Michele Bachmann: Welfare Queen

[Polk]

Michele Bachmann has become well known for her anti-government tea-bagger antics, protesting health care reform and every other government “handout” as socialism. What her followers probably don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is, to use that anti-government slur, something of a welfare queen. That’s right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.

And she’s not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.

...

But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls.

...

Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate that her personal stake in the family farm is worth up to $250,000. They also show that she has been earning income from the farm business, and that the income grew in just a few years from $2,000 to as much as $50,000 for 2008. This has provided her with a second government-subsidized income to go with her job as a government-paid congresswoman who makes $174,000 per year (in addition to having top-notch government medical benefits). “If she has an interest in a farm getting federal subsidy payments, she is benefiting from them,” Sandra Schubert, director of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, told Gannett News Service in 2007, when the subsidies to Bachmann were first publicly disclosed.

Michele Bachmann: Welfare Queen - Truthdig

Tisk tisk tisk. The march of socialism indeed.

 

[Polk]

And she's not the only one (from the same article):

Chuck Grassley, the longtime Republican senator from Iowa who warns his constituents of Obama’s “trend toward socialism,” has seen his family collect $1 million in federal handouts over an 11-year period, with Grassley’s son receiving $699,248 and the senator himself pocketing $238,974. Even Grassley’s grandson is learning to ride through life on training wheels, snagging $5,964 in 2005 and $2,363 in 2006. In the Grassley family they learn early how to enjoy other people’s money.

...

Then there’s Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., whose family has been on the government take for at least the past 11 years, pocketing some $500,000. The senator recently held a “prayercast” with Michele Bachmann to beseech God to kill health care reform as soon as possible because it would bring an evil socialist spirit into America. Like Bachmann, Brownback has a fierce belief in God, the free market and a two-year limit on all welfare benefits—unless it’s welfare to rich Republicans who don’t need it.

 

[dilloduck]

Michele Bachmann has become well known for her anti-government tea-bagger antics, protesting health care reform and every other government “handout” as socialism. What her followers probably don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is, to use that anti-government slur, something of a welfare queen. That’s right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.

And she’s not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.

...

But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls.

...

Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate that her personal stake in the family farm is worth up to $250,000. They also show that she has been earning income from the farm business, and that the income grew in just a few years from $2,000 to as much as $50,000 for 2008. This has provided her with a second government-subsidized income to go with her job as a government-paid congresswoman who makes $174,000 per year (in addition to having top-notch government medical benefits). “If she has an interest in a farm getting federal subsidy payments, she is benefiting from them,” Sandra Schubert, director of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, told Gannett News Service in 2007, when the subsidies to Bachmann were first publicly disclosed.

Michele Bachmann: Welfare Queen - Truthdig

Tisk tisk tisk. The march of socialism indeed.

Shocking---a fucked up politician

 

[rdean]

Oh Michelle, say it isn't so.

I loved you for being an honest wacko. But to find out you are a wacko on the take? Horrible.

 

[Article 15]

I'm sure somebody will come in here and explain to us how this doesn't make Ms. Bachmann a socialist (according to the right wing loons definition of it).

 

[Polk]

Only thing shocking about it to me was that they don't grow beets (Minnesota is a huge producer of beets, because there are huge subsidies for converting beets into alternative sugars).

 

[Political Junky]

Poor crazy Michelle Bachmann, exposed.

 

[Luissa]

I'm sure somebody will come in here and explain to us how this doesn't make Ms. Bachmann a socialist (according to the right wing loons definition of it).

Is she a socialist or communist? I always get the ism's messed up.

 

[Article 15]

I'm sure somebody will come in here and explain to us how this doesn't make Ms. Bachmann a socialist (according to the right wing loons definition of it).

Is she a socialist or communist? I always get the ism's messed up.

Both.

I actually think this might make her a Muslim too.

 

[Harry Dresden]

I'm sure somebody will come in here and explain to us how this doesn't make Ms. Bachmann a socialist (according to the right wing loons definition of it).

what it makes her is.....a shitass lowlife politician....doing what politicians do....taking payoffs from wherever they can get them....and hope YOU dont find out......

 

[random3434]

What I want to know is how do the average Joe Smoes and Jane Does get in on the Government Dole that these lovely people do?

 

[Article 15]

I'm sure somebody will come in here and explain to us how this doesn't make Ms. Bachmann a socialist (according to the right wing loons definition of it).

what it makes her is.....a shitass lowlife politician....doing what politicians do....taking payoffs from wherever they can get them....and hope YOU dont find out......

Yup, that too

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Unbelievable. You retards amaze me anew every day.

 

[Luissa]

I'm sure somebody will come in here and explain to us how this doesn't make Ms. Bachmann a socialist (according to the right wing loons definition of it).

Is she a socialist or communist? I always get the ism's messed up.

Both.

I actually think this might make her a Muslim too.

oh! Shit!
Next thing you know, she is going to be opening muslim schools.

 

[Polk]

Is she a socialist or communist? I always get the ism's messed up.

Both.

I actually think this might make her a Muslim too.

oh! Shit!
Next thing you know, she is going to be opening muslim schools.

Speaking of Michele Bachmann and schools, does this story rank as more or less embarrassing than the time she called Teach for America a communist plot at the same time her son was involved in the program?

 

[Article 15]

Unbelievable. You retards amaze me anew every day.

What was that, Lassie?

Michelle Bachmann is a lying dirty librul socialist and all you can do is sputter about retards?

 

[Luissa]

crap!

 

[Luissa]

Both.

I actually think this might make her a Muslim too.

oh! Shit!
Next thing you know, she is going to be opening muslim schools.

Speaking of Michele Bachmann and schools, does this story rank as more or less embarrassing than the time she called Teach for America a communist plot at the same time her son was involved in the program?

I swear she also wanted the media to do an investigation into who was patiotic in congress???
Isn't nationalism a sign of some ism also?

 

[random3434]

Both.

I actually think this might make her a Muslim too.

oh! Shit!
Next thing you know, she is going to be opening muslim schools.

Speaking of Michele Bachmann and schools, does this story rank as more or less embarrassing than the time she called Teach for America a communist plot at the same time her son was involved in the program?

I'd love to read that, you have a link?

I work with some Teach for America people.

 

[Article 15]

crap!

Ha ha.