Michele Bachmann for President? Here's where she stands on the issues

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., waves to supporters before making her formal announcement to seek the 2012 Republican …This morning, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann-one of the most visible and vocal members of the Tea Party movement-officially announced that she's seeking the Republican nomination for President in 2012.

"Through all of the rancor of the campaign, let us always remember that there is much more that unites us than divides us.," Bachmann, 55, said at her press conference in Waterloo, Iowa, where she was born. "Our problems don't have an identity of party, they are problems created by both parties."

"I am here in Waterloo, Iowa, to announce today: We can win in 2012 and we will," she continued. "Our voice has been growing louder and stronger. And it is made up of Americans from all walks of life like a three-legged stool. It's the peace through strength Republicans, and I'm one of them, it's fiscal conservatives, and I'm one of them, and it's social conservatives, and I'm one of them. It's the Tea Party movement and I'm one of them."

On Saturday, a poll conducted by the Des Moines Register showed that Bachmann, with support from 22 percent of potential Iowa caucus voters, was nearly tied with Mitt Romney (23 percent), and far ahead of every other Republican competitor. (Herman Cain had 10 percent of the potential voters, while Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul each had 7 percent, Tim Pawlenty had 6 percent, Rick Santorum had 4 percent, and Jon Huntsman had 2 percent.) Last week, her favorability rating among Republicans surged from 41 percent to 54 percent, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll.

Bachmann spent last weekend highlighting her credentials on "Fox News Sunday." "I'm 55 years old. I've been married 33 years," she told Chris Wallace. "I'm not only a lawyer, I have a post-doctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary. I've worked in serious scholarship … my husband and I have raised five kids, we've raised 23 foster children. We've applied ourselves to education reform. We started a charter school for at-risk kids. I've also been a state senator and member of the United States Congress for five years." She is currently in her third term in the U.S. House of Representatives.

What would a Bachmann presidency look like? Here's where she stands on some of the major issues:

Abortion: "I am 100 percent pro-life," Bachmann said earlier this month, during a debate in New Hampshire. "I've given birth to five babies, and I've taken 23 foster children into my home. I believe in the dignity of life from conception until natural death."

Education: "I am not a fan of No Child Left Behind, I never have been. I oppose the federal government's involvement in local schools," the Congresswoman said in an interview earlier this month. "I would prefer to see the Federal Department of Education abolished and done away with, and instead I'd rather see parents and states keep the monies that are sent to Washington, D.C."

Environment: Bachmann has voted against the Cap and Trade Program, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Tax Act of 2008, the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008, and the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007, and says she would like to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency. "Every time the liberals get into office, they pass an omnibus bill of big spending projects," she told CNN earlier this month. "What we need to do is pass the mother of all repeal bills. ...And I would begin with the EPA. Because there is no other agency like the EPA. It should really be renamed the Job Killing Organization of America."

Federal spending. Though Bachmann has publicly denounced President Obama's $830 billion stimulus package, she has also requested stimulus funding for her district at least seven times, according to the Center for Public Integrity, and has won $60 million in earmarks while representing Minnesota in congress (she now says she will not accept any more). On Sunday, the LA Times reported that the Bachmann family has personally benefited from the kind of government spending the Congresswoman has railed against: A Christian mental health counseling clinic run by Bachmann's husband, clinical therapist Marcus Bachmann, has received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, some of which came from the federal government, and a family farm in Wisconsin has received "nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies."

Health Care: Bachmann has made no secret of the fact that she thinks Obama was off-base about Health Care Reform. "The president should repeal Obamacare and support free-market solutions, like … allowing all Americans to buy any health care policy they like anywhere in the United States," she said after his State of the Union speech in January. She has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act if she wins the White House, in part because of the way it takes money away from Medicare. "It will hurt senior citizens, because Obama took away $500 billion... from Medicare and will transfer it younger people in Obamacare," she told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." Though the budget put forth by Republican Paul Ryan, which Bachmann supports, also reduces Medicare funding by $500 billion, Bachmann says that the Medicare reduction under the Ryan plan only affects people age 55 and younger. She did not explain how that differs from Obama's re-allocation of Medicare funds.

Gay Marriage: This weekend, after New York passed a law allowing gays to marry, Bachmann told "Fox News Sunday" that she would support a constitutional amendment against it. "I do support a constitutional amendment on marriage between a man and a woman," she said adding, "I think that it's best to allow the people to decide on this issue." She acknowledged that a constitutional amendment would overturn state law, and said "That is not inconsistent, because the states have the right under the 10th Amendment to do what they'd like to do. But the federal government also has the right to pass the federal constitutional amendment."

Social Security: In May, Bachmann appeared on the Fox Business channel and said of Social Security: "It's a tremendous fraud. No company could get away with this. They'd be thrown in jail if they ever tried to do what the federal government did with people's social security money." She is in favor of privatizing the program for people who are more than 10 years away from collecting Social Security in order to "move toward an ownership society that would incentivize people to save for their retirement." In St. Louis in February, she told the Constitutional Coalition: "So, what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system, that don't have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off."

Taxes: Rep. Bachmann has a degree in tax law and spent years as a lawyer with the IRS. She recently told the Wall Street Journal that she's in favor of a broad-base income tax that "gets rid of all the deductions," and says, "I would have advocated for greater reductions in the corporate tax rate and reductions in the capital gains rate-even more so than what the president [Bush] did" in 2003, when he dropped the capital gains rate from 20 percent to 15 percent. She'd also support eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax and the Estate Tax, the Christian Science Monitor reported, and bring the top corporate tax rate down to from 35 percent to 9 percent.






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