LEE: Thank you, Rush. It's a pleasure to be with you.
RUSH: Tell me and everybody else what you're trying to do because there are now people saying what you want to do can't be done because so much of the spending is locked in. I've read no, that's not true. And then, second question, I remain perplexed. I mean, you got a majority of the American people that oppose this, and I don't see the Republican Party trying to connect with them, outside of you and a couple others. So a lot of this doesn't make any sense to a whole lot of people.
LEE: That's right, it doesn't make any sense to a whole lot of people outside the Washington Beltway. You see, inside the Washington Beltway, this discussion is controversial. Outside the Beltway, Obamacare is universally despised. This is an issue, Rush, that is no longer just about Republican versus Democrat. It's no longer about liberal versus conservative. This is about Washington, DC, versus everyone else. This law is despised because it's gonna make our health care unaffordable. It's also going to make health care unfair, because the president has said he's gonna hold hardworking Americans to the line and punish them if they don't comply with the law's exacting demands, but he's gonna give a big carve-out for Big Business. Big Business doesn't have to comply. The American people shouldn't have to put up with it. The president said he's not ready to implement the law. We shouldn't fund it.
RUSH: When you say Big Business doesn't have to comply, you're talking about the one-year waiver on the employer mandate?
LEE: That's correct. The president's selectively enforcing the law in a way that he doesn't have the authority to do.
RUSH: Isn't that a tantamount admission that the law's punitive and he doesn't want it to be punitive going into an election?
LEE: Yes. It's punitive, so he looked at that aspect of the law that is the most unpopular with those who can afford lobbyists, the most unpopular with those who have contacts that can get into the White House and get an audience, and so that's what he's doing, is he's throwing this bone out there so that he doesn't get attacked as much within the business community and the lobbyist community. Meanwhile, he's throwing the rest of us out into this wasteland that is the world of Obamacare.
RUSH: Well, maybe you can help some of us understand. Even if the Republican Party does not want to be identified or known as a conservative party, they still are an opposition party. I don't understand why they're not, even if they believe that what you want to do can't be done, why not make a stand? Why not stand up and say, "This is who we are. This is what we're for. This is why this is bad. This is why we want to repeal it for you." There's a majority of the American people waiting to be connected with. Why this capitulation with the Democrats, Senator?
LEE: The fact that that question is so difficult to answer is itself a great source of frustration to me, because, look, we have a majority of the representatives in the House and a sizeable plurality of the senators who are against Obamacare, have been since day one. In the House they voted 39, 40, 41 times to repeal it. So those of us who say we're against it, those of you who recognize this law's going to be bad for the American people, ought to be willing to stand up and say, "You know, one of the few powers that we still guard jealously within Congress is the power of the purse." We should simply refuse to fund Obamacare. We want to fund the rest of government, just not Obamacare.
The Rest of the Interview: RushLimbaugh.com
