Posted on 06/27/2011 5:56:55 AM PDT by New Jersey Realist
Reporting from Washington— Rep. Michele Bachmann has been propelled into the 2012 presidential contest in part by her insistent calls to reduce federal spending, a pitch in tune with the big-government antipathy gripping many conservatives.
But the Minnesota Republican and her family have benefited personally from government aid, an examination of her record and finances shows. A counseling clinic run by her husband has received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, money that in part came from the federal government. A family farm in Wisconsin, in which the congresswoman is a partner, received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Can you find anything from Huffpo?
Bachmann should sue the LA Times for slander. Her father in law owns the farm. She has no fiscal interest in it. Bachmann has continually voted against Farm Subsides.
Just another lie.
Not good.
It’s one thing to take government (taxpayer) money for providing goods and services, but direct subsidies are a big deal.
Is this the same LA Times that’s sitting on an Obama fundraising video?
Explanation simple: The MSM who could not find the time to look into the zero’s background is already being fed info from the demrat party to undermine anyone who dares to run against the asshat.
She did Sunday on Fox,in great detail.
This is a liberal smear. There is a very good article on WND today with a detailed explanation about the grant for counselor training for the clinic and the farm income. Don’t get sucked into the smear machine so soon. Its 16 mos til the election. I urge everyone to go to WND and read the article.
If you run a buisiness you get slammed with double-taxation and costly government regulation. Applying for government grants is a way of getting that money back. I don’t fault her. I’m sure she’d rather not go through that system.
When are "Conservatives" going to stop letting themselves be manipulated by the Democrat directed "News" media like this?
Yes, she did.
in great detail
No, she certainly did not.
Her mistake was to say that her and her husband didn’t profit from the farm yesterday on FOX, now the media will be chasing her down with “but you say said that you didn’t and here’s proof that....”
She should have said “yes, i did, it’s no big deal, get over it...” and be done with it
Can you provide a link/info on this?
My lefty sisters will be all over this and it would be nice to have some ammo for the upcoming fight.
thx.
You know there is a search feature on this site. This has already been posted twice (once from the LA times and again from Politico).
Seems to me that conservatives would be better served by attacking one of the RINOs or all of them. At this point they’re only helping Romney who we all know is a scumbag.
Yeah, and she gets a government paycheck too. I find it AMAZING how no one seems to be curious regarding any similar parallels in the lives of Hussein or the other Republican candidates.
She has done nothing illegal....if she had, this would be the headline. People, believe it or not, can still receive state or federal monies and STILL want to cut the budget. HELL, Ronald Reagan’s California, when he was governor, was the recipient of dollars from D.C. He didn’t have a problem calling for a smaller central government.
The bigger problem here is a conservative movement losing focus on the enemy. Hussein and Demonrats, you can be SURE, are bigger and fatter leaches on the taxpayers’ butts than ANY Republican. Michele Bachmann is a good, strong conservative.
"Bachmann ties with Romney for first in Iowa straw poll"
The weekend headline caught many in the state-run media by surprise. Bachmann? That tea-party firebrand, Palin-wanna-be, anti-choice, history-twisting House radical?
Yes, Bachmann. The lawyer, small-business owner, farm owner, mom to five, foster mom to 23, homeschooler, pro-lifer, proud constitutionalist Republican House member from Minnesota and head of the House Tea Party Caucus. Smart, compelling Michele Bachmann will announce for president this week in Waterloo, Iowa, where she was born.
Bachmann, 55, began her political career in 1999 protesting the public-school curriculum in her home town, Stillwater, Minn. She ran for school board and lost. It was her last political loss.
She defeated an 18-year state Senate incumbent in the Republican primary in 2000 and went on beat the Democratic/Farm Labor candidate to win a state Senate seat. Bachmann was re-districted after the 2000 Census and had to defeat another incumbent in 2002 to retain a state Senate seat.
She ran for and won a seat in Congress in 2006, the first Republican woman from Minnesota to do so.
She has championed traditional values and opposed Obamacare, the bailout of the "too big to fail" and the "stimulus" that failed to stimulate.
Michele Bachmann is the real deal, a candidate from the Republican wing of the Republican Party.
So the media trashing began in earnest last weekend. "Bachmann took aid From Uncle Sam," screamed the headline in the Los Angeles Times. The subhead gloated, "The Republican fiscal hawk has herself benefited from grants and farm subsidies."
Hypocrisy is a staple charge against Republicans in the state media, and the Times gleefully charges in. "A family farm in Wisconsin, in which the congresswoman is a partner, received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies."
The truth is interesting. The farm subsidies were received from 1995 to 2008 when the farm was owned and operated by Michele's father-in-law, Paul Bachmann, as a family partnership. Following his death in 2009, Michele and her husband, Paul, inherited an interest in the Waumandee, Wis., farm. The farm is leased out to a neighboring dairy farmer who runs a dairy herd on the land. The farm generates income to the Bachmanns reported on her financial disclosure form as between $32,500 and $105,000 for the years 2006 to 2009.
The Times conveniently omits any reference to what kind of "farm subsidy" this farm has received in the past or whether it receives any subsidy at all since the farm has been rented out.
Bachmann famously opposed the 2008 farm bill with what she called "unbelievably outrageous ... subsidies for agricultural business and ethanol growers." With her interest as an owner of a farm that could possibly benefit from these "outrageous subsidies," her no vote sounds to me like a profile in courage rather than hypocrisy.
The Times also slams Bachmann for opposing Obamacare, then taking money from government for the "Christian counseling clinic" she and Marcus own.
Again, the truth is interesting.
Since 2006, Marcus Bachmann, on behalf of the counseling clinic he runs in Stillwater, has applied for and received from the state of Minnesota a total of $24,041 in a series of grants available to all such clinics in the state to train staff to deal with patients with chemical dependency and mental illness. The training is required by the state in order to accept such patients. The grants were partially underwritten by federal money for which the state applied and received over that time.
In other words, the money does not come from, and has nothing to do with, Obamacare and is offered by Minnesota to help clinics achieve the training required by state regulations.
Republican Hypocrisy is the framework of the story. The facts are tailored to fit the framework. It's Obama lap-dog media "journalism" at work again. Well, why not? It worked to marginalize Sarah Palin, didn't it?
Even Chris Wallace of "Fox News Sunday" piled on, asking guest Michele Bachmann, "Are you a flake?" The former tax lawyer with a post doctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary School of Law, business owner, farm owner and successful state legislator coolly replied, "That would be insulting. I'm a serious person."
Imagine asking Romney, an unemployed ex-governor, or Newt Gingrich, "Are you a flake?"
I think the attack on Sarah Palin and the very similar attack line now on Michele Bachmann is about hypocrisy all right – the hypocrisy of the feminist left determined to destroy talented, accomplished, conservative wives and mothers who are not only campaigning to lead this country but to lead it away from the suffocating failures of liberalism.
Michele Bachmann deserves respect for her accomplishments and should expect the critical examination all candidates for president should get (but Obama didn't). I don't know if Bachmann will win the primaries and get the nomination. I do know that by running she has made the nomination worth having because she will articulate for all Americans the many reasons Obama must be defeated in 2012.
Obviously some feel Bachmann hurts Palin’s chances. Or that her place is in the house, not running for president. Not sure why else they’d feel the need to attack her. I don’t remember her being persona non grata around here before she thought about running for president.
Her father-in-law is dead.
More information from other posts sheds more light on this, but there is a BIG difference between a governor trying to get taxpayer money BACK into his state and an individual receiving federal subsidies. One cannot rail against big government and intentionally benefit from it at the same time.
I hope the whole farm subsidies thing can be disproven and disproven IN THE PRESS. Something tells me that, even if it’s disproven, the LA times will retract on A23, below the fold.
Now, about that gun-runner thing. Go get 'em!
The editors of the LA Times clearly thought they had caught Michele Bachmann in some sort of hypocrisy, given her support for a smaller, less expensive federal government. Today's paper features a big story running on the front page that breathlessly reports that Rep. Bachmann and her husband have -- gasp! -- benefited from "federal aid."
That's because the counseling clinic run by Mr. Bachmann has received money over the past six years "that in part came from the federal government," because a farm in which Rep. Bachmann is a partner receives farm subsidies, and because she has sought to "keep federal money flowing to her constituents."
The entire premise of the story shows legacy media's limited understanding and selective outrage. Why shouldn't the Bachmanns -- and constituents -- benefit legally from the federal money that's available, even if she thinks it shouldn't be available?
Alternatively, why isn't the Times equally outraged that Democrats who favor tax increases -- the Kerrys, Feinsteins and other rich politicians -- nonetheless take advantage of every tax break and tax cut on the books? If Rep. Bachmann shouldn't be taking federal funds because she opposes them, shouldn't they be paying higher taxes, since they support them?
Worse yet, why is the legacy media so intent on exposing Rep. Bachmann's supposed inconsistencies, while remaining respectfully silent about the Democrat politicians -- like President Obama -- who oppose school choice for poor children but send their own children to ritzy public schools? The analogy to that bit of hypocrisy is if Rep. Bachmann wanted to keep federal subsidies for herself but deny them to the poorest, least advantaged Americans who need them the most. After all, that's what the Dem opposition to school choice really is -- a denial to poor kids of the opportunity for a decent education that they happily provide to their own children.
I guess when Democrats engage in hypocrisy and ideological inconsistency, it just isn't newsworthy -- at least to the legacy media like the LA Times.
Shameful. But when you're that blinded by bias, it's impossible to see clearly.
I hope Sarah gets in...she is free of these bastards..they pile on and she will benefit...
yes another example of Bachman derangement syndrome
Most farmers get some kind of subsidy. Get rid of all of them.
Do you drive on highways?
Gee..Bachman sent mail using the US Postal Service which is heavily subsidized by taxpayers and drove on highways which are government tax supported and her Congressional salary is paid by the government...the LA Times is just starting its smear campaign.
Any comments about Pelosi in the article? About how she and her husband have benefited from the special legislation she sponsored to curtail the minimum wage requirement in Guam at their NON-UNION factories? Nah! About all her non-union Kalifornia businesses? Nah! The LA Slimes is just another collection of prestitutes.
Free of who? The MSM? If she runs she won’t be free of them anymore. And she’ll no longer have her gig at Fox. They’ll be forced to treat her like every other candidate.
Also, if every other farmer gets handouts, then they can sell their products for less, depressing prices and driving out those who do not take the subsidies.
Why not ask her if she ever smoked pot in college??
She explained it in her Fox interview yesterday.
So, we are going to let the lib press establish the standards by which we select our candidates and we are going to require that all of our candidates are “earmark virgins”.
Might as well round up the circular firing squad.
However, Bachmann did not respond that she has gotten no subsidy money. She said this:
As for the farm, she said it belonged to her father-in-law. "It's not my husband and my farm," Bachmann said. "And my husband and I have never gotten a penny of money from the farm."
Maybe she crossed herself up. But she contradicted her own disclosure paperwork. Not good. And poor preparation.
Dig deep enough and one can find a connection between anyone and anything...the genealogists did this when they found a familial connection between Hussein and Dick Cheney. The perversion comes in when we go along with the finger pointing.
“The bigger problem here is a conservative movement losing focus on the enemy. Hussein and Demonrats, you can be SURE, are bigger and fatter leaches on the taxpayers’ butts than ANY Republican. Michele Bachmann is a good, strong conservative.”
There are a lot of pseudo-Con trolls crawling out of the woodwork lately on these threads. Ask them who they actually support, and they always evade the question (yet every Conservative is somehow “massively flawed” to them).
My understanding had been that she has no decision-making involvement in the farm and whether it takes subsidies or not. I'm not so concerned about the details because of "hypocrisy" over taking subsides while trying to end (at least some of) them.
If anything she'd be working against her own interests. My concern is question of credibility: what's your interest in the farm, what did you get, what didn't you get.
It's not like Obama paying 23%, not his 35% rate, in taxes but harping millionaires--like him--and billionaires aren't paying enough. That's the kind of hypocrisy that ticks me off!
Is there more to the “family trust” than the “farm” or not?
“More information from other posts sheds more light on this, but there is a BIG difference between a governor trying to get taxpayer money BACK into his state and an individual receiving federal subsidies. One cannot rail against big government and intentionally benefit from it at the same time.”
—I’m sure there are a fair number of Conservatives out there who desire- as part of the efforts to help our country survive- that all government subsidies be taken away, and yet they currently claim the mortgage interest deduction on their tax returns. Is this hypocrisy? I’d say it’s more about the actions of rational persons acting in the context of a flawed system.
The greater point is not where we’ve been, but where we’re going...
...There is a point where looking at the previous actions of an individual in terms of assessing future behavior becomes absurd: It would be like the American Revolutionaries saying, “I don’t want that George Washington guy to lead the Continental Army against the Brits... because he used to be in the British Army.”...
ping
Perhaps the New York Times could clear all this up? Or maybe the KOS kids could help? LOL
Yes, or the opposite...they're very conservative and sincere, but SO devoted to their candidate that no other will do.
I frankly haven't made my mind up yet, but as a student of history, I keep remembering there are problems with ALL candidates. Even Sarah. Even Herman. You name the person, they're flawed.
Some fantasize Ronald Reagan was perfect, but he wasn't...he gave us amnesty and Sandra Day O'Connor. :) I love the man, but he wasn't the Messiah.
Anyway, I am still looking at all of the candidates (almost) and will get to make my decision early, 'cause I'm in an early primary state.
I just get irritated when we cannibalize. The fact is ALL of the Republicans, even Huntsman, would be a better President than Hussein.
She should immediately release her financial statement and put it to rest IF it is not true. From everything I have read and not just from the LA Times she has a state in her deceased father in laws farm and has received subsidies. This is not the only issue that concerns me on her...the disabled vets, the comment by her campaign mgr on Palin which I have never heard Bachmann apologize for and her vote against ending ethanol subsidies.
Yes, and the farm is now leased out to another farmer to run.
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