In Bachmannland, This Is A Do-Something Congress

In December, congressional job approval surged from 9% to a whopping 12%. That was mostly because undecided voters felt good about the Holiday season. The disapproval rate for the job Congress is doing started about even. It was 85% in October, 86% in November and 85% in December. Michele Bachmann, a delusional Minnesota reactionary with crazy eyes, doesn't agree. She penned an OpEd over the weekend claiming "2013 was productive band packed with accomplishments." And she warns the GOP has more it needs to get done. She starts by bragging about what her own office has accomplished for her constituents. "In 2013, my casework staff helped our disabled veterans cut through the VA backlog and get the benefits they’ve been promised, assisted with the immigration and naturalization process, and ensured our seniors receive Medicare and Social Security. In total, more than 300 constituents were helped through specific casework needs."

She neglected to mention that she and nearly all of her GOP colleagues have been working furiously to wreck Social Security and Medicare as socialist threats to American individualism that make people dependent and lazy. And she says he gets phone calls, letters and emails. Her own constituents don't share her enthusiasm and her own personal job approval rating never gets above 40%. Most of her constituents would like to see her replaced. With that in mind, she will be retiring from Congress at the end of the year.

At the beginning of the year, I brought together a bipartisan group of legislators, business owners, mayors and community leaders to have a news conference at the Capitol highlighting the need to expand I-94 from Rogers to St. Cloud. In November, I was thrilled when Gov. Mark Dayton announced, that using the Corridors of Commerce funds, a down payment on this expansion became a reality.

Construction on another important local transportation project-- the St. Croix River Crossing-- began this year. In May, I was honored to join other Minnesota and Wisconsin leaders to break ground on this vital new project to relieve congestion and improve interstate commerce. I met with the project managers in December, and I am happy to report that everything is within budget and on schedule.

I guess it slipped her mind that when the Corridors of Commerce authorization finally passed the state legislature (77-53), all her Republican allies voted against it and all the Democrats voted for it. She's happy to grab some of the spotlight and credit, of course.

On a national level, the House of Representatives spent 2013 focused on passing free-market bills on job creation, energy production, education, agriculture and more.

Obamacare’s numerous failures and broken promises also took center stage, and my bill to repeal the president’s health care law passed the House in May.

With each passing day the Obamacare train wreck keeps unraveling, and we must continue fighting to scrap this government takeover and replace it with patient-centered, market-oriented solutions.

As the new year gets rolling, we still have plenty of work to do, but I am optimistic about what the future holds.

Bachmann's voting record is astounding across the board. She has been one of the most obstructionist and negative Members of Congress on every issue without exception. There isn't a single issue on which she has been a positive contributor, except, of course, the issue of obstruction. Take for example, Labor Rights. She's voted against every single proposal top help workers and their families from occupational safety and health to pension protections and the rights of public employees. Or, take the array of Justice-related issues Congress dealt with-- another zero for ole Bachmann. There are 17 subcategories relating to health care. She was rated zero on every single one of them-- from access to affordable prescription drugs and health insurance to aid to the chronically ill and Medicare and Medicaid funding (yes, what she was trying to take credit for in her OpEd).

The sad thing is that nearly every name of every Republican in the House could be substituted for Bachmann's. They're all, more or less, that bad. If you read this blog regularly, you are probably aware that we excoriate the Beltway Democrats unmercifully. They are, by and large, terrible, putrid… garbage. But they're not as bad as Bachmann or the Republicans. Yesterday, the National Journal gave a run-down of the banal conventional DC wisdom on the 30 House seats most likely to flip this year. Leaving out retirements, 14 (out of 15, Carol Shea Porter being the exception) incumbent Democrats they judge to be in trouble with the voters, have Republican-leaning voting records. They are in trouble because they have disappointed and let down their own base voters. These creeps:

• Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ)
• Mike McIntyre (New Dem-NC)
• Nick Rahall (WV)
• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL)
• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Bill Enyart (IL)
• John Barrow (New Dem-GA)
• Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)
• Ann Kuster (New Dem-NH)
• Pete Gallego (New Dem-TX)

None of these Members deserve to be reelected-- and all have even worse Republicans running against them. The only one with a semblance of a primary opponent is McIntyre, who will face New Hanover County Commissioner Jonathan Barfield, an unapologetic progressive on issue after issue that sees McIntyre voting with the GOP. Every one of these candidates has earned a primary opponent.

Unlike the Democrats, the endangered GOP incumbents are not, by and large, trying to seem independent or moderate. At best, a handful are mainstream conservatives. Overall, the mindset behind this prediction, predicts that there are far fewer Republicans in trouble (just 8) but several, like Mike Coffman (R-CO) and Steve Southerland (R-FL) are hard core right-wing extremists.