Glenn Beck Program, March 9, 2011

Guest Host:  Judge Andrew Napolitano

Is the U.S. Broke?

• The total owed by the federal government including social security, Medicare, and other entitlements is slightly larger than the total economic output of the planet.
• The current spending cuts announced by the Republicans are insignificant.
• Who is really interested in reducing spending?  The Tea party Republicans.

Guests

• Allen West (R ) FL

• Connie Mack, (R ) FL

West: 

• National Public Radio should be out in the marketplace and not supported by government funding.
• Both Democrat and Republican spending were not approved today.
• We have a problem with spending by the State Department when they are rebuilding mosques in Muslim countries.

Mack

• We need to get serious about spending cuts.
• I will not vote to increase the debt ceiling.

West

• I spent twenty-two years being a leader in the Army and I’m here to exercise that leadership here.

Presidential Leadership – Or the Lack Thereof

Guest:  Doug Schoen, Political Consultant

A video was shown of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, WV speaking on the floor of the Senate.  In this video, he blasts the President for lack of leadership on the issue of spending cuts.

Schoen:

• He is surprised that it’s taken this long for someone to call out the President.  When he worked for President Clinton, Clinton took a leadership position in the process. 
• There are things that he could do, but so far is not.
• There are twenty-three Democratic Senators that are up for reelection in 2012.  A number of them are vulnerable.  I think there are a lot of Joe Manchins out there.
• Vice President Joe Biden is out of the country on a long planned trip.  That is not good timing, for sure.
• He does not feel there will be a government shut down.
• He expects more continuing problems leading inexorably towards bankruptcy.

National Public Radio

• Vivian Schiller, NPR’s CEO has resigned.
• Ron Schiller, former NPR Fundraiser has resigned after being caught on tape calling the Tea Party racists and that NPR doesn’t need government funding.
• The Judge played a video of Ron speaking on “hidden” tape.

Health Care Law

• The Health Care Law is one step closer to being reviewed by the Supreme Court.
• The state of Main has received an exemption from the requirements of this law.

Guest:  Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, (R ) Minnesota

Bachmann

• She held up two volumes that were a copy of the Health Care bill.  Along the edge of the pages were colored tabs representing spending entries in various places in the bill where funding was pre-authorized totaling $105 billion.  There were between two dozen and three dozen colored tabs on those pages.
• The inclusion of pre-approved spending “hidden” in a bill has never been done before.  No one expected it to be there, even the Congressional Budget Office.
• Today, the state of Maine has received a waiver and does not have to comply with all the provisions.
• She wants a waiver.
• The people of Wisconsin want a waiver.
• By today, the Administration has completed 6,000 pages of regulations.  In effect, the President has been given a series of pre-approved checks.  We need to get that money back.
• The people need to call their representative and urge them to get the money back.
• The President should get on television and explain to them why he put that money in the bill that no one knew about.

Wisconsin Missing Senators

·        The Republican Senators in the Wisconsin statehouse approved a bill to fine each missing members $100/day.

·        The Judge showed a 2009 video of the NEA union Council, Bob Chanin, saying that the reason the union was effective was because of power and that every year they got dues in the hundreds of millions of dollars, not because they cared about the children, etc.

Guest: Tim Phillips, President of the Americans for Prosperity

• Unions are putting salaries, pensions and benefits above the public good.
• Their wages and benefits are larger than those working in the public sector.
• Some of the union leadership achieve power in the union through back door methods.  It’s sometimes not a very democratic process.
• One myth is that collective bargaining is a sacred right.  In fact, federal government workers do not have collective bargaining.
• Even FDR did not believe in collective bargaining for government workers.
• Another myth is that they make a financial sacrifice to work for the government.  The federal government worker receives $123,000 per year before you add in pensions and benefits.
• Both parties have been susceptible to union pressures.

Federal Communications Commission Internet Regulation

Guest: Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R ) TN

• The FCC implemented Internet access rules in December of last year without congressional approval.
• We made progress today to keep the FCC from regulating the Internet.  We passed a resolution of disapproval out of the sub-committee on a party line vote.

Closing Remarks

• If history has taught us anything, it is that presidents will do anything they think they can get away with.
• Lincoln arrested newspaper editors that went against his policies.
• Wilson had people arrested for speaking German in public.
• FDR arrested Japanese-American citizens for their ancestry.
• As a Senator, President Obama spoke out against the prison at Guantanamo.  Now, as President, he is continuing those policies he previously condemned.
• With these and other actions President Obama is acting more like a king that a President.  And you know what happened the last time we had a king.