Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) contended on MSNBC today that America wouldn’t have capitalism — or even bar codes — without the federal government.
Moran, who voted against the bill because it sets the country up for “three more fiscal cliffs,” was asked about Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) suggestion that a partial government shutdown may be needed to restore fiscal sanity.
“What they don’t take into adequate consideration is that the private sector capitalism can’t survive, let alone flourish, without the federal government playing a robust role in supporting it,” Moran said. “I mean, it was World War II that rescued the world from the Great Depression. Imagine if we hadn’t made the investment in the G.I. bill and housing and educational benefits for — that created the middle class in America.”
“…We wouldn’t have had the internet if it hadn’t been for government research. We wouldn’t have satellite communication. We wouldn’t have the bar code.”
Moran said the government must work “in partnership with the private sector,” and you have to spend “about 20 percent of GDP in terms of government investment.”
“This decision that was just made on New Year’s Day, it’s going to limit government investment to substantially less than that,” he said.
Moran called the deal merely “a pyrrhic victory.”
“Many of us read Ayn Rand’s books, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and the virtue of selfishness, but we didn’t believe it. We didn’t take it to heart. That’s what this is all about. Taking care of yourself and the heck with anyone else. It’s not at — recognizing that we’re a national community,” he continued.
“We’re in this together. E. Pluribus Unum. That’s what works. Not the Ayn Rand’s virtue of selfishness, and not this narrow-minded mean-spirited attitude that so many people in the Republican majority in the House believe in today. It’s wrong, it’s misguided, and it’s going to take us in exactly the wrong direction from where we need to be going in the future.”
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