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I VOTE
Lv 5
I VOTE asked in Politics & GovernmentPolitics · 10 years ago

GOP Tea Party Michele Bachmann uses $13,630 of taxpayer money to pay for Political Rally?

On Nov. 5, 2009, at the behest of Rep. Michele Bachmann, thousands of tea party activists descended on the Capitol to vent their rage over the health care overhaul bill pending before Congress.

The assembled activists chanted, "Kill the bill! Kill the bill!" and waved signs opposing a government takeover of health care — but they may not have known that the same government was paying for the event.

Bachmann billed the event as a "press conference," which can be funded from official accounts. But no questions were taken from the press.

The money came from the Members' taxpayer-funded office accounts, despite House rules prohibiting the use of these funds for political activities.

According to House expense reports, Bachmann and three conservative GOP colleagues — Reps. Tom Price (Ga.), Steve King (Iowa) and Todd Akin (Mo.) — each paid $3,407.50 that day, a total of $13,630, to a sound and stage company called National Events, apparently for the sound system used at the rally.

Learning that taxpayer funds were used did strike a note of discomfort with Twin Cities Tea Party co-founder Deanna Boss, who arranged for more than 100 Minnesotans to attend the rally. Boss said she would have preferred that private donors had financed the event, given her and other activists' criticism of excessive government spending.

"I mean, we're broke," she said, referring to the national debt. "Every penny counts here."

CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan contends that the event was far from a press conference, citing, in particular, the lack of a question-and-answer session.

What do you think about this????

23 Answers

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  • Favorite Answer

    She couldn't find a private donor to fund this????

    Why is the GOP imploding???

    Get it together ppl

    I think its a shame

  • Anonymous
    10 years ago

    Some facts about Bachmann. She consistently contends that global warming is a hoax. Bachmann voted against the College Cost Reduction and Access Act; she openly favored higher interest rates and commercial lenders rather than lower interest government-run direct lending. She wishes to cut all government funding for Planned Parenthood. Bachmann opposes minimum wage increases. Bachmann has called for phasing out of Social Security and Medicare.

    Electing Bachmann would be the nail in the coffin for the US quality of life. Her 'every man for them-self' philosophies would lead to an even larger gap between the wealthy and the poor; while shrinking the already threatened middle-class. All this from someone who completed her bachelors degree from Winona State University and her law degree from Oral Roberts University (founded by evangelist Oral Roberts in 1963). Bachmann is NO blue-blood elitist, but somehow has distanced herself from caring for the common man.

  • 10 years ago

    Bachman is the same as the rest of the GOP. They have been selling our jobs to other countries for years and now they want to eliminate the middle class and redistribute the wealth of this country. They want the upper class to have all the wealth while everyone else works for slave wages. It never has been about the economy. The biggest companies in the us have pulled money out of the economy on purpose to create this recession. They did this because of a social concision agenda by the left that would end up costing them money.The rich have siphoned enough money out of our economy so it no longer properly operates and the only way to fix it is to tax the rich heavily so they will be forced to reinvest in america or lose their money in taxes.

  • BRUCE
    Lv 4
    10 years ago

    Another GOP Tea Party member saying one thing and doing another

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  • 10 years ago

    press conference is just the cover up

  • 10 years ago

    Ouch

    Looks like she should watched out more carefully when talking about Government spending as your spending tax payer money

  • ?
    Lv 4
    10 years ago

    "I mean, we're broke," she said, referring to the national debt. "Every penny counts"

    That pretty much sums it up with me

    She should've spent her own money not mine's

  • Anonymous
    10 years ago

    Arguing over $13,630 is just dumb we got bigger fish to fry.

    However she shouldn't have used my money to do it

  • Tony Z
    Lv 6
    10 years ago

    $13,000 is chump change compared to the $225,000 government subsidy that Bachmann receives for her failing family farm.

    She is also foster parent to 23 kids, for whom she receives $600 to $800 each per month. That's rougly another $196,000 per year.

    Bachmann is a liar and a hypocrite.

  • Anonymous
    10 years ago

    You need to raise you sights. When Obama travels across the country to a fundraiser on AF 1 all he is required to pay is what the 1st class commercial airfare would be. So a trip that costs the taxpayers $millions costs his campaign a couple of $1000 at most. You should be going after the big bucks, not the nickel and dime. But that's not really your intent, is it?

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