Americans are getting squeezed (FNC)
This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," March 25, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GLENN BECK, HOST: I don't know about you, I am so excited. I mean, every American is on the verge of having everlasting life on Earth with perfect health in perpetuity.
OK, slight exaggeration. But slight, really slight. Just about that one.
Hopes are high, though, right? I mean, this is the president who promised this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and give jobs to the jobless. This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Wow! Wow! Thank you, oh messiah. It sounds great!
Unfortunately, it's not working that way. Remember the days back when this guy told us unemployment would top out at 8 percent — tops. Yes, he's kind of wrong on that one.
Our country is under constant pressure. And despite the soaring promises of health care, Americans feel it.
The latest Fox News show — Fox News poll shows this: Is it possible for the nation's economy to collapse? Seventy-nine percent say yes. As somebody who said this has been coming for about five years, I'm telling you, these numbers five years ago were not like this. I bet they were reversed. Eighteen percent, no, it never could — you people are insane.
You think the economy could collapse. Seventy-eight percent say yes — 78 percent.
The government, the federal government — is it too big restricting freedom? Sixty-five percent say yes; 30 percent — 30 — are comfortable with the size and the role of the government. That's not — that's bipartisan. That's putting this country in a vise, OK?
Sixty-five percent believe the government is too big in restricting freedoms. All this tension squeezes us, squeezed from both sides. Half of the country — not even half, there's third of the country think we should continue on the same path, keep spending and hope that we come out of it. The other side says, if you keep doing that, it's going to get much, much worse.
Moody's says the situation of the world's biggest economies requires countries like the U.S. to make, quote, "fiscal adjustments of a magnitude that in some cases will test social cohesion." What does that mean? That's society breaking down, that's the vise. We're talking about riots or chaos, not here but all over the world.
But yet, Moody's is still recommending those fiscal adjustments. Why? Because waiting, quote, "is no less risky." No less risky than the loss of social cohesion? Are you kidding me?
Why would you ever — why would you ever want to risk this? Ever? Why would you entertain doing anything that would risk this?
The only way you would do it is if you're insane, you're a radical, you're a revolutionary or because the other option is actually worse.
How do you avoid all of this? Is to make tough, smart, sober decisions and try not to inflame things, and yet, our leaders seem to be doing exactly the opposite. All we see is the water starting to boil. I mean, the tea kettle is starting to boil and the government is — they're turning up the heat and you're like, hey, hey!
They see the pressure building and they turn that flame higher and higher. What is that flame? What is that vise that they are tightening? I'll show it to you, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: America is angry. The progressives in Washington, the liberal Democrats, they've always said, well, we should understand those in the Middle East and we should talk to them. And yet, they don't want to do that with the Tea Party members. They don't want to do that with about 60 percent.
We are angry because America opposed this health care bill in essentially every single poll taken, usually well into double digits.
But the president and Congress didn't care. And they have used every underhanded legislative trick in the book and they passed it. Sixty- two percent of Americans want the fight against in health care bill — 62 percent — want it to continue.
But the debate is getting shutdown because there's hate — hate speech. Then, they've decided that they are going to move immediately into immigration reform. Do they not remember — or do they — what happened to this country last time they tried this in — what was it — 2004? Do you remember what — we were almost ripped apart. And that's when times were good.
Pensions now are out of control. States are being hit particularly hard. Can you sell your house? Do you have a job? How is your pension? Is it holding up? A vise —
Chris Christie is now trying to make pensions in New Jersey more reasonable. Something's got to give here. Surely, the unions won't make his life difficult because of that fight.
California not only can't pay for its pensions; it can't pay its responsibility back to the taxpayers; it can't pay for its prisoners. So they want to reduce the amount of prisoners in the state by 6,500 all by next year — 6,500 prisoners, just release them out into the streets. What could possibly go wrong in a state with the nation's highest recidivism rate?
Then six years earlier than projections — six years early — Social Security is now upside down. You know they said was coming? It's here now. The system for the first time now is going to have to raid its vast stash of government IOUs sitting in West Virginia. They're going to have to open up those vaults of the bogus paper.
The government now has to go to the government and ask the government more money because the government owes the government money.
The government needs to say, "Hey, this pocket is empty. Can you get it out of this pocket?" And this pocket doesn't have any money. It's supposed to be in there, but no. There is just a note from this pocket that said, "By the way, I put that money in there and I'm going to take it back. I put it in this pocket because we need to spend it. But I'm going to ask you so make sure there's money in there."
See what is happening? What are they going to do? They are going out and they are going to run up more government debt and pay it back to this pocket so they can put it too this pocket with a reminder that this pocket has to pay in pocket back so they can pay the Chinese back.
Yes, this is sustainable. This is nuts. And they call the Tea Party-goers insane?
At the same time this is happening, there's another story. The Middle East is on fire. We've just kicked dirt into the prime minister of Israel's eyes, while Saudi — the Saudis have arrested over 100 terrorists now looking to blow up their energy facilities.
What would that do? That would drive the price of oil sky high. Hey, how would you like to add $6 a gallon gasoline on? How would that be for you?
Our leadership now is continuing to push for a cap-and-trade bill which will raise our energy prices and, of course, limit our own oil production. So let me see if I have this right: If the Saudi oilfields don't burn down to the ground, if they catch all the terrorists and nothing ever happens there, we can be dependent on them. But we are going to dry up all of our oil anyway because we're going to have a big cap-and-trade. We're not going to be able to go for that. What are they doing to us? What are they doing?
We must be independent. These pressures keep building and the vise gets tighter and tighter and tighter. There are — I was going to say easy — there are not easy long-term principles. But there are long-term principles that will solve these issues. We've talked about them at length many times. We're going to talk about them in the next few weeks. I'm going to solve some of these things.
And you've got — I'm telling you, you don't have to agree with my answer. But you've got to be behind something that makes sense.
In the shorter term, we just need to keep our heads. We need to fight hard within the rules and pray, get down on your knees and pray, pray. It is September 11th all over again except we didn't have the collapsing buildings, but we need God more than ever.
Gandhi said use truth as an anvil and a hammer: nonviolence. And you just keep pounding on that with nonviolence and you reject anything that doesn't make sense.
We can beat the issues that lie ahead of us. We can do it. But the situation is only made more difficult when our own leadership, our own Congress, our own president, is not telling us the truth and for political reasons, tightening that vise.
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