Tea Party SOTU Rebuttal

Michele Bachmann, bless her stupid little heart, graced the airwaves (thanks a lot, CNN) with a thoughtful, cogent, and chock-full-o facts response to the State Of The Union address from President Kenyansocialistfascistcommunistblackguy. Allow me to rerebutt, or rebut the rebuttal, or, OK, fine. I'm going to mock the moronic mendacious bint:

Bachmann: Good evening. My name is Congresswoman Michele Bachmann from Minnesota's 6th District.
I want to thank the Tea Party Express and Tea Party HD 

Tea Party HD: racism and historical ignorance in the sharpest picture you can get.

for inviting me to speak this evening. I'm here at their request and not to compete with the official Republican remarks.

 As full of shit as Bachmann is, she can't hope to compete with Ryan.

The Tea Party is a dynamic force for good in our national conversation, and it's an honor for me to speak with you.

If by "dynamic force for good" you mean "dynamic force for ignorance, racial animus, and bad spelling." 

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

In other words, "Look at the tremendous pile of shit my party was largely responsible for creating that he inherited." Also note that both numbers were trending upwards. Before he was President.

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

Because if he did, we had a plan to thwart his every move. 

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

787 equals 1,000 in Bachmann's mind. Math is hard. I'm guessing that we'll find her attaching significance to number much smaller than her little rounding error of $213 billion*. Please note that $288 billion of the "spending" was in the form of tax cuts. If tax cuts are spending, well, the implications for Republican rhetoric are staggering. The "fueled by borrowed money" canard will have to wait for another post. I do agree, however, that the stimulus was unfortunate. Unfortunate because it was too damn small.

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

Not really. 

Not only did that plan fail to deliver, but within three months, the national jobless rate spiked to 9.4%. 

Yes, in part because the stimulus was too small and focused too much on tax cuts. More importantly, three months?!? Is she serious? A massive economic catastrophe that he inherited and he failed to right the ship in three months?  Worst. President. Ever.

It hasn't been lower for 20 straight months. While the government grew, we lost more than 2 million jobs.

Remember: Public sector jobs don't count. So that cousin of yours who works for the DMV who owes you money? Forget about it. Her job isn't even real.

Let me show you a chart.

Here are unemployment rates over the past 10 years. In October of 2001, our national unemployment rate was at 5.3%. In 2008, it was at 6.6%.

So it went up under Bush. Note that it was actually 4.8% in April, 2008. And it was 7.8% when Obama took office (3% higher), which she just said. Just said. She picked 2008, of course, because she assumes you are too stupid to realize that the rate in January of 2009 is what is relevant.

But just eight months after President Obama promised lower unemployment, that rate spiked to a staggering 10.1%.

So he failed to stop a runaway train in 60 feet. Some Messiah he is. Jesus could have done it in 30 feet. With nothing but his pinky.

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

So it has dropped. 

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

The bailout was Bush's baby, and it hasn't cost us, to this point, $700 billion.  The actual cost is debatable, because it depends on how you measure it. One thing no one seems to mention is what the cost of inaction might have been. See, spending can actually have value. Earmarks are just allocations of money already "spent." (* Here it is!) They are relatively small ($15.9 billion), and they usually result in things being done. Everyone hates earmarks, except their own. The whole "spending money we don't have" deception is something I'll talk about elsewhere.

But instead of cutting, we saw an unprecedented explosion of government spending and debt. It was unlike anything we've ever seen before in the history of the country.

Michele is an expert on history.  Somehow, that little thing we call World War Two escaped her attention.

Well, deficits were unacceptably high under President Bush,

Under Republican President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress. You know it is bad when the Republicans won't even lie about Bush's recklessness anymore.

but they exploded under President Obama's direction,

The President moonlights as Metallica's pyrotechnics guy.

growing the national debt by an astounding $3.1 trillion.

Due largely to Bush's policies. [UPDATE: My dad pointed out that the deficit/debt issue also involves Federal income, which was decimated by the recession. So it isn't just about spending].

Well, what did we buy? 

You mean aside from the bill of goods YOUR party has tried to sell us for 30 years?

Instead of a leaner, smarter government, 

So we did not buy that new Nordic Track, or Dr Kawashima’s More Brain Training on the Nintendo DS.

we bought a bureaucracy that now tells us which lightbulbs to buy and which may put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama's health care bill. 

No, and not really.  And note the inflammatory use of the term "policing." Perhaps Michele thinks it should go unenforced? I thought the G.O.P. was the law and order party. Maybe they meant the show.

Obamacare mandates and penalties may even force many job-creators to just stop offering health insurance altogether, unless, of course, yours is one of the more than 222 privileged companies, or unions, that's already received a government waiver under Obamacare.

This is so chock full o'crap that I think I'll save it for another post. Note the novelty of a Republican talking about privileged business. Note the monotony of a Republican demonizing unions. The waivers, by the way, are temporary, and a nice feature of the law.

In the end, unless we fully repeal Obamacare, 

Insurance companies won't be able to deny you for a pre-exisitng condition or drop you for no real reason, you won't be able to keep your child on your plan as long, you won't enjoy a life-time cap on benefits, and several other wonderful features of our former system. How will you cope?

a nation that currently enjoys the world's finest health care

Not by any standard I can come up with. Unless you are really well-off. And isn't that what Republicans mean when they talk?

might be forced to rely on government-run coverage.

Health care and health coverage are not the same. Nobody is even seriously proposing we follow the United Kingdom into actual socialized medicine. Government-run coverage is the Canadian system, where the provinces administer payments, instead of for-profit companies. Except they have those there, too.

That could have a devastating impact on our national debt for even generations to come.

Or, it could reduce heath care costs and improve overall health. And make this a better society for the rest of us.

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

All of which are his fault. Bastard.

Well, here's a few suggestions for fixing our economy. 

From an idiot whith no economics training or background, who was part of a Congressional majority that helped drive this country off a cliff. This is going to be good. You might want to make popcorn.

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

Did she listen to the speech? "Rather than promoting a cap-and-trade system for creating a market for clean energy—an approach that failed in the Senate last year—he suggested a goal that 80 percent of the electricity in the United States come from such sources as solar, wind, nuclear, "clean" coal, and natural gas."

The president could support a balanced budget amendment. 

And he could support National Silly Hat Day, which would be less stupid and less counter-productive.

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

Drill baby, drill!  We don't have nearly enough energy reserves (oil) to make any dent in our use of foreign oil. Not to mention the dangers of drilling. Plus, oil is a global commodity. If we allow private companies to drill our oil, they sell it on the world market. It doesn't necessarily go towards our demand.

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. 

Which ones, exactly? As she doesn't cite anything specific, I can't address this specifically, except to point out that I am practically certain she's wrong about the costs.

And the president should repeal Obamacare and support free-market solutions, 

He can't repeal it. He can pledge not to veto the repeal. But he isn't going to allow the signature legislative accomplishment of his presidency to be thrown out. That's about as dumb as asking Michelangelo to slap a couple of coats of Kelly-Moore Bistro Brown on the Sistine Chapel.

like medical malpractice reform

Medical malpractice "reform" is right-wing speak for allowing doctors who commit malpractice (or really, their insurance companies) from paying the consequences. Sure, there is abuse of the tort system. But I've yet to see a proposal that doesn't basically screw over people who have been hurt by malpractice. See, you can't prevail in a malpractice suit without, you know, malpractice.

 and allowing all Americans to buy any health care policy they like anywhere in the United States.

Here is a piece on the general failure of the market in health care. There are specific dangers in the idea of allowing interstate health insurance purchases. In short, it creates a race to the bottom (ever wonder why credit card companies love South Dakota?) and strip the states' ability to regulate the industry. See this.

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

This will have to wait for another post, but she's wrong. "Making things" here is not good for us. And the fact that we have minimum wage laws, worker safety laws, and some semblance of waste/pollution controls are what make it expensive. Do away with those? Nuts.

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

Actually, the meaningful measure, effective rates, does not have us at number one. But no matter. She doen't want us to look further at why jobs are being exported because if you did, you'd see how badly you've been screwed by both parties. We give tax breaks to companies who move jobs out, and "free trade" has opened up the cheaper labor markets that we cannot hope to compete with, even if corporate taxes were zero. But as I said, cheap goods that other countries sell to us are a good thing.

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

The Constitution says nothing, nada, zilch, about the "size" of government. The hypocrisy on this issue of Bachmann is staggering.  And thanks a whole lot, "you." "You" are an idiot who doesn't understand economics, so "you" and your ignorance are going to doom all of us to Japan-like economic conditions (or worse) for years to come. Fuck "you."

I believe that we're in the very early days of a history-making turn in America.

The end of an empire.

Please know how important your calls, visits and letters are to the maintenance of our liberties. 

Think of them as little "liberty janitors."

Because of you, Congress is responding, and we're just beginning to start to undo the damage that's been done the last few years,

"Undoing" does not mean "increasing."

because we believe in lower taxes,

 And the Tooth Fairy.

we believe in a limited view of government and

Santa Claus. Anything to do with the military and the security state are exempt from this belief. "Limited view of government" generally means doing all we can to prop up big business while letting the peons starve.

exceptionalism in America. 

I think she means "American Exceptionalism," which is the lie we tell ourselves to justify all the horrible shit we do to other countries.  

And I believe that America is the indispensable nation of the world.

All the other countries have that little "recyclable" symbol on them. Really, what the fuck does that mean? I'm pretty sure other countries do not view themselves as "dispensable."

Just the creation of this nation itself was a miracle. 

Oh, fuck this shit. Now she's doing the God thing. First of all, there are no "miracles." Miracles are what stupid people call things they can't explain. And even if I grant Michele her obvious intended meaning of the word, she's still a moron. The colonists getting together, risking their lives, and getting bailed out by the French is NOT miracle. There was nothing divine about it. And calling it a miracle disrespects that actual hard work put in by actual people. A miracle will be if this nation survives with elected officials as ignorant and stupid as Michele Bachmann.

Who can say that we won't see a miracle again? 

Scientists. Because, thanks to them, we know there are no miracles. 

The perilous battle that was fought during World War II in the Pacific at Iwo Jima was a battle against all odds,

Michele Bachmann and history: like letting your four-year-old drive. The battle against all odds was fought by the Japanese, dumbass.  18,000 Japanese, cut-off from supplies or air or naval support, against 70,000 Marines who were well-equipped and fully supported from sea and air.

and yet this picture immortalizes the victory of young GIs over the incursion against the Japanese.

What does that even mean? 

These six young men raising the flag came to symbolize all of America coming together to beat back a totalitarian aggressor.

Iwo Jima was, and is, Japanese territory.

Our current debt crisis we face today is different, 

Ya think?

but we still need all of us to pull together. But we can do this. That's our hope. We will push forward. We will proclaim liberty throughout the land. And we will do so because we, the people, will never give up on this great nation.

So God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

What the flying frog fart does proclaiming liberty across the land have to do with anything?  We may never give up on this nation, but we'll certainly keeping riding her into a ditch via our ignorance and inexplicable tendency to put know-nothing fools like Bachmann in office, not to mention the fact that this tripe was broadcast by CNN.