Rep. Rick Becker, critic of big government, won’t answer questions about his government loans
MINOT, N.D. — Rep. Rick Becker, a Republican from Bismarck, is the strident ideological martinet who founded the Bastiat Caucus, a rump caucus of inveterate reactionaries whose governing agenda is whatever is being ranted about on the Fox News primetime lineup in a given news cycle.
Becker and his acolytes are fond of attacking other Republicans for the perceived sins of not being conservative. To hear them tell it, they are the torchbearers for conservatism in North Dakota. It’s on them to root out those who aren’t ideologically pure.
(That many of these unserious men and women also worship Donald Trump, a rank spendthrift whose profligate administration was rooted in big government authoritarianism, is an irony that shouldn’t be lost on us.)
Given Becker’s posturing as a latter-day saint of the small-government movement, it’s relevant that he accepted more than a quarter of a million dollars in government loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Program.
