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Michele Bachmann Fabricates Re-Education Camps, Can’t See Homeless in Own District

Boy, am I going to miss Michele Bachmann when she is gone. (She will be gone, eventually. If there is any cosmic justice, Minnesota’s 6th District will boot this woman in 2010; she squeaked by with 46% of the vote in 2008.)

From Salon’s War Room yesterday, we learn Bachmann is now concerned with the imminent creation of re-education camps that will turn American youth into automatons of political correctness, blah, blah, blah as part of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. War Room links to FactCheck.org, which speaks truth to power on this issue (links theirs, bold mine):

Some … conservative Web sites say it requires the government to draw up plans for a “mandatory service requirement for all able young people.”Others say the bill forbids participants from attending church.

These claims are false. Neither the House-passed bill nor the Senate-passed version says these things.

….

House Republicans who approved of the bill said in the House committee report: “[W]e applaud the inclusion of reforms that Committee Republicans have long championed to ensure that recipients of taxpayer funds are held accountable for results. We are pleased to join with the Majority in supporting bipartisan efforts to strengthen the national service laws and improve service delivery throughout the country.”

War Room also links to the Minnesota Independent article discussing Bachmann’s latest and greatest paranoid fantasy, including audio files of Bachmann discussing the re-education camps on Sue Jeffers’ radio show. (Sue Jeffers is a libertarian.) If you’ve got five minutes, listen to the highlights. Eighteen minutes will buy you the whole segment. (I only lasted through about three minutes of the highlights.)

Poking around the Minnesota Independent site, though, I found an interesting tidbit. While Michele Bachmann is railing against stimulus bills and global currencies and socialism and the cult-like indoctrination of our children (an ironic worry, coming from a fundamentalist Christian), her district saw the largest number of foreclosures in the state in 2008. Apparently, too, her district led the nation in foreclosures in 2007.

Does this concern Bachmann? Hell, no! She’s got bigger fish to fry (bold mine):

Bachmann’s record in Congress is not one of a representative whose district faces such a crisis. Bachmann hasn’t authored or sponsored any legislation to assist homeowners facing foreclosure, but she has co-sponsored 14 bills to restrict abortions and five to promote Christianity in government.

Bachmann voted against five key foreclosure relief bills, including the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act, which would set standards for mortgages and reduce predatory lending, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Act, which would provide funds for buying and rehabilitating foreclosed properties in affected neighborhoods. She also opposed the Expanding American Homeownership Act, which allows more people to qualify for FHA-backed mortgages, and the Expand and Preserve Home Ownership Through Counseling Act, which aims to improve financial literacy. Bachmann additionally voted against the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, a law signed by President Bush that contained many provisions to assist struggling homeowners and also the only one of the bills to become law.

Bachmann doesn’t believe it is appropriate to help “irresponsible” homeowners, but she might want to think about her constituents who are not in foreclosure but who are watching their equity disappear in a depressed housing market or who are already upside down when it comes to what is likely their largest investment.

Meanwhile, back in reality, the Democrat representing Minnesota’s 5th District, Keith Ellison, has made moves to help not only his district but communities nationwide suffering inordinate forclosure rates.

He authored a bill that gives renters 90 days notice when a housing unit goes into foreclosure and allow them to finish their lease.

“I think it’s in the best interest of the banks to keep people in these [housing] units,” Ellison told the Independent. “These empty buildings create nuisances for crime, they get vandalized. While they sit empty, people come in and steal copper piping and it creates a risk for fire.”

….

In the last session, Ellison authored the Fairness for Homeowners Act, which would add new regulations to mortgage lenders such as verifying a borrower’s ability to pay and eliminating pre-payment penalties.

….

Ellison is also a co-sponsor of 12 other bills aimed at providing relief to individuals and communities impacted by the foreclosure crisis. His voting record in Congress on housing is virtually the opposite of Bachmann’s.

Might I suggest that if you have a little extra money in 2010, you make a donation to the political campaign of whoever is running against Bachmann. Even if the candidate is a capuchin monkey. Any animal, person, place, or thing running against Bachmann deserves the support of the not-insane.

Want to Crash the Stock Market in One Fell Swoop? Let the Republicans Show You How

Yes, yes, I am once again (and I think for the last time???) returning to last week’s House Republican Budget Alternative to point out another stroke of unmitigated idiocy. When I first wrote about the report, I was so disgusted by the ridiculous 70-year economic projections that I swore I wouldn’t read the damn thing. After all, I had stuff to do: laundry to wash, groceries to buy, diapers to change.

But truth be told, I did ultimately read the report. Call me a sucker, but deep down I wanted the report to have something, anything to indicate the GOP has economic expertise behind them. As far as I can tell, they don’t.

Yesterday, I wrote about the report’s stooooopid tax proposal that offers a two-tier flat-tax plan because (according to Republicans) only flat-tax plans are fair but that allows taxpayers to take advantage of current, progressive taxation if it turns out their taxes would be lower this way. (In many, many, many cases they would be for the top 2% of American households.) Nevermind the effect on overall revenue the highest income earners paying lower taxes would have. Let’s just say, the happy green line of stable revenue for the next century projected by Republicans would be a little less happy and a little less stable.

Today, let’s unwrap the gift to wealthy Americans promised by the Republican budget alternative. Tacked on to the end of the section called “Federal Tax Reform” is this gem:

Temporarily Suspends Capital Gains Taxes. This budget eliminates capital gains taxes for the balance of 2009 and all of 2010. That would immediately increase the after-tax rate of return on capital, which would help stabilize the market and establish a floor on equity prices. The capital gains tax essentially lowers the return on risk-taking and discourages investment – much needed activities in the current market environment. Temporarily lifting this tax would give a significant boost to confidence and would unlock much-needed private capital that has been sitting on the sidelines throughout the credit crunch an economic recession.

I have know idea what mushrooms one has to eat to believe an 18-month suspension of the cap-gains tax will magically “give a significant boost to confidence and [will] unlock much-needed private capital.” But I certainly can be stone-cold sober to see oodles and oodles of investors dumping their stock holdings to avoid taxes after December 31, 2010. Not all stock investments are in the red right now. Millions of Americans have money parked in the market, money that has been there for years and years, and even in today’s below-8,000 Dow, that money is now profitable. Suspending the cap-gains tax gives investors a fantastic reason to sell, sell, sell and get on the T-bill bandwagon at least until things stabilize … and, of course, stabilization is just around the corner with a crashed stock market, right?

Oh, and let’s not forget the wealthiest-of-the-wealthiest Americans who earn their income not from wading through 9-5 office drudgery but from capital gains. The Republican plan would give these few Americans who control a disproportionate amount of the wealth in this country 18 months or so of tax-free living.

Once again, Republicans are relying on the reasoning they used when railing against the stimulus bill: ACK! ***Only*** tax cuts will stimulate the economy!!!! … !!!!!!!!!!!!!! … !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Remember, the House Republican Budget Alternative is the official party answer to Obama’s budget. We can take the cynical view and say that Republicans were faced with an exercise in futility, that it didn’t matter what they said in their plan, cruel Democrats would persecute them anyway, so it is better, politically, to appeal to righteous partisanship. I believe, though, it was the righteous partisanship of the plan that ensured the futility of the exercise.

Not surprising, I support Obama’s plan, but that does not mean I would have shied away from intelligent debate. Sadly, Congressional Republicans’ offered a reactionary budget alternative that contorted itself in all manners to protect the status quo, rendering intelligent debate an impossibility.