History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry.
I'd have to wonder who the "he" is that is referred to. It was not the Federal government. Authorized by the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 during the American Civil War, and supported by U.S. government bonds and extensive land grants of government owned land, it was built by private companies. The expansion of the railroads was accomplished also by British railroad speculators and a land bribe, giving a section (one square mile) of land along each mile of railroad bed right-of-way. It cost taxpayers nothing, and created hundreds of thousands of jobs and planted the seeds of the great catalog retailers, Sears Roebuck and Co. and J.C. Penney. Settlement followed the railroad as new towns were founded to supply the routes. If Obama is suggesting that the great railroad expansion was a Federal program then he is patently wrong.
He also misstated the schools:
"From the turmoil of the industrial revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age."
Wrong again, public education was not championed by the Federal government. Public schools were local efforts by local citizens out of a civic duty.
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