If you are not reading
the great Charlie Pierce, you need to.
Today, he goes back to the video tapes and provides one more telling example of Republican amnesia and the stupid notion that individual initiative built America without any government assistance.
I'm going to rip off his column today which provides comparisons about what the same politician said at the GOP convention last year and yesterday on one of the Sabbath Gasbag shows.
Below the excerpts. Who was this person?
Here they are:
During the great the Land Run of 1889, thousands of families rushed to put a stake down on empty plots of land. They built tent cities overnight, they farmed the land and they worked hard. And in 1897, eight years after the Land Run, a handful of adventurous pioneers risked their own money - NOT, the federal government's - to drill Oklahoma's first oil well, the Nellie Johnstone. By doing so, these early-day pioneers changed the future and the fortune of Oklahoma forever, and today Oklahoma is one of the nation's key energy producers and job creators. President Obama wants us to believe that Oklahomans owe that success to the federal government: to the Department of Energy, to the EPA, the IRS or maybe even to him. Mr. President, we know better ... as we say in Oklahoma, that dog won't hunt. (August 28, 2012)
Well, I'm going to tell him that we appreciate his visit first of all, but that we also need quick action as it relates to FEMA. And, so far FEMA has done a great job. They were here immediately on the spot. They have been throughout the different neighborhoods.(May 26, 2013)
And,
We owe these remarkable successes to the imagination and ingenuity of people like my friend, Oklahoman Harold Hamm. The son of sharecroppers, and the youngest of 13 children, Harold grew up in the small town of Lexington, Oklahoma... Today, Harold Hamm is the Chairman and CEO of Oklahoma's own Continental Resources, a top ten U.S. producer of petroleum liquids with nearly 700 employees operating in 10 states and valued at over $13 billion... Harold' success story is not one-of-a-kind; it is an American dream that has been realized by countless men and women since the founding of this country. He is just one of the many visionaries and innovators in the private sector that are the true drivers of economic growth and job creation. And that's where President Obama just doesn't get it. He'll tell you that "If you've got a business ‘you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.'" Well, Mr. President ... like who? The IRS? The EPA? Or the federal government? The president believes that government is responsible for our successes and that's why his solution to everything is more government, bigger spending, more regulation, and more bureaucratic programs like ObamaCare. (8/28/12).
I know I have heard of families that have already received money from FEMA because-- as-- as you know, in a disaster like this, lot of people lose their-- their-- their checkbooks. They lose their credit cards. They lose their driver's license, their birth certificates, their insurance papers, they lose everything and they have no cash. And some of the banks were even hit, the ATM machines, so people need cash to get immediate needs. And the Red Cross, The Salvation Army takes care of those immediate-- needs, but then there comes a time, a-- a month from now or whenever it might be that people really start having to crank out the money to get their homes built and get the things they really need to replace things they lost. (5/26/13).
And,
Families feeling pinched not just by a bad economy, but by a President who promised hope and change and left many Americans with no hope and just change in their pockets. President Obama believes the power of a Big Government is the key to American success. (8/28/13)
I personally have met with them many times, but, you know, there's going to come a time where there's going to be a tremendous amount of need once we begin the debris clearing which we already have, but really get it cleared off to where we need to start rebuilding these homes, rebuilding these businesses and we know at different times in the past, money hasn't always come as quickly as it should, so I'm hoping that FEMA will be very prompt in getting the relief here.(5/26/13).
That John Galt-mentality works as long as you don't have a major natural disaster, doesn't it Governor Fallin?
Natural disasters reveal how important it is to have Big Government. Will today's GOP ever realize that?