WASHINGTON — Michele Bachmann has campaigned saying the stimulus was a "failure" and has criticized it repeatedly, including in a Townhall.com blog in January headlined "Stimulus is not creating jobs."
Yet despite her vocal opposition to the law, the founder of the House Tea Party Caucus quietly sent at least six letters to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood urging stimulus funding for transportation projects in her district.
In one of them, in support of a $300 million replacement bridge crossing the St. Croix River, Bachmann cited a MnDOT estimate that the project in question would create nearly 3,000 jobs. In others, she noted that the projects would have economic benefits beyond just the projects in question, spurring development and private sector hiring in the communities surrounding the proposed stimulus projects.
It should be noted that those jobs created by building the bridge would not all be in Minnesota.
The stimulus funding requests were obtained via the Freedom of Information Act by the Center for Public Integrity — a Pulitzer-winning non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to investigative journalism. The CPI and MinnPost independently verified that the requests detailed in this article were from pots of money wholly funded by the stimulus.
Bachmann blasted the stimulus overall but defended the requests in a statement to MinnPost:
"I continue to oppose the so-called stimulus package because it has been a failure. It has failed at job creation, has wasted millions on everything from 'smoking cessation activities' to 'tax breaks for Hollywood movie producers' and has piled a massive amount of debt on our children and grandchildren.
"It is my obligation as a member of Congress to ensure stimulus dollars are spent on the most worthy projects. I did just that when I supported applications for the TIGER grant program."
So why didn't she make these requests public? Why didn't she just ask for earmarks? Did she really think she could get away with campaigning against stimulus funding while secretly begging stimulus money?
Money quote from Rep. Keith Ellison:
"It would embarrass me to do it, I would be ashamed to do what Michele does, but then again she doesn't know shame,"
In one of the letters Bachmann wrote to Transportation Secretary Lahood, she requests money to complete the Northstar commuter line to Saint Cloud. Bachmann's pals at the Minnesot Taxpayers League call Northstar a "robbery". Bachmann herself has a history opposing Northstar - this is what used to be on Bachmann's campaign website:
"As your District 52 State Senator, I will work hard to add capacity to Minnesota highways.... This is my personal commitment to you." "Michele believes a successful transportation policy must put an end to the diversion of scarce funds to impractical and expensive rail transit programs that will have no direct benefit for area residents and will cost millions of dollars in the future for operating subsidies. She has called for dedicating 100 percent of the sales tax on vehicles to road construction."
Nearly all of Bachmann's right-wing politico pals oppose rail transit - particularly completing Northstar to Saint Cloud.
Bachmann, as usual is trying to have it both ways - which is probably the reason she skipped the debate on transportation earlier this month. During the last election Bachmann pretended to support Northstar (ECM editorial):
And while tending to matters at home in her district she found time to pillage legislative candidates who voted their conscience on the state’s transportation issues, but had to leave early from our one-hour endorsement interview.
What really sealed her fate, however, was her unwillingness to later answer point-blank questions about a bridge project in St. Cloud and the Northstar Commuter Rail. We find it disingenuous that she wears a Northstar lapel pin but won’t comment on whether or when the line should ever be extended to St. Cloud and Rice.
Here's a jpeg of the letter asking for a grant for Northstar - click to make it bigger:
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