The topics that Congresswoman Bachmann chooses to rail against don't usually get to me. Oftentimes, it doesn't affect me personally, and I believe that she is saying things that will get her a lot of press.

This breast pump issue is way out there, but it hits pretty close to home.

There are a myriad of reasons why someone would need to use medical equipment, and the decision to use a machine assist you with what is a natural and simple for many people is not simple. I am glad that Bachmann didn't run into any issues with her children, but her experience doesn't invalidate that of many others.

Deductions for medical equipment is an empathetic and appropriate way to show the women of this nation that we want to help them feed their children any way they can.

So Bachmann is fine with some middle-aged guy buying his viagra with his health-savings acount, but a new mother can't use it to buy the 200-300 dollar device so that she can return to work and still breast feed? Perhaps one shouldn't give this idiocy any attention, but that just allows her to keep building the mountain of lies...

I guess, with all that farm subsidy cash, Michelle B. had no need for a tax break on her breast pump.

Personally, I don't think you can mock Bachmann enough.

Of course there is a well publicized reaction to Gov. Dayton's plan to increase taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans. The rich control the message and the means to the message. The guy down the street doesn't have the same clout as the Wall Street Journal. Who is going to get quoted in articles like these? We should not be surprised at a well-orchestrated rebuttal to his plan. This is nothing. Wait until it gets debated in the state legislature. I'm sure the responses have been carefully crafted already. The rich will probably be able to hold on to their less-than-the -little-guy percentage toward taxes. That is unless a bunch of us little guys learn a lesson from Egypt about message consistency and integrity.

BD,

Please explain to me what exactly Ms. Bachmann's physical appearance has to do with her comments on this or any other topic.

There you go again, BD. I do not understand your obsession with the physical appearance of female politicians.

It seems even more odd in light of the female-bashing policies being churned out daily from Republicans in Congress and the Minnesota Legislature--including legislation in Minnesota that would end equal-pay protections for women employees in public sector jobs. Now THAT's ugly.

Our time is much better spent scrutinizing what our elected officials are actually DOING to protect and advance equal rights and representation for women, not prattling about how they look.

Just a thought or two about "the rich."

I have no problem with people being fabulously well rewarded when they have invented or developed a product, a process or an idea that provides such massive benefit to society in general that the profits from their efforts have allowed them to become wealthy (as long as they have offered deservedly generous compensation to all the workers who labored at their behest to actually accomplish that success).

But I challenge a single wealthy person, especially those steadfastly whining about these minor increases in the taxes of people like them who can most easily afford to pay and are least likely to even notice the difference in their discretionary spending money,...

what have YOU done, exactly that has provided such great worth to the citizens of the State of Minnesota that it justifies the level of resources you have now gathered into you own coffers?

Most have no honest and accurate answer to that question because they've only gotten wealthy by gaming themselves, or benefiting from the gaming of a system which has been, year by year, restructured to allow them to extract more and more of the resources that should, in a just world, be going to or remaining with other people into their own pockets.

The fact is, as the state economy and the state government are currently structured, the "rich" have been allowed to become a drag on our state's economy, because they are protected from paying their fair share of taxes (a percentage of the proceeds of their labor equal to the middle class), they gather up the vast majority of proceeds of everyone else's labor into their own pockets and they produce nothing of value to the overall population of the state.

Most of them SHOULD be hanging their heads in shame, but the very least penance they can do is pay the modest increase in taxes they can well afford to pay in order to help avert complete disaster.

Finally as to the state's business "attractiveness," the vast majority of Minnesota's most successful businesses have been home grown and have arisen out of the kinds of creativity and intelligence fostered by one of the best educational systems in the nation.

In the past, it hasn't mattered much that we weren't attractive to the kind of business CEOs for whom low taxes and a large supply of (not necessarily highly-educated) compliant worker drones were the most important consideration.

In fact, those types of business leaders are a drain on a state's economy and on the lives of their workers. Let them go somewhere else. Rebuild the systems that fostered and enabled the birth of 3M, Control Data, Medtronic, Dayton's, Best Buy, etc. and we will find our state well positioned for a prosperous future.

If a few of the most useless, selfish and self-serving of our "rich" citizens choose to exit our state, let them go. No doubt they'll be quite capable of draining the lives out of and the resources out of the citizens and government of some other state. It's equally sure that more than a few of them will, like Bill Cooper, discover that, despite their massive wealthy, the grass in those "low tax" states is not as green as they assumed it to be.

Republicans in the legislature (and outside it, I'd guess) seem to have forgotten that many businesses favor increased taxes because our deteriorating infrastructure has -- or may soon --damage their bottom lines.

Many also, like Michelle Bachmann, confuse business income with the net profits of unincorporated small businesses -- which is the PORTION of their business income which must be reported as personal income. Such as $1 million gross, $198,00 taxable net after expenses. I believe they do this intentionally to confuse those who hear that untruth repeated over and over again.