Bachmann: Glenn Beck can solve the budget deficit
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 8:34 am
Rep. Michele Bachmann was on a tear: In one of her most fiery stump speeches to date, the tea party leader told a South Carolina audience that the tax code was a “weapon of mass destruction,” that President Obama is “babying” terrorists, that the rich pay too much in taxes, that social issues like marriage and abortion cannot be put on the “back burner,” and that Fox News’ Glenn Beck can solve America’s budget deficit.
Bachmann spoke to a group of about 200 Spartanburg Republicans on Saturday evening. She was in Columbia earlier in the day and had to cancel a Friday visit with Rock Hill Republicans due to a late-night vote in the House.
“We are looking at a time of bubbles,” Bachmann said, referring to the housing and tech bubbles. She said that Americans are witnessing a “government bubble.”
“If Obama is allowed to continue what I call his ‘reign of error’ for another second term, we will be at $21 trillion in debt,” she said. “We are talking Greece territory in the greatest country in the world. We are talking Greece.”
She added, “When you add it all up — I’m a former federal tax lawyer — when you add up the tax burden on today’s kids — and I believe this is a low estimate — they are looking at in their peak years, at having 70 percent of their income to pay their tax bill.”
That’s a claim that Bachmann made at CPAC earlier this month when she claimed an even higher number — 75 percent, and according to the Washington Post, it simply isn’t true.
“The bottom line, when you ‘get out your calculator’ and add all this up: total taxes of about 25 percent, rather than the 75 percent in Bachmann’s telling,” wrote the Washington Post, which used tax experts to assist in its calculations of federal, state and local taxes. “We presented this math to Bachmann’s spokesman and are still waiting for a response.”
Bachmann blasted entitlement spending and urged reform in Social Security. “The problem is our health care welfare spending which is out of control,” she said. “The good news is we can solve this problem. It needs to be a market based approach.”
She offered up a somewhat non-traditional solution: “We need to simply tell people the facts, like Glenn Beck, with that chalkboard, that man can explain anything. I think if we give Glenn Beck the numbers, he can solve this.”
Bachmann also said there’s a business bubble because the U.S. has the “highest corporate income tax rate in the world.”
It is the tax code she blames for the “business bubble.” She said, “We need to get rid of the blood-sucking tax code. It’s got to go, just scrap the current tax code,” adding that it is “a weapon of mass destruction.”
She also said that the rich pay the most in taxes. “Don’t let people tell you that those dirty rich people don’t pay their taxes: The top 1 percent pay 40 percentof all income taxes, the top 5 percent pay 60 percent, the top 10 percent pay 80 percent,” she said. “So we need a radically new system.”
In addition to the government bubble and the business bubble, Bachmann spoke of the education bubble, decrying $44 billion in Pell grants for low-income students.
She also talked about the “family bubble.”
“The family is on a bubble right now. The rate of cohabitating couples in one year increased 13 percent,” she said. “The family is the ultimate first form and first unit in government and society.”
She added, “The bureaucrats now hate our values; there’s a war on marriage, a war on family, a war on fertility all while funding and promoting abortion.”
Bachmann continued, “We don’t need political correctness because most fundamentally I believe the building block of the family is what the government needs to do right now and support two-parent families as the foundation of our economic and social policy.”
She said for that reason, social issues need to be a priority. “We can’t put the so called social issues on the back burner while we are solving our economic challenges because the family is the solution to those challenges.”
Yet another bubble Bachmann sees is the “national security bubble,” and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the ban on gay and lesbian servicemembers repealed by the U.S. Senate in December, is one of those things that is creating the bubble.
“President Obama is applying a politically correct standard to the United States military that cannot be tolerated in our country,” she said, adding that Obama is babying jihadists.
“Our Peace Prize-winning president is very busy bowing these days to kings,” she said. “He is bending down to dictators, and he is brown-nosing the elites that are in Europe, and he’s babying the jihadists who are following Sharia-compliant terrorism.”
She continued, “He is callow and confused and inconsistent in his response to the Egyptian crisis and to the terrorist threats.”
“He’s accomplishing something no one thought was possible; he’s making Jimmy Carter look like a Rambo tough guy.”
She also called on Wisconsin school boards to consider firing the teachers who called in sick to protest a bill that eliminate some collective bargaining for state employees.
“I want to give a shout out to Scott Walker up in Wisconsin,” she said to hearty applause. She derided teachers for “calling in sick on work time, showing up to protest and they bring the kids they are supposed to be teaching.”
She added, “At minimum, they shouldn’t get paid for that time. Those school boards need to make a decision whether or not they get fired.”
She closed the speech by saying she was all in for 2012.
“And so now it’s for us. We decide. Do we go on? Or does the bubble burst? And I’ve made my decision. That’s why I’m here in South Carolina. Because I say the dream goes on,” she said. “And I’ve made a decision that I am all in to preserve the liberties to the latest generation. This dream doesn’t die with us. This dream goes on to the next generation. We have too much invested in that generation, because we are the indispensable nation of the world.”
Bachmann concluded, “So it is our time and it’s about 2012 and I’m in, and so I ask you tonight, are you in for 2012?”
63 Comments
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 8:47 am
All that ruckus in WI that’s why she’s not there. Or in MN.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 8:52 am
So the “LOON’ says Glen “CRYMEARIVER Beck is the solution for economic problems,so the “LOONS” answer is buy GOLD and live in fear.Glen and his high-school degree are going to save the U.S.How can anyone support this “FOOL”? But of coarse she was speaking from the land of “TREASON” her good loony friend Sen.DERANGED DeMint and her have alot in common,just like 2 peas in a pod,.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 9:40 am
Maple Grove rejects Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck with extreme prejudice.
controlled media
aipac neocons
9/11 scam
the fed
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 9:44 am
The only people who DON’T support Bachmann and what she said in that speech are government bureaucrats (who will soon be forced to find real work) and other parasites who fear and resent their own freedom.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 9:52 am
Bachmann is a boldface lair and hysterical demagogue. It must be clear that this woman has a fairly severe personality disorder that allows her to pathologically lie with impunity. Of course there have always been demagogues in American politics, so she is not that unusual, but in response and as a matter of corrective steps to preserve civil society, there have also been means to end the destructive and harmful hatred she spews forth every time she speaks.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 9:56 am
Really? So if I think Glenn Beck shouldn’t be put on budget duty, I’m either a government bureaucrat or a parasite that fears or resents my freedom? That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 10:06 am
Bachmann’s advice as a former tax attorney is to hire a coked out morning zoo conspiracy theorist to solve the budget problem. AND she cites his ownership of a chalk board as his only credential.
oooooohhhhh kaaaaaaayyyyyyy then.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 10:17 am
Nice steno job, Andy. Repeating what she said is the essence of the new journalism. At which you excel. Keep up the good work. Your future is assured. As will your own byline.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 10:27 am
Dennis,What color is the sky in your world? Now go wrap yourself in the flag and shake and shiver until the Crybaby and the LOON come up with something new for you to be afraid of
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 10:29 am
This woman has incredible courage to tell it the way it is. Unfortunately for her, and for a minority of us, this “country” will long be dismembered by the human envy of the ones who have less (i.e. coercive left, anarchists), before she’ll get her place in history. At the turning point, the legions let their arms down and stopped defending a depravated, burning Rome.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 10:39 am
Wow! She really covers the ground, doesnt she? How many crackpot ideas can dance on the head of a pin? No pun intended.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 10:59 am
These two nutcases could not figure out how to flush an outhouse.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 11:35 am
There’s a fantastic article at the link below which discusses the huge gains the wealthy of this county have experienced at the expense of middle income American. It’s sickening. Those are the people Bachmann works for. No one else.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 11:48 am
“and he’s babying the jihadists who are following Sharia-compliant terrorism.” So I am assuming she is saying that a Islamic Theocracy is bad, but her vision of a Christian Theocracy in America is good. Gay bashing haters, it never fails. The love of Jesus pours through them lol. Favorite quote “If Jesus came back today, and saw what was being done in his name, he would never stop throwing up”.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 11:58 am
“We are talking Greece!” (Whoa, I love this lady!) Maybe Michele Bachmann should be singing “Grease!” It’s a natural … Bachmann & Beck singing a duet: “We go together like ramma lamma lamma ka dinga da dinga dong / Remembered forever as shoo-bop sha whadda whadda yippidy boom da boom.” That’s how much sense they make.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 12:23 pm
She lives in a bubble and sees bubbles wherever she goes. The living, breathing, walking definition of what else? A bubble head.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 12:36 pm
Keep the sound bites coming Michele. They’ll come in handy at election time. ROTFL!
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 12:53 pm
i speak for many people around the country i know who read an article like this and think “how on earth did the good people of minnesota have actually elected such a simpleton??” i’ve met some really smart, compelling folks from your fine state and am baffled, as well as a little embarrassed about it. i’m all for lively debate, but doesn’t an argument required at least a minimum of reality and reason? there are many ways to plead an anti-obama case without resorting to hysteria and borderline nuttiness.
what the heck happened up there?
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 1:22 pm
This lady is clearly living on another planet. Of course she complains about the rich being taxed too much, she is one of those rich people. She can sit with her botox smile and emotionless stare all she wants, but I will not not allow her to assume power in this country. How can someone in the public eye like her take anything glenn beck has to say as truth? that speaks a whole lt about the kind of person she actually is. A gullible faux news zombie.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 1:30 pm
RT – In answer to your question: We have no idea how she keeps getting elected in her district – no idea. I can’t think of any public figure more HATED by the vast, vast majority of people in MN at large. However, in her district she’s a god for some reason. Aliens? Mass drug taking? Too much inbreeding? We have no idea.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 1:35 pm
I did read the entire article.
Government bubble, business bubble, tax bubble, family bubble and the national security bubble. I dare say she is working at fear mongering using the term bubble.
I am so embarrassed to be from the same state as this lunatic. Again my main concern is there are so many people that believe what she is saying.
I wonder how diplomacy and peaceful ideas are pushed aside by rhetoric and falsehoods that do not even have a hint of truth in them.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 1:52 pm
Bachman states that we are living in a time of “bubbles” and blames it on Obama. Obviously she knows nothing of capitalism. Capitalist economies always ride “waves”, extreme highs and extreme lows. Economists may not be able to explain why the waves occur but we can see them when we look back on history. Currently we are returning to a peak after we fell into a “valley” 5 years ago. I believe the best we can do now is curtail SOME spending (without removing workers rights) and ensure that all are paying their fair share of taxes. Soon we will be at the peak again and hopefully we will not have a republican led congress to force us into a valley again.
Oh, and Scott Walker has got to be one of the most dangerous enemies of the American way of life. I do hope he gets recalled by his constituents.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 3:00 pm
Wow, Michelle Bachmann may be a blithering idiot but it makes you wonder how dumb the people are that voted for her and why they haven’t been locked up for being clinically insane.
Pingback posted February 21, 2011 @ 7:43 pm
[...] The Minnesota Independent: “When you add it all up — I’m a former federal tax lawyer — when you add up the tax burden [...]
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 7:46 pm
The rich pay the most taxes because they have all the money. Michele missed one bubble, and that is the one extruding from her neck. The level of ignorance is at once breathtaking and terrifying.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 8:39 pm
You may think the people who voted for her are “dumb,” but they’re not delusional as those who believe that her views and her supporters are in the minority.
It’s like those singing, dancing, drum-beating, clueless bureaucrats in Madison who have been made to believe by the press that they are supported by the American people. They’re not.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 8:59 pm
Hey Michele, isn’t the budget Congress’s responsibility? If you can’t handle it step down.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 9:07 pm
Let us all kneel and bow our heads to our new authoritarian GOP masters.
Guns + Bibles = American Utopia …Yea …Sure Thing Sammy
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 10:37 pm
Dennis, I don’t think the people who voted for Bachmann are dumb and also delusional. I know they are. A lot of people, including yourself, seem to have little idea of what is really going on here and how this affects you, your families and children. The “singing, dancing, drum-beating, clueless bureaucrats” you impugn are your neighbors or just like them, and I dare say, you probably have similar people among your friends or relatives. The repercussions of this illegal, power grab union busting effort by Walker are going be felt wide and deep. You and your fellow Bachmann supporters are tools and apparently have no clue how you are being used.
Comment posted February 21, 2011 @ 11:07 pm
She sure has a lot of problems listed in that rant. But as always no offer of any solutions other.
Pingback posted February 22, 2011 @ 12:03 am
[...] we all know that the Tax Code is a Weapon of Mass Destruction, but who better to handle WMDs than Glenn Beck? Do not get all of the apocalypse porn get to you and do not let the fact that he can not tell the [...]
Comment posted February 22, 2011 @ 12:43 am
She has bubbles everywhere except in her own sphere. Her popularity is a bubble and that will burst as the sun makes the skin thinner to burst. She spouts verbage but no ideas, Beck with a chalk board can solve anything? The budget too? Its easy to spout but get back to work Michele and help write laws and amendments that will actually put people to work and make our government better.
Read the Federalists Papers . These cover all the stuff that is going on today and mention many times personal ambitions and passions that inflame a minority of people but when analyzed do nothing for the common good. She is on the bubble of self aggrandizement and who wouldn’t be as the “lame-stream” media continues to fan the delusion of MB actually being a presidential candidate.
The Democrats are hopping that she actually makes it to the nomination and then there could be a 50 state sweep for Obama as in the last election cycle MN cast mor Democratic votes at the House level than Republican’s got. And this was a R year. She couldn’t even carry MN especially when her mocking them for voting for favorite son Mondale in her MI speech where she told how the novel Burr made her a Rebublican.
Keep talking Michele and ignoring those of us back here in the MN 6th. I thought you were elected to represent us in the House. It should be a full time job as it pays full time wages and good benefits for you as well for your staff . I don’t know of any other government employee on the same circuit that you are on, the Pres primary election states. Even the other big mouth bubblehead, S. Palin, had the courage to quit her job to go on the road for her self aggrandizement tour.
You talk about WI teachers being derelict —— Is what you are doing much different? Or is their quest derelict and yours delusional?
Pingback posted February 22, 2011 @ 4:55 am
[...] again, speaking of crazy and stupid, Minnesotans have a lot of ’splainin’ to do, too. Rep. Michele Bachmann was on a tear: In one of her most fiery stump speeches to date, the tea [...]
Pingback posted February 22, 2011 @ 4:59 am
[...] MN Independent: Guess who says “Glenn Beck can solve the budget deficit?” How? Buy gold from Goldline? [...]
Pingback posted February 22, 2011 @ 10:03 am
[...] [...]
Comment posted February 22, 2011 @ 12:05 pm
HA! the headline just made me blow diet coke out my nose! what a hoot. The two of them together don’t have enough brainpower to finish a crossword puzzle – much less anything of more substance.
Comment posted February 22, 2011 @ 1:49 pm
I always knew Bachmann was forever blowing bubbles! I’m thinking there must be hallucinogens or something similar in the tap water in her district. It’s the only thing that could possibly explain why she keeps getting elected.
And the idea that Glen Beck could solve our economic woes? Lady, that boy ain’t got the sense God give a lemon!
Comment posted February 22, 2011 @ 5:17 pm
How in the name of God Almighty did this stupid person get elected???????????
Comment posted February 22, 2011 @ 5:37 pm
Bachmann is dumber than dirt. Why the district she represents keeps electing her is beyond me?
Comment posted February 22, 2011 @ 6:17 pm
How many professors did this woman b**w to get her law degree? Inquiring minds want to know.
Comment posted February 22, 2011 @ 7:08 pm
Bubbles work like this…When the tax rate for wealthy Americans is pushed too low they have a lot of discretionary income. What do they do with it? Speculate. Hence dot com bubble, housing bubble, oil bubble, etc…eventually these bubbles sh*t the bed and the whole thing comes crashing down.
When the tax rate on high earners is high they avoid income being taxed by pumping money back into the businesses they own (see post WWII and the subsequent economic boom). Thom Hartman and Robert Reich illustrate this perfectly.
Republicans all said that keeping taxes low on business owners and corps would create jobs. Taxes are at a 50 year low and still unemployment hovers at 9%. Where is all the job creation, Republicans? What a shame.
BTW, Bachmann is a schmuck. If she is against Gov’t largesse then why doesn’t she resign her elected office and stop taking farm subsidies? FYI Michele, if the Gov’t is the problem and you are an elected official, then you are part of the problem, you Hominid.
Comment posted February 22, 2011 @ 9:30 pm
The Republicans have essentially lost the narrative war over the budget for the next biennium because instead of making hard choices that would actually balance the budget, they chose to try to defund popular things that are against the Republican political view AND that don’t have much budget impact in the final analysis. What they’re doing is blatant politics and anybody with a brain knows it.
Instead of making the hard choices – things like the military R&D budget that could make an actual impact on how much money the government is spending – they go after public media, after teachers, and after women’s health care. BAD move.
Comment posted February 22, 2011 @ 10:21 pm
Wow. This woman should be called the Queen of Hyperbole (if you don’t know what it means, look it up). I find it amazing that anyone takes her seriously. Honestly, this woman should be evaluated by a good psychiatrist.
Comment posted February 22, 2011 @ 11:57 pm
As a guy from Canada I do follow the events in the U.S with great interest and I find the whole idea of a Beck/Bachmann budget conference to be hilarious. These two are obviously nutjobs. I admit I had no idea Michele Bachmann was from Minnesota and it shocked me a little. You good people seriously need to vote that vermin out of any position of responsibility.
Pingback posted February 23, 2011 @ 12:43 am
[...] “We need to simply tell people the facts, like Glenn Beck, with that chalkboard, that man can explain anything. I think if we give Glenn Beck the numbers, he can solve this.” (Bachmann: Glenn Beck can solve the budget deficit) [...]
Comment posted February 23, 2011 @ 4:20 am
She thinks Glenn Beck is a genius…
That pretty much says it all.
Comment posted February 23, 2011 @ 4:21 am
I will not make fun of Michelle Bachmann or Glenn Beck, because I was taught that you don’t make fun of people suffering from advanced forms of brain cancer. I WILL make fun of a Congressional District that elects her, because there has to be SOMEONE there who does not suffer from brain cancer.
Comment posted February 23, 2011 @ 7:30 am
Katie, republicans have to defund “popular things” because they’re the daddy in this society.
Democrat politicians have gotten elected over the years by giving you things paid for by someone else. And like the spoiled children you see in the stores, throwing a tantrum if mommy has the temerity to say “no” for once, the takers in this society are outraged that the givers are finally saying no.
National defense is actually a constitutional role of the federal government. “Women’s health care” is not.
Margaret Thatcher once said that “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
We’ve reached that point and even some responsible democrat politicians are starting to admit it.
Pingback posted February 23, 2011 @ 8:20 am
[...] the Minnesota Independent: “And so now it’s for us. We decide. Do we go on? Or does the bubble burst? And I’ve made my [...]
Comment posted February 23, 2011 @ 8:26 am
If the Republicans are “daddy” in this society, they’re an abusive daddy who is a gun nut and regularly threatens to use said guns on his wife and children.
The American people need a divorce.
Comment posted February 23, 2011 @ 9:32 am
Hey, maybe Glenn Beck could solve the deficit by donating all his money to pay for it! And maybe sell all his gold to cover the difference!
lmao at both Bachman and Beck.
Comment posted February 23, 2011 @ 5:14 pm
Any fool can balance the budget. The trick is in not destroying the country in the process.
This is a trick the old-dog conservatives are incapable of learning – it is not in their religion.
The Tea Party needs to take their nose off the grindstone and look at the big picture or they will only repeat the mistakes they are trying to correct.
Comment posted February 23, 2011 @ 6:40 pm
The republicans simply want the government to live under the same budget they had in 2008.
Big deal. Most of you reading this are living under the same family budget you lived under in 2008.
Comment posted February 24, 2011 @ 10:15 am
Dennis,
Maybe we should live under the same budget we did in 1950…why is 2008 your idiotic magic #.
Also, you fat pig, here is your quote “It’s like those singing, dancing, drum-beating, clueless bureaucrats in Madison who have been made to believe by the press that they are supported by the American people. They’re not. ” UMMMMMM I am an American person and I support them.
Here is another one ” The only people who DON’T support Bachmann and what she said in that speech are government bureaucrats (who will soon be forced to find real work) and other parasites who fear and resent their own freedom.” I don’t support Bachmann, I’m not a governement bureaucrat or a parasite, in fact if you would like to call me a parasite to my face name the time and place, all 15 of you that make up “Dennis”
Comment posted February 24, 2011 @ 10:18 am
How could i add anything to these already perfect comments
Comment posted February 25, 2011 @ 7:10 am
Dennis simply wants the government to be a glove worn by the hand of corporate power.
Comment posted February 25, 2011 @ 7:11 am
The greedy lead the stupid into voting for their own destruction. When the smart point this out, the stupid get all mad and type inane, clueless comments on forums like this. The greedy just laugh and laugh and laugh as they steal money and freedom from the stupid and the smart alike.
Comment posted February 25, 2011 @ 11:15 pm
Bachmann is no threat to last more than a month or two as a presidential candidate even in this fair nation of idiots, but well before that I except her to ultimately implode under the ferocious internal gravity of her own bug-eyed, dishonest brainlessness. You can’t even parody that degree of decerebracy.
Comment posted February 26, 2011 @ 8:53 am
Glenn Beck couldn’t produce a fart at a bean dinner, let alone solving anything. Bachmann can be judged by her endorsements. He (or she) who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas.
Comment posted March 1, 2011 @ 11:13 am
Heres how it is the s— that comes out of her mouth is kookier then Charlie Sheen’s
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