Bachmann: Obama Plan Won't Create Jobs

Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann says President Barack Obama’s tax plan might be a “good sound bite,” but it will not create desperately needed jobs. The Minnesota Republican congresswoman also told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Monday that Iowa businessmen she spoke with after the president’s speech announcing the plan labeled it a “disaster.”
 

“I asked them this morning, Wolf, about the president’s jobs plan — they heard it; they had one word — they said ‘disaster,’” Bachmann said. “It’s going to be a disaster for their business and their company, because they said it brings more uncertainty, increased taxes, increased government spending.

“Everything that hasn’t worked in the past — they’re now going to have more of and double down,” she said. “And they just thought it was a disaster.”

Blitzer asked Bachmann — by profession a tax lawyer — whether the “Buffett rule” the president proposed, which calls for millionaires to be taxed at the same rate as their lesser-paid employees is fair from her perspective.

“Well, then it sounds like the president would favor a flat tax — there’s a lot of Republicans that would favor a flat tax, too — so that everyone pays the same rate. And, of course, what that would mean then is doing away with the loopholes for everyone,” Bachmann said. “But, of course, in the president’s plan, he plans to have only some Americans have the benefit of the home-mortgage interest deduction, and he plans to have only some Americans benefit from charitable giving.

“And he plans to only have some Americans benefit from being able to write off what they already pay in state and local income taxes,” she said. “The president is being very discriminatory in what his plans are — and he is once again proving himself to be the great divider, rather than the great uniter.”

Blitzer switched to foreign policy and asked Bachmann how as president she would deal with America’s relationship with Israel and Palestinian calls for a state of their own.

“I think I would not have done what President Obama did, which was not stand by Israel. Very early on, the president of the United States needed to stand up and say that the United States would have Israel’s back,” Bachmann said. “Instead, the president made a very unwise move in May when he called upon Israel to retreat to its indefensible 1967 borders. That sent a profound signal to other nations that surround Israel, especially those with hostile designs on Israel.

“Now we’re in a very difficult situation where it appears that the president of Iran, [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, will be in the United States and also be a part of pressing for Palestinian statehood,” she continued.

“Now, the problem with that is that Palestine is seeking to do that without . . . recognizing Israel’s right to exist or Israel’s right to defend herself or renounce terrorism against Israel,” Bachmann said. “It’s very important that they have to negotiate with Israel, not have this imposed on Israel. So the president sent very bad signals.”