Rush Limbaugh: Washington is a 'rigged game'

Rush: Washington is a 'rigged game'

'Rush On the Record': Limbaugh on fracking and why he believes the government doesn't want to combat waste and fraud

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," August 2, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: You have never heard this before, Rush Limbaugh telling us in the eyes of Washington, waste and fraud are no big deal. Once again, here's Rush Limbaugh.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAN SUSTEREN: Why is there no enthusiasm to go after waste and fraud? We did a story last night in which we're paying money to dead farmers. And I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat, I cannot understand how that is not seized upon, upon a politician and run with it. I think it was popular.

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: And I would, too. But see, I mean, the answer to that again is Washington doesn't want to find the waste and fraud. Not really. Maybe a couple of isolated examples, and they can say, Here, look what I did, I'm shutting this down. But they don't want to. They don't want to make the government smaller.

I'll give you an example of the way this works, I think. And I wish I'd have known this 25 years ago, 30. For all of our lives, ever since the late '60s, early '70s, we've been hearing, We've got to stop our dependence on foreign oil, right? We've got to stop this. We've got -- the global warming debate has been about it, but we've got to stop importing so much oil. Every party, Republicans, Democrats, it's been a mantra.

Well, there's an oil boom going on in one of the Dakotas. I always get confused which one, fracking! Fracking has made this country entirely energy-independent. If we would go get every oil reserve that we've got, that we could get right now with fracking, we wouldn't need a barrel from the Middle East.

Why aren't we doing it? Why is Obama not OKing the Keystone pipeline? Obama himself said we've got to rid ourselves of dependence on foreign oil. Republicans have said it. Why aren't we getting our own oil? Why are there restrictions on getting our own oil on federal lands and efforts made on private lands? Why?

Prince al-Waleed bal-whatever his name is the other day, starts talking, You guys continue fracking in the United States, we in the Middle East are going to have a big problem with -- they don't mean it when they say it, Greta!

So when they talk about ridding the country of waste and fraud, they say it. They think people want to hear it, but when it comes to doing it, doesn't happen, does it. Washington doesn't want to get smaller. Washington doesn't want to take itself out of people's lives. Washington does not want to reduce its power or its size.

VAN SUSTEREN: But waste? I mean -- I mean, like, paying dead people? I mean, how could -- I don't get how anyone could think paying dead people is a good idea.

LIMBAUGH: They don't think it's a good idea ... they don't think there's anything wrong with it! There's -- it's no big deal. We're not talking about that much money. It's like the foreign aid budget. It really isn't that much money. They don't think -- Greta, at the end of the day, they don't think we've got a debt crisis!

I heard one of them said the other day, Look, you know, I've been hearing all my life how the national debt is going to destroy this country. Well, I'm now 65 years old. The national debt hasn't destroyed this country. I think it -- I forget who it was.

National debt, $17 trillion, up $6 trillion since Obama. Here you have the people who make this country work, the hearts and the backbone of this country are scared to death what's happening because they don't think their kids and their grandkids are going to have any opportunity to acquire wealth. They don't think the education system's going to treat them properly, that there isn't going to be a private sector economy big enough to grow enough to cut it up in enough ways that a lot of people acquire wealth (INAUDIBLE) simple contentment and prosperity.

And it is getting smaller! The government's snapping it up. That's what health care's all about. One sixth of the economy's gone! Government just took it. They don't know anything about health care. What's Obama -- why -- why do we invest in Obama to run health care, energy? What does he know? He doesn't done diddley-squat! But yet people -- he's the expert! Why? Because he cares more.

Say why does -- what does Washington know about any of this? They don't know diddley-squat about it. Yet we invest on them to have total control and power over it. So waste and fraud, debt, American people scared to death of it, Washington, no big deal. Bernanke keeps printing. They keep buying stock and securities with it, show the economy's growing. Everything's fine.

And the next time there's a crisis like 2008, they'll go through the same rigmarole and they'll give us 24 hours to fix it or the end of the world could happen. It's a rigged game. It just -- it's -- and it's designed to keep Washington functioning as it is and keep Washington big and to prevent -- lookit, when you -- in politics, when you control something, you don't want to share it. You don't want to give it away.

And I -- don't misunderstood me. This is all a political battle. I think it should take place in the arena of ideas and the arena of politics. I'm not -- I'm not casting criminal motives on anybody. This is all political.

But there's no pushback to it from the Republican Party side. That's my main objective. So they must be complicit with some of it.

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