He’s arguably the most powerful voice in the modern conservative movement, and after congressional Republicans’ apparent failure to wield their control of both chambers in order to advance a conservative agenda, he’s fast becoming the Republican Party’s biggest enemy.
“You know, we don’t even need a Republican Party if they’re gonna do this,” Rush Limbaugh said of the spending and taxation deal worked out between Republicans and Democrats this week. “You know, just elect Democrats, disband the Republican Party, and let the Democrats run it, because that’s what’s happening anyway.”
The top-rated talk radio host’s rant led off the first hour of his Thursday afternoon program.
Accusing the GOP of not standing up to President Obama and congressional Democrats, he went on to suggest there couldn’t have been any other outcome. In refusing to take any path that may lead to a government shutdown, or to impeach the president for extra-constitutional behavior, he said Republicans surrendered before there was ever a legislative fight to be had.
“[T]here were no obstacles in Obama’s way and there were no obstacles in the way of the Democrat Party,” he said. “When you surrender the power of the purse—and that’s the primary power the House of Representatives has. Not a penny of money can be spent in this country by this government without the House of Representatives authorizing it.”
“Obama can spend all he wants, but if the House doesn’t give him the mechanism, he can’t spend any of it,” he added. “But the Republicans squandered that. They gave up the power of the purse. The reason they did that is because for some inexplicable reason, they are literally paranoid and scared.”
Limbaugh said Republicans’ fears aren’t entirely to blame for the capitulation over the budget. He also blamed some GOP congressmen’s ties to K Street lobbyists, who pushed for a lot of the spending found in the new deal:
“A lot of it is Republican fealty and loyalty to some of their donors. Some people today looking at this, and this is 2,009 pages. It’s said to be a spending bill. Among the things that it does, it fully funds Obamacare.
“It fully funds Planned Parenthood. That, to me, is unforgivable, with everything now known about what goes on behind closed doors at Planned Parenthood, and that the federal government, led by a Republican Party, sees fit to pay for it.
“It is beyond comprehension, and it is a total squandering of moral authority to fully fund the butchery at Planned Parenthood. This spending bill fully pays for Obama’s refugee plans, fully.
“This spending bill, this budget bill quadruples the number of visas Obama wants for foreign workers. This is even a slap at American union workers. Not the leaders. The union leaders seem to be in favor of it, but blue-collar people, known as working people, have been sold down the river along with everybody else here.
“This spending bill even fully pays for every dime asked for by Obama on all of this idiocy that’s tied up into climate change. Everything Obama wanted, everything he asked for, he got. You go down the list of things, it’s there.”
Limbaugh tied this “betrayal” of the voters—who turned out in the 2010 and 2014 mid-term elections to give Republicans their largest majority in Congress since the Civil War—to the rise of billionaire Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. In fact, he said, “betrayal” doesn’t even cover what happened.
“This was out-and-out, in-our-face lying, from the campaigns to individual statements made about the philosophical approach Republicans had to all this spending,” he said. “There is no Republican Party!”
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