Today’s Gatewood: a Bachmann/Perry tie

by David Safier

[NOTE: I created The Gatewood in honor of Henry Gatewood, the banker in John Ford's 1939 "Stagecoach" who ran off with $50,000 in payroll money and said, while clutching the satchel full of stolen money,

"'America for Americans! The government must not interfere with business! Reduce taxes! Our national debt is something shocking!"

Video at the end of the post.]

We have a tie for today's Gatewood. Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry have both done the ol' embezzler proud. I couldn't just choose one.

Bachmann did commendable work in the anti-regulation category with her desire to abolish the EPA. And wanting to get rid of the Department of Education was the icing on the Gatewood. In the category of xenophobic fearmongering, Bachmann excelled by frightening us with the concern the U.S. may be "in an unstoppable decline," at the same time we see "the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the Soviet Union." And here I thought the Soviet Union had died a few decades ago!

And Perry? He's done stellar work in the anti-regulation category as well, throwing in some anti-tax rhetoric for good measure. Perry claims the Texas Economic Miracle (which some doubters believe isn't much of a miracle after all) is the result of Texas' near-zero legislation combined with low taxes. Perry is being endorsed by uber-anti-regulator, Phil Gramm, who did everything he possibly could to lower regulations of banking and derivatives in the 1990s, which helped drive the economy upward off a cliff. Perry even made up "an obcene, crazy regulation" saying farmers need a commercial driver's license to drive their tractors across the road. 'Tain't so, but it's one hell of an anecdote.

Here's Gatewood's speech for the 1939 John Ford/John Wayne film, Stagecoach.