Corporate Welfare King Complains About Socialism; Obama Looks Forward
A couple of weeks ago, President Obama gave a speech in Virginia where he somewhat clumsily made the assertion that even self-made businessmen didn’t get successful on their own. They had teachers who inspired them, firefighters and police who protect them, roads that help them engage in commerce, and that ours is a society in which we are somewhat interdependent on each other; i.e., “government” to help private enterprise thrive. It is thus everywhere, despite the current fad among some to denigrate government and everything it does. Fox News is, naturally, at the forefront of this phony nontroversy, even trotting out a couple of little kids to discuss how N0bama is nationalizing their lemonade stand, or something.
So, Mitt Romney – who purports to be a self-made businessman, facts notwithstanding – put out this ad:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLZpMFbxyxU]
Jack Gilchrist, the New Hampshire business owner Romney features in that ad, is right out of Republicanland central casting. He whines that the President is “demonizing” people like him, who, with his father, built his business, “through hard work and a little bit of luck”. Also, the black Kenyan guy doesn’t “believe in America”. So, there’s that.
Yet Jack Gilchrist didn’t just get where he is thanks to hard work, luck, teachers, roads, and civic protection services. He also got there thanks to thousands of socialist government dollars.
In 1999, Gilchrist Metal received $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds issued by the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority “to set up a second manufacturing plant and purchase equipment to produce high definition television broadcasting equipment,” according to a New Hampshire Union Leader report at the time…
Last year, Gilchrist Metal also received two U.S. Navy sub-contracts totaling about $83,000 and a smaller $5,600 Coast Guard contract in 2008, according to a government web site that tracks spending.
Gilchrist also is a recipient of an SBA loan of about $500,000, with matching funds from the federally-funded New England Trade Adjustment Assistance Center. In other words, Gilchrist got where he is thanks to hard work, a little bit of luck, and over a million dollars in federal and state corporate welfare. Out of all the businesspeople available in the country to use to send this message, Romney’s campaign didn’t even adequately vet their Obama-hating generic middle-aged blue-collar rich guy.
By contrast, in the wake of the Aurora shootings, the Obama campaign took the opportunity to speak frankly to the American people about what’s really at stake in this election, and he also directly addressed Romney’s clumsy rejection of civic society:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBorRZnqtMo] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0yK5NakN2o]
Yes, what a champion Obama has been for working Americans! Who can forget
–his epochal decision to appoint Robert Reich as his Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Nobelist Paul Krugman as his Secretary of the Treasury, to keep on eye on noxious corporate criminals like Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers?
–those stirring pictures of him marching with the municipal workers in Madison, fist held high?
–his press conferences calling for full prosecutions of criminal corporate financiers?
–his calls for increasing maximum federal income tax rates back to their nineteen sixties levels?
–his conversion of all the foreign military aid money into the long-awaited “peace dividend”?
Vote for Obama: four more years of prosperity and populist solidarity! Don’t be distracted by those spoiler Greens!
It was no flap. The whole speach was justification for higher rates of taxation by the government. Obama (and most lefties) believes the people who made their money through finding a nich in the market aren’t so smart or hardworking, therefore, they must give more to the government. Even though the government wasen’t confiscating as much as Obama wants to from private enterprise when today’s businesses were started, he still thinks its essential. Hes either an imbicile or socialist/commie/marxists. Probably a little of both.
Stopped reading at “speach”.
It’s probably best not to label anyone an imbecile, and spell it wrong in the process. (As well as much of the remainder of your insipid comment).
“He’s either an imbecile or socialist/commie/marxist. Probably a little of both”
Care to offer some credible evidence to back up that baseless and ridiculous claim? Obama is a moderate centrist at best, he has repeatedly disappointed those on the left with his concessions to the right.
BRL: He don’t need no stinkin’ evidence! He’s going with THE GUT…and that’s good enough for him!
FAIL.
Go back to FreeRepublic until you can cogently put forth your talking points, mark.
The myth of the yeoman, individualist entrepreneur is the card played by the crony capitalists who want their feed at the trough of government largess to continue uninterrupted. As a small business owner, I am appalled by the positions taken by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, who’re far removed and antithetical to my needs and concerns.
I am wondering why the right wingers are not frothing at the mouth over the exact same speech Romney gave to the Olympians. He even included praise for government investment in that one.
Was that a typo, Alan.
Did you mean, “Vorwärts! Vorwärts!”?