Big Government Built This Country

[blastoff]

Let's see now...which recent president declared "the era of big government is over?"

And, if big gov is such a good thing why end it?

 

[Gadawg73]

The Founders ran from Big Government and Big Religion COMBINED.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Big Business built this country. All the things that big business built from the automobile, factories, Railroads, airlines, etc were built cheaper and more efficiently that if the than if the government had done it. It isn't until the government tries to control the industries that they get all screwed up. The government just wants to take credit for the great Nation that big business built

What the Left refers to as "big government" is not. This was "smart government"..The US federal government for the most part simply used tax breaks to incentivize these large projects such as the Hoover Dam.
Most of what the Left wants to give the government credit for were public -private joint ventures. Without the knowledge, equipment, money and expertise of the private sector, none of these things would have left the drafting table.

 

[Toronado3800]

Big Government projects which are smart do not count as big government?

Let's start with two of my favorite. The HUGE program which was the transcontinental railroad. Do you know how much money and land the government gave away? In some cases land which we were still busy using military might to take from the Natives. Heck, the Union Pacific is still selling off some of that land.

The Homestead act was similar. Buy half a continent from a disinterested/broken European power, use the army to remove the Natives and give it to anyone brave enough to move there. Homesteaders largely earned their keep. Still it was one heck of a federal project Used to create most of the congressional districts west of the Appalachians.

Far as Hoover being small government who paid Six Companies Inc US$48,890,955 (US$711,604,200.81 inflation adjusted) to build it? Perhaps it was a private investor. I really do not know.

 

[Toronado3800]

The Founders ran from Big Government and Big Religion COMBINED.

Before the founders died big government was buying large tracts of North America with the idea of expansion.

Smart yes. Big yes.

Not that big can not be stupid mind you. Lord, how do I end up defending Uncle Sam here.

 

[Toronado3800]

Any chance Nevada funded Hoover? It is more or less in Nevada, or did they rely on the feds to give them electricity?

 

[The Rabbi]

Big Government Programs:
Oil shale
Wind/alt energy
Ethanol
Great Society/War on Poverty
War on Drugs
Vietnam War
1970s Wage and Price Controls
WIN Buttons
Obamacare
Public schools


Private corp contributions:
Automobile
Machine gun
Light bulb
PC computer
Vaccines
Treatments for:
Cancer
Diabetes
Heart disease
Cataract surgery
etc
Refrigerators
Dish Washers
Washing machines/dryers
Air conditioning
Records, cassette tapes, cd's
Stereo

Even where gov't programs invented something, it was the private sector that made it applicable to consumers and affordable.
So basically the OP is pure big gov bullshit by one ofthe biggest bullshitters on this site.

While I may disagree thank you for a list.

Does federal funding for medical research just make the headlines more than it should because of the controversial issues? What percentage of medical research do you suppose is provided by the government? Is it usually the research which is more long term/less immediately profitable the government/we fund?

It appears that private industry outspends government in research by 2 to 1.
Federal Support for Research and Development

 

[Toronado3800]

It appears that private industry outspends government in research by 2 to 1.

Rabbi, thank you for the number. That's a lot of good reading.

 

[kaz]

If the today's GOP was in charge during the postwar years, you would never have had the Hoover Dam or the great hydroelectric power projects conducted by Tennessee Valley Authority; you would never have had the BIG GOVERNMENT Interstate Project or the BIG GOVERNMENT Space Program (which was responsible the 80s consumer electronics boom). All these things were born of Big Government; all of them required massive spending; and all of them created the foundation for a 1/2 century of economic growth...

Only a liberal could read American History and think that government build America instead of entrepreneurial spirit and hard work. Yep, it was a bureaucrat sitting in an office, my friend. That was what made us great. Very insightful you are...

 

[signelect]

not positive but I think it was Eisenhower that started the Interstate system and wasn't it Truman who gave half of Europe to that great bunch of people in Russia. Talk about big government why didn't he mention all their wonderful accomplishment. It is great to have idiots on this thread because if they weren't there who would be talk about.

 

[M14 Shooter]

If the today's GOP was in charge during the postwar years, you would never have had the Hoover Dam...

You know, of course, that this country was 'built' and was 'great' long before the Hoover Dam or the TVA - right?

 

[The Rabbi]

If the today's GOP was in charge during the postwar years, you would never have had the Hoover Dam...

You know, of course, that this country was 'built' and was 'great' long before the Hoover Dam or the TVA - right?

He knows no such thing. He knows that any problem must have a solution by the government or it isn't a solution.

 

[washamericom]

If the today's GOP was in charge during the postwar years, you would never have had the Hoover Dam or the great hydroelectric power projects conducted by Tennessee Valley Authority; you would never have had the BIG GOVERNMENT Interstate Project or the BIG GOVERNMENT Space Program (which was responsible the 80s consumer electronics boom). All these things were born of Big Government; all of them required massive spending; and all of them created the foundation for a 1/2 century of economic growth.

Ask a Talk Radio Republican if the Southwest in its current form would even exist without the Hoover Dam, and they will stare at you blankly.

Ask a Talk Radio Republican what enabled the southeastern United States to have the cheapest electricity costs in the 50s and 60s, and how postwar infrastructure projects lead to unprecedented economic growth from Tennessee to Georgia, and they will stare at you blankly.

Ask a Talk Radio Republican who harnessed the power and water of the Colorado and what that meant for economic growth in the desert southwest and California, and they will stare at you blankly. ["Wait a minute Jethro, I thought water come from God"]

Ask a Talk Radio Republican how the Big Government interstate system enabled the trucking industry to ship goods all across the country, thus creating an explosion of economic activity that would have otherwise been impossible, and they will stare at you blankly.

Ask a Talk Radio Republican how the Big Government Erie Canal project put cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica on the map, and they will stare at you blankly.

Ask a Talk Radio Republican how the Big Government Space Program made America the world leader in consumer electronics, and they will stare at you blankly. [Ask them who enabled the private profits of GE or Lockhead Martin, or any company that depends on roads and electrical grids and water and government research and government subsidies and military intervention RE global resource markets, and they will stare at you blankly. Corporations have been parasites on Big Government and the tax payer since the beginning. Their current war on government is based on the fact that they don't want to acknowledge their massive debt to society]

Do you know what happened once Reagan and Movement Conservatism took over the country in 1980? They said government couldn't do anything. [I'm surprised Reagan didn't doctor the history books to say the moon landing never happened because Big Government can't do anything]. Once Reagan convinced America that Government couldn't do anything, we stopped all the big projects that made this the Greatest Nation in history. No more Hoover Dams, no more grand infrastructure projects that put whole regions on the map. When Carter said we needed to build a moonshot around alternative energy to avoid getting bankrupted in the middle east -- bankrupted by the $5 gallon; bankrupted by having to stabilize places like Iraq and Afghanistan -- Reagan convinced the nation that the Government who defeated the Nazis wasn't fit to run a laundromat. Sorry Mr. Reagan, but Big Government put a man on the moon and lead the greatest manufacturing boom in history (see WWII war manufacturing, the largest government spending program in history, which laid the foundation for America's most sustained economic growth during the 50s and 60s) -- meaning: we could have gotten out of the middle east, but we chose to listen to a president who was funded by big oil, a president who chose to enrich special interests at the expense of future generations. We gave up on trying to solve big problems as a nation. Instead, we trusted the market, which chose to swindle the nation with CDOs, Swaps, and Derivatives rather than invest in the real economy. We got punk'd.

America swallowed poison in 1980 when it traded the Government who built the Hoover Dam for the government who trusted corporations to follow greed into whatever corrupt enclave yielded the highest short term profits. Who knew they would loot the treasury (by taking systemic criminal risk), and then use their loot to convince a generation of Conservatives that they stood for freedom.

Republican Voters know not what they do.

crap. what a waste of cyberspace. the only good government is a dead government... or a small one. no wonder you love obama.

 

[kaz]

If the today's GOP was in charge during the postwar years, you would never have had the Hoover Dam...

You know, of course, that this country was 'built' and was 'great' long before the Hoover Dam or the TVA - right?

It's sort of the liberal version of the stick falling in the forest. If a country prospers, did it count if a politician wasn't around to take the credit?

 

[Toronado3800]

not positive but I think it was Eisenhower that started the Interstate system and wasn't it Truman who gave half of Europe to that great bunch of people in Russia. Talk about big government why didn't he mention all their wonderful accomplishment. It is great to have idiots on this thread because if they weren't there who would be talk about.

Signelect, what was your proposal for Potsdam? If you start a new thread let me know. Threatening nuclear war with Russia might have done something like got us pushed back to Normandy before we had bomb number 3 ready.

Big Government - Transcontinental Railroad btw.

 

[Toronado3800]

If the today's GOP was in charge during the postwar years, you would never have had the Hoover Dam...

You know, of course, that this country was 'built' and was 'great' long before the Hoover Dam or the TVA - right?

He knows no such thing. He knows that any problem must have a solution by the government or it isn't a solution.

Preemption Act/Homestead Acts go back far enough? I can't think of a larger Federal program.

 

[Nosmo King]

This shows what a completely ignorant, imbecile CLOD you are. This was PRE WAR, done in the 30s during the Great Depression.

Idiot stick.

~blah blah blah~

You can't get the most basic facts straight, therefore anything coming from you is suspect. Because you are a willfully ignorant, sloppy, stupid dolt.

Can I use this quote? Seems folks like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin might fall into your 'willfully ignorant, sloppy, stupid dolt' category.

So, by the standards you have established here, we will keep an eye on the willfully ignorant, sloppy, stupid dolts engaging in political repartee in the coming months.

 

[The Rabbi]

~blah blah blah~

You can't get the most basic facts straight, therefore anything coming from you is suspect. Because you are a willfully ignorant, sloppy, stupid dolt.

Can I use this quote? Seems folks like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin might fall into your 'willfully ignorant, sloppy, stupid dolt' category.

So, by the standards you have established here, we will keep an eye on the willfully ignorant, sloppy, stupid dolts engaging in political repartee in the coming months.

You really dare to post something like that??


There's a big difference between posting something and saying something in an interview.

 

[beowolfe]

Big government has taxpayers to thank for their largess. Remember that.

Actually, the government took in more from imports than it did from taxpayers. It still takes in more from fees than it does income taxes.

 

[beowolfe]

The real Glaring Error in the OP's paean to the Joys of Big Government is that we'll never know to what better use the money and manpower could have been spent if left to the private sector.

If Big Government spending were the Salvation of Humanity, the Stimulus Bill and two years of deficit spending would have sent job creation through the roof...but, you know...

Sure you can. Just look back at what infrastructure the private sector put in place from 1776 up until the end of the 19th century. Nothing. The private sector doesn't build infrastructure, they take advantage of the government's activities. But you still want to believe that the private sector does it better. If left to its own devices, the private sector would have you in abject servitude. You'd work for the company for subsistent wages, you'd live in company housing, and you'd shop at the company store. At the end of a year, you'd be in debt to the company. You'd practically be a slave.

That's the thing about faar right republicans. They look at our history and say, but if the private sector...... Do you know why the government builds infrastructure? The people got tired of the waiting for the private sector.