Bachmann & Social Engineering the Tax Code

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck5lcUTbs2M]

This morning, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America that the tax code needs to be changed – citing the example that the Internal Revenue Service recently deemed breast pumps a valid medical deduction. (This is related to Bachmann’s assertion that First Lady Michelle Obama’s encouragement of mothers to breast-feed in order to prevent childhood obesity is the latest example of the “nanny state,” though the IRS and Obama acted independently of one another.) Here’s Bachmann:

The tax code is used by government as social engineering. I spent years [as an attorney] in the United States federal tax court seeing the difficult burden of the tax code in people’s lives and I think the federal government should really stop social engineering.

I have to wonder what other pieces of “social engineering” of the tax code Bachmann opposes. The mortgage interest deduction that subsidizes home ownership? The dependent care credit that helps working parents pay for child care? Or the exclusion for combat soldiers, which gives soldiers putting themselves in harm’s way a break on income tax? What about the suspension of the marriage penalty or the child credit?