Economic Woes Hit Bachmann’s Hometown

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Bachmann’s Out-of-Touch, Mean-Spirited Remarks Don’t Match Reality

ANOKA—The effects of the Bush administration’s economic policies are hitting Michele Bachmann’s hometown of Stillwater hard.

The Stillwater Gazette reported Friday (Jan. 18) that the local Salvation Army had to close its Firewall Youth Center and Warehouse Skate Park because of budgetary concerns.

  • “We’ve seen about a 25 percent increase in people asking for basic necessities—food, shelter, clothing—the things that the Salvation Army is best known for. ... We just felt that the wisest, most prudent thing would be to close the program and not take the chance that we couldn’t fund it or couldn’t keep it up and then have it flounder,” said Salvation Army spokeswoman Annette Bauer.


  • “It’s a shame, because there’s not a lot for kids that age to do, and now they’ll have to find some other way to spend the three or four nights a week they used to spend at the skate park. What they do in that time could be positive, or it could be negative,” (said former director Lanka Liyanapathiranage). “Because a lot of these kids are perceived as rebels without a cause, I think they’re more inclined to get into trouble, and as they get older it just gets worse. That’s what we were trying to avoid.”

    • The news comes two days after Bachmann’s out-of-touch and mean-spirited remarks that Minnesota is the “workingest” state because we have “more people that are working longer hours … that are working two jobs.”

    In the St. Cloud area, Electrolux laid off 190 workers, Stearns Inc. released 20 people and a small business went under in Sartell, The St. Cloud Times reported last Wednesday (Jan. 16).

    Minnesota lost 2,300 jobs last month and 23,000 in the last six months of 2007, according to a report in the Star Tribune.

    “The reality of the Bush economy is on display right in Michele Bachmann’s back yard and across her district,” said Bob Olson, a candidate for the DFL endorsement in the 6th Congressional District. “The last thing we need is another round of tax breaks for the rich. Middle- and working-class Minnesotans are struggling and it’s time Mrs. Bachmann deal with that in a responsible manner. Big oil, the health insurance companies and Wall Street are already well represented on Capitol Hill. They don’t need Mrs. Bachmann’s help, but thousands of our friends and neighbors do.”

    Paid for by the Olson for Congress Committee