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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Hilarious twist on "You didn't build that!" UPDATED

The Atlantic Wire (via @NoBigGovDuh) has a great story on the dishonesty of Mitt Romney's "You didn't build that" ads. It turns out that at the Republican convention on Tuesday night, they plan to ramp it up again with a speech by a small business owner from Delaware, Sher Valenzuela, telling everyone how she did build it, not government.

Only one small problem. Actually, two.

First, Valenzuela's business, First State Manufacturing, "received more than $2 million in federal loans and more than $15 million in federal contracts over the years," according to the article. This included Small Business Administration money very early on, as well as federal disaster relief loans after 9/11 and loans from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. So, beyond the fact that she obviously didn't build the roads and bridges and other infrastructure--which the President was actually referring to in his speech Romney has so grossly twisted in his ads--she benefited mightily from more direct government aid. Even a month ago, we knew that lots of companies Romney promoted with this tagline actually had gotten direct government support, too.

Second, a fast-thinking Redditor figured out that Valenzuela had not claimed www.firststatemanufacturing.com for her website, and constructed his own parody of her there (h/t @NoBigGovDuh and Atlantic Wire). On the landing page we see Valenzuela displayed next to the words:



This refers to the company's designation by Delaware in 2000 as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. As the "About" page concludes,
First State Manufacturing is proud of our heritage, and thankful for the help that government has given us along the way. Not to mention the current help government provides! We believe that to say otherwise would be ungrateful, hypocritical, and unpatriotic.
  We'll see on Tuesday night.

(For the humor-challenged out there, remember, this is not her site and not her words. It's a parody.)

UPDATE: Here is something from Valenzuela's own website: "Get federal dollars by being a minority-owned business." Hypocrisy, anyone?