Shar Valenzuela to headline “WE BUILT THIS!” night at RNC with… “I built it with government money!”
It is easy to see why Shar has been asked to HEADLINE “We Built This” night in Tampa. She is a woman, latino, and a successful small business person who built her business all alone without any government support whatsoever. A THREE-fer!!! (If only she was wheelchair bound, and/or jewish!!)
…designated the Tuesday evening session “We Built This!” The session is meant as a rebuke to Obama’s “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen” speech.
Among the featured speakers will be Sher Valenzeula, candidate for lieutenant governor of Delaware, and a small businesswoman who, along with her husband, “started an upholstery business that makes padding for baseball umpires and military vests worn by members of the Israeli military,” according to a Fox News report.
Only she built her entire business on government grants and subsidies. I hope that side of the story gets out. To that end, I’ll be trying to put up a post on dkos that has a little punch.
If anyone can add to this commenters list of Shar’s takings from the eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil government, I’d be much oblidged.
Here is a list of what FSM has reveived. I did not include Federal contracts and their amounts. I can look that up if there is enough interest.
*Federal $650,000 Small Business Administration (SBA) 504 loan.
*Federally funded Service Corp of Retired Executives (SCORE)
*Federal and Delaware funded Small Business Technology and Development Center
*Federal $20,000 Express loan
*U.S. DoD and the Delaware Economic Development Office funded Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC)
*$96,500 SBA backed 7(a) loanGranted these are government programs/services that are specifically designed to support small business, but under anyone’s small government concept, they would have not been available to her.
…without the government give her a hand up, it is not clear she would be where she is today. We’ll have to see what the messages coming from her campaign and how the align with the support she has received.
It would be awesome if Delaware could help “we built it” night blow up in the GOP’s face.
First State Manufacturing Statistics
Amount Obligated by the Federal Government $15,175,502.75
Total Value of All Contracts $30,016,836.27
Number of Contracts 147
Number of Contracts Awarded Without Competition 102
Percent Awarded Without Competition 69%
Inclusive dates (from) 6/15/2001
Inclusive dates (through) 5/18/2012
Source: USASpending.gov
I also heard a rumor that the city of Milford pays, or has paid for in the past, the electric bill for her shop.
There’s more documentation of the government supports Sher gets in this thread here.
She took $301,000 in ARRA stimulus money.
http://projects.propublica.org/recovery/locale/delaware/sussex
The City of Milford also pays her utility bills.
Do you have a link for the utility bills?
I think someone would have to examine/search the Milford city council minutes to find such a link. There is additional interesting items from the Milford Economic Development Committee meeting. They were looking at solar (taking advantage of SREC credits (green energy programs), etc. (All of which any smart businessperson could, would, and should do – and be grateful to the taxpayers and the government(s) for that support.)
Here is a link that describes some of the support/programs that FSM and Milford were looking at in regards to Business and Energy Incentives from USDA, DEDO and the Delaware Energy Office: http://www.cityofmilford.com/archives/43/00-PACKET%20021411%20-9Final%20USE.pdf
And Delaware featured prominently in the Gawker release of Bain Capital records.
*sigh*
I would really appreciate it if we weren’t the ‘go-to’ location for photogenic nutjobs