'Deceitfully' Hid $105 Billion in Obamacare

Saturday, 05 Mar 2011 10:40 AM

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By Jim Meyers and Ashley Martella

Rep. Michele Bachmann tells Newsmax that President Barack Obama, Sen. Harry
Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi should apologize to the American people for the $105
billion appropriation they “deceitfully” hid in the healthcare reform
legislation.

The Minnesota Republican declares that the “stunning
revelation” of the expenditure points to “one of the biggest lies we have ever
seen.”

Bachmann, founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, also asserts that
Obama wants $8-a-gallon gasoline to drive America toward green energy, says
Republicans should hire their own lawyer to represent the Defense of Marriage
Act in court, and warns that a second Obama term would be “even worse” than a
second Jimmy Carter term would have been.

Story continues
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In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with
Newsmax.TV, Bachmann expressed her anger over the $105 billion appropriation
that has only now come to light in an updated Congressional Research Service
report on the Obamacare legislation.

“What we need to do is defund
Obamacare,” she says. “The House has the power of the purse.

“But we’ve
just found out startling information, and I am calling on President Obama,
Majority Leader Harry Reid and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to
apologize to the American people and explain why in the bill known as Obamacare
they put in over $105 billion in appropriations.

“The funny thing is,
they forgot to tell the members of the Senate that there was $105 billion in
spending in that bill. They forgot to tell members of the House.

“Since
when do we pass a transformative piece of legislation like the government
takeover of healthcare and just happen to drop in $105 billion in
appropriations, the purpose of which will be to implement this massive new bill?
No one knew. We have just found out in the last week or so.

“This is a
stunning revelation. It’s shocking. We’ve been fighting to cut $100 billion out
of the budget and then we find out that the Democrats led by President Obama
have already spent $105 billion and didn’t bother to tell Congress.

“This
is unbelievable. I don’t think anyone has ever heard of anything like this
before. That’s why the president needs to answer to the American people. What an
insult to the American people to not tell us this was in the bill. That amount
of money could fund the whole state government in Minnesota for over three
years.

“And I think the reason President Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy
Pelosi did this is because they knew this bill would be unpopular and they
wanted to make sure that the whole bill could be implemented because they
provided the implementation money through 2019.

“So unless we rescind
this money, it will be spent.”

Bachmann proposes this course of action to
deal with the appropriation: “The government runs out of money on March 18 of
2011. Before we Republicans agree to fund the government one day further, we
need to get an agreement from Barack Obama and Harry Reid that they will give
back the $105 billion that they deceitfully put into that bill. They need to
give that money back and then we need to defund Obamacare after the next
election.

“No Republican voted for Obamacare. If I was a Democrat who
voted for this bill, I would be furious at Nancy Pelosi, President Obama and
Harry Reid. This is one of the biggest lies we have ever seen.

“This is
why Speaker Pelosi said we need to pass the bill to know what’s in it. Truer
words were never spoken. But this shows why it’s absolutely wrong. They wouldn’t
let us read the bill. They put it on our desks and said, vote. Harry Reid did
the same thing in the Senate on Christmas Eve 2009.

“It’s reprehensible.
Republicans have to draw a line in the sand and say we will refuse to give you
one red cent to fund this government until you give back the $105 billion that
you deceitfully spent and put in the Obamacare bill.”

With gasoline
prices skyrocketing, Bachmann was asked her view of President Obama’s handling
of the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East.

“I don’t think the president
has handled this well at all,” she responds.

“There is incredible
instability in the Middle East. President Obama’s policies have made us more
vulnerable than ever due to our dependence on foreign oil. And what is he doing?
He’s approved only one [oil drilling] lease — and that one was in the last week
— since he’s come into office.

“As soon as he took office his new
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 leases. And now that oil is trading
at over $100 a barrel, it is time that we open up American energy interests. We
need to go for shale oil or natural gas. We have 25 percent of the world’s coal.
So we need to access our own energy so we can become less dependent on these
unstable regions.

“Remember the president’s current energy secretary,
Steven Chu, said that we want the United States to have the same price of
gasoline as Europe has. When he made that comment, Europe had gas at $8 a
gallon. This is exactly what the ambition of the Obama administration is,
because they want to move people toward green energy.

“Well, I’m for all
energy. Let’s access all energy in the United States. No one is helped by having
gasoline at $8 a gallon. I think that’s a very unwise strategy on the part of
the Obama administration.”

Bachmann is sharply critical of Obama’s
decision not to defend in court the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal
recognition of same-sex marriage.

“I think what Congress should do is
defend the law that it passed,” she tells Newsmax.

“We need to hire a
super lawyer and if the president of the United States won’t defend our laws,
then the House of Representatives should defend our laws. So we need to hire a
lawyer to represent DOMA in court.”

Bachmann opposes raising debt
ceiling, noting that the federal government has raised the ceiling 10 times in
the last 10 years and equating that with people continually having their credit
card maximum raised even though they can’t afford to pay the bills.

“I
think we need to put pressure on Congress to actually do some real cutting
because we cannot continue to spend this money,” she adds. “We’re absolutely
broke, and we can’t just run the printing presses because that will induce
inflation.”

Turning to Iran, Bachmann says the Obama administration
should have gotten involved in the Green movement back in 2009 “when there was
more of a chance for the United States to have a positive
involvement.

“Now with the instability we’re seeing across the Middle
East region, we see a rise in the influence of Iran in that area,” she observes,
warning that the Middle East turmoil could ultimately lead to Islamic
fundamentalist regimes.

Bachmann says she has not decided whether or not
she will run for president in 2012.

“Right now I’m involved in the
narrative of why we cannot have a second term for Barack Obama. Your viewers
remember Jimmy Carter and they remember that was not a good time for our
country. Imagine if we’d had a second term for Jimmy Carter. A second Barack
Obama term would be even worse.

“We need to have a candidate who
understands the times that we live in and who has the political courage to make
really tough decisions, even if that means they will serve only one term. We are
at a turning point in our nation’s history.”

Finally, Bachmann — who has
five children and has raised 23 foster children in her home — says she is “very
concerned that they have a vital future available for them.

“We are the
indispensable nation of the world and it’s important that we maintain not only
our economic might, our military might, but also remain a force for good in the
world.”

Read more on Newsmax.com: Bachmann
Exclusive: Obama, Reid and Pelosi 'Deceitfully' Hid $105 Billion in
Obamacare
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