Michele Bachmann Is Either Crazy Stupid Or Stupid Crazy Or Both

We sure will miss Michele Bachmann, Empress of Crazytown, when she leaves the House of Representatives to more intimately torture the people of Minnesota on a daily basis. But until she leaves, she is determined to utter every nonsensical thing possible, in hopes of making the life of Yr Wonkette all that much better.

Today’s topic is the U.S. Treasury, and how it is filled with lying liars who lie to the American people, and that gives Bachmann a giant sad, according to The Hill :

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Wednesday night said the Treasury Department is lying to Americans about the size of the federal debt since it has not changed significantly for the last few months even though the government continues to borrow.

"That would be called a lie in our house. That is not acceptable to my husband and I. You don't lie to us," Bachmann said on the House floor.

That’s right, Treasury – you do not lie to the Bachmanns. She will totally put you over her lap and spank you . She will spank you real hard. You've been a bad bad department, haven't you? She will spank you sooo good, Treasury baby, just like you like it until you scream out words like “debt ceiling,” “TARP,” “bailout,” and “trillion dollar coin.” Just remember that the safe word is “Bachmann 2016.” Let’s sexplore some more.

Bachmann is appalled because the federal debt has remained constant for the past 56 days. Except that it hasn’t:

But according to TreasuryDirect.gov, the debt has hovered around $16.738 trillion since May, and has made small movements around that number each day.

Does that qualify as a lie? Doesn’t matter, because Rep. Bachmann gets totally confused about how debt is accumulated, who is in charge of it, and how the government works. Thank god she is only in charge of making laws and trying to run the government!

Bachmann said she asked Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke today how the debt can remain still despite continued U.S. government borrowing.

"Even though he's been the Federal Reserve chair for 10 years, he had no idea how that can happen," she said. "In fact, he didn't even know that it had happened.

The nerve!! How dare he not know. Perhaps it is because that national debt is controlled by the Treasury Department, and Chairman Bernanke is the chair of the Federal Reserve, which IS NOT THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT YOU FUCKING MORON. Time for a wonksplanation, Glorious Readers.

As we all know, the Bureau of Public Debt (which is part of the Treasury Department) is in charge of borrowing money for the country. They go around China begging for money so that Congress can fly home every weekend to rail about how the government has no money.

The Federal Reserve (or ‘Fed’) is in charge of monetary policy. They are the ones who set interest rates so that you can refinance your home for super-cheap, or borrow money on the cheap to spend on hookers and blow. They also have chairmen with awesome beards -- it's written into the statute, you can totally check it out.

And as a quick review for Rep. Bachmann as to how spending in the government works, Yr Wonkette will quote from the kids' page of TreasuryDirect.gov , because then maybe folks in the GOP will understand:

The U.S. Treasury and the Bureau of the Public Debt do not decide how the money is spent. The legislative branch of Government (Congress) decides how the money is spent.

As anyone who has been paying attention at all in the history of ever knows, neither President Obama nor any other administration official can spend any money without Congress passing spending bills. So when Congress sputters and spews like writhing rabid rats about President Obama spending us into debt to the tune of $16 trillion, you know that they are lying. Congress passes spending bills, and Congress is solely responsible for spending money in the United States. The various departments simply spend the money as directed by Congress.

This might be an oversimplification, but one goal was to help inform Rep. Bachmann as to how the government works, because she is clearly FUCKING STUPID.

One last thing about how the debt has not risen. Whenever Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling because they are pieces of shit who care more about politics that what is good for the country, Treasury can take “extraordinary measures” to keep from technically reaching the debt limit. These measures include raiding the retirement funds of federal employees, postal workers, and a few other measures to keep from having to pay interest on these accounts until things get sorted out. This typically buys a few months for Congress to dick around and yell at each other before pushing right up to the edge of default before actually doing something. Once the debt ceiling is raised, Treasury puts the cash back, with interest and a Post-it note apologizing for raiding said fund.

This information is not hard to find, but we want to reiterate that Michele Bachmann is a FUCKING IDIOT. A Congresscritter should know this shit, and not fucking lie to reporters about the Treasury Department lying.

Consider yourself learned.

[ The Hill / TreasuryDirect Kids ]