Ronald Reagan was wrong! GE Fired Him

Everywhere we turn the Republican cry is, "Government is Bad".
Get the government out of killing jobs, cut government, down with government. Less Government, we need less government, say our fellow American citizens in the Tea Party Movement. These down with government folks are in control of the Republican Party. Not one of our elected Republican officials will stand up and tell them, that Government that I am elected to serve is yours. It is there to promote the general welfare of the country, serve our people and ensure the freedom we have fought to enjoy since the founding of our United States of America.

Government furnishes strength, fairness, opportunity, and protection. A shield in a dangerous world, protection here at home, enforced rules to guide us in going about the communities in which we live. Several years ago former President Ronald Reagan turned from making movies to a regular host on a program sponsored by General Electic.

In 1962 GE fired Ronald Reagan and set him on a course to be elected President of our country. Ronald Reagan made a statement calling the Tennessee Valley Authority an example of "big government". He went on to critize the operations as wasteful and a costly government program without merit.

Ronald Reagan was right, the Tennessee Valley Authority was indeed a government program established in 1933 under the New Deal of the Roosevelt
Democratic Administration. No private business was going to provide for navigation, flood control, electricity generation, transmission lines, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development for that region of the United States. Included in receiving the benefits of that huge government undertaking were the people of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and small portions of Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

The government made jobs with the building of dams providing hydroelectric power, electric power transmission lines, economic stimulus and helping farmers get their wornout land back into production of agricultual commodities. The revival of agriculture bringing profits back to the poor farmers of that area was a miracle in itself.

Low cost electricity with the power producing facilities drew industries to the region producing desperately needed jobs, payrolls, hope during the great depression all with the resources of the federal government. Government was none to soon, as the massive government projects were coming online the great war was coming on and as it turned out America needed aluminum, to build planes and instuments of war.

The electricity provided Alcoa (a private company) the huge amounts needed for aluminum enrichment. This provided the needed aluminum so our government could protect us and ensure our freedom.

How did this play into the election of Ronald Reagan President of the United States? In 1962 Reagan critized TVA as a wasteful government enterprise and as a result GE fired him from his television program GE sponsored. TVA just happened to be a big customer of expensive GE made turbines for electric power generation. Ouch, you bit the hand that fed the hand that fed you.

The same political fame that President Barack Obama enjoyed after addressing the Democrat National Convention Ronald Reagan attained when he addressed the Reublican National Convention that nominated Barry Goldwater. Ronald Reagon was a smashing hit with his convention attack on "big government", the conservative Republicans in control of that convention made a new political hero.

Two years later in 1966 Ronald Reagan the movie star, tv host, was elected Governor of California. Barry Goldwater lost the election but the Republican party had a new hero.