Rush Limbaugh Blames Women Who Use Birth Control for Student Loan Debt

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:52 pm

Rush Limbaugh’s latest attempt to win back departed advertisers is to claim that student loan debt is caused by women using birth control pills.

Here is the audio from Media Matters:

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Transcript:

Recovery Threatened By Runaway Student Loan Debt — The federal student loan program seemed like a great idea back in 1965: Borrow to go to college now, pay it back later when you have a gig.” You know, folks, have you noticed a lot of ideas from 1965 seem not to have worked out? Now the student loan program is threatening “the recovery” because of all the debt. What did we have in 1965? We had the Great Society. We had the War on Poverty, all this LBJ stuff. We had the Civil Rights Act, all this stuff, in 1965.

How is it working out for us? But poor old Obama, if you read this story further you’ll find out that this is really bad for Obama. It seems like everything is threatening his reelection. I mean his recovery. Student loans, which, by the way, he now directly controls. The Obama administration took over that program. There are very few places you can go in the private sector to get a student loan. Government has most of that. Yeah, Medicare, Medicaid, enacted in 1965. What a great year. Look at all of the rotgut that happened in 1965. And how has it worked out, all these social programs?

The article says in passing here, “Lifting student debt higher and higher is the escalating cost of attending school.” Really, you think so? What else would make student debt high? Uh, how could I forget. Birth control pills. So birth control pills and tuition are causing student debt to spiral out of control and threaten the Obama recovery. “Lifting student debt higher and higher is the escalating cost of attending school.” Who woulda thought that? Man, what genius put this together? “Tuition is increasing far faster than the rate of inflation.” Yeah, and who’s in charge of this? Liberals. Isn’t the rising cost of tuition the whole problem, other than the birth control pills? Yet there’s never any criticism from Obama or the Democrats or the news media about colleges and how greedy they are.

How exactly are birth control pills increasing student loan debt? Limbaugh is hinting that all women who use birth control are deadbeat “sluts” who are having so much sex that they have to take out student loans to be able to afford their birth control pills. The pills aren’t cheap. According to Planned Parenthood they cost $15-$50 a month, but Limbaugh is ignoring the other medical uses of birth control. Not every woman who uses birth control is a sexually active college student.

As advertisers continue to depart and not return, Limbaugh’s big plan is to keep attacking women without mentioning any specific names. I am sure this passive aggressive line of attack on Sandra Fluke makes him and his listeners happy, but do they understand how completely insane they sound to the rest of the world?

Limbaugh may think that he is being the defiant bad boy, but he is still losing the war. The advertisers aren’t coming back. Rush isn’t interested in talking about the real causes of student loan debt, which include a corrupt lending system that encouraged students to borrow more than they could afford, or universities borrowing for students without any consideration for what student could pay back.

The student loan issues were caused by the same thing that caused the recession and the housing crisis. Greedy banks and Wall Street investors who were more interested in making a big profit than doing things the right way caused a problem that President Obama is trying to clean up.

These kinds of comments from Limbaugh only strengthen the resolve of the boycotters. Every time he opens his mouth and insults women, Rush Limbaugh is insuring that the boycott will never go away. Keep talking Rush, with every word your future earnings are vanishing right in front of your eyes. As long as his attacks on women continue, the advertiser boycott of Rush Limbaugh will rage on.

Image: Andy Martello

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association