Numbers game

Rush Limbaugh:

Now, here are some numbers for you: On January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 12,621. The unemployment rate on January 3rd, 2007 was 4.6%. The gross domestic product, the economic output for the previous quarter was 3.5%. The economy had just set a record of 52 straight months of job creation: 52 straight months of new jobs every month in the 52 months prior to January 2007. Twenty-six million Americans were on food stamps on January 3rd, 2007.

That number has doubled now. The Social Security program took in something in the neighborhood of $100 billion more than it paid out in 2007. The national debt was approaching $9 trillion. What is it now? Well, the Dow is about the same. It's over 12,000 to 13,255, but that's just recently. For most of the past years the Dow was way down and people were in panic over it. The unemployment rate in January 2007 was 4.6%. Today it's 8.3%, and actually in the 9%'s. GDP in January 2007 was 3.5%. Now it's 1.8%.

In January 2007, the economy had just set a record of 52 straight months of job creation. We're into three straight years of job losses since Obama took office. The Social Security program is now spending more than it takes in, and the national debt is approaching $17 trillion. It was $9 trillion in January of 2007. And four out of the five years -- four out of the last five years -- Democrats have had majorities in the legislative and executive branches. There is no intellectual case that can be made that Republicans are the authors of all this spending or the reason for the economic collapse.

There isn't one Republican policy that's been implemented here, not one conservative policy that's been implemented! And Social Security, for the first time ever, is spending more than it is taking in. We have a $16 trillion national debt. GDP is 2% at best. (It's really around 1.5% and falling.) Our debt is rising. There's no way -- it's not mathematically possible, it's not politically true, it is not factually accurate -- to say that all of this decline (all the bad news) has anything to do with conservatives or Republicans.

They just haven't had enough power, and they haven't had the ability to stop any of this. Now, some of you might say (impression), "Well, Rush, it's not that they don't have the ability. They don't have the guts!" Well, that may be true, too. But regardless, they haven't been able to stop it even if they had wanted to. We can argue about whether they want to or not another day. But even if they'd wanted to, they haven't been able to.