Five Economic Questions for Obama
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," October 26, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
ANNOUNCER: This is a viewer warning. "Hannity" is only intended for common sense Americans who refused to accept government as the only answer for their problems. This program is not White House approved.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Now tonight, the Obama administration continues to wage war on the Fox News Channel. And this unprecedented power play from the White House clearly shows that this president does not want to be held accountable for his mistakes.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}So tonight, we are sending an open letter to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Now we have five very of simple questions on the economy that every American should want the president to answer.
Now first and foremost, how much national debt will our children really have to repay? Now whether it's the stimulus, omnibus spending bill, or health care reform, president has shown little regard for the trillions of dollars in debt for our children and our grandchildren will be left.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}And that brings us to our second question.
Mr. President, why hasn't the stimulus been successful? Now back in February you made this promise to Caterpillar employees in Illinois.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: It's a plan that will save or create more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years. That will ignite spending by business and consumers. And make the investments necessary for lasting economic growth and prosperity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Really? Lasting economic growth? Why then did the top economists tell Congress just last week that the stimulus has already had its greatest impact? And if the stimulus has been such a sweeping success, why do I even have to ask this third question? That be, why has unemployment continued to rise faster and higher than you promised?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now your administration said that if the stimulus passed, unemployment would remain below 8 percent, but unemployment has continued to soar and now stands at 9.8 percent, and it only appears to be a matter of time before it reaches 10 percent.
So Mr. President, when can the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs since you took office expect to go back to work?
And finally, since it's clear you will do anything to increase the role of government in all of our lives, do you believe there is anything that government regulation cannot fix?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Well, we look forward to hearing from the White House on these five very simple economic questions.
And joining me now to help explain why these questions continue to go unanswered is the author of the number one The New York Times bestseller "Catastrophe," Fox News contributor Dick Morris.
All right, good to see you. How are you?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}DICK MORRIS, "CATASTROPHE" AUTHOR: Good to see you, man.
HANNITY: All right. So there are some interesting questions.
MORRIS: First, I'm going to answer the fifth question. Government regulation cannot assist the Phillies in defeating the Yankees in the World Series.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: As a big Yankees — you know, I figured, I'm watching this whole debate over the Fox News Channel, which I think is nuts, and I think stupid strategically by the White House, and I'm thinking, all right, where are the questions on the economy? Where are the questions on —
MORRIS: Can we go through them?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}HANNITY: Yes.
MORRIS: OK. I don't.
HANNITY: Yes.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MORRIS: One of them was on the deficit.
HANNITY: Yes.
MORRIS: And the debt. The problem is, right now we're borrowing money at 3.5 percent. The lowest of all time. The normal rate is about 6, 6.5. When it comes up to 6.5 in about three years, and our debt service — our debt is what we think it's going to be then, we will be paying more money in debt service than the total personal income tax collections in the United States.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In other words, your entire 1040 form will be devoted to interest on the debt, so remember we used to talk about guns or butter, socialist defense? Now it's not that. It's guns and butter versus interest on the debt.
HANNITY: It's pretty frightening. The number is so staggering.
MORRIS: And then you question about the stimulus package and the unemployment, it's all in "Catastrophe," the book. But the basic point is that spending money does not stimulate the economy because consumers are not stupid. When they get a check from the government, they don't go out and buy a flat-screen TV.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}They pay down their credit card debt. And that was predictable. We predicted it in "Catastrophe." He didn't listened and so on.
And then his — the other question about the unemployment rate increasing. We are now at the end of the Bush recession, and we are at the beginning of a recession caused, not by the disease but by Obama's cure.
HANNITY: What is the — why lash out? I mean, because in all honesty, I was watching George Will this weekend. Boy, he had a great point. There's no precedent. How could he of all people with the fawning media coverage be complaining about media coverage?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MORRIS: Sure. Well, hunker in the bunker. What he is trying to do.
HANNITY: Hunker in the bunker?
MORRIS: Yes. That's his strategy. Hunkered down in the bunker. His strategy is to put moat around the Democratic Party. Attack everybody else as enemies. Keep everybody else out, and try to keep those 60 senators in line, as they discipline (INAUDIBLE) lines even if they marched off a cliff.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}HANNITY: Could that happen?
MORRIS: Well, I think that — it's never happened. He's trying to get it to happen. And the real question is, health care reform. If he fails to pass that, then he is finished.
HANNITY: All right. So.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MORRIS: And we.
HANNITY: Go ahead.
MORRIS: And right now it's 40 in favor of 55 opposed to health care reform. If we can move those numbers to 35-55, five points more in each direction, this package will be dead.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}HANNITY: You really think this could die? Because it was very interesting, you know, with all of this time that we have spent analyzing, you know, what the Democratic plan the government option, one CBO scoring of one bill. We've got two bills in the Senate, three bills in the House. Harry Reid comes out today says government option with the state's ability to opt out and it will include a coop.
MORRIS: Opt out if the Feds feel that they have successfully offered an alternative. The Feds can say no, Alabama, you are not doing it.
HANNITY: So it's not really an opt-out.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MORRIS: It's not really an opt-out.
HANNITY: And it's not an — an individual can't opt out.
MORRIS: Exactly.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}HANNITY: It's the state that has to opt out.
MORRIS: And this is bait and switch. In the Senate finance committee, he got Snowe, Landrieu, and Snowe and Blanche Lincoln and Conrad, some of the moderate Democrats to support it without a public option. Now he gets it out of committee, and he puts in the public option.
HANNITY: All right, so, but he still needs 50 if he's going to use the nuclear option. So first of all, there is a chance, you think, this could be defeated. You think Blanche — Blanche Lincoln. You think Lieberman. Snowe is not going to go for this.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MORRIS: And I think there's a whole — there's a bunch of those that you can get not to vote for this. The key question now is we've got the elderly against it. Can we get the under-30 voters? And.
HANNITY: They're going to pay a big price.
MORRIS: And if you go to DickMorris.com, you can learn all about how to defeat this bill.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}HANNITY: What do you make of this Gallup study today? It shows 40 percent of this country is conservative, 36 percent described themselves as moderate. Only 20 percent liberal. And this is the most liberal agenda we have seen. What do you make of those numbers?
MORRIS: The Democratic Party is right now committed to passing whatever they can pass regardless of what the public thinks of it and regardless of what the consequences are for their reelection.
You have to break that (INAUDIBLE) apart, and to do that, you need to have a strong public reaction against it. And we're on the verge of achieving that. What we need to do is to make the under 30 voters understand that they're going to have to pay up 8 to 12 percent of their income for health insurance. And if they don't, they're going to be 1,000 bucks each.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}HANNITY: You've been polling for most of your adult life. When Congress gets to 21 percent, Harry Reid is at 30 percent and Nancy Pelosi in the state of California is 34 percent, I would think that the Democratic Party should be nervous.
We're not just — we have Chris Christie coming up later. But we've got Bob MacDonald. These two gubernatorial races. He's in Virginia. And then we got this 2010 election.
MORRIS: Yes.
HANNITY: And they are ram this down America's throat, and America doesn't want this bill.
MORRIS: Yes.
HANNITY: What are the ramifications of that?
MORRIS: First of all it's critically important that Christie win. And anybody who's voting for Daggett is voting for Corzine to re-elect Corzine.
HANNITY: Daggett's the third-party candidate.
MORRIS: Yes. And I told Christie, you know, Corzine is criticizing him saying that he's too heavy? The governor may be heavier, but the taxes will be lighter.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: If in fact he's elected. All right, so any predictions about one week from tomorrow?
MORRIS: I think Christie's going to win and I think McDonnell is going to win in Virginia.
HANNITY: Is that really a vote against Obama?
MORRIS: Yes. Yes.
HANNITY: This is a referendum — these are referendum races. Even if Christie were close and doesn't pull it out, but it's close in a state like New Jersey?
MORRIS: I think Christie is going to win.
HANNITY: You think he pulls it out? That would be a huge — does that send a message to the Blue Dogs?
MORRIS: Of course, it does. And most importantly is the message that each individual voter can send by writing their senator and their congressman. On DickMorris.com., I have talking points for a letter you can send.
HANNITY: To your Web site.
MORRIS: To the Web site. Please write.
HANNITY: Dick, good to see you. Thanks.
MORRIS: On a dead tree, with a stamp.
HANNITY: It's just — you never come with an opinion. We really ought to drag it out of you every week.
MORRIS: Yes.
HANNITY: All right. Dick Morris.
— Watch "Hannity" weeknights at 9 p.m. ET!
Content and Programming Copyright 2009 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2009 CQ Transcriptions, LLC, which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, LLC'S and CQ Transcriptions, LLC's copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.