Recess is a time when members of Congress go home and say the darndest things to their constituents. Take Michelle Bachmann. Please.
“The concern is that this energy tax will hike up the cost, not only of our energy bills by an average of more than $2,500 for the typical family of four in minnesota according to one study, but of everything else that we buy.”
This is peculiar. First of all, there’s no study that says anything like this. Second of all, there is a study that Republicans are citing as a source for their claim that a cap and trade bill will cost the average household $3,128 a year–but the study doesn’t say that either. It says that a cap-and-trade program will raise a certain amount of revenue (over $350 billion at the outset) and Republicans have divided that by the number of households they claim are in America. Of course, the authors of the study say this is all terribly, terribly wrong.
But back to Bachmann. In their “analysis”, Republicans assumed that the average household has 2.56 people in it. Not four. Four average people use more energy than 2.56 average people. Using this ridiculous construction, one would assume that a family of four would pay more, not less, than the mean $3,128 they cite.
In fairness to Bachmann, though, she did say “more than $2,500” and $3,128 is more than $2,500. But if she’s going to recite this talking point, why not do it right? Perhaps it’s part of a greater trend of toned down Bachmann rhetoric.
In introducing the event’s main speaker, climate-change skeptic Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Bachmann described how wowed she was by a speech that Horner gave in Washington: “And before he even finished his speech, I went up to him, tugged on his sleeve and said: ‘I want the people in Minnesota to be better-educated on this issue than anyone else in the country. Would you please come to Minnesota at your earliest convenience?'”
This is rather more mild than language Bachmann used weeks ago to promote this event, when she said: “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back.”
