DRAFT2: Business History of RNC’s “We Built This!” night speaker Demolishes “We Built This!” night premise
It is easy to see why Delawarean Sher Valenzeula was asked to speak on the RNC’s “We Built This” theme night in Tampa. She is a successful latina small business person who built her business all alone without any government support whatsoever. Her story is a real rebuke to President Obama’s take on capitalism.
Or… her story would be a rebuke to the President If she built her business “all alone without any government help whatsoever.” In fact, she built her business with millions in SBA loans, economic development incentives, ARRA stimulus money, a steady stream of millions of dollars worth of no bid government contracts and progressive policies that give a leg up to women and minority owned businesses. If Sher Valenzeula’s business history rebukes anything, it rebukes the entire theme of the Republican convention’s small business theme night.
On Tuesday night, one of the RNC’s featured speakers will either have to expicitly thank Delawarean and American taxpayers for her success, or she will be lying her ass off. For her speech to make any sense and for her business to be considered a great example of the RNC’s “we built this” theme, the media covering the event will need to utterly ignore all of the millions of dollar taxpayer dollars Valenzeula has leveraged over the years.
On paper she looks good…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.
The only hitch is, she built her entire business on a foundation of taxpayer funded grants, subsidies and loan programs. Here is a list of what First State Manufacturing has received:
*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) loan
Without the government getting her business off the ground, it is not clear she would be where she is today. But that is just the beginning. Sher jumped on the real tax money gravy train when she started taking down huge no bid contracts. All told she collected, $30 million in government contracts over 11 years, nearly 70% of which were awarded without competition.
These are the First State Manufacturing Government Contracts 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
One final bit of irony, when she rails about Barack Obama and “the government” interfering with small businesses, she will be doing so knowing that she grabbed ARRA stimulus money when it was available… $301,000 worth of ARRA stimulus money to be exact.
Finally, she is a success story, and the government support she had is one reason why the government made her the SBA person of the year, but her success is the success that comes with our ability to collectively support entrepreneurial drive for the betterment of society. Her story doesn’t illustrate the mythological rugged individualism that the GOP will pretend that it does. It actually illustrates the purpose of government: enabling persons to live in civilization.
If she goes off on a typical Republican rant about the evils of government, and we have any remnant of an objective media left in this country, this speech should really blow up in the RNC’s face. When she tries to claim private success and deny her abundant public support, everyone should end up wondering who the hell vetted Sher Valenzeula to speak?
Great quotes here on FSM’s own news page.
Don’t Republicans HATE that sort of thing? Aren’t Republicans searching desperately for proof Obama received some college preferences based on minority status?
Also look at the image of the dead-tree paper the 2006 article is in. The FSM article is titled “Get federal dollars by being a minority-owned business” while above the fold is another article titled “Uncertain road ahead for ‘GM Gypsies.'” Oy – the mind reels.
Relax, jason, senior dKos blogger Meteor Blades beat us to it:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/24/1123698/-RNC-speaker-s-business-experience-blows-holes-in-party-s-We-built-it-theme
Good title too.
Here’s another story… looks like other bloggers are on the same track:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/08/23/how-she-built-it-foxs-rnc-theme-undercut-by-key/189537
It can never hurt to pile on though, especially from our local point of view, even if it’s only to bump up the Blades article on Sher’s big day.
Sher needing to use government loans and subsidies proves that government has destroyed the true free market and we are stuck halfway between a controlled economy. You must do what you need to survive and if it wasn’t for your policies small business would not need to go to the government to start a business. You conveniently skipped over that premise.
The true free market is “Nature red in tooth and claw.”
we are stuck halfway between a controlled economy
That zone we are stuck in is called “civilization.”
There’s no such thing as a “true free market.” If you think there is, you don’t have the requisite knowledge to even enter the debate.
The help she got from government is available to anyone who wants to start a business and qualifies for the programs. I thought that’s what you folks are always calling for — government to help private industry create jobs.
As with most conservatives, the main stumbling block to your understanding is your own ignorance.
Your economic policy has been tried throughout history and failed. Some other names it went by: fascism, feudalism, communism. That is the civilization your policy will bring us to. Failed.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Try again after you’ve completed 10th grade.
@geezer: there is a such thing as a true free market. I would enjoy demonstrating how much more versed I am on economics.
Republican and conservative are two different things, of which I am neither.
When all else fails insult the messenger. That’s very 10th grade of you Geezer.
” I would enjoy demonstrating how much more versed I am on economics.”
Okay. Which superpower has ever gotten stronger by removing already-low tax obligations on the rich, while cutting services to its citizens?
You can start your demonstration any time now.
@puck: I couldn’t because that is also a failed policy. However government doesn’t need to provide many of the services it does. Why are we assuming we should even increase taxes? I agree with you on the tax burden issue just not where the money goes.
Anyone who thinks feudalism, communism and fascism are the same economic policy doesn’t even know how much he doesn’t know.
There is no profit or sense in “debating” a clown. If you think that’s shooting the messenger, consider yourself shot.
“Your economic policy has been tried throughout history and failed.”
I don’t consider the broadly shared prosperity and balanced budget of the 1990s a failure. If Obama is at fault today it’s because he didn’t learn from those policies and chose to implement Republican policies instead. Lately though he’s sounding like he has learned from his mistakes, so maybe in his next administration he’ll actually fight for the policies he campaigned on.
Indeed, it would profit us all if our 10th grader could identify the moment when this country participated in a “free market,” and at which point the wealthiest nation in the history of Earth went off the rails — and what “going off the rails” means when that nation, despite its deteriorating condition and decades of regulations promulgated by a government that he despises, remains the wealthiest in history.
Its worth pointing out that Sher has/had a choice in seeking out gov’t contracts. She was not forced. It was a business decision. There are plenty of successful business’ out there that operate without gov’t contracts.
Judging by some of her quotes gushing about the ease of gov’t contracts, she seems perfectly happy with seeking gov’t money. Unless her interviews were really brainwashed hostage videos.
When it comes to “I built that” she is a terrible example. Compared to her, I am Galt. Self employed. No stimulus money. No gov’t contracts. No town paying my utility bills. Even after factoring in my attending public schools and using the GI Bill to help pay for State college, I am still more “I built that” than her.
Johnathan Starky’s News Journal take on this is crap. I’m not surprised that the NJ gives Sher the kid glove treatment, but to have this whole story teed up and just walk away with the “nothing to see here folks” quote and leave it at that…? That’s not journalism. starkey needs to find a new profession.
What would you expect from Starkly Stupid Starkey? He is in the tank for the R’s. Sher built that ok. She built a system milking machine. She borrows from it and she sells to it. She has more government contracts than the pentagon, well almost 😉
Really, this shows that you guys have no clue about business or the Republican party positions. Getting a government contract is selling a product in the market place. It is not some giveaway. Republicans, as a whole support minority advancement.
Look at this and you will learn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jozoBqL-eMM
Most Republicans are not anti-government, they are pro individual.
From the NJ article, it’s clear that Sher Valenzuela is not a Latina. She’s of Slavic descent and married a Latino in Texas. Since her husband is a business partner, the minority-owned business perks are legit, but, Jason, I think you need to change the second sentence from this:
She is a successful latina small business person who built her business all alone . . .
to something like this:
She is a successful small business person who, in partnership with her Latino husband, built a business from scratch
And speaking of her husband, where is he in all this? He’s apparently the one with the upholstering skills and talent that the business is based on.
Also, you’ve spelled her surname wrong.
Doofus David, Starkly stupid Starkkey illusates it unintentionally well. She didn’t build it, she used questionable minority status And her greatest skill is manipulating the system.
I think you could also mention this from the NJ:
“She says she’s against big government intervention and throwing millions at big businesses that promise to create jobs, rather than small businesses that have proven their success.”
(last column, 5th para)
Sounds like a challenge to the R tax plan to extend tax breaks for big business because these big companies need those millions thrown at them as incentive to create jobs.
Maybe since this story has been scooped, you could go with:
Sher Valenzuela Challenges Republican Party on Tax Breaks for Big Business
Ill put my job creation CV up against David’s any day of the week. he typically has more sense that to try that weak shit here.
Hishamic: Pretending to be Latino for business purposes.
Actually he doesn’t. Mostly what he contributes *is* pretty weak shit. But here’s the thing that the “marketplace” people don’t want you to understand — the business of government set-asides, whether for small businesses, women-owned businesses, minority-owned businesses, service-disabled veteran owned businesses and so on isn’t all that different than the tax-breaks, loan guarantees and other subsidies given to large businesses. Each and every one of them is about providing a business a leg up and distorts the free market. For smaller businesses, some of the preferences include sole-source contracts ( NO competition, not even on price) or rebates to prime contractors who employ these firms or even legislated preferences designed to make these firms more competitive. And — it chooses winners and losers — remember that one?
Frankly, I don’t much mind some of these programs for smaller businesses to get them started. And some, like the 8(a) program have a time limit for participation. What I do mind are members of the so-called Party of Business coming over here to demonstrate that he has no bloody clue about how businesses actually work.
And if Sher Valenzuela is campaigning in ending tax breaks for big business, then I’m all in. But I’d bet that is not what she’s after — she is just looking at expanding the trough so that smaller businesses can get more transfer of taxpayer dollars.
The “party of personal responsibility” seems wholly reluctant to practice any. If you think gay marriage is wrong, don’t gay marry anyone.If you think government shouldn’t be handing out taxpayer money, don’t build your business with it. If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one. If you’re proud of your country, don’t hide your money in another one, and take your chances in the draft. The difference between Romney’s Vietnam status and those of the guys who fled to Canada is a stick up his ass and a wardrobe full of expensive loafers.
I have no patience for these people.
How about:
“Cher, You DIDN’T Build That!”
for a title. awesome youtube video, btw, totally convinced.
@geezer: feudalism, fascism, and communism all fall under the umbrella of collectivism. If you deny that, you do not know what collectivism is or the concept of what a collective state looks like.
I would argue that our country was a free market pre Progressive Era. It is difficult to categorize the last 100 years since industry has dramatically changed the economy and culture. That would be like comparing healthcare today to the health care in 1910.
After reading some of your posts I see a lot of hostility. Maybe you could listen to some audiobooks while you’re at the gym. You can educate yourself and get rid of your hostility at the same time.
The gov’t intervened in the “free market” of slavery pretty early on in our history.
The 1st and 2nd Banks of the United States got their hands in monetary policy and credit markets.
You might want to try again.
Our Republic, being a democracy (“all men are created equal…”), is by definition collectivist.
You might want to add that corporatism falls under collectivism as well.
And unless you were a white male property owner, things weren’t all that great, or free, in the pre-progressive era.
“feudalism, fascism, and communism all fall under the umbrella of collectivism.”
Wow. Talk about a big tent. Everything but unbridled individualism is the same to you?
Humans are social animals, and the scientific literature backing that up is voluminous. Your Randian fantasies aside, collectivism is the natural condition of humans. No system dispenses with it entirely, nor should any system do so.
Write again once you arrive in the real world.
The current version of corporatism also counts as collectivism — no one on Wall Street does their work without help, manufacturing is certainly a collective bit of business and I don’t know the last time anyone built a 50 story skyscraper on his own. Those Stoltz people didn’t get all of their zoning wishes by just showing up and charmingly convincing the neighbors of the brilliance of their plans.
This parody First State Manufacturing web site is hilarious.
Check out “The Take”
Broken link:( don’t tease:)
Whoops, sorry Jason, I posted this as its own post…..