Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann suggested that the United States should be more like China to spur economic growth.
“What federal functions will you eliminate or return to the states in order to balance our budget?” asked Senator Jim DeMint at Saturday’s CBS/National Journal debate on foreign policy.
“I think, really, what I would want to do is be able to go back and take a look at Lyndon Bains Johnson’s Great Society,” responded Bachmann. “The Great Society has not weakened and it’s put us into the modern welfare state.”
“If you look at China,” Bachmann continued, “they don’t have food stamps. If you look at China, they’re in a very different situation. They save for their own retirement security … They don’t have the modern welfare state. And China’s growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that L.B.J. gave us with the Great Society and they’d be gone.”
The Bachmann campaign had not responded to request for comment by time of publication.