Do As I Say, Not As I Do

“During the last 100 days we have seen an orgy [of spending]. It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed." ~ Michele Bachmann on the stimulus and auto industry bailout during a conference in Minnesota on May 4, 2009.


May 20, 2009, Bachmann wrote Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, asking him to look into an application for aid that the city of Big Lake, Minn., had made to "develop and finance the Big Lake Rail Park."


May 22, 2009, she wrote Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking for support for the St. Cloud, Minn., Metropolitan Transit Commission's application for federal funds.


June 4, 2009, she wrote LaHood again seeking grant funding to extend the Northstar Corridor commuter service from Big Lake to St. Cloud.


June 19, 2009, she made an "urgent" request to LaHood to reverse a decision by the Federal Highway Administration that undermined a project in Waite Park, Minn.


July 2, 2009, she wrote LaHood again, pleading for money for road improvements in Waite Park. She added that she was "pleased to learn" that Minnesota's Department of Transportation was not going to "pull the nearly $2.8 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding set aside for the project."


Sept. 15, 2009, Bachmann wrote six separate letters to LaHood asking for help funding six projects (the Northstar line among them) through the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program.


Oct. 5, 2009, she wrote Vilsack again, praising him for putting money into the nation's beleaguered pork industry and encouraging him to help "stabilize prices through direct government purchasing."


Oct. 10, 2009  "We hear about fantasy football games. This is fantasy economics," ~ Bachmann publicly speaking about Obama's "charade" of trying to quell the recession. 


"I would begin with the EPA, because there is no other agency like the EPA. It should really be renamed the job-killing organization of America." ~ Michele Bachmann in GOP debate


Feb. 2, 2010, letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Bachmann asked the agency (the job-killing organization) to support a $270,806 grant application (filed with the EPA's Clean Diesel Grant Program) that would help a St. Cloud bus company replace two older motor coach vehicles.


Minnesota's sixth congressional district received more than $234 million in stimulus contracts, grants and loans, according to the Obama administration's Recovery.org website.