Mitt Romney said Henry Ford didn't need the government to build roads !?

[KurtNYC]

On day one of Romney's Twist and Shout' tour he cited Henry Ford as a prime example of what he claimed Obama had said.

Obama's quote:

Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that.

sent Romney into hyper ventilation. Lashing out for examples of people who did it with no cooperation from government Romney picked Henry Ford (!)

Never mind that the introduction of the motor car set off the largest wave of public spending in the last 100 years and it goes on costing tax payers -- roads, more roads, highways, bridges, toll roads, wars for gasoline, landfill, highway patrols, drunk driving education and enforcement, and all of the DMVs nationwide....

Send the bill for all of that to Henry Ford retroactively.

[get the red out]

1. Just Stupid

That's beyond idiotic. He's makes himself look uneducated in trying to attack the President like this. He might have needed to have kept to the simple rearranging of words (to mean something different from what the Pres. said) he started with. Expounding isn't Mitt's strength.

[KurtNYC]

8. good article on the twisting of the quote and how it played out

in the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/07/romney-obama-inventions-and-government-money.html

A much longer refutation than mine. I think the Henry Ford thing is the best of it though because it sits 180-degrees to the original quote. Twisting an out of context quote is an old political trick; problem is now with blogging and a mcuh faster and more horizontal news structure and with Quick Response teams being part of every major campaign IT DOESN'T WORK well any more.

To me the really dumb thing is that, with pressure, help and guidance from the GOP, Romney is trying to get away from the perception that he is liar but they tried it by twisting an out of context quote. His disingenuous twist is easily refuted with the longer quote and it just shows him to be a LIAR one more time.

[CanonRay]

23. Thinking isn't Mitt's strength

Firing people probably is, though.

[HiPointDem]

2. kr. not to mention the destruction of public transportation. every major business innovation in

history has been subsidized by the State.

[cilla4progress]

3. Twist and Shout? You've gotta be kidding me!

And where would Henry Ford's cars GO without a government-paid highway system?????

[Lint Head]

4. Didn't the Mormans build all the roads?

[SoutherDem]

6. No but apparently Mittens taxes do pay for many either.

But, his money certainly helps close businesses, sends businesses over seas and enjoys staying in tax shelters.

[LongTomH]

5. The conservatives are trying to rewrite history across the board!

From trying to make the Deists and Unitarians among our Founding Fathers into fundamentalist Christians to rewriting Thomas Jefferson out of history. Texas is just the worst examples; but, it going on across the country.

[KurtNYC]

11. They love to play the cowboy myth --

lone guy, horse, gun, no government, no taxes, and a big steak every night.

In a sense Romney's writers wanted to cast Steve Jobs, Ford and Ray Croc as cowboys who got no benefit from civilization or the cultural glue that just barely holds it together. The first cowboy got a bunch of his innovation from Xerox. The second lone ranger got roads built for him and public transport destroyed, and the 3rd hombre put restaurants on those roads in big cities.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. Yeah it was the hovercraft version of the Model-T Romney meant

[RedStateLiberal]

9. Republican "logic"

It is so because they say it is so and not because of common sense and facts.

[Blanks]

10. Henry Ford is a poor example anyway..

...because he didn't invent the automobile. He developed a system of mass production for a product that already existed.

A perfect example of someone who stood on the shoulders of genius.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

13. And although Ford had some serious flaws

He was also the guy who believed that workers should be paid enough so that the would be able to buy the products that they are producing. And while there are deep flaws with that philsophy, it's positively enlightened compared to the what's-wrong-with-sweatshop mentality that corporations have today.

[JoePhilly]

12. I think Mitt is intentionally lying, so they the media will talk about him lying, and not

about Bain or his taxes.

[Blanks]

14. Good point.

Suddenly we're all talking about how much of a moron he is; instead of how big a crook he is.

That'll help his chances in November.

[JoePhilly]

15. I think he's that desperate to change the subject.

[KurtNYC]

18. Seems like the media is just calling this like "he said she said"

false equivalency

[emulatorloo]

29. Apparently they think it is there job to protect Romney

[HopeHoops]

16. Uh, yeah. Okay. rMoney, did you know that the width of railroad ties dates back to the Romans?

It's true. The wheels on roman chariots and carts were the width of two horses asses (no joke). The gauge became the standard for rail lines because it was the width of the ruts in the roads that were originally converted into railroads. To this day, the gauge is still the same. So, a lot goes back to horses asses and rMoney, you're one of them.

[Angry Dragon]

26. NO

Willard has enough horse shit for two asses

[stlsaxman]

17. Guess Mitt is going after Elizabeth Warren- retroactively...

the relevant part starts at :50 in...

[KurtNYC]

19. Maybe Romney is thinking: "we didn't pay for the roads to the factories because the factories

are in China"

[Fawke Em]

20. Snort!

[Flatpicker]

21. I remember those days well

Henry, out there selling 100 ft of road to every person who bought a car.

Thousands of off road model-t's thundering across the plains, rivaling the buffalo herds of legend.
Men, self made men, drilling for oil in their backyards and refining it to power their new autos.

Not one government cent spent on this at all.

Then we got home, removed the onion from our belts and got some self made sleep, in our self made beds.

Glorious, it was...

[KurtNYC]

25. in my day we built our OWN bridges too

and we LIKED it!

[JDPriestly]

22. Sorry Mitt.

It's worse than that.

During the period from 1936 to 1950, National City Lines and Pacific City Lines—with investment from GM, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Trucks, and the Federal Engineering Corporation—bought over 100 electric surface-traction systems in 45 cities including Baltimore, Newark, Los Angeles, New York City, Oakland and San Diego and converted them into bus operation.

In 1946, Edwin J. Quinby, a retired naval lieutenant commander, alerted transportation officials across the country to what he called "a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilities—your Electric Railway System". GM and other companies were subsequently convicted in 1949 of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products via a complex network of linked holding companies including National City Lines and Pacific City Lines. They were also indicted, but acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies.

By the time of the 1973 oil crisis, controversial new testimony was presented to a United States Senate inquiry into the causes of the decline of streetcar systems in the U.S. This alleged that there was a wider conspiracy—by GM in particular—to destroy effective public transport systems in order to increase sales of automobiles and that this was implemented with great effect to the detriment of many cities.

Only a small handful of U.S. cities have surviving effective rail-based urban transport systems based on streetcar or trams, including Newark, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Boston. There is now general agreement that GM and other companies were indeed actively involved in a largely unpublicized program to purchase many streetcar systems and convert them to buses, which they supplied. There is also acknowledgment that the Great Depression, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, labor unrest, market forces, rapidly increasing traffic congestion, taxation policies that favored private vehicle ownership, urban sprawl, and general enthusiasm for the automobile played a role. One author recently summed the situation up stating "Clearly, GM waged a war on electric traction. It was indeed an all out assault, but by no means the single reason for the failure of rapid transit. Also, it is just as clear that actions and inactions by government contributed significantly to the elimination of electric traction."[n 1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

Historic areas of LA still have the steps built into the hillsides that were built for streetcar riders so that they could get from their houses in the hills to the trolley tracks on the streets below. As a fan of public transportation, I am so envious of earlier generations that could enjoy the hustle and bustle of the streetcars. No noisier than the nearby freeway, I am sure.

Actually, it was a combined effort by the government and the auto companies that destroyed our transportation infrastructure and led to dependency on foreign oil and excessive damage to our environment. The government, especially under the Eisenhower administration, was an ally of big business in all of this.

Remember the slogan, "What's good for General Motors is good for the USA." We heard that a lot when I was a child. So Romney is very wrong, very wrong on this point. Way off on his history.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

24. The WPA was mostly focused on rural roads so farmers could get their product to market

with a brand new invention called "the truck".

Prior to that, they had to drive over mud and follow the wagon ruts.

Roads between some towns looked like this...

[img][/img]

That's why early cars had wheels that looked like they were for a wagon.

[img][/img]

Rubber tires came later but ground clearance still needed to be high.

[img][/img]

Face it, the Model A was an off road vehicle.

[no_hypocrisy]

27. And the Interstate Highway System, Interstate Freeway System

The system is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who championed its formation. Construction was authorized by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, and the original portion was completed 35 years later. The network has since been extended, and as of 2010, it had a total length of 47,182 miles (75,932 km).[2] As of 2010, about one-quarter of all vehicle miles driven in the country use the Interstate system.[3] The cost of construction has been estimated at $425 billion (in 2006 dollars),[4] making it the "largest public works program since the Pyramids."[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System

[Spitfire of ATJ]

28. Ike only got it passed by telling Republicans the millitary wanted it for domestic rapid deployment.

It was about this time the bonds were taking root in the newly created Pentagon.

WWII was a Democratic War that they won in four years.

The Republicans now set about to use the connections formed with the Soviets to start the Cold War.

[no_hypocrisy]

30. You have a valid point.

Can't imagine the Interstate Highway Program proposed by President Adlai Stevenson, arguing it was necessary to help the economies of small towns grow and national commerce. Republicans would again cut off their nose to spite their face.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

31. Their biggest fear is obsolescence.