Rep. Michele Bachman (R-Minn.) and common sense - NOT

OK, Common Sense sometimes just can't help itself.  Ms Bachman gave a "Tea Party" response to the President's State of the Union speech.  Herewith some common sense observations.

Right off the bat Ms Bachman thanks the Tea Party and declares that her remarks are not competing with the earlier Republican response.  Really?  It's one thing to say so, quite another to not compete when several leading Republicans have expressed concern and downright displeasure.  Common Sense thinks saying something, even saying it many times, just doesn't make it so.  When Common Sense wants to know what's real it looks at what people are doing rather more than what they are saying.


Then Ms Bachman proceeds to recite facts in a rather distorted fashion.  She notes that when Mr Obama took office unemployment was and the deficit were much lower whereupon Mr Obama spent over a $1 trillion in a "failed stimulus package."  But is that true?  On the face of it perhaps.  But, and this is the important part, the US was on the verge of the largest recession in the last 50 years and facing the immanent collapse of several major US corporations and the financial system.  These problems are not ones that Mr Obama created, they are ones he inherited from a previous Republican administration brought on by years of Congressional dismantling of the sensible financial regulation created after the Great Depression.  Common Sense thinks that it is not simply deceptive but unconscionable to cherry pick facts to support what is fundamentally an untruth.

Ms Bachman then notes that Mr Obama promised to keep unemployment below 8% and failed.  While she's correct on the facts she choose, she ignores the rest of the facts.  When Mr Obama made his initial statements about unemployment no one, including the Mr Obama who is, after all not omniscient, knew or could have known just how much trouble the economy was in.  Did Mr Obama in fact fail to keep unemployment below 8%?  Yes, he did.  Was it his falt?  No, it wasn't.  Rather the fault lies with Congressional action and the Bush administration.  Again, distorting the facts to support an argument just doesn't make it true.

She goes on to note that the deficit ballooned under Mr Obama.  In fact it did, largely because of spending to moderate the worst economic decline since the Great Depression.  Bachman also glosses lightly over the Bush deficits noting simply that they were "to high"  while not noting that they followed on the heals of a balanced budget from Mr Clinton.  Deficit spending is bad to be sure, but blaming spending caused by Congress and previous administrations on Mr Obama is just distortion of the truth.

Flushed with herself, Ms Bachman then plays the bureaucracy card noting first that we're now told what light bulbs to buy and there are 16,500 IRS agents ready to enforce the Mr Obama's Health Care bill.  The light bulb remark is simply silly.  Energy consumption is a serious problem.  Energy is expensive and energy consumption a significant contributor to trade deficits.  So lets see, perhaps Ms Bachman thinks we should use light bulbs that cost the consumer more in electric bills and increase the trade deficit, or perhaps she is just trying to trivialize an altogether sensible step to reduce home electric bills and improve energy efficiency.  Perhaps by trivializing she hopes to make Government the problem when in fact in the light bulb case government has done the common sense thing.

The remark about the IRS agents is yet another example of distortions as is characterizing the Health Care law as Mr Obama's.  In the case of the IRS, they are not going to come knocking on anyone's door.  First of all, those provisions of the law have not gone into effect.  Second, the law actually only imposes a tax penalty for failure to conform.  The IRS isn't going to force anyone to buy health insurance.  It's also worth noting that the health care proposal Mr Obama made is different in many important respects from what Congress passed.  Indeed, the law passed is largely one of health insurance reform not health care reform and does not contain several of the most important reforms Mr Obama proposed.  The truth is it's not his but rather Congress's.

Ms Bachman then seems to depart for some sort of alternate universe noting that the US enjoys the world's finest health care.  Really!  Common Sense did a bit of fact checking that goes to that notion.  The US ranks 49th among industrialized nations in life expectancy and 44th in infant mortality while spending more on health care per person than any other country in the world!  We're not best, we're not even close.  But Ms Bachman doesn't really seem troubled by the facts.

Rather full of herself from a profoundly distorted view Ms Bachman goes on to list what Mr Obama should do.  No EPA imposed cap and trade, support a balanced budget amendment, energy policy to increase US energy production, support repeal of "Obama care", support medical liability reform, support nationwide policy purchase, and reduce corporate tax rate.  So lets check reality.  First, the EPA doesn't impose cap and trace, it implements laws passed by Congress.  Oh, and by the way, absent some serious reduction in greenhouse gases, we are going to have environmental problems that will be world changing.  Second, while a balanced budget is appealing Congress has never shown any willingness to take the tough principled steeps needed to balance the budget.  Energy policy, Mr Obama in fact has supported reasonable energy policies that would ween the US from oil in favor of energy national energy sources.  Common Sense will be interested to see if Congress has the fortitude to remove big oil's tax giveaways and fund renewable energy.  Repeal of "Obama care," the facts just don't support that notion.  Medical liability reform - Mr Obama called for just that.  Nationwide policy purchase - OK.  Reduce corporate tax rates - Mr Obama called for that as well provided that corporate tax breaks are also eliminated.  Common Sense notes that Mr Obama in fact supports a number of Ms Bachman's proposals and that other of her notions are profoundly wrong headed.

Ms Bachman closes by playing the "them and us" card and characterizing recent congressional electees as "great men and women."  "Them and us" is in Common Sense's view what's wrong with political discourse today.  There is no them, there is only us in Common Sense's view.  It's time to grow up and realize that we are all in this country together and if we don't act together we will surely fail together.  As to "great men and women," greatness will be determined by history, not by those who have yet to do much of anything in Congress.

It's nice that Ms Bachman wants to energize the faithful as she does in her final remarks.  It's nice to remember a different time in a simpler world.  But Common Sense thinks that remarks like "totalitarian aggressor" are offensive on their face.  Common Sense thinks that Ms Bachman, having recently been elected herself, should be keenly aware that as a representative democracy we get the government we elect certainly not a totalitarian proposition.

Ms Bachman has every right to her views.  She has every right to speak.  Indeed she has a responsibility as a politician to do so.  But those rights and responsibilities do not make distortions acceptable.  Rather, they impose a higher standard which Common Sense thinks Ms Bachman fails to meet.