Interview With Rep. Michele Bachmann
(You can grab the audio of the interview here via “Right-click… Save as…”. Or hover your mouse over the speaker icon to listen to the interview as streaming audio. -nick)
Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was kind enough to give thelobbyist.net a few minutes of her time last week to ta
lk about the national debt and how if Congress trusts the American people, the so-called Debt-Paying Generation (those young Americans whose futures will be crushed by the tsunami of debt the nation faces) will be able to live the American Dream and not be forced to live a life of less quality than their parents.
Representative Bachmann is the Republican representative of the 6th District of Minnesota. She has represented her constituents since 2007, and has been a conservative leader in everything from government transparency to health care reform to reversing course on the size and scope of the federal government.
Dustin Siggins: So you and I met, briefly, Representative, when you were on the Laura Ingraham Show back in March…
Michele Bachmann: Mm-hm, isn’t she great?
DS: Oh she’s awesome; she’s a riot.
MB: She is such a talent.
DS: I really liked when she was on Bill O’Reilly a couple of weeks ago, and they were talking about blaming Napolitano- I don’t know if you saw it?
MB: I didn’t.
DS: They were debating and Bill O’Reilly decided that he wasn’t going to blame Napolitano for the BP response for the oil spill. And he was trying to play the middle road, and so Ingraham just went crazy on him and then picked up his cup of water from behind where he was sitting and went, “He is drinking the Kool-Aid!”
MB: Oh! (laughter) She is so creative. Well you know the great thing is, he has a tremendous audience, and a lot of interests, and he tries very hard, I think…I think he is really trying to be fair and balanced and trying to get both sides or both perspectives. And obviously he has been very successful for a long period of time. But people really do love Laura and I think that her stock is only going to continue to soar.
DS: Oh I have to agree with you. There’s no way, and especially with what’s going on here in DC, there’s no way any conservative’s stock is going to tumble in the next two to four years.
MB: Yeah.
DS: Um, so I was talking to Dave, whom I met a couple of weeks ago, and I am currently at the Heritage Foundation working on the Debt Paying Generation project…
MB: Oh good so you’re working with Bill Beach!
DS: Exactly. According to Mr. Beach you are a ‘huge fan.’
MB: I am a huge fan! This is the issue, I told Bill, that I really want to hit on because I think that young people’s ears are starting to perk up on their future, what their future is going to be like. And I think that it’s a tremendous shock for a lot of young people to find out that their standard of living could be demonstrably lowered beyond what their parents had. And even though people may hear that in the abstract, especially for younger people, it’s hard to believe that it could be true or that it could be translated into a diminishing reality going forward, and I think it’s important for us to make that case and I think it will be easier, then, for us to talk about positive solutions to be able to dig our way out so that we can have a way forward. Because, there is, it isn’t something where we have to give up and realize that we have to consign ourselves, especially the young debt-paying generation, to a future of less. We can have a better future, but what it means is people in my generation are going to have to make alterations as well. We can’t let the government try to be the answer to every problem.
DS: Your generation, 31,32?
MB: That’s right. (laughter) No actually I love getting older, to be honest with you. I’m 54 years old and I told my husband that I love getting older so it doesn’t bother me at all.
DS: Interesting. Well I’m 24 and look 20, or 19 and 18; so I wouldn’t mind looking a little older, but-
MB: Ahh, well I’m sure, well your…It’ll come sooner than what you think.
DS: Well hopefully- I think the grey hair would help make me look distinguished.
MB: Yes, undoubtedly. Get a pair of glasses- that will help.
DS: I’ve had glasses since I was one and a half and it hasn’t helped (laughter) Well anyway, a little side-tracked. Regarding the debt paying of this generation, I mean obviously the democrats aren’t going to pass a budget in the house. Rep. Hoyer just stated that yesterday, correct?”
MB: That’s right.
DS: Why are they not passing a budget? Are they scared that American will look and say “oh wow, they made it worse than the Republicans did?”
MB: Well, it’s a dereliction of duty and it’s also an admission that they can’t govern. They had made the comment about Republicans passing budgets and I think now what is good for the goose is good for the gander. I think they’re going to have to live by their own statements. If they make an admission that they can’t pass a budget when they own the white house, when they own the senate, and when they own the house, they are making an admission that they cant govern. And frankly, they are digging a hole for themselves…that they hole that they dug for themselves is embarrassing. The debt and the taxing…the taxes that result from this out of control debt will be one that will mean fewer jobs will be created in the private sector. You have to have a growth economy to create jobs and we saw that there were some 40,000 jobs that were created last month, that is not going to get us anywhere. Especially for the debt paying generation, there is certainly more than 41,000 people who graduated from college last year. Those recent college graduates and those individuals that have left high school and chose not to go onto college, they are looking for employment; and unfortunately, under President Obama’s policies and Speaker Pelosi’s policies…their policies are not inducing entrepreneurs to grow and create jobs. Without private job creation, there can be no healthy public sector either. And so, they are making some very foolish decisions that have long term consequences and they bode ill for the debt paying generation.”
DS: The Center for American Progress did a study- well I guess they called it an analysis, I wouldn’t call it an analysis myself- but they cited several polls showing that the most popular thing for America is to cut the budget of Foreign Aid which is two percent of the budget that President Obama proposed and yet older Americans seem to like Social Security and seem to like Medicare, how do we convince people in my age bracket that we have to get rid of these programs, or at least reform them severely, as President Bush tried to do in 2005. How do we convince people this is best- that they’re going to have to suffer a little bit for the long-term benefit of the country?
MB: Well, I think the best way we can do that is to make the case to people that these programs are going to collapse of their own accord- no one will benefit from that. We don’t want to see senior citizens put in a situation where they’re dependent on either Medicare or Social Security, and one day when they go to their mailbox, they open it up, and there’s no check there because these programs have collapsed because we’re actually bankrupt. That’s why we need to do the responsible thing and make these programs work for the people they were intended to benefit. And we can do that- we could do that sitting down with a magnifying glass and a pencil, and we could make adjustments so that we can actually save these programs for the people who really, truly need them and who truly depend on them, and then for the Debt-Paying Generation we want to make sure going forward that we have alternatives for them so that they can have a secure retirement and deal with health care in a more rational level.
Government takeover of health care has been the Obama way and the Obama solution, and it isn’t that I think President Obama is an evil, negative person- I think he just simply, simply has it wrong. I think he’s simply wrong about the government takeover of health care, and a person can’t point to one jurisdiction or area where the government takeover of health care has actually improved healthcare for people, or made it more inexpensive, because adding the price of bureaucracy to a product doesn’t make a product cheaper, it makes it more expensive and more difficult to obtain- and I think Americans intuitively know that will be our future going forward.
This is why I think, when it comes to health care, which is a new entitlement program, that’s why I think we have a real, and realistic, chance, of actually repealing the bill, and I was the first Member of Congress to issue a full-scale repeal of the bill, and ObamaCare, and it is very popular, as a measure, and we’re looking at about 2/3 of the American people hoping Congress will have a repeal. If you have 2/3 of the American people, wanting to repeal the president’s signature achievement over the last 18 months-perhaps the signature achievement of whatever length of time is his presidency- I think that we will be able to make the case on a number of areas of government overreach.
DS: Well, I guess my last question- and you talked about what the Democrats have done badly, and I agree with you- but I came of age during the Bush years, and Republicans obviously didn’t do so well between 2001 and 2006 with the Medicare Part D, and they jumped the cost of government, the size of government, up. How do you convince the American people that Republicans are trustworthy? Not you individually, of course [DS: Rep. Bachmann was first elected in 2006, and served her first term starting in 2007], but how, I mean, the Republican Party as a whole. This year, yes, it’s anti-incumbent, but I don’t think, personally, that it’s so much pro-Republican.
MB: Oh, I think you’re accurate about that. I think people are reacting negatively to what they have observed from the Pelosi/Reid/Obama agenda. People intuitively understand that they can’t live with excessive spending that creates unsustainable levels of debt- if they can’t live like that in their own personal lives or in their businesses, they certainly know that government doesn’t have a magic formula that defies economic reality. So people are rejecting the Obama agenda. People want to know, “Republicans, if we give you the gavel, can we trust you? Will you be responsible? Do you have a plan to get us out of this hole?” And that’s up to Republicans, now, to make that message. I think one of the best things we could do, is let the American people know- number one- if you put us in office, we will vote to full-scale repeal ObamaCare. Root and branch, we will pull it out, and we will repeal that measure. I think that’s something that is a very saleable proposition. I also think it’s saleable to tell the American people that we will pass a budget- a balanced budget- and I think that’s what people want us to do, is to pass a balanced budget, and then to show the American people, first of all, that the tremendous straits that we’re in, financially, going forward, once people know the difficulties and the reality of the problem that we’re in right now, I think they’ll be more amenable to the solutions that we can propose to put our financial house on a- in the right order.
DS: I hope so, because I’d like to see this country be as good for me as it was for my parents, so-
MB: Exactly. I will tell you, anywhere I go to speak, I ask that question. “Do you believe you live better than your parents?” Almost everyone in the audience puts their hand up. I ask them, “do you think your children will live better than you financially?” Virtually no one puts their hands up. I doubt in the last 234 years, if you ask that question of any generation, that they would think that their children would not be better off than they are; I just don’t think that you would have gotten that response. That’s really what is frightening today, because we’ve always been a country that’s been about forward- looking people, and growth. And this is one of the first times when Americans look into the future, and they see diminished way of life, and they see decline.
The beauty of America, is that we get to choose. We get to choose decline, or we get to choose if we want growth. I think that if you put the question to a referendum to the American people, they will choose growth. And if that means pinching back on a social safety-net, I think that we’ll have buy-in from people, because, ultimately people do want better for their children and for the next generation. Even if people are childless, they want the next generation to be able to do well. In fact, I think it’s simply the matter of having to make the case, you know just like you’ll see on Glenn Beck with his chalkboard, he makes a compelling case if he’s describing an issue. And I think that’s something that Republicans will have to do, so to speak, have our own kind of a chalkboard where we make the case to the American people of two futures for America: one where we go down the road of the Pelosi-Reid Agenda that they have taken us down, which the American people are thoroughly rejecting, but take it beyond the year 2010…play it out to 2020, and play it out to what America will look like when we are in the same economic bind that Greece is in today. Economists like Larry Lindsey tell us that we are looking within a ten-year window of having that type of economic decline. That truly is not a road that people would choose to go down, and that’s what gives me great hope and great excitement because even people who are senior citizens, they don’t want to bequeath a future grounded in decline. I know that sounds like an oxymoron; but senior citizens don’t want to see that for their own children and grand-children. And that’s what gives me hope going forward- because we really are a nation of very bright people, who make good choices. We could trust the American peoples’ choice, we just need to give them the truth and put all facts on the table, and then I have every hope and every reason to believe that people will make choices for their own gain and their own benefit because no one wants to succeed… I mean, no one wants to fail, everyone wants to succeed.
DS: Well, Representative Bachmann, I think I’ve run out of time. I really appreciate what you’ve said and hopefully we’ll see you doing a lot of that, especially if Republicans take back the House.
MB: Well, and we’ll do this again soon, I’d love to do this again!
DS: Alright, thank you very much. Take care!
MB: Alright, bye bye.
[Note: I would like to thank RJ; Will; and Nick for helping transcribe the interview. This would not have gotten posted without their help. DS]
Leave Afghanistan
I know RJ will vehemently disagree with me, but here is an op-ed I wrote about leaving Afghanistan that Daily Caller was kind enough to publish:
On Monday, a former professor and I were chatting, and the war in Afghanistan came up. I have been supporting a 100% pull-out from that country- as well as Iraq- for some time now, and think that with the General McChrystal issue hitting the fan (for the record, I support the president’s acceptance of the general’s resignation), it’s as good a time as any to post about why we need to leave the country.
First, we should leave for humanitarian/ethical reasons. We are sending servicemembers to that country to die for an Afghan leader who is corrupt, and whose brother is a criminal. What is our goal over there? The Afghanistan people are, at best, a tribal people with no real central government and no willingness to even have a central government. Being there to have access to Pakistan is just not a good enough reason anymore. Secondly, to (admittedly, hesitantly) quote a front page poster at Daily Kos, the worse Afghanistan gets, the less likely we are to leave. Since when does a proper cost-benefit analysis include sending good money after bad, and since when does honoring those who have valiantly served, been injured and/or died in Afghanistan include sending more young people to die without cause?
Secondly, we should leave because the American people don’t support this war. Oh, they say they do. But as New York Times columnist Bob Herbert described in December of last year, our support is minimal. Some money or other means of assistance is sent by those affected directly or indirectly by the war (friends and family with military members overseas, etc.) and some truly patriotic Americans, but most of the nation is satisfied with rhetoric pulled from blogs, talking heads and Associated Press articles. (Oh, yeah, and they have yellow ribbons on their bumpers.) As Herbert put it,
The reason it is so easy for the U.S. to declare wars, and to continue fighting year after year after year, is because so few Americans feel the actual pain of those wars. We’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan longer than we fought in World Wars I and II combined. If voters had to choose right now between instituting a draft or exiting Afghanistan and Iraq, the troops would be out of those two countries in a heartbeat.
Thirdly, we should leave Afghanistan because, despite the very good reasons for entering in 2001, Bush and Congress ignored Afghanistan for half a decade while focusing on Iraq. Whether or not we should have focused on Iraq is a different debate for a different time…but they failed to conduct the war in Afghanistan with efficiency, and President Obama is not improving things. Instead, as George Will pointed out this week, we have created a military for babysitting. Even with President Obama sending 30,000 troops over to the nation, we have a timetable. Since when has letting the foe know when it’s safe to come out become American policy? Obama’s mistakes are somewhat different than Bush’s…but they have the same consequences for our young people dying over there. Again, the cost-benefit analysis is not in favor of staying in Afghanistan.
Fourth, we just don’t have a clue as to what we’re doing, as pointed out by The Washington Examiner. Period. Is Karzai a good guy for us? It depends on the day. Are we trying to kill terrorists, or win the minds of the people? Um…the answer is unclear- ask again later. Is our enemy in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen or Afghanistan? I don’t think anyone really knows, despite what they may say. It could be all four. Are we going to invade Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen next, as a result?
After our conversation, my professor sent me an e-mail with the following title: “Until: 1) We decide to WIN wars again & 2) The Harvard kids also serve …this says it all.” He was referring to a recent Herbert column, in which Herbert talked about the courage to leave Afghanistan. The fact is that if we want to win wars, we should have a beginning, a middle and an end planned out. We should bring in enough troops. We should know the culture. We should not be convinced by elitists to enter a conflict- elitists whose their total involvement in war consists of debating on TV or making a profit off of the deaths of our countrymen. Pay the taxes to support the war, or do a USO tour, or encourage your child to join the military. Something. (On that note, great credit goes to people like Senator McCain and Vice-President Biden, whose children have served in post-9/11 conflicts, and especially to Senator McCain, who supports the war despite the risk to his family.)
I wasn’t alive in 1972, but my professor, my father and an increasing number of right-of-center individuals are saying the same thing- they’ve seen Afghanistan before. Of course- and it is now clichéd- it was called Vietnam, then. Since Bush took office, our debt has risen nearly 125%, with over 10% of that cost directly attributable to entering Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve lost thousands of young men and women. As much as it pains me to say it, the honorable thing to do is tactically retreat, starting tomorrow, and conduct a full pull-out from Afghanistan and Iraq, and honor our fallen by swearing to never, ever forget our first duty to the troops is to use them to protect our nation, not appease the egos and wallets that have benefited over the last nine years from our involvement in the Middle East.
My friend Tom Qualtere, who works for The Heritage Foundation, wrote an op-ed for Daily Caller back in March, and in it he said that Millennial/Generation Y Americans “are the 9/11 generation.” I agree with him, if only because the specter of 9/11 has dominated this nation’s, and our young people’s, thinking and culture since the towers fell. According to Tom, however, our duty is as follows:
But for those of us who’ve chosen a vocation on the home front, our support for them and their mission must be unambiguous and unwavering. It is time for conservatism’s 9/11 generation to fully embrace and defend the role that history has bestowed upon us and wear our hawk feathers more proudly than ever.
Tom and I disagree on many policy issues, and Afghanistan is one of them. He will undoubtedly respond to this opinion by saying we are letting the terrorists win by leaving Afghanistan. This would be the case if we just left Afghanistan (and Iraq) and forgot about the Middle East. However, when we leave, we must do so with the following assertions to the rest of the world (and our own citizenry):
- We are going to get the government out of the way and drill for oil within our national borders, build wind farms and build nuclear power plants. No longer will we send tens of billions every year to nations that support terrorism and hate us. While I do believe we went into Afghanistan and Iraq for good and ethical reasons, the fact is that part of that reasoning was for the benefits of oil for America. Well, take away the need for overseas oil, and we can start minding our own business for a change. Moreover, many terrorist organizations will have less money with which to fund attacks against us. This will take years, of course- but better late than never, and the sooner we start the better off we will be.
- The international community has for too long relied on our military. We have over 700 bases worldwide, and given our budget issues, this is unsustainable. If other nations- the same ones who criticize and condemn us if we don’t get involved (see Rwanda), but also if we do (see Iraq), with world affairs- want to utilize our blood and treasure, they can sign treaties and trade deals that give America a slice of the economic pie we have not asked for during our six-plus decades of world protection. Protection of other nations should be handled on a case-by-case basis, not with the assumption we will help every nation without such agreements. Supporting Kuwait in 1991, for example, was done because a) it was in our national interest, and b) because we had the ability to strike and win without a prolonged, expensive endeavor. Essentially, the cost-benefit analysis was positive.
- Protect our borders with some of the troops we bring home, among other good immigration policies (allowing border guards to shoot; encouraging legal immigration through incentives, etc.). Terrorists will have a hard time hurting us without being able to get in. Good, effective border policy will also give us the time to better our energy policies, as mentioned above.
- The jihadists will probably claim victory; after all, they drove out the “Great Satan,” much as they did with the Russians in the 1980s. This is a major concern, as 9/11 was the culmination of a nearly a decade’s worth of minor attacks that went unanswered by President Clinton. However, that’s where minding our own business and providing them with less money come into play, as well as the treaties I mentioned above. By minding our own business, we will blunt some of the jihadist propaganda. Secondly, without money they will have less success in attacking us in our own nation. Thirdly, should our intelligence see a threat, they can work with intelligence agencies in other nations and sign treaties and work together to deal with threats both before and as they arise. Lastly, should all else fail, we will have our own border control forces.
A clarification: I do not support an isolationist foreign policy platform, nor do I believe we have caused all of the world’s problems. The Middle East would have been a pit of peoples fighting among themselves even if America had never even sent a single dollar or troop there. However, other than supporting Israel and other allies with which we have treaties, or responding as we did after 9/11 to a direct threat on our nation, we should not be in that part of the world. The difficulty, of course- and this is why we have experts in government and the private sector- is striking the correct balance between leaving with our tail between our legs, thereby encouraging boldness by our enemies, and leaving with our heads held high without showing weakness. I think it is possible to do the latter by leaving now, though I admit the idea is balanced on a blade’s edge, and would require much delicate work.
It is difficult to say something is not worth vast amounts of effort- in this case, money and blood- put into it. It’s especially difficult when we have not won a major military conflict (except in 1991) since World War II. However, pride is only useful if those with the pride (i.e. politicians, think tank observers, etc.) are in the conflicts or are otherwise directly affected. Otherwise, the consequences of the pride are simply foisted onto those patriotic Americans who die or are maimed as a direct result of the pride. The delicate balance necessary to leave Afghanistan without handing a public relations boon to our terrorist enemies is an important step in owning up to the mistakes pride have bought us in the War on Terror.
*Originally published at DailyCaller.com.
