22 Jun 2011 4:15 pm
Michelle Bachmann's hypocrisy on Socialism exposed. Her pork-barrel handouts conflict with her free market message.VIDEOTranscript:ODONNELL: Time for tonights Rewrite. The Republican candidates for president are trying to outdo themselves with anti-government rhetoric. Mild-mannered former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who is most likely to win the honor of losing to President Obama in the general election, has actually made the most libertarian anti-government statement of anyone running, including the actual libertarian Ron Paul, and the Tea Party virtual libertarian Michele Bachmann. Pawlenty said, if you can find a good service, a good or a service, on the Internet, then the federal government probably doesnt need to be doing it. In other words, if the private sector is doing something, the federal government doesnt need to be doing it at all. This is as close to a pure capitalism statement as you can get. But Pawlenty was the governor of a state that thrives on handouts from the federal government, cash handouts to farmers, from the Department of Agriculture, and of course, the ethanol tax credit. There is no sector of our economy more rife with socialism than the agriculture sector. But supporters of farm socialism like Pawlenty and Minnesotas Michele Bachmann have no idea how much they actually like socialism, because theyve never paused over what socialism actually is and how much their political careers depend on it. Michele Bachmann, as has been pointed out in this space before, has a family farm that has received over a quarter of million dollars in direct cash from the federal government. That is, of course, in addition to her federal salary of 174,000 dollars for her real full-time job as a member of Congress. Thanks to Sam Stein at the Huffington Post today, we now have yet another example of Bachmann political dependence, career dependence on socialism. The Huffington Post obtained a letter Bachmann wrote on October 5th, 2009, to the Obama administration secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack, thanking him for government intervention in the pork industry. Thats right, government intervention in the market. She wrote, your efforts to stabilize prices through direct government purchasing of pork and dairy products are very much welcomed. Yes. This is the same woman who said this about the Democrats health care reform bill. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)REP. MICHELE BACHMANN[R], PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is the crown jewel of socialism, this bill. This is the crown jewel of socialism, this bill. (END VIDEO CLIP)ODONNELL: Yes, there were some socialistic elements to the Obama health care reform bill. But it was not nearlynot nearly as socialistic as the Agriculture Departments intervention in the pork industry, its control of the price of pork. The Agricultural Department is a permanent participant in the pork market for purely socialistic reasons. If the pork industry doesnt like whats happening to the price of pork, it gets members of Congress, like Bachmann, to urge the government to intervene in the market and drive up the price of pork. That is exactly what she was thinking and what she was thanking the socialistic secretary of agriculture for doing. In fact, Bachmann wants nothing but pure socialism coming out of the Agriculture Department every day to make life easier for the agri-businesses in her congressional district. Free market preacher Michele Bachmann goes all socialistic when it comes to the price of pork and the pork industry. Now, I for one believe Michele Bachmann would pass a lie detector saying that the federal governments control of the pork market is not socialistic, because, like everyone who rants against socialism in this country, she doesnt know what socialism is. As Ive pointed out here before, we have good socialism and bad socialism. And the socialism that Michele Bachmann openly advocates is very, very bad socialism. It is worst kind of socialism. It is intervention in the market simply because the government doesnt like the price that the market would find through free market forces. Even Sean Hannity, who is normally at least as confused about socialism as Michele Bachmann is, doesnt like this particular piece of socialism. Before Hannity knew Bachmann was involved in this socialistic scandal, he wrote a note on his blog opposing it, beginning with the very Hannity line, your tax dollars are being used to buy a lot of pork. And I mean literally, exclamation point. Ive never thought our politics would allow me to say this. And I have no expectation of ever being able to say it again. But on Michele Bachmanns pork socialism, I agree with Sean Hannity.