Yes, They DID Build That! The Men Who Built America

Obviously no one in the Obama administration or Democratic Party ever watched the History Channel series "The Men Who Built America."  They mistakenly claim that it is government expenditures that are the key to infrastructure development. They say "you didn't build that!" But, like always, they misread and misinterpret the biggest and most obvious lessons of history.

Instead, America was REALLY built by people such as Rockefeller, Getty, Morgan, Carnegie, Edison, Ford, Vanderbilt and Westinghouse. And it was all private investment. They and their kind built ALL of the pipelines, railroads, industries, and businesses that made America the most prosperous and economically free nation in the history of the world. Their achievements made the US the envy of the World.  It was private enterprise, not government, which radically improved this country's standard of living. In fact, it was success of private enterprise which eventually enabled and funded social safety nets (the first in the world), national parks and environmental remediation.

And all of these men ended up with far more money and power than the Federal government. And yeah, they were monopolists it's true and had too much clout over labor. But labor unions rose to counter-balance the power of the great men. Even here the Federal government had a minimal role.

The Fed government didn't have any money and didn't invest in anything for most of US history.

In fact, the Fed Govt was very, very small until well into the 20th century -- just like the Constitution intended. The main source of Federal government revenue, for the vast majority of US history, was excise taxes and customs duties. The income tax, levied starting in 1913,changed all that.

Showing the evil of government's "mission creep," only 5 years after the institution of income taxes, the top rate of 6% (on income over $50 million in current dollars) soared to over 90% and enabled our country's involvement in our first foreign war (WWI).  And a few short decades later, Eisenhower warned us of the Industrial-Military complex. The top tax rate, which started at 6% for the wealthiest of the wealthy, stayed at 70% or more until the 1980s.

Yeah, the US government built the interstate highways in the Eisenhower administration and there were some infrastructure projects like the Hoover Dam in the 1930s. But even here, interstate roads could have been a private toll road system without any Federal involvement at all.

Federal ownership of Amtrak and the VA hospitals shows the abject failure of Federal ownership or "management" of ANYTHING.  Government ownership is pitifully ineffective, inefficient and outrageously costly.  Government "enterprise" is a total failure. Big government failures are all around us!  Yet, this is what Democrats want!  They don't get it!   In reality, they don't want to see the failures! Obama, raised in 3rd world countries, doesn't want to see it! He's ideologically blinded.

The great heritage of America is lightly regulated capitalism -- not Socialism.

Leftists in the Obama administration and Hillary may have watched that History Channel series, because they are so willfully blind and hard-headed (and remain so all their lives), they obviously learned nothing. They misread and misinterpret the biggest and most obvious lessons of history.  Not only do they not know our history and success of US private enterprise, they remain ignorant about the abject failure of Socialist/Communist economic models. Their ignorance is so stubborn and persistent that it borders on a mental illness or pathology and makes them unfit to govern.