Posted on 10/19/2010 6:51:19 AM PDT by ejdrapes
Despite vocal criticism of the federal stimulus package and a re-election campaign that trades heavily on her opposition to it, Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann sought stimulus funding on at least seven occasions last year.
The requests, which came in August and September of 2009, were released Sunday by the investigative journalism site Center for Public Integrity.
They include a request for funding for a $150 million expansion of the Northstar commuter rail line to St. Cloud — something Bachmann had declined to back just months earlier.
The Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan Washington-based group, said Bachmann was among almost 2,000 GOP and Democratic stimulus opponents who wrote behind-the-scenes
letters requesting funds for projects.
Bachmann defended her request for money from the $787 billion stimulus package, even though in her latest ads she refers to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as "the failed (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi trillion-dollar stimulus."
In a statement, she continued to attack the package, which she voted against, saying it has been misspent.
"It is my obligation as a member of Congress to ensure stimulus dollars are spent on the most worthy projects," Bachmann said in a statement. "I did just that when I supported applications for the (stimulus) grant program."
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
And if they did pass another stimulus then Bachmann would be there again with her hand out. As she would with a third or a fourth. She wants to have her cake and eat it too.
The funds were requested, none were funded.
Read the whole article all the way to the bottom.
The State was denied the funds.
They will fund pig stench projects and bridges to nowhere, but not projects in Bachman’s State?
if getting to Twins games is critical to national defense, then yes.
NORTHSTAR RAIL IS A MONEY SUCK
First, the Star Tribune reported this that Northstar has missed its ridership projections and is running about 3% below what was expected.
http://www.startribune.com/local/north/102670934.html
While missing the target by 3% may not seem to be an issue, the problem becomes apparent when weekday commuter riders are compared to weekend leisure riders heading down to Target Field to take in a Twins game.
It turns out that there are nearly as many people taking the train to see a game as there are taking the train into Minneapolis for work each day.
Take this past July, for example. That month, the average daily commuter ridership was 2,530. On a Saturday when the Twins were playing at home, average leisure ridership was 2,373.
So, there nearly as many people taking the train to catch a game as there are taking the train to work on a weekday.
Remember when the $317 million train was sold to the taxpayers as a transportation option for commuters? It turns out that an argument can be made that Northstar is little more than a taxpayer-subsidized tool catering to baseball fans looking for a ride to a taxpayer-subsidized baseball yard.
Perhaps the most shocking and disappointing statistic is that taxpayers subsidize a whopping 83% of the cost of every Northstar ride, while the rider only covers 17% (called the “fare box recovery”).
It breaks down like this:
Each one-way trip costs on average $22.37
Each rider pays an average one-way trip cost of $3.74
The taxpayers pony up the difference for each and every trip.
Through July 31st, taxpayers have subsidized Northstar’s operations to the tune of over $7.5 million!
And this scares you how? If the projects produced results while democrat projects failed...her wisdom of how to appropriately manage the public funds would be apparent. But, since they were denied funding...for many public projects like bridges and roads...I guess we'll never know.
I don’t think anything is as big a turd as the Big Pig.
Look, she’s my Congresscritter.I like her. I’ve met her and contributed.But she can error, too. Being right most of the time is better than most of our critters.
Northstar IS a money suck.
She would never have supported the project if she didn't feel it was vital to our best interests as a people.
If Northstar can be construed as national security, supporters pimping rail would have claimed it here...not even Willie Green would attempt that stretch.
It would be cheaper to issue us all Humvees,gasmasks and Faraday cages in Anoka county .
If you think the projects she requested are not wise expendatures of money, vote against her.
It's like someone taking Social Security although he opposes it in principle. If you don't take what your taxes have already paid for, you are placing yourself at a disadvantage, and may be a fool. This is just another liberal smokescreen.
I don't live in her district and I'm not a recipient of her pork so all I can do is point out her hypocrisy. As I would also do for my own Congressman if he condemned the stimulus and then put in for stimulus money. But Moore was solidly in favor of the whole thing.
Do you take tax deductions?
I’ve explained it numerous times. She would not want another stimulus. She wants Minnesota money to stay in Minnesota, not to be confiscated by the federal government and then — maybe — handed back to Minnesotans at the pleasure of he feds. But, once the confiscation takes place and there’s nothing she can do about it, what possible point is there in standing on “principle,” and not trying to get it back to its rightful owners? To do otherwise is to say, “Well, alright. Take Minnesota’s money and redistribute it somewhere else.” That is not principled, it is stupid.
Good question!
I do. But I don't take them and then complain that they should be done away with.
I bet you are in favor of the flat tax or the FAIR tax, though, aren’t you?
I'm in favor of a fairer, more effective tax. I find the idea of the flat tax interesting, but most of the flat tax proposals and the FAIR tax seem unworkable to me. So I'd have to see a concrete proposal before I'd sign on to either one.
But if one were passed she'd also be there with her hand out.
That is not principled, it is stupid.
No, it's hypocritical. If I say I am against abortion but pay for my daughter to get one then I'm a hypocrite. Obama claims he's for a balanced budgt, but blows it all out of proportion; he's a hypocrite. Bachmann claims the stimulus is evil and claims her opponent would have voted for it all the while taking stimulus money; she's a hypocrite as well.
I don’t believe this for a moment. She is not an idiot. She did not take one dime of this money. She is a principled person not like idiots who voted against this and then accept the welfare.....SHE WOULD NEVER DO THIS. This is a slam against her because she is conservative.
One of the prime components of all of those taxes is the removal of tax deductions.
But as long as tax deductions are legal, you will take them, right?
Even as you hope for a system that doesn’t have them?
Not hypocrisy (an often misused word), but living in reality.
Bachmann holding her breath and stomping her feet after the vote wasn’t going to save one penny of taxpayer money. She took the deductions even as she works to get rid of them.
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