The Michele Bachmann Anti-Poverty “Plan”

You have heard the declarations of how Michele Bachmann wants the government to shut down.  She took an oath to uphold the Constitution, but wants to shut down the government she took that oath to steward on behalf of us all.  

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

“…Discharge the duties of my office.”  That does not include purposely shutting down the government.  It does not stack up well with (say, a President who has bent over so far backwards to appease GOPhers like her it’s ridiculous) efforts to keep the government running.  It is his job to keep the government running, but it is ALSO hers.  She has not contributed one iota of good faith to keep the government open. But she is off on an ego-driven, craven (see below) campaign for President?

She wants NO increase in taxes on the wealthy (or no revoking of such things a farm credits for non-farmers like her).  Her “family farm” and her husband’s business feed at the federal trough. She currently lives on the taxpayer dime.  She even thinks she should live at the citizens’ House.  Ironically, she lectures President Obama that he should get a “real job”!?!?!?  With no sense of irony, she seeks the very same (I guess non-real) job? Yet, except for those programs feeding her, she wants no programs whatsoever that help the rest of America, unless they are church-affiliated schools and “faith-based” community service groups. With Bachmann, it is just not OK for you or me to have medical care, public education, Social Security or anything else. The poor and the hungry need not apply. And, so it is no surprise that her anti-poverty plan is as heartless and pro-corporate as she is.  Here it is, the long awaited Michele Bachmann antipoverty “plan”:

(The “plan” is below the fold.)

BACHMANN: We went from middle class to overnight below poverty. And my mother had to leave the home and get a job…and I had to go out and get babysitting jobs…to help out. … We did not go on dependency programs. And I don’t begrudge anyone who does when I say that, but we didn’t do that. We had our faith in God, we depended on our neighbors, we depended on ourselves, and we just did without. We made do, we did without. […] And we were just grateful for what we had. We knew that one day things would be better than they were. And God was faithful, and they were better.

You got it.  Pray.  

(I guess she never read the whole Bible. And I guess she thinks the charge to love one another, feed the hungry, etc. only applies to members of her own church). She kicks the poor when they are down with on-your-ownership in the extreme.  Pathetic.  Insulting.  unChristian.

But, amazingly, Orrin Hatch does one better. He thinks the poor need to sacrifice more. With this kind of worse-than-scrooge behavior, it’s no wonder we are returning to a Dickensian period where it is deemed permissible to slam the poor, kick the sick and seek to destroy the old.  Some GOP!