Ms. Bachmann IMPLIES that cuts in government programs to the poor are needed to get our fiscal house in order. Programs for the poor (with the exception of the major entitlement programs) are a small percentage of the budget. It would be far better to get corporations to pay taxes (many haven't) and cut the defense budget. She says she is against Obama's intervention in Libya for humanitarian reasons. We are in Libya for political and economic reasons (about oil mostly) just as we didn't go into Iraq because of 'weaons of mass destruction', but oil. And global warming is just one reason to shift away from dependence on oil- which the major oil companies and automakers do not want. Nuclear is too environmentally destructive- we need government assistance to develop alternatives to the point where they are competitive, as defense spending boosted the computer industry.

Finally....a politician with backbone and unapologetic about calling out where the politically correct tail has been wagging the dog. Regardless of whether Ms. Bachmann runs or not, she certainly has the courage to hold to beneficial big picture goals that are too frightening for the current group of political sycophants in office.

What America needs is a political movement that is socially conservative, yet is also focused on the plight of the poor and the working-class; similar to the Christian Democratic Parties in Europe and the Red Tories in Canada. The vast majority of lower-middle class Christians are duped into voting against their own economic interests by politicians who use the issues of abortion and gay marriage to lure them in. There is no hard evidence that giving tax breaks to multinational corporations brings any benefit to the average person. If "trickle down" does work, it works very slowly. The people at the bottom who are supposed to benefit from the profits that the ultra-rich corporations make will die long before the benefits will reach them.

Is helping those who are less fortunate part of our personal and collective responsibilities as Christians? Yes, of course it is. Would taking out unsecured loans of almost twice our annual income to help those less fortunate be morally responsible? On an individual basis we would almost certainly say no. Why do people think it is okay for our government to continue to do it? Yes we should help people, but not in a way that is otherwise sinful. Scripture talks clearly about avoiding debt. If simply taxing wealthy people more could in fact cover our current and long-term obligations then perhaps that is the primary route we should take, but even if we took all the wealth and all the income of the richest Americans we still would not cover our current debt let alone the ballooning obligations that our social programs are going to require in the near future. To be morally and fiscally responsible we as a nation need to cut back our spending to be less then our intake.

Derek, could you provide us with specific statements that MB has made to this regard regarding the elderly and the disabled. No such statement was in this interview. Let us be careful if we are getting our decision-making information from new networks that put isolated statements from context, but let us go directly to the complete primary documents. This is important regardless what side we are on. Too much is as stake and I for one will not let incomplete contextual information mislead me, and I urge all of you not to, also. As Christians, are we not called to be watchmen? This is in all areas, and we must be vigilent.