HERE. I think I disagree with Pete below in calling Michele the Tiger Woods of demagoguery, because (unlike Peron or Willy Stark) she actually believes what she’s saying. That would mean, of course, that she would be incapable of making an semi-authentic move to the center in the general election. I’m going to say something about Rick Perry soon: It’s going to involve the way he won elections in Texas, and the underperformance that was his last reelection.
Saturday, August 13, 2011, 12:03 PM
August 13th, 2011 | 12:45 pm
Given Bachmann’s past statements about staying the course in Afghanistan and not cutting Social Security benefits to current recipients, and paying the interest on the debt it is difficult to see how she manages to cut 995 billion off next near’s Ryan budget (itself a $111 billion cut from the CBO baseline) without raising taxes. It is tough to see how the math works. I’m not just saying that such cuts (sparing the programs she wants spared) would be undesirable, I’m saying that she hasn’t come close to leveling with people about the kinds of cuts required to balance the budget in one year and she knows that if she did, she would get hooted at by all but a small minority.
http://www.minnpost.com/ericblack/2010/10/05/22066/bachmann_statements_on_social_security_false_contradictory_and_bizarre
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/michele-bachmann-afghanistan_575415.html
http://nlt.ashbrook.org/2011/08/unbalanced.php
August 13th, 2011 | 3:52 pm
One must also presume that she believes that not raising the debt ceiling this year and leaving the federal government too little cash to pay a substantial fraction (40%) of its bills and leaving it to the executive’s discretion to decide what bills get unpaid would have prevented a downgrade of the US government’s credit rating. I very strongly doubt she believes that.
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