|
Edited on Fri Feb-13-09 06:06 PM by ddeclue
The renewed talking point of the Republicans is that the government can't create wealth and that we should even further defund it to give the money back as tax cuts to the wealthy in hopes that they will "invest" it in jobs for the rest of us.
Horse hockey!
The wealthy only "invest" where demand already exist and don't take big chances with their money investing in pipe dreams. They want their profit, they want it guaranteed and they want it right now.
It takes government investment and legislation to get the really big things done and to take big risks that lead to big rewards.
Imagine for instance if Republicans were in charge when:
Queen Isabella sold her jewels to fund Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the New World. She did not even know there was a "New World" to find when she did this but she took the risk anyways.
Various kings of England granted colonial charters to the various thirteen colonies between 1609 and 1732 - this certainly involved government risk and expense too.
Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase which more than doubled the size of United States and then commissioned Lieutenants Louis and Clark (along with some of my own ancestors) to explore this largely unexplored real estate for several years.
Abraham Lincoln sponsored the Land Grant College system and the transcontinental railroad. No doubt his modern day counterparts would have called this pork too. Today's Republicans are calling high speed rail "pork"... today's Republicans would no doubt have considered old Honest Abe a commie bastard for getting all this "pork" passed. :eyes:
William Seward purchased Alaska from Russia. At the time they called it "Seward's folly" or "Seward's ice box". Yet it has provided gold, oil, and other valuable resources ever since.
FDR built hydro-electric power plants all across the south and the western United States to provide power to people outside of big cities through the REA (Rural Electrification Act) and the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority). I'm sure all those rural people in the so called "red" states would disagree that having electric power should be called "pork".
Dwight D. Eisenhower saw the wonderful multi lane limited access highways available to the Germans during his command of Allied forces during World War II and decided to provide the same to Americans through his Interstate Highway Act of 1956. No doubt that this MUST be pork too modern day Republicans... :eyes:
John F. Kennedy promised to put a man on the moon in 1961 before the decade was out - he promised to "do this and the other things not because they are easy but rather because they are hard". On July 20th, 1969 that promise was kept and the technological advances that were made are still benefitting us to this day.
There are no doubt more examples that I've forgotten but the point is that the gov't has a responsibility to provide for the general Welfare of the people - by this I do NOT mean the modern sense of that word but the more archaic sense of "well being". The government has a responsibility to improve the quality of life for we the citizens and it is often is the only one willing to take such risks because private enterprise is too afraid or simply too greedy to take the risk and share the benefit.
ON EDIT: Also forgot the GI Bill and government college loans and grants that came about after World War II. This has done more to move people up in the middle class and create wealth than just about anything in recent history.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
