…was no gaffe:
Later this summer, Obama notoriously argued that government created the environment for success through infrastructure spending. “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that,” Obama told a crowd in Oakland. Obama later claimed he meant that businesses didn’t build the infrastructure that allowed them to be successful, and that government deserves the credit. But where did government get the capital to build the infrastructure in the first place? From the successful businesses that produced that capital, not from the Progressive Sunshine Forest.
The reference to churches in the video is another interesting point, although not one that Democrats want voters to notice. This administration imposed a mandate on employers to provide free birth control and sterilization to employees, even those employers whose religious values prohibit them from facilitating such access. Explicitly religious organizations such as schools, health care providers, and charities did not get an exemption, either. The message was very similar to what the video argued: you can join a church, but you belong to the government.
Yup.
That was always my question: “Okay, sure, government built the roads (by contracting out to private companies, but whatever). But where did it get the money for that?”
Actually, the private companies built the roads using money that came from other private companies. The government served as a collection and distribution agent, as well as (probably) a planning entity (though it probably contracted that out as well).
The original western railroads in this country were all built with private financing, mostly from investors in Scotland (cf. The Man Who Found the Money, the story of John Stewart [wait for it] Kennedy and the financing of the Western railroads). Many claimed that the government subsidized these railroads by giving them right of way through “government owned” land. But all they did was say “Uh, yeah, we own that…yeah, that’s the story” then offer to “give” the railroads rights that they had just mysteriously appropriated.
The subway system in New York City was a privately financed effort in the beginning, as well. Government hasn’t always had much hand in “infrastructure,” and sometimes it hasn’t had any.