Glenn Beck Program, March 10, 2011

Guest Host Judge Andrew Napolitano

Budget

• A dozen democratic senators voted with the republicans on spending cuts.
• Neither the democrat nor the republican spending cuts come anywhere near solving our spending problem.
• The debt ceiling will be reached as soon as next week.

Guest: Representative Ron Paul (R ) TX

• Only about 12 of the representatives really get the severity of the debt problem.
• I don’t see an attitude change about the welfare state, policing the world, etc.
• A lot of pressure is on Speaker Boehner.  He is having difficulty with even $6 billion in cuts.
• It’s out of control.  It’s on autopilot.
• The fund PIMCO dumped US bonds from its investment fund.
• Prices are going up and our standard of living is going down.
• Foreign policy is often what drives great nations to their knees. 
• I will introduce a sense of congress resolution next week that will prevent the President to get us involved in Libya without getting congressional approval first.

Spending Cuts

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says we are wasting billions every year with overlapping programs, but congress is having a tough time getting spending cuts.

Guests

• David Walker, CEO of Comeback America Initiative

• Representative Jason Chaffetz (R ) UT
• Senator Jeff Sessions (R0 AL

Walker

• Currently in the House, they are talking about $6 billion in cuts when the deficit problem is $1.6 trillion.
• The debt ceiling is paying for past sins.  We should raise it, but require deep spending cuts.
• What is driving the debt are the mandatory spending programs and that is not what the congress is talking about.
• PIMCO dropped the US bonds because the interest rate is too low for the risk.
• Everything has to be on the table.  The federal government has promised too much.  The structure is based on the 1950s.
• Congress doesn’t appreciate the size of the changes necessary to fix the problem.

Sessions

• I will not vote to increase the debt ceiling unless there are meaningful spending reform
• It is not hopeless.  We have to take action.
• The House proposal of $61 billion in cuts is the minimum we need to do.
• It’s a moral problem.  Don’t forget, in the 1990s we did balance the budget when they said it couldn’t be done.

Chaffetz

• The President has no credibility on this issue.
• The cuts being discussed are way too small.  We have a crisis.
• I see no will in this body to cut, cut, cut.
• Uncertainty is rampant – in taxes, in health care, on the budget for the next few months.
• The President’s point man on this issue is in Europe.  They don’t seem to be focused on this issue.

Demonstrations in Saudi Arabia

Guest:  John Hofmeister, Former President of Shell Oil

• Oil at $200 a barrel puts us into a domestic recession, if not a global recession.
• Oil hates uncertainty in the Middle East.
• 10% of the world’s   oil production comes from Saudi Arabia.
• A large demonstration with no violence will be seen as OK by the markets.
• Demonstrations with violence will probably lead to a spike in oil prices.
• Last week’s price rise is a temporary spike depending on how the Middle East plays out.
• The demand curve is only going up over the next several years, but the supply curve is flat.
• For the administration to again allow tapping resources here at home would take them recognizing reality

Wisconsin

• Wisconsin lawmakers cut public workers collective bargaining rights. 
• Now, there have been death threats.
• They showed a video of an ad featuring Michael Moore calling for student revolt.

Guests

• John Stossel, Fox New Contributor
• Pat Caddel, Pollster and Political Consultant
• Senator Ron Johnson (R ) WI

Stossel

• Michael Moore is saying that if you are rich we will put you in jail.
• This is another reason why we need economic education.
• The Left believes that economics is a zero-sum game; for someone to gain, someone else must loose.
• The WI governor’s message was inconsistent.  He said we don’t want collective bargaining – except for firefighters and police.  He should have said that we don’t want forced unionization.
• The demonstrators represent maybe 12% of the middle class.

Caddel

• We don’t educate anybody.
• This is going to get worse.  The feeling now is that the argument should be taken to the streets.
• The republicans have done a poor job of explaining.
• The culture of Wisconsin is such that you need to provide explanations of what you are doing and why.

Johnson

• This is not a fight against teachers or union workers.  This is about returning balance.
• Wisconsin has a significant fiscal problem.
• The state is constitutionally required to balance its budget.  The federal government does not.
• The federal debt this year is 1,000 times the size of the Wisconsin debt.
• All we are talking about on the republican side is what can we do to put on hard spending caps.
• We have to put on 3 or 4 or 5 straight jackets on the federal government to stop this spending madness.

Progressives

The Judge showed a video of US Uncut.

• It’s a “Progressive Tea Party” organization.
• A member was protesting at a BofA shareholder’s meeting, holding up a sign and yelling that the BofA should pay its taxes. 
• This group is the archenemy of the Tea Party movement. 
• US Uncut is about intimidation and the end of American capitalism.

Guests

• Kyle Olson, Education Action Group
• Amy Kremer, Chairman of the Tea Party Express

Kremer

• They are upset about the government bailout money going to banks.  But we know the money belongs to the individuals and companies that have made this wealth.
• They want to take it and redistribute it. 
• That is not what the Tea Party stands for.
• The progressives want more, more, more from the government.  We want less.

Olson

• This is the new Acorn.
• They are about high taxes, more regulation and intimidation.
• You will see more of what you are now seeing in Madison, WI; intimidation and death threats.

Concluding Remarks

• What’s wrong with the government is that we expect too much from it.
• It does not recognize any limitations on its power.
• It feels that whatever it does is right and proper.
• At the start of the progressive era, 100 years ago, the government began to intrude on the everyday life of Americans.  During the Wilson administration, the federal government…
• Decided what food was worthy of consumption.
• What goods trucks and trains could carry from manufacturers to market.
• What salaries employers had to pay their workers.
• What criticism of the government was acceptable in public.
• How US Senators could be elected.
• How much income you were allowed to keep.
• Whether or not you could consume alcoholic beverages.
• None of those powers was granted to the government in the Constitution.
• They sold this package to the people by labeling it “progressive” as if to suggest it is progressing, improving.  The Judge likes Thomas Sole’s definition wherein progress is like a disease and if it is progressing, it is getting worse the longer it lasts.
• In Wisconsin, unions tried to prevent senators from doing their work, at leas those that showed up.
• The problem is that that government has a monopoly on the use of force.  And you can’t avoid it, or work around it, or ignore it.
• Jefferson said, “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.”