Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) compared the nation's tax code to a weapon of mass destruction during her speech at the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines on Saturday. She said the best way forward would be to blow it up and start from scratch.
"We make the tax code simpler by first abolishing it," Bachmann said, citing the code's complexity and her credentials as a tax lawyer. "Abolish what we have and from there we're gonna fly, I have no doubt."
The controversial founder of the Tea Party Caucus appeared with other GOP presidential hopefuls including Newt Gingrich at the event hosted by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), and she appeared to receive a warm ovation from the crowd.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich focused on social issues and national security during a speech in at the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines on Saturday.
"Some people may tell you that we should stay away from values and stay from social issues," Gingrich told a crowd of conservative activists.
"I'm here to tell you if you don't start with values and you don't start by establishing who we are as Americans, the rest of it doesn't matter. Life is not just about money."
Gingrich appeared to be playing to the crowd at the gathering of GOP presidential candidates hosted by outspoken conservative Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), whose support could be crucial to winning in Iowa next year.
He repeated familiar GOP talking points on reducing the size of the government, cutting taxes and allowing offshore drilling while claiming the Obama administration's energy policies have left the U.S. relying on other nations such as Brazil to supply its needs.
"The Obama economic model is to borrow money from the Chinese to give it to the Brazilians," Gingrich said.
"If Reaganomics was the path to prosperity, Obamanomics is the path to depression. I think we need to repeal Obamanomics by repealing Obama. It's pretty straightforward."
Gingrich sounded confident that Republicans would be able to extend their mid-term victories into next year's presidential election, promising to re-center America around cultural values, economic policy and national security.
"I believe that in 2012 we can win a historic election and we could end the 80-year dominance of the Left and fundamentally re-center this country back into a center-right government reflecting the core values of the American people," Gingrich said.
Gingrich also pointed to the results of a Gallup pole of the U.S. public on American exceptionalism, noting that the vast majority view the country as superior to other nations.
Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) took to the podium in Des Moines, Iowa Saturday to urge Republicans to make the upcoming presidential campaign about economic policy.
"It is absolutely critical that we elect a new president of the United States and I think the best way, the critical way, perhaps the only way is for us to make sure that, like the 2010 campaign, the 2012 campaign is focused on policy," Barbour told the Conservatives Principles Political Action Committee conference. "When President Obama was elected, the American people thought they were going to – as Bill Clinton put it – focus laser-like on growing the economy and job creation, yet the policies of this administration in every case have made it harder to create jobs and promote economic growth."
In his speech Barbour, who is a likely frontrunner for the Republican nomination, hit the Obama administration with accusations of raising taxes, expanding the federal government and restricting domestic energy production – familiar targets for Republicans. What Barbour did not talk about were social issues. The closest the governor came to addressing traditional conservative issues was tying social policy to economic prosperity.
"Religious freedom, political freedom are totally intertwined with economic freedom – with the power to make our own decisions," he said.
Barbour said that Obama's policies told Americans what to do on too many issues.
"This administration too often thinks that we're too stupid to take care of ourselves," he said. "That we're not up to it and that we need somebody in Washington to tell us what kind of health insurance policy that we have, to tell us how to do every thing that we do when the facts of our history show that turned loose American ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit and there is no limit to what our children and grandchildren can have."
All eyes will be on Iowa this weekend as half a dozen potential Republican presidential candidates gather for the state's latest "cattle call" hosted by outspoken conservative Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).
In attendance for Saturday's Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines will be Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn), Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and businessman Herman Cain. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.)had been on the docket but on Friday cancelled his appearance because of a family emergency.
Nebraska's attorney general officially announced his candidacy for Sen. Ben Nelson's (D-Neb.) seat Wednesday.
Republican Attorney General Jon Bruning, who started an exploratory committee for a Senate run just after the Nov. 4 midterms, officially announced his candidacy for the Senate, challenging the centrist Democrat.
“I filed paperwork with FEC today making my candidacy for U.S. Senate official. We’re in! Formal announcement will follow in a few weeks,” Bruning wrote Wednesday on his Twitter account.
Nelson, one of the most conservative Democrats currently serving in the Senate, has been one of the GOP's main targets to beat in 2012. Bruning is the one of the earliest Republican challengers hoping to win Nelson's seat.
Nelson, nominated to the Senate in 2000, has made no official announcement on whether he will run again, but The Omaha-World Herald has said he is leaning toward another run.
Life on Capitol Hill came to something of a standstill on Election Day with only a fraction of staffers in their offices and fewer tourists than usual grazing the Capitol’s halls.
A day’s worth of newspapers and mail piled up outside the doors of several vulnerable Democrats, including Reps. Bob Etheridge (N.C.), Mark Schauer (Mich.) and Harry Mitchell (Ariz.).
Of the staff that remained, many donned “I Voted” stickers; several Republicans sported big red “Fire Pelosi!” stickers on their collared shirts. The cafeterias were sparsely used, though gaggles of teenage House pages collected in the Longworth eatery, somewhat removed from the partisan shifts that were afoot at the polls nationwide on Tuesday.
Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), one of the most conservative members of Congress, raised some eyebrows today when he seemed to offer support a single-payer health insurance system.
Shadegg blasted the for-profit health insurance industry during an appearance on MSNBC today, finally declaring, "I would support single payer."
He quickly clarified his comment, saying he would simply like to see health insurance companies have more competition.
"I would support forcing American healthcare companies to compete right," he said "Now they have a monopoly."
That's similar to the argument Democrats have made for the public option, and in a statement to The Hill, Shadegg's office said a public option would be better than requiring individuals to buy insurance from the for-profit sector.
Here's the full statement, followed by the video of his interview today:
Congressman Shadegg believes health insurance companies should have to compete for our business as individual consumers. Forcing them to compete, even through a public option, would be better than an individual mandate which will not work. Specifically, on MSNBC he stated his position as follows:
“I would support forcing American health care [insurance] companies to compete…It is immoral in this society to say if you get health care from your employer, it’s tax-free. But if you want to go out and buy it yourself, you work for a lawn mowing company in Arizona in my district, and you want to buy your own health insurance, you’ve got to buy it with after-tax dollars and this bill doesn’t fix that. This bill says to that poor lawn man, you must buy health insurance, or your government is going to fine you, and you must buy it from the same for-profit companies that are not doing a very good job of holding down costs right now.”
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