Rep. Michele Bachmann of the Tea Party: 'We bought a bureaucracy that tells us which lightbulbs to buy'

Remarks by Rep. Michele Bachmann following the State of the Union, as provided by the Tea Party Express

Good evening, my name is Congresswoman Michele Bachmann from Minnesota's 6th District.

Two years ago, when Barack Obama became our President, unemployment was 7.8 percent and our national debt stood at what seemed like a staggering $10.6 trillion dollars.

We wondered whether the President would cut spending, reduce the deficit and implement real job-creating policies.

Unfortunately, the President's strategy for recovery was to spend a trillion dollars on a failed stimulus program, fueled by borrowed money.

The White House promised us that all the spending would keep unemployment under 8 percent.

Not only did that plan fail to deliver, but within three months the national jobless rate spiked to 9.4 percent. And sadly, it hasn't been lower for 20 straight months. While the government grew, we lost more than 2 million jobs.

Let me show you a chart.

Here are unemployment rates over the past ten years. In October 2001, our....

...national unemployment rate was at 5.3 percent. In 2008 it was at 6.6 percent. But, just eight months after President Obama promised lower unemployment, that rate spiked to a staggering 10.1 percent.

Today, unemployment is at 9.4 percent with about 400,000 new claims every week.

After the $700 billion bailout, the trillion-dollar stimulus, and the $410 billion spending bill with over 9,000 earmarks, many of you implored Washington to please stop spending money we don't have.

But, instead of cutting, we saw an unprecedented explosion of government spending and debt, unlike anything we have seen in the history of our country.

Deficits were unacceptably high under President Bush, but they exploded under President Obama's direction, growing the national debt by an astounding $3.1 trillion-dollars.

What did we buy?

Instead of a leaner, smarter government, we bought a bureaucracy that tells us which light bulbs to buy, and which will put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama's healthcare bill.

ObamaCare mandates and penalties will force many job creators to stop offering health insurance altogether, unless yours is one of the more-than-222 privileged companies or unions that has received a government waiver.

In the end, unless we fully repeal ObamaCare, a nation that currently enjoys the world's best healthcare may be forced to rely on government-run coverage that will have a devastating impact on our national debt for generations to come.

For two years President Obama made promises just like the ones we heard him make tonight. Yet still we have high unemployment, devalued housing prices and the cost of gasoline is skyrocketing.

Here are a few suggestions for fixing our economy:

The President could stop the EPA from imposing a job-destroying cap-and-trade system.

The President could support a Balanced Budget Amendment.

The President could agree to an energy policy that increases American energy production and reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

The President could also turn back some of the 132 regulations put in place in the last two years, many of which will cost our economy $100 million or more.

And, the President should repeal ObamaCare and support free market solutions like medical malpractice reform and allow all Americans to buy any healthcare policy they like anywhere in the United States.

We need to start making things again in this country, and we can do that by reducing the tax and regulatory burdens on job creators.

America will have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Look no further to see why jobs are moving overseas.

But, thanks to you, there's reason to hope that real spending cuts are coming. Last November you went to the polls and voted out big-spending politicians and you put in their place men and women with a commitment to follow the Constitution and cut the size of government.

I believe that we are in the early days of a history-making turn.

Please know how important your calls, visits and letters are to the maintenance of our liberties. Because of you, Congress responded and we are starting to undo the damage that's been done.

We believe in lower taxes, a limited view of government and the exceptionalism of America. And I believe America is the indispensible nation.

Just the creation of this nation was a miracle. Who's to say that we can't see a miracle again?

The perilous battle that was fought in the Pacific, at Iwo Jima, was a battle against all odds, and yet the image of the young G.I.s in the incursion against the Japanese immortalizes their victory. These six young men raising the flag came to symbolize all of America coming together to beat back a totalitarian aggressor.

Our current debt crisis we face today is different, but we still need all of us to pull together. We can do this.

And that's the hope we hold tonight as Americans. We will push forward to reclaim the greatness of our country and to proclaim the liberty upon which we were founded.

And we will do so because we the people will never give up on this great nation.

God bless you, and God bless America.    ####

Related Items:

Text of President Obama's State of the Union, 2011

Official Republican reply by Rep. Paul Ryan

State of the Union Addresses: So much talk, so little results

Photo: Mark Wilson / Getty Images (Bachmann and House Speaker John Boehner); Charles Dharapak / Associated Press.

Comments

[Carolyn McLaughlin]

You go girl, go. Too bad Obama couldn't give YOUR speech. As a nobody from Ohio blogging for 5 yrs. at tcminc.blogspot.com under the auspices of 'uncommon sense,' I say our dual and dissparate images in the same conservative mirror could run # 1 and # 2 on the 2012 ticket.

[dj]

The Capitalism has produced the most well off people the world has ever known. Socialism/Communism has produced enslaved people under the worst murderers the world has ever known, to wit: Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Hitler( National Socialist Party, remember your history)Pol Pot, etc. etc. etc. Yet the people who support continuing the prosperity of the exceptional American people are vilified by the main stream media. And those that do it are well off and wealthier than most of the American people. Recognize the mental infirmity of the critics of Capitalism and their neurotic guilt complex's and process the actuality of what life would really be in America under the Unions view of life and the Democrat view of their Utopia and maybe you will support our system and teach your children why they should support it for their good life.

[FutureUser]

Colossal mistake on both sides. The error of the Left is to claim there is no God. The error of the Right is to claim that they represent God. Both sides are wrong, and both are doomed.

America is a great nation, but it is not a miracle or indispensable nation. If that were true, then God's Kingdom could never come to Earth, as it must do, according to the Lord's Prayer. America, great and powerful, full of freedom and opportunity, is nonetheless a temporary stop on the way to global Christian theocracy. Sadly, the Right is just as much an obstacle to this certain future, as the Left is.

[Terrence Curran]

There should be mental health examinations before someone is allowed to run for government.

[Montana]

Michele Bachmann did not say how we got here from eight years of poor leadership, two wars without end, diminsihed Civil liberties. Its like she crawl out from under a rock just to complain about our current President. We all know that Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works started the Tea Party, grasroots, please. She like Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle and Linda McMahon, they are just not right but funny. I especially like the clip of Bachmann saying that the founding fathers abolished slavery, wow, what a liar, not the first or last time that will happen. Does anyone with self-respect real believe her?

[Jan]

People of color wake up! I'm a minority Republican/Tea Party Member. I can see our greatest hope for real freedom lies with people like Michelle Bachmann. She is working to help keep America strong and free from too much government interference. She is honest, she means what she say. We don't have to beg and crawl, good opportunities are here for all lawabiding citizens, but we must elect the right people to office. Barack Obama and the demos have done nothing to stop the welfare handouts in the Black communities, it will never stop under their watch. They have and still are, brainwashing us to depend on government.

[jbrandonloberg]

i'm convinced that people like Bachmann don't know what they believe in; they're simply trying to capitalise on conservatives' righteous indignation after the 2008 election.

i don't remember who said it first, but it's a case of being sore losers, as opposed to having a legitimate grievance pertaining to any one issue. As i've said many times in the past, conservative Republicans are chagrined because they had such high hopes for Bush, and when he couldn't deliver, the inevitable consequence was Obama, and the Democrats' takeover of Congress. That's what happens in a two-party system. Love him or despise him, Obama's election in 2008 was far more an eventuality than it was a victory. The GOP ran McCain--and especially Palin--as a crapshoot; they knew it was doubtful they would win, but they wanted to see what would happen. Today's teabaggers, and pols like Michelle Bachmann, are merely manifestations of conservative hand-wringing; recalcitrant children whining about their decline in power. However, just as entertainers (take Marilyn Manson, for example) are blamed for the sometimes overzealousness of their fans, the outlandish rhetoric and apocalyptic tone employed by people like Bachmann, and does make an impression upon those with compromised intellects. Consider the so-called 'Hutaree': it's impossible for any rationally thinking person to take a group like this seriously, and my guess is even the FBI didn't seriously give shrift to the notion that they posed any legitimate threat to the government, however, if a few far-right nutjobs decided they could catalyse a revolution by gunning down government employees or blowing up a post office, that's more than enough reason to intervene. Bachman, Palin, Beck, etc. should consider the volatility of their audiences' mental health, and avoid feeding the animals.

[Hugh Jee From Jersey]

I agree, it's crazy to broadcast a rebuttal from a fringe group to SOTU, and the news media is just giving them legitimacy.....and don't you just think it's driving the GOP regulars nuts?

Usually fringe lunatics who get media exposure end up exposing themselves, ala Joe McCarthy, George Wallace, and David Duke.....so let it be with Bachmann, Palin & Company.

BTW....if any Rightie fans of Michelle are reading this, please forward the following idea for a Christmas present for the Congresswoman; THE CIVIL WAR by Ken Burns. You can find it at PBS.com.

Oh...I forgot....those guys want to do away with PBS.

My bad.

[O-town]

I like stupid pretty women. They say dumb things and think no one can tell. And the men who support them. Can we say mommy issues? Go, Palin! Would love to see you run against Obama in 2012. Try not to cry when you concede defeat. That won't be pretty.

[leenie17]

Don’t you read those special history text books the right wing is rewriting?

You know, the ones that claim that the Bush years were filled with rainbows and unicorns and cherry lollipops. There was no unemployment, no sickness, the economy was booming and every day was sunny. Everyone had a wonderful job, Katrina was the name of the waitress at your favorite diner and there were no criminals, no terrorist attacks, and the whole big, wide world loved us. The folks in Afghanistan and Iraq were really just having picnics in the desert and wore camo to make it more of a challenge when they played hide and seek. And Guantanamo Bay was for square dancing! And finally the Virginia and Texas Board of Education just approved the book and its use in their public schools.

Didn’t you read that part yet???

[Nathkatun7]

The University that awarded Congresswoman Bachmann a law degree should be ashamed. If the founding fathers (I suppose she included the Southern founding fathers who owned slaves) worked tirelessly to abolish slavery how come the country fought a civil war over slavery? Did the law school that granted Bachmann a law degree fail to teach, or even mention, the 1857 Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision? If everyone who came to America was welcomed as equal, regardless of race, then why was it necessary to pass three Constitutional Amendments: the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth? Did Rep. Bachmann learn any thing about the Jim Crow period that ushered in legal segregation of the races in the Southern States? Is it possible that the college and the law school she attended omitted any mention of the Supreme Court's "Plessy v. Ferguson" decision? I have a sneaking suspicion that, Rep. Bachmann, a college educated and a lawyer, is not that ignorant. Rather, she seems determined to re-write history to conform with teabaggers' claims that their mission is to restore the ideals of the pure and blameless founding fathers.

[Frank Tanis]

Here is my brief and uneducated view on the whole mess. Neither party has the best interest of the USA at heart. Big business runs this country. Corporate America. Since when did free enterprise in this country translate into; we have to compete within a third world criteria? To create a country of those that have and those that have not. China, Mexico and a host of others pay their employees pennies to the dollars that US citizens receive. Your elected officials are supporting the conversion of this country. Let those government officials use "our" healthcare. Then there will be a change.

My point which no candidate or current office holder has spoken. Rebuild the infrastructure of our country. For every job that has gone out of country, tax the employer the equal US tax salary for that position. Then use that money to invest and raise the standard of living in this country. Big Corporate America has forgotten those that purchase the products they manufacture. WE DO. WalMart, should be labelled CPR, China Products at Retail. This is not redistribution of wealth. This is a re-focus opportunity for Corporate America to do the right thing. Bring the jobs back into this country.
Secondly, LOCK THE DOOR. No sane person could actually accept any explanation that millions of illegals are here and no one knew. Our families have given the ultimate. Whereas, not all, but most which come here illegally want the dream without having to place the down payment, which has taken years. Even once they are here they do not want to assimilate into the culture.
Lastly, take care of our veterans and seniors. Seniors have worked and supported the American dream. Now is not the time to abandon. The U.S. is not a ant colony. Support those that have done their duty, do not abandon any to a forgotten life...