Memo to Romney: America’s Greatest Presidents All Used Government to Increase Prosperity

[ProSense]

Memo to Romney: America’s Greatest Presidents All Used Government to Increase Prosperity

by David Woolner

In his Wisconsin primary victory speech, presidential aspirant Mitt Romney made some interesting observations about Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Abraham Lincoln. He seemed to indicate that he admires them, as they were what he termed “historically great” presidents. He then went on to chide the current president for having the audacity to think of himself in the same league as these three great former leaders. He described the coming presidential election at great length as a historic choice between what he termed a “government-centered society” and a “society led by free people and free enterprises.”

In making these observations, Mr. Romney made no attempt to rectify the fundamental contradiction in his remarks. He either failed to see, or decided to conveniently ignore, the fact that the three “historically great” presidents (one Republican and two Democratic) he made reference to at the opening of his remarks all shared one thing in common: a fundamental belief in the positive use of government to help expand the economy and provide a greater degree of economic opportunity and social justice for all Americans — not just those at the top of the income ladder.

It was President Lincoln, for example, who in 1862 signed such pieces of legislation as the Homestead Act, which issued 160 acres of Federal land west of the Mississippi River at little or no cost to any adult citizen who had not borne arms against the United States, provided they agreed to improve the land. He also signed the Morill Act, which donated 30,000 acres of federal land to a number of states and territories that could then be sold by the state to provide the revenue needed to fund public colleges and universities. The result was the establishment of over 60 “land-grant” colleges and universities across the country, including Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison (the very state in which Mr. Romney made his remarks about the evils of a “government-centered” society). The Homestead Act greatly accelerated the settlement of U.S. territory in the West and was a boon to the overall economy. The establishment of “land-grant” colleges and universities brought the dream of higher education to tens of thousands of low-income farmers and workers who had previously been denied that opportunity, which had untold benefits in science, technology, and the liberal arts.

FDR brought us the most comprehensive banking and financial reform in U.S. history. He established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a number of other important laws that restored confidence in the country’s financial and banking sector not only among the American people, but also among the business community. In using government in this way, the Roosevelt administration laid the basis for the overall growth of the financial sector for decades to come. FDR also greatly expanded the country’s economic infrastructure through a massive effort to update the country’s antiquated roads, bridges, airports, and other facilities, all of which helped propel the expansion of the economy in the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, and beyond. He also signed the National Labor Relations Act into law, which encouraged higher wages through the unionization of the workforce and, near the end of his life, pushed through the GI Bill, which allowed thousands of returning World War II veterans the chance to secure further job training or access to higher education. Both of those efforts helped make the post-1945 U.S. economy the envy of the world.

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http://www.newdeal20.org/2012/04/05/memo-to-romney-americas-greatest-presidents-all-used-government-to-increase-prosperity-75972/

[freshwest]

1. A little paragraph from Lincoln:

"The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.

The desirable things which the individuals of a people can not do, or can not well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those which have relation to wrongs, and those which have not. Each of these branch off into an infinite variety of subdivisions.

The first that in relation to wrongs embraces all crimes, misdemeanors, and nonperformance of contracts. The other embraces all which, in its nature, and without wrong, requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself.

From this it appears that if all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need for government."

Abraham Lincoln

Fragment on government from The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 2, pp. 22021.

http://quotationsbook.com/quote/45475/

[indepat]

2. Der Mittens is a bad joke, but the joke is on us: he would squeeze the 99% for the sole benefit of

the 1% and large corporations, as his support for Ryan's budget confirms beyond any reasonable doubt.

Edited to add us

[BeyondGeography]

3. How many times did Bain leave the gov't holding the bag

for pension and insurance liabilities once they rolled up companies and walked away with whatever was left?

You can't get as wealthy as Romney without government help.

[Scurrilous]

4. K & R

[ProSense]

5. Kick! n/t