The President’s statement about the importance of the public sector
at a stop in Roanoke, VA has received a lot of attention, mostly for his
comment about private sector businesses. But there’s a lot more in this speech which deserves scrutiny. To wrap up his praise of the public sector, Obama had this to say:
I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was
just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be
because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something
– there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there…[E]ver since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some
things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s
how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate
Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s
how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation
and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for president –
because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in
this together.
Some have noted that this line of thought is very similar to one expressed by Elizabeth Warren in a viral video clip. It’s also quite similar, at least in part, to an MSNBC promo Rachel Maddow filmed to promote her “lean forward” network:
The federal government did fund the construction of the Hoover Dam
(though the work was carried out by a conglomerate of six private
companies). And going back to Obama’s list, it did fund the GI Bill, the
moon program, and the creation of the Arpanet, precursor to the Internet. The lesson Obama seems to be drawing from this is that all the
big and important things that happen in our nation stem from the
government’s ability to tax and spend.
The problem is that President Obama hasn’t proposed any moon shot. He isn’t planning a
new Hoover Dam or funding the creation of a new Internet. What he has
given us is the cancellation of the manned space flight program, the
regulation into extinction of coal power plants, and a string of failed
government investments with names like Solyndra.
But putting aside the particulars, Obama’s speech seems spectacularly
tone deaf. In the midst of a great recession, with Social Security
already spending more than it is taking in, with Medicare racing toward a
similar fate, with states deeply in the red as a result of public
sector pensions and health care costs, with American cities declaring
bankruptcy, with Europe on the brink of collapse from decades of big
government policies, and with $ 15 trillion in national debt for which we
have no retirement plan–in the midst of all that, Obama comes to praise
big government and badmouth innovation and hard work. It’s just sort of
stunning, really. Has there ever been a man less suited for the moment
than Obama is for right now?
Source: Breitbart Feed