Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann stretched the truth a little when she appeared on national television Tuesday night as the Tea Party spokesperson in response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. But she did no worse than Illinois Senator Mark Kirk did on the same issue last year.

Bachmann said that the federal government “may put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama’s health care bill.” That’s not quite true, says PolitiFacts, a Pulitzer Prize winning organization which tries to figure out what is true and what is false in the political arena.

What Bachmann said, was basically the same thing Kirk said last year, when he used the same numbers that Bachmann used, At that time, PolitiFact labeled Kirk’s remarks as “Barely True.” Bachmann gets a “Half True” rating, partially because she used the word “may.”

PoliticFacts says it’s true, there may be a need to hire 16,500 IRS agents to police the health care bill. But it also says that number was a worst case scenario. The real number could be half, or less, than that.

Republicans like Kirk and Bachmann chose to use the high number not because it was accurate, or told the whole story, but because it fit their political purposes.  

You can see the PolitFact discussion on this matter, by clicking here.