Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann charged Sunday that President Obama is “acting” like the United States is a “banana republic.”
The 2012 presidential contender leveled the allegation in the course of explaining on NBC’s “Meet the Press” why she doesn’t support the extension of the so-called payroll tax cut beyond its expiration this year.
“Meet the Press” host David Gregory cited a poll which showed that the American people are on the side of the extension and pointed out that Bachmann has relied on polling in the past when making decisions. But Bachmann said it was on the larger issue of spending and not the smaller issue of the tax extension on which she based her opposition.
“Well, if you go back to last summer, what we should have done is had all 535 members of Congress sit down together and deal with this problem of overspending because the question at that time was, should we raise the credit card limit so that the country can go an additional $2.4 trillion in debt,” Bachmann explained. “That’s all we’re doing right now. We’re putting our American people more and more at debt. And I will tell you, all across Iowa, all across South Carolina, all across New Hampshire, people are so tired of seeing the government put them more in debt.”
Bachmann then attacked President Obama for pushing America toward banana republic status by “spending money that we don’t have.”
“When I came in to Congress, in January of 2007, the country was $8.67 trillion in debt. Today it’s $15 trillion,” Bachmann said. “Next year it will be $17 trillion. We’re acting like Greece and like Italy, and that’s what people are frustrated with. They want us to ask like a first-world nation. Not like what President Barack Obama is doing. He’s acting like we’re a banana republic. We’ve got to get our act together, and stop spending money that we don’t have.”
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Gregory took issue with the “banana republic” allegation. But the Minnesota congresswoman claimed that compared to former President George W. Bush, Obama has accelerated America’s deficit tenfold.
“What I’m doing is saying that what the decision that Barack Obama is making, is acting like a banana republic,” she said.
“It’s absolutely irresponsible what President Obama is doing to get behind measures to increase spending to such a level that we’re going in to debt, $1.5 trillion every year. This compares to President George Bush, back in 2007. Our debt for the entire year was $160 billion, when we topped that just in the month of November alone.”