Hey Rush, Get Off Welfare
Listen to Ralph Nader’s audio message here
According to press reports, Rush Limbaugh will be making $38 million a year.
For eight years.
Rush is making this money by being a radio talk show host.
On public property.
That would be - the public airwaves.
Owned by the American people.
For which Rush - and his affiliated companies - pay no rent.
Rush Limbaugh is on welfare.
Corporate welfare.
The public airwaves belong to the American people.
The Federal Communications Commission is supposed to be our trustee.
The people are the landlords.
The radio and TV stations and the corporate giants who own them are the tenants.
Rush’s show is syndicated on over 650 radio stations.
Rush has enormous leverage over these stations.
They pay no rent.
And therefore, he pays no rent.
Here’s the problem:
Since the Radio Act was passed in 1927, the corporate tenants have been more organized and more powerful than the tens of millions of listeners and viewers.
The result?
Rush Limbaugh and his corporation get to use the public’s valuable property for free.
No payment of rent.
Zero.
Nada.
Nothing.
This freeloading on the backs of the American people is called corporate welfare.
Rush Limbaugh is the Kingboy of corporatist radio.
And it’s past time he set a corporatist example for his peers and -
pay rent to the American people for using their property.
It’s past time Rush Limbaugh takes himself off the corporate welfare rolls.
Rush need not wait for the FCC and Congress to do the right thing and order him to pay.
He can lead by example.
And pay voluntary rent - for the hours and hours every month Rush occupies on the hundreds of stations that carry his show every weekday.
And by the way, this fits well within Rush’s so-called conservative philosophy.
Payment of rent for the use of public airwaves owned by the American people is the conservative position.
Real conservatives oppose corporate welfare.
Note the Cato Institute’s position.
Real corporatists feed off the public trough - from the hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare gushing out of Washington, D.C. every year - your tax dollars.
So, Rush, today I ask you - which side are you on?
Freeloading?
Or paying rent for the public property you have been using free for so many years?
Today, I mailed a letter to Rush asking him to get off welfare.
The letter is posted at votenader.org.
Take a look.
And then let Rush know what you think.
You can e-mail Rush at: ElRushbo@eibnet.com
Tell him - hey Rush, I agree with Ralph Nader.
Get off welfare.
Start paying rent.
Onward
Ralph Nader
PS: We invite your comments to the blog.
