Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who’s slated to deliver several speeches in Iowa in the coming weeks, is keeping mum on a potential presidential bid, but told The Daily Caller that she plans to use her platform to speak out against President Barack Obama.
“I’m going [to Iowa] not necessarily for personal ambition, I’m going because I believe it’s a grievous state for Republicans to focus simply on the idea of who our nominee will be for the next two years,” Bachmann said in a phone interview. “I think it is far better if we focus on the principles and values and issues that are in front of us.”
By taking the national stage, Bachmann said she can show the American people what she says is wrong with Obama.
“Number one, we need to make the case why the country cannot afford a second Obama term, and number two, we need to make the case why we need a strong, bold constitutional conservative as our nominee because we have so much work to do to undo the damage of just the last two years of Obama and we’ve got two more to go,” Bachmann told TheDC. “I think we’re far more productive as a party if we can make that case for 12 months and then, I think, 12 months from now, our nominee will start bubbling to the surface and people will see who they believe will be our best option against Barack Obama, and I think that’s the better way to spend the next 12 months.”
Bachmann told TheDC she generally thought the 112th Congress was off to a good start, but was disappointed by how former Speaker Nancy Pelosi behaved during the transition ceremony compared to new Speaker John Boehner.
“In her speech, she focused on herself and she focused on her failed agenda that America rejected,” Bachmann said. “Right at parallel to her remarks was John Boehner. John Boehner focused on the fact that we have 9.8 percent unemployment, the fact that almost one out of 10 Americans aren’t working and that our focus will be to turn the job creation, the private job creation, on high, so we can move forward and cut down on the unemployment. But, then, he didn’t say one word about himself opposed to Speaker Pelosi who did focus on herself, and he said that this is also a ‘temporary gavel’ that the people give.”
As for the reading of the U.S. Constitution on Thursday on the House floor, Bachmann said it was “more than symbolic,” adding that it shows the American people that’s “what we want to be our guidepost going forward.” Bachmann wasn’t on the House floor for the Constitution reading, though.
“There were 435 people who wanted to read and only 100 could read and, so, I wasn’t there for that reason,” Bachmann said. “I’m hosting the constitutional seminars and I’m putting all of them together. I totally agree with the reading, but there were only 100 slots available and it was more important that the freshmen had their opportunity to be the readers.”
Bachmann is sponsoring legislation to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform and co-sponsoring the repeal of Obamacare with Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King. She told TheDC the repeal of Obamacare is a higher priority than repealing the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, but Dodd-Frank is a “very close second.”
“Both of them are very important. They’re job-killers. Dodd-Frank means the end of free checking for people of the United States,” Bachmann said. “It means higher ATM fees. It means a scarcity of credit. It’s a very bad bill that’s going to kill jobs and help the economy. It helps Barney Frank, but it doesn’t help too many other people, so it’s very important that we repeal that bill and I’ll be working hard on that as well as working hard to repeal Obamacare.”
Bachmann thinks the Congressional Budget Office estimate that repealing Obamacare would increase the deficit by $230 billion is accurate only because the numbers Democrats gave the CBO make it look that way.
“I agree with CBO in that they have to work with the numbers they’re given. It’s kind of like the equation of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ of the computer,” Bachmann said. “The numbers that were given by the Democrats to the CBO were garbage figures.”