MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C.—After sharply criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was hounded from the podium during a campaign appearance Thursday by a band of OWS protesters.
The House member from Minnesota was about eight minutes into a foreign-policy speech when about 30 protestors stood up and began giving a speech of their own. They also started chanting, “We are the 99 percent,” an Occupy slogan that refers to studies that show wealth in the United States concentrated in the top 1 percent of the population. The demonstration continued for five minutes while a flustered Bachmann stood by.
Some of her supporters in the crowd yelled “Sit down!” to the protesters and chanted “Michele! Michele!” Bachmann left the podium with a police escort but returned a few minutes later to finish her speech.
When she was interrupted, Bachmann was in the process of saying, “We can accomplish significant reductions in spending by cutting wasteful federal spending,” including the Pentagon programs and an “often dysfunctional procurement system.” One major reform she would implement as president, she said is to change to fixed price contracting.
“American consumers don’t pay more the longer it takes to make retail products and they shouldn’t have to pay more for weapons systems based on the length of development,” she said. “This policy only encourages waste and delay in the development of new technology for our military rather than protect it.”
Bachmann has been a sharp critic of the Occupy movement, saying that its members should stop “blaming job creators for the failures created by” government and elected officials.
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