By Tom Allison

Rush: CBO score is “meaningless”

There were two main themes of The Rush Limbaugh Show today: the Congressional Budget Office's “bogus” preliminary estimate of the effects of the reconciliation health care bill and President Obama's “defensive” and “aimless” interview with Brett Baier on Fox News' Special Report. Rush was convinced that CBO's preliminary estimate of the bill was “meaningless,” “a giant PR scam,” “a fraud,” “phony,” and “a sham.” As evidence, Rush complained that no one's seen the bill and “the bill doesn't exist,” an argument that Rush could no longer make by the end of the show.

Rush concluded that it's best “not to get caught up” with the CBO's numbers. Despite his numerous explanations of why his listeners shouldn't pay attention to the score, a plausible explanation for Rush's misdirection could be that the bill is actually estimated to reduce the federal budget deficit by $138 billion over the next 10 years and by $1.2 trillion in the decade after that.

Rush praised Brett Baier for doing a “great, great job” with his interview of Obama last night, claiming it was the first time in Obama's presidency that he was challenged. Rush described Obama during the interview as “on the defensive,” “aimless,” “angry,” “outclassed,” “rattled,” “uncalm,” “uncollected,” “stuttering,” and “petulant.” Rush said that Obama made clear that he “doesn't know or care” what's in the health care bill. Rush said that Obama was “lying through his teeth” throughout the interview and argued that Baier knew more about health care legislation than Obama did.

Rush's falsehoods about Louisiana Medicaid fix

Later Rush got to the meat of the Baier interview, discussing Obama's statement that Hawaii is eligible for the same Medicaid reimbursement fix that Louisiana is getting. Rush also suggested that Mississippi wasn't eligible for the fix, stating that “Mississippi has a Republican governor ... and they ran around putting themselves back together on their own -- for the most part. They had a lot of help.” Louisiana also has a Republican governor.

Rush also said that “no one can tell us what our premiums are going to be” once the bill passes. Actually, the CBO estimated that under the Senate bill, premiums in the group market would remain unchanged and could decrease, and that most individual market enrollees would receive enough subsidies so the premiums that they pay would decrease by “56 percent to 59 percent” on average.

Picking up on the National Council of La Raza's opposition to the current state of health care reform legislation, Rush characterized the group's objections as being that the bill isn't “liberal enough” and that there are “not enough transfer payments,” and “not enough giveaways for our people.”

Given that it was something that the Obama administration accomplished today, Rush criticized the H.I.R.E. Act jobs bill by saying that it “doesn't create any jobs” and has “phony small business tax cuts”

Political Activism

Rush repeated his recent calls for his audience to call Congress, this time adding his own idea of “stimulus” -- asking his callers to flood Congress with packages saying, “Vote no,” on Saturday.

Rush hosted Rep. Paul Ryan to drum up opposition to the health care bill. Rush highlighted the concerns of a group of senior citizens who he said are about to see their Medicare “gutted.” Rush also added that the public needs to accept that federally funded abortions are going to be in the bill, and that the Planned Parenthood is “giddy” about “all the new abortions that there are going to be.”

Rush read from Fred Barnes' column in The Wall Street Journal that argued that the passage of health care reform will be only the beginning.

Rush also played Sen. Tom Coburn's threat that Republican senators will attempt to block any rewards to on-the-fence congressmen who are persuaded to vote for health care reform.

Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights

LIMBAUGH: It's a total sham. It is a 100 percent fraud. A giant sham. And it has once again, ladies and gentlemen, exposed the media and the Democrat Party -- who are aligned on the side of ruin of the United States of America. I'm talking about the CBO number that everybody started running with today before it had been officially released.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I can't wait for this one. Because, folks [laughing] I don't know -- I really don't know whether he's this ignorant and naive or whether is just lying. It's a toss-up. The guy's not as bright as everybody thinks. This provision for the Louisiana Purchase, do you know what -- what is this Hawaii earthquake crap? Do you know what the provision for the Louisiana Purchase is, do you know how it's written? I'm going to have to paraphrase it, it says: “If your state has had a natural disaster in the month of August or September of whatever year Katrina happened, then you qualify for an exemption from added Medicare mandates.” It was written specifically to apply only to Louisiana.