Are corporations people? Bachmann won’t say

Photo: The UpTake

Rep. Michele Bachmann said she had no comment when asked whether corporations are people, as the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled. She did say that pending health care reform legislation is “regulation on steroids” and decried “the dirty way that health care bill was put together, behind closed doors.”

Bachmann appeared at the State Capitol in St. Paul Monday with Minnesota Republican leaders to preview GOP proposals in Congress for ground rules on the health-care debate (video via The UpTake).

Pressed by a reporter about her repeated labeling of health-care reform as a government takeover, Bachmann explained that because the legislation contains federal mandates, “that is a tax,” and that other government involvement in medical decision-making meant that “that in effect is a takeover.”

Next question: Isn’t that simply government regulation? Bachmann’s response: “It’s regulation on steroids, to the point of government takeover.”

There will be “a tremendous cost to Minnesota if this government takeover goes forward,” Bachmann warned.

One of those costs is in jobs, she said. She repeated her oft-made claim that Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, estimated health care reform would cost 5.5 million jobs. Politifact found that wasn’t what Romer has said. Instead she has predicted a half-million new jobs from health-care reform.

To Bachmann, news that Wal-Mart will farm out the jobs of more than 10,000 workers at Sam’s Club is dire: “When Sam’s Club employees are being cut, you know that the heart of country, our economy, is hurt and in pain.”