Michele Bachmann Gets Choked Up Over Reagan's Birthday

Here's some wacky scenes from a 2005 Minnesota Senate session debate on a Bachmann resolution to honor Ronald Reagan's birthday.

If you want to hear the entire debate on Bachmann's resolution go to the MN Senate archives. It begins at the 1:50 point.

Michele Bachmann's WCCO Interview

(Cross-posted from Dump Bachmann)

From Lawrence Schumacher's Saint Cloud Times blog:

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (not Michelle Bachman), R-Minn., called in to WCCO radio for an interview with Tim Russell Thursday morning. You can listen to it here (scroll down till you find the most recent Morning Show with Jim Lee (whom Russell was filling in for)

The brief interview covered Jim Ramstad's retirement, the failure of MN schools to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress goals of the No Child Left Behind law, a federal gas tax increase and transportation funding, her embrace of President Bush after the State of the Union address, and a bit of joking around she says she did with Bush at the site of the I-35W bridge collapse:

"The President and I enjoy a great relationship. When he and I were back visiting the collapsed bridge, he reached over because he wanted to give me a kiss when we were down at the site. I pulled back and he said "What? You don't want to embrace?" I said, "The people of Minnnesota love you, Mister President, but one kiss was enough."

...Listen here to that part:



Schumacher continues...

One quibble. Bachmann has been repeating this line since the campaign:

"I am a tax attorney and I hate high taxes."

The second part of that sentence, I'll grant her. But the first part doesn't seem to be the case anymore. At least, she's not authorized to practice law in Minnesota, according to state records.

Also, one question. During the interview, she says the following about transportation funding:

"We have been diverting money away, even though it has been meant to go for transportation, it has been diverted away for other projects. That's wrong."

Later, she says this:

"People would only be open to a tax increase if they knew exactly that 100 percent of that money would go to build more roads, more bridges, more interchanges. Then they might go for it. But not if it's going to be diverted away."

I'm curious to know what she means by this. Is she referring to Minnesota's Motor Vehicle Sales Tax, which was diverted into the general fund but voters have now dedicated 100 percent to transportation? Is she referring to the federal gas tax? Or the state gas tax?