Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann told local Republicans gathered at Troutman’s Barbecue in Concord Thursday that the country has a limited window of opportunity to fix its fiscal problems and that she’s the candidate to make it happen.
“These are imminently solvable problems,” Bachmann, 55, said. “We just have to have a president with the backbone to take on these problems. My backbone is made of titanium.”
More than 200 Republicans from Cabarrus, Mecklenburg and Rowan counties came for the fundraiser and a chance to hear Bachmann speak. Guests of the fundraising lunch said they came to hear the congresswoman’s views firsthand.
“You only get bits and pieces,” said Cabarrus County School Board member Carolyn Carpenter, who attended the event. “I was here to learn. I’m still undecided, but I was very impressed with her.”
“I think it’s wonderful she came here,” said Carpenter, who hopes more presidential candidates will come to Concord to speak. “People are discontented with what is going on.”
Cabarrus County, a heavily Republican county with an all Republican board of county commissioners, is also home to N.C. Republican Party Chairman Robin Hayes who introduced Bachmann at the Concord event.
“It’s an election that we have to win,” Hayes said. “Your presence here speaks volumes.”
With the Democratic National Convention planned in Charlotte in 2012, the region has already become a hotbed of political activity. Local Republicans spoke Thursday about wanting to help their neighbors in Mecklenburg County oust Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, a Democrat, from his seat before the convention.
Bachmann, who was elected to Congress from Minnesota in 2006, told the crowd Thursday that she has the backbone to stand up for America and the change that needs to happen.
“I came here today because I want you to be encouraged,” Bachmann said. “Barack Obama will be a one-term president.”
Bachmann, a tax lawyer and fiscal conservative, said she wants to put a stop to current spending levels in Washington, D.C.
“We can’t allow this magnificent country to be spent out of existence,” she said, adding that in four years the national debt has gone from $8.67 trillion to $16.7 trillion.
“We are spending away the future choices of this generation,” she said, motioning toward the young people at the event.
Bachmann said that as president one of her first actions would be to shut down the U.S. Department of Education, returning more fiscal and decision-making control to the state and local governments.
Carpenter said she agreed with reducing a layer of government, adding that she’d “much rather put that money back into the schools.”
Bachmann said her second action would be to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, stating that it doesn’t protect Americans from polluted water and air. She said pollution prevention would happen without the EPA because no one wants polluted air or drinking water. But reducing bureaucracy created by the EPA will free businesses to create more jobs, she said.
“The job-killing agency of America is the EPA,” she said.
Bachmann also said she wants to reduce tax rates on corporations to draw both money and jobs back to the United States economy. She said U.S. companies have $1.2 trillion sitting outside the country. She wants to entice them to bring it home and create jobs.
Bachmann also was scheduled to speak in Charlotte on Thursday and in Pinehurst, N.C., Friday, Sept. 30.
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