Nothing makes the talking heads on MSNBC and various other outlets more incensed than the mention of Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann. And now she’s weighing in on the situation in Madison, Wisc., where several members of the state Senate are missing in action, avoiding a vote that would reform benefits given to state employees.
Bachmann appeared on Friday’s “America Live” on the Fox News Channel and explained that elections have consequences and this legislation is one.
“Well, it’s a dereliction of duty on behalf of the Democrat state senators in Wisconsin,” Bachmann said. “There was an election in 2010. The people spoke clearly in Wisconsin. They elected a new senator, Ron Johnson to replace Russ Feingold, a new governor, Scott Walker. And then they elected Republicans to run both the House and the Senate. This was a change election in Wisconsin. People wanted to get their fiscal house in order. That’s exactly what Gov. Walker and the House and Senate are trying to do, and now the Democrats are trying to thwart the will of the people by leaving the state? This is outrageous. and, plus, we have the president of the United States also weighing in with his campaign organization busing 25,000 protesters into Madison? It’s outrageous.”
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Bachmann noted how out of line the benefits those public servants receive are, compared to less lucrative ones offered by private sector employers.
“They have the support of the White House, but I don’t believe they have the support of the people of Wisconsin,” Bachmann said. “Remember what we’re talking about. These are public servants. They serve the people of Wisconsin. In Greece, for instance, we saw beneficiaries of government checks who took to the streets because the retirement age was going to be raised from 61 to 63. In this instance, [Fox Business Network host] Eric Bolling was on earlier, showing this is simply a contribution being asked to pay for part of their health insurance, not even the full part that the private sector counterparts pay for, and part of their pension. This is something that happens every day in the private sector. So now we are at the tipping point. This debate needed to come. It’s good that it came. What’s shocking is that the White House is weighing in, taking sides, and bringing in a campaign apparatus to set this up.
Bachmann compared how President Barack Obama is handling the situation to how former President Ronald Reagan handled an air traffic controller strike back in 1981.
“[I]f we look back to what President Reagan did, President Reagan fired the air traffic controllers,” she continued. “We’re on day three of Wisconsin teachers leaving their posts and leaving the children that they’re tasked serve and not teaching them so that they can go out and protest so they can make more money. This is beyond conscionable and I’m urging Gov. Walker and the legislature to hang tough because I believe the people are with the governor and the legislature.”
Bachmann said Obama needs to send a clear message to protesters about failing to fulfill their duties, one different from his claim the Wisconsin government was attempting “an assault on the unions.”
“Clearly he does,” she said. “It’s a heavy-handed overreaction on the part of not only the public servants, union employees impacted by this, but on behalf of the White House. It’s not a federal issue and the president of the United States has weighed in by bringing his campaign apparatus into the state capital in Madison? It doesn’t even make sense because it’s so overreaching. Again, I think that the likely result may be, Megyn, I think the people in Wisconsin will not take kindly to this and I don’t think it will be to the benefit of the president and his involvement, nor to the Democrat senators who left their post in a dereliction of duty and left the state boundaries.”