Insufferable intolerant budget harpy Michele Bachmann was an insufferable intolerant budget harpy during the budget crisis of 2011. Add ‘flagrantly hypocritical’ to that list of adjectives and you’ve got today’s Headline That Won’t Die!
When asked by Sean Hannity what Bachmann proposed to do to resolve the debt crisis last year, she said:
“People recognize that we can’t just keep upping the limit on the nation’s credit card. This madness has to stop. What are we going to do, every three months raise the debt ceiling again? At some point, you have to exercise fiscal discipline. [...] What [the impending shutdown] does, it forces government to change its priorities. We can pay off our debt obligations first, so we don’t miss any debt payments. But then maybe we can’t afford to pay for, you know, certain extra employees or extra programs. In other words, we actually cut back. That’s not a bad thing. And people want us to do that.”
Just to be clear: she wanted the federal government to shut down so it would stop spending money and focus on repaying its debts. Now, one might say that Bachmann’s hilarious crazytrain of a campaign “shut down” in early January, so the question that should obviously be asked is: did she “pay off her debt obligations, so she doesn’t miss any debt payments” once she shut down? Did she, as she recommended of the nation, do the fiscally responsible thing so she wouldn’t rob her creditors? No. No, haha, no she didn’t.
According to FEC filings that were due over a month ago but were filed on Wednesday, probably in crayon, Michele Bachmann’s campaign actually still owes $1,049,567. (If you’re up for a good read, check out this hilariously aggressive letter the FEC sent Bachmann’s campaign for neglecting to file its expense reports on time.) Give her some time though, right?
Swing and a miss. Just five days before her campaign ended, Bachmann’s campaign reported debts amounting to $1,055,924.18–meaning in the month since her “shut down,” she paid off about $6,000 of her million-dollar debt, despite having over half a million dollars on-hand. Presumably, Bachmann’s intention is to have Bachmann for America donate that cash to Bachmann for Congress (her campaign for her old congressional seat), meaning that money will simply be gone if she loses, or who knows! maybe she’ll have to fund-raise from Congress to pay off her Presidential run! What a deadbeat.
But the funniest part is who she owes that money to. According to her complete filing (which is a huge .pdf you can access here), she owes $583,395.85 to her fundraiser–Strategic Fundraising. Haha, fiscal conservatism.
