach would be to simply end welfare, telling recipients that they have two years to find a job and then welfare's gone. This would be more effective than playing around with the minimum wage. *BREAK* Phone Diane from Anchorage, AL Diane says if the Republican party keeps shooting itself in the foot, a lot of Republicans will want to follow Rush's idea of a "trial separation," and this would give more impetus to a third party. She remembers how many callers during the primaries warned that Bob Dole would bring about politics as usual, which is what he's doing now; Diane is not a Perot fan, but she fears many Republicans will start looking at Perot because of the Republicans' ineptitude. Rush says Perot supports raising the minimum wage, but that's because he views it as "election year candy," which is exactly what it is. Of course, Perot went off the deep end yesterday when he advocated a minimum wage increase, talking about how the minimum wage increase didn't matter because everyone on minimum wage would soon lose their job to someone in Mexico earning 75 cents an hour. As to a third party, Rush is not even thinking about joining one, but to be fair to Dole, both he and Gingrich tried to keep their troops in line over the minimum wage but failed. Dole tried to hold a hard line, but then his NY campaign chairman, Senator Alfonse D'Amato jumped onboard this train, derailing Dole's attempts to keep Republicans in opposition to the Democrats. Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX) has been consistently opposing increasing the minimum wage, but few others have as well, which is confusing Rush as to where the real conservatives are in Congress. Phone Jerry from Chicago, IL Jerry says if the minimum wage is increased, it will increase unemployment, which will end up hurting whoever gets elected President in November. If Jerry's business makes $20 an hour, with a profit margin of $3 an hour, Jerry can afford to employ four people at the present time. If the minimum wage is increased, though, Jerry's profit-margin shrinks, which means he'll have to lay someone off. Rush says Jerry could raise his prices, and Jerry says if he did that, he'd lose customers. In reality, many businesses will end up laying off workers because of the minimum wage increase. Rush adds that Jerry will end up paying his former employees' unemployment compensation, which means this is a lose-lose for everyone. The drive to increase the minimum wage is "election year junk," an arbitrary piece of politicking that has no ties to the free market. This doesn't seem to matter to people, though, even to those to whom it should. Rush thanks Jerry for calling. Phone Patrick from Washington, DC Patrick says he'd like to convince Rush that a living wage for those who support a family is a conservative idea that Republicans should embrace. Businesses have a moral obligation to pay their workers enough to live on, which is an idea that the Catholic Church believes. However, it's one thing to pay a head of household enough so his family can live decently, but it's another to give that same minimum wage to someone who is supporting a family, such as a teenager who's just gotten his first job. The teenager isn't living off his pay, so a lower pay can be given to him. Rush asks if Patrick's wife works, and he says no. Rush asks if he has friends whose wives work, and when Patrick says yes, Rush wonders why a business should pay more to someone because his wife doesn't work. Is this fair to someone whose wife does work? Patrick says he's talking only about the minimum wage, but Rush says this concerns the "livable wage." Rush in his career was told by a couple of employers that he wasn't going to get a raise because he didn't have a family, and he's wondered why this would have anything to do with his pay. Patrick says the minimum wage could be raised only for the sole wage-earner of a family, while everyone else's stays the same. That way Republicans could embrace the Democrats' minimum wage increase for working families, while denying it to those others. Rush says this is all unnecessary, and Republicans should not start playing politics and pandering to people on the basis of some "moral" living wage. This is a bad road to get off on, and the invasions of privacy that would be needed to support this idea would be horrendous, given how massive databases would be needed on every worker, their children, their wives or husbands, etc. Also, this sort of thing is not needed to counter the Democrats on the minimum wage - Republicans have found a way to do this, by espousing the basic principles of conservatism. However, no Republicans seem to want to stand up for those principles and defend them, instead preferring to support some "fuzzy-wuzzy entanglements" that depend on the federal government getting more and more involved in everyone's life. This, as the last 40 years have shown, is a sure recipe for disaster. Rush thanks Patrick for calling. *BREAK* Phone Bobby from Yorktown, VA Bobby says raising the minimum wage hurts the productive workers, and it's no different than how those working on government contracts are forced to pay a set wage to their workers, regardless of their productivity. The high productivity worker gets paid the same as the low productivity worker, and raising the minimum wage forces a business to give both types of workers a raise, whether they have earned it or not. Rush says this is exactly right but conservatives cannot expect to get much support by using such an esoteric argument. People are simply reacting too emotionally to this issue for such logic to be accepted. Rush thanks Bobby for calling. *BREAK* THIRD HOUR Items o A new book, "The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point" by Haynes Johnson and David Broder quotes President Clinton as saying that "major mistakes in the scope and timing of his health care reform plan doomed his prize domestic program from the start and led to the rout of the Democratic party in the 1994 election." Clinton blames himself in the book for the damage done to his administration and his party, and he thinks he called for too much change, too fast. Saying he should have taken an incremental approach, Clinton admitted "this is entirely my mistake, no one else's." Rush thinks this admission is obviously the result of focus group research that found the American people would forgive Clinton if he admitted his mistakes. It also shows how confident the administration is, for them to think they can admit their mistakes and still get the credit. o A survey, "Victim Costs and Consequences: A New Look" by the Justice Department found that crime costs Americans at least $450 billion a year. According to the Associated Press, which reported the following based on a NY Times story: "The survey is the first to try to measure the cost of child abuse and domestic violence along with crimes like murder, rape and robbery. It is also the first to estimate the mental health care costs and the reduced quality of life for victims of crime, the Times reported in Monday editions." Some people might ask why the Clinton administration came up with such a survey, but the following quote by Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY) should shed some light on the matter: "The estimate of $450 billion for crime is an amazing number which tells us just how heavy a burden that crime and the fear of crime place on our society. This report should change the debate because it shows while most people think a $1 billion anti-crime program is a large number, it's really just a drop in the bucket." Thus, Schumer is using this new survey as an excuse to spend more federal money to fight crime. A mere billion dollars is just peeing in the wind, as far as Schumer is concerned, and this, like the previous bit, shows the Democrats are not only confident but on the offense. o Last week Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) proclaimed that the 1996 elections are over and that the Democrats won a clean sweep; only a "cataclysmic event" would keep Clinton from being re-elected and the Democrats from winning back control of Congress. Rush would thus like to help the news divisions of the major networks save some money by making a simple suggestion: since the 1996 elections are a done deal, the networks shouldn't even cover them or the campaigns. After all, if the elections are a non-story, why should the networks' news divisions, which are losing money anyway, spend a dime on covering them? In fact, the networks could just get their coverage of the Democratic victory parties in the can now so they could have them ready to go in November. Further evidence that the Democrats have won it all is on the front page of the NY Times, which quotes Algore as saying he's running for the Presidency in the year 2000. Algore and his advisers had long had an unspoken fact not to talk about his run for the Presidency in the year 2000, but yesterday Algore admitted to Richard Burke of the NY Times "yeah, I'm running." Thus, Algore knows the 1996 elections are done and over with, and he's already planning for the "next" election. This sort of arrogance and confidence is a true sight to behold. o Louis "Calypso Louie" Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, told the New Yorker magazine that he thinks he has some Jewish blood in him because his father's ancestors may have been Portuguese Jews in Boston. He also said he loved hearing the Jewish cantors while growing up. There are obviously a lot of "Oy Ve's" going on within the Jewish community right now, but maybe Farrakhan can help Marlon Brando out of his current problems with the Jewish community, given that Farrakhan's been saying what Brando said for years. Phone Mike from Virginia Beach, VA Mike wants to set the minimum wage to $17.30 an hour because this would fit in perfectly with Steve Forbes' single-rate "flat tax." A family of four making $36,000 wouldn't pay any taxes under this plan, and this works out to $17.30 an hour for a 40-hour work week. Since the government should set only one rate for family finances, i.e. the tax rate, this is what should be emphasized in Republican commercials. The single-rate tax needs to become law and the Republicans need to press this point, shifting the focus from the minimum wage to taxes because lowering taxes is the only way to put Americans more money in their pockets. Talking about the minimum wage is just talking about a Democratic issue, and Republicans come off as saying only "me, too." They need to change this focus, but the Republican National Committee cannot carry this burden alone. Typically only one out of two of those eligible to vote actually end up voting in November, and this means that the chances are that two out of every three people known to Rush's listeners won't be voting. Those listeners have to go out, get these people registered to vote, and get them to vote in November. This is the only way to counteract the Democrats. Rush doesn't think this is the only way this problem can be solved, although it's a good grassroots strategy. However, such grassroots politics takes a while to put together and it times take for them to bubble up on Election Day. What's missing right now is conservatives standing up and saying what they believe in and expressing their conservative principles. Perhaps conservatives think everyone knows what they stand for and that they don't need to keep repeating themselves, or maybe conservatives are just totally demoralized and just want to go home. No matter what the reason, all it would take is for conservatives to stand up for what they believe and give people something to vote for. The Democrats will do this, coming up with some platform full of innocuous things, such as jobs and clean air and water. Who's going to oppose jobs or clean water? The Democrats' "principles" won't mean anything but they'll use them to misdirect people from their real goal of government, with the Democrats in charge of jobs, the environment, etc. Republicans cannot run against someone who's "for jobs" or "for clean water and clean air," so they have to put forth their own conservative agenda and try to get control back of the debate. Right now, though, they simply are not stating philosophically what they believe. *BREAK* Phone Dave from Worcester, MA Dave can understand why Republicans are buckling under on the minimum wage, given that they are being negatively portrayed throughout the media. The press is relentless in how it's maligning them and characterizing them as negative through and through. Rush asks what Dave thinks the Republicans should do, and he says they shouldn't shut up, but it's understandable why they're caving in on the minimum wage because it's all they can do. Rush disagrees - as a realist and conservative, he knows that any conservative going to Congress has to know that the mainstream press will be hostile from the very beginning. This is not fair since the press is not nearly as hostile to liberals, but that's the way things are and conservatives have to deal with it. That's why when Rush talked to the Republican freshmen in December, 1994 he warned them not to get caught up in trying to please or accommodate the press. Even Newt Gingrich warned Republicans that dealing with a hostile press is part of the package, and you cannot deal with a hostile press by caving in to them. The press won't praise Republicans for "growing" and "changing their minds," but will rather focus on how they caved. Last night CNN did an entire hour on the Contract with America and how Republicans have failed to implement it. The facts of life, though, is that the press is anti-conservative and Republicans have to deal with it; if Rush had the same attitude as the conservatives in Washington are exhibiting, he'd either leave the show or get a liberal cohost, inviting in his critics with the hope they'd stop criticizing him. Phone Mary from Toledo, OH Mary says Rush has been an inspiration for her, especially as he persevered in radio despite his failures along the way. She thinks the minimum wage should be put on the backburner right now because there are more important issues to discuss. Also, the minimum wage is just a beginning point for workers, and that's why it should stay where it is because there has to be an incentive for people to do better. Rush agrees and thanks Mary for calling. *BREAK* Phone Rose from Oshkosh, WI Rose is worried about what increasing the minimum wage will do to inflation, and how those living on fixed incomes will fare. Rush says a higher wage will put an upward pressure on inflation, but the one thing he wants to focus upon when it comes to the minimum wage is that it's an ideal issue on which conservatives can make a stand. If conservatives cannot explain why raising the minimum wage is bad for America, then how will they be able to explain anything else they want to do? Granted, the economics education of Americans is poor, and right now it seems that people care only about some vague idea of fairness. The American people also seem to have decided that the role of government is to see to it that people are treated fairly throughout life. Republicans, though, should be able to show that the last 40 years have demonstrated that this sort of government always fails. There's been a War on Poverty for 30 years, but it has not reduced poverty at all. Government tinkering and involvement has not been able to fix the problems of the poor, and in fact have arguably made things worse for these people. Republicans were able to articulate this message very well in the 1994 campaign and throughout 1995, but now it seems that Republicans have given up that message. Instead, Americans are turning to government every time something goes wrong. The minimum wage, though, in any case is a bogus issue to begin with - nobody complained about the minimum wage until the Democrats started complaining about it. Nobody cared about raising the minimum wage until the Democrats started whining about how unfair it was; had the people been polled several months ago about this, they would never have mentioned the minimum wage as even number ten on the list of top ten problems facing Americans. People are thinking about the minimum wage now only because Democrats have made it an election-year issues. This issue needed to be discussed on its merits, such as how it will increase inflation and unemployment, but Rush suspects this would not do any good right now. The more important point about all this is that conservatives in Congress are not opposing the increase in the minimum wage, which makes Rush wonder what has happened to the conservative revolution. This is why he's considering a trial separation from the Republican party. Phone Chris from Santa Clara, CA Chris has read a rumor in the papers that Bob Dole might support a minimum wage increase, but Rush says Dole himself said this yesterday on "Face the Nation." Chris, though, says if Dole can tie this issue to the balanced budget and stick with it then it could be a winning issue; Clinton will either sign the whole package or he will veto the minimum wage increase. Rush says recent experience teaches him that Republicans will load up the minimum wage bill with tax cuts, welfare reform, spending cuts, etc. and the Democrats will scream bloody murder about it. The press will conduct polls showing that the public doesn't think Republicans should be playing political games like this with people's lives and incomes, and Republicans will end up caving once again, giving the Democrats everything they want, without getting anything in return. Clinton will then sign the minimum wage bill and take all the credit for not just it but for his masterful leadership in outmaneuvering the Republicans. This is what has happened before in the past three months, so Rush can see it happening again. Dole has tried to hold his people together in the Senate, as had Gingrich in the House, but they have failed, all because Republicans in Congress are paying attention to the polls. Rush thanks Chris for calling. Phone Ken from Knoxville, TN Ken wants to thank Rush because he's been listening to the EIB Network for three years and for most of that time has been a "fuzzy-headed conservative" who didn't vote because candidates such as Bob Dole weren't conservative enough for him. However, thanks to Rush he registered to vote again and will be voting this fall for Bob Dole. Ken thinks Dole's character and sincerity will come through and blow Clinton away. Rush hopes Ken is right, but the Democrats are already counting their chickens for the 1996 elections and are planning the Gore Campaign for 1996. Time will tell who's right and Rush thanks Ken for calling. *BREAK* Phone Jay from Marlton, NJ Jay thanks Rush for standing up for the American people and telling the Republicans what they need to do. It's completely wrong that they are supporting the minimum wage and the Republican revolution could die because of it. Rush says he's not sure that the revolution isn't already dead - the only explanation he can come up with is that Dole's winning the nomination has depressed a lot of Republicans and conservatives. Hopefully they'll go through this and get out of it, with their sense of self-preservation taking over, and conservatives will go back to talking once again about conservative principles, reigniting the Republican revolution, perhaps dragging Dole along. On the other hand, it could be some conservatives have, in a spirit of sour grapes, decided to let Dole define the Republican revolution from this point on. If so, the conservative agenda will end up being articulated by those outside of the Republican leadership, by people such as Rush and others, and it's debatable how much impact this can have. Phone Don from Yuba City, CA Don says Republicans have to take the lead on the minimum wage and stop the Democrats from talking about how a family cannot support themselves on the minimum wage. This is absurd, especially since the minimum wage is making it impossible for many people to hire someone to mow their yard, wash the car, or do other odd jobs around the house; the minimum wage has to be increased. Rush agrees but the minimum wage is going to be increased; it's too late to stop that. Don says Republicans still have to take the lead to show why it's a bad idea; the average American has to be educated. Rush says Congress has already decided it's going to pass this bill - Dole basically admitted this yesterday. Don says this doesn't mean the fight is over - the minimum wage will come back again as an issue, so Republicans have to take the lead to enlighten the people about this issue. Rush says the Republicans would ask how they can reach the American people, and Don says the Republicans have to take the statistics and show who is really earning the minimum wage. Republicans have to show that increasing the minimum wage will keep people out of the job market. Rush says the Republicans don't know how to get this message to the people, and Don says shows like Rush can start. Rush, however, says his show obviously is not enough - his is the most listened-to radio show in the country, but that still leaves 230 million Americans who don't hear it. Don says the Republicans can put together some educational videotapes to distribute, but they have to do something to get the word out. The "Clinton Chronicles" video, for example, is doing well. Rush, though, says such videotapes have been out there for months and they don't seem to be working. All the attempts by the anti- Clinton people haven't been working, or at least the Republicans in Congress don't think they are working, which is why they've caved on the minimum wage issue, which otherwise would have been a perfect vehicle for them to explain a fundamental principle of the conservative movement. Rush thus doesn't know how Republicans can get the message out or get through to some people who seem to be deaf to such issues. Obviously liberals have had a lot of success in brainwashing people over 40 years of liberal rule and Republicans aren't having any success getting through to them. Phone Al from Seattle, WA Al is a lonesome dittohead in ultraliberal Seattle, and he wonders what is the matter with the Republicans in Washington. They should be standing up for what they got elected to do in 1994. Rush says Republicans evidently are convinced they would lose this year if they do that, but Al notes that Republicans won't get any votes by caving in. George Bush thought he'd get the minority vote by prosecuting the four cops who beat Rodney King, but it didn't do him any good. Similarly, Republicans can't get any Democratic votes by voting for the minimum wage; they'd do a lot better by sticking to their guns. Rush says this is a question everyone is asking - why are Republicans abandoning their base and principles, jumping ship to the Democrats? Obviously there's no good answer to this because the question keeps getting asked. *BREAK* Phone Larry from Alaska Larry says the Democrats have used the minimum wage before to build their voter base, so Republicans in Congress should not be faulted for trying to do the same thing now, taking a page from the Democratic books. Rush said this would be the case if Republicans came up with this initiative, but they didn't; instead, the Democrats proposed increasing the minimum wage, and after a little fight the Republicans caved. The Republicans will not get any credit for caving in on the minimum wage - when the bill gets signed, the press will still write about how Clinton masterfully outmaneuvered the Republicans and brought them to heel, securing a major step forward in living standards for minimum wage workers. Republicans will not get one drab of credit for this. In fact, they won't get Democratic votes for doing it, and Republican voters will be less likely to vote for them again. What Republicans are doing in this is pure folly. Phone Hal from Panama City, FL Hal recently retired from working for a Fortune 500 company overseas, after having lived under socialism and dictatorships, and he's found that the minimum wage is a very socialist idea. Eva Peron did this 25 years ago, giving cooks, waiters, and everyone else at the bottom of the ladder a 2,000% increase; the result of these policies can be seen in Argentina's current sad state. Rush, though, sarcastically notes that Peron got a play and musical written about her, and now Madonna is starring in a movie about her. Hal agrees these are "wonderful accomplishments" but the bottom line is that in a free market the government has no power to tell businesses how much to pay their employees; the government, after all, is not paying the bill. Rush says this is why he's been talking about the minimum wage as an unfunded mandate - if Democrats want to increase the minimum wage, let them pay for it using an Earned Income Tax Credit or something similar.