Rep. Michele Bachmann (Creative Commons)

Rep. Michelle Bachmann used charts showing the national unemployment rate and an annual federal deficits to say President Barack Obama's "unprecedented explosion of government spending" was way worse than of President George W. Bush's miscues.

She spoke in the official response of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus to Obama's State of the Union address. Normally, the opposition party gives one official response to the President's State of the Union speech. This year, the person tapped to respond to President Obama was Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), a fiscal conservative and the chairman of the House Budget Committee.

However, in what could be the start of a new State of the Union tradition, Bachmann (R-Minn.) gave what was called a Tea Party response to the official response.

Bachmann, who established the House of Representative's Tea Party Caucus, said the health care reform law needs to be repealed, the EPA needs to be stopped from establishing cap-and-trade legislation and regulatory and taxation burdens on businesses need to be lifted. Marking the usual Tea Party manta, she said over and over, government has grown too big.

"We must work hard to dismantle the massive government expansion that has happened over the past two years," she said.

Bachman said Monday that her speech was "not a competition" to Rep. Ryan's. And House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, told: “Paul Ryan’s giving the official Republican response. And Michele Bachmann, just as the other 534 members of the House and Senate, are going to have opinions as to the State of the Union. Again, this is a process that happens every year, and I look forward to all comments, but it’s Paul Ryan that’s giving the official Republican [response].”

Bachmann provided a strong criticism of Obama in her address while Ryan was much more conciliatory, offering to work with Obama on bringing America out of an economic rut.