Like Most Republicans, Anti-Spending Zealot Bachmann LIkes Scarfing Her Federal Dollars

Sure, GOP Presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) seems to spend a lot of time shrieking about federal spending, but, like most Republicans dedicated to transferring all of America's wealth from its citizenry to the favored few, Bachmann considers herself to be one of those few God chose to be favored.

Tea Party darling Bachmann alternates between screaming tirades against federal spending and burying her nipped, tucked, botoxed snout in the public funding trough. Bachmann, aside from occasional forays into interpretive history, such as her recent precept that the founding fathers abolished slavery, spends most of her time looking to slash heinous wastes of taxpayer money on such useless extravagances as lavishing benefits on veterans who hadn't had the good sense to get themselves killed for their country.

Now, on top of the recent revelation that the Bachmann family farm enjoyed fat federal subsidies, NBC has revealed that her husband's clinic enjoyed fat Medicaid billings.

The Wisconsin farm owned by Bachmann's late father-in-law, Paul Bachmann, and in which the candidate is still a partner, over the years received $260,000 in federal farm subsidies.

"Again, we've answered that question so many times that everyone's tired of it," Bachmann said snippily. "There's nothing to it. We've never gotten a dime."

Aside from it being unseemly whenever anyone other than Queen Elizabeth II of England or Rickey Henderson speaks in the royal plural, Bachmann is technically correct in asserting that she'd never gotten "a" dime from the farm or the subsidies.

Actually, she'd gotten anywhere from $32,503 to $105,000 from the farm between 2006 and 2009. That's anywhere from 325,000 to 1,050,000 dimes. Get with the program, people. And, some founding fathers, such as Alexander Hamilton, were really, really against slavery. Really. Hamilton was an early abolitionist.

Of course, the anti-slavery torch bearer Bachmann named was John Quincy Adams, who was about nine when folks were whipping up the Declaration of Independence.

In current events, NBC stated Bachmann & Associates' Lake Elmo, MN clinic collected more than $137,000 in Medicaid payments since 2005. The clinic, founded by Bachmann's clinical therapist husband, Marcus, also accepted $24,000 in state and federal funds to train staff on dealing with drug dependant and mentally ill patients.

According to its website, the clinic provides "quality Christian counseling in a sensitive, loving environment." It wasn't immediately known what was meant by "Christian," although Bachmann's harangues against wasting taxpayer dollars would be quite understandable if they were being used to pay for laying on hands, handling snakes, and speaking in tongues.

Bachmann spokesperson Alice Stewart defended her boss Wednesday with a statement to the effect that turning away Medicaid patients would be discriminatory.

Yes, that's lovely. We have nothing against Medicaid patients, although we're not convinced of the efficacy of waving snakes at them. We're all for expanding Medicaid and Medicare, which are the most efficient ways of delivering health care, bypassing all those insurance company corporate suites and all the mega-yachts, corporate jets and fat executive compensation packages they tend to devour.

What we have a problem with is Michele Bachmann constantly dissing Medicaid for adding to the welfare rolls, then finding out some of those Medicaid dollars, after going in an out of Bachmann bank accounts, end up nipping and tucking and botoxing the quintessential nipped, tucked, botoxed, faux-thirty trophy Legislator who struts onto Fox News and tells Bill O'Reilly, "I don't need government to be successful."

Let's see: $260,000 + $137,000 + $24,000. Most people would count a $421,000 haul as pretty successful.

Perhaps people who get $421,000 from the government can afford some sort of secret Republicans-only time machine that enables folks like Bachmann and Sarah Palin to go back in time to discover that nine-year-old John Quincy Adams refused to eat his broccoli as part of a hunger strike protesting the institution of slavery, and that Paul Revere really did warn the British, and let Benedict Arnold take the fall.

More recently, Bachmann dissed Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton's January executive order expanding the state's Medicaid program, saying, "Right now, Gov. Dayton is wanting to commit Minnesota taxpayers to add even more welfare recipients on the welfare rolls at very great cost."

Of course, what Bachmann, and Tea Party zealots, and just about any Republican means is that Americans shouldn't be spending money to benefit the poor, or people of color. What Bachmann, and Tea Party zealots, and Republicans really mean is that all that money should just be handed directly to Bachmann, and Tea Party zealots, and Republicans, preferably ones who are white and rich and filled with hate for anyone who isn't a Bachmann or a Tea Party zealot or a Republican. Money going to Bachmann and her cohort is not only okay, it's fulfilling the ultimate destiny God meant for all money, joining the 84% of America's wealth that's already been concentrated into the hands of 20% of America's most blessed Bachmanns and Tea Party zealots and Republicans and their string-pulling patrons.

"It's clear when it feathers her nest, she's happy for Medicaid expenditures," said Ron Pollock of the health care advocacy group Families USA. "But people that really need it, folks with disabilities and seniors, she's turning their backs on them."

Bachmann said, "They want to see two girls come together and have a mud wrestling fight," changing the subject.