U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann said she would reduce Medicare and Social Security benefits : August 12, 2011

Representative Michele Bachmann said she would cut Social Security and Medicare benefits for all but current recipients as part of a broader effort to reduce the federal deficit.

“We will reform the entitlement programs now, not five years from now, not 26 years from now, now,” Bachmann said on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing this weekend. “Anyone who is not yet on those programs, we are going to change them.”

Bachmann, who is seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2012, also said her experience in creating jobs in the private sector gives her an advantage over Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry, who is set to announce his own White House candidacy tomorrow in South Carolina.

“We have created jobs. We’ve signed both sides of a paycheck. I get it,” Bachmann said, in a reference to a mental health care practice she founded with her husband, Marcus.

Her comments came on the eve of the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames, an event that analysts say will winnow the Republican field that wants to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012.

Bachmann also said she would have allowed Citigroup and General Motors to go bankrupt rather than intervene with a federal government bailout. “I am an unashamed apologist for the free market,” Bachmann said.

On the issue of entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security, Bachmann advocates cuts that would go deeper than those proposed earlier this year by Representative Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, and approved by the U.S. House.

Ryan’s Plan

Ryan’s plan would have excluded people who are 55 and older from any changes in benefits. Bachmann voted for it.

Ryan, who chairs the House Budget Committee, called for reducing the deficit by $4.4 trillion over 10 years with cuts including replacing Medicare with guaranteed benefits to pay for private insurance. Ryan’s plan would use means testing to give reduced payments to senior citizens with high incomes.

Bachmann said Social Security and Medicare spending should be reined in with reductions through means testing or eligibility age. “We all know it needs to be done,” she said.

The Minnesota Republican said Americans are poised to reject Obama’s re-election bid in favor of a challenger “who has the backbone to turn the economy around.”

Bachmann, who has a following among Tea Party supporters, is working to expand her base among Republican fiscal conservatives to compete against early frontrunner Mitt Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts.

# as posted on the internet by :
Bloomberg News, report by Margaret Talev and John McCormick, On Friday August 12, 2011