During her recent interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board, Michele Bachmann's statements about torture and waterboarding were not the only outrageous statements the GOP presidential candidate made. She also decided to double down on her recent debate performance, where she said we should "Be more like China, and end "Great Society" programs. During this interview, Bachmann came straight out and advocated eliminating the earned income tax credit, food stamps and public housing.
Naturally during this same interview she was advocating lowering the corporate tax rates and for an extremely unfair and regressive flat tax, because heaven forbid we can't have those lazy poor people out there not paying their fair share in taxes.
From The Des Moines Register article:
In the wide-ranging, hourlong discussion with the Register, Bachmann also touched on numerous policies she would pursue as president, including a review of defense spending, an expansion of domestic energy production, federal regulatory reform and an overhaul of the tax code.
Many of her priorities focus on cuts and reductions to social programs benefiting the poor.
Her tax reform plan, for example, calls for an end to the earned-income tax credit, the tax relief program created in 1975 that can completely offset federal income taxes for the working poor and under certain circumstances could result in a cash payment to recipients.
Such a benefit gives one group of Americans a free ride while burdening another, she said, suggesting it also leads to unsustainable expectations for government benefits and services.
“We’re deluding ourselves if we’re embracing a dependency culture that looks like Greece,” she said.
She also called for a review of the “Great Society” — the raft of federal social services enacted in the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson. Programs like food stamps and public housing that represent the “modern welfare state” are too expensive and need to be dismantled, she said.
“What I want to do is go through the Great Society programs, and I think a lot of them need to be ended,” she said.
Individual states, she said, could choose whether to provide those services in lieu of the federal government.
Among the federal programs enacted under the banner of the Great Society were the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs, food stamps, Head Start preschool and federal student loans.
