The Republicans featured a series of business owners who spoke at the convention yesterday as part of the "we built this" theme, ostensibly relating the notion that the government didn't help businesses form and prosper -- a notion that's wildly off base.
But this is utterly baffling. A man who runs a sign-making company spoke yesterday and inexplicably lamented the fact that President Obama made it more difficult for him... to receive government funding for his business.
"For the last 40 years, my company has built the road signs on the Forest Service road system," Archuletta explained in his prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention. "In fact, in 1984, I was fortunate to receive the national award from President Reagan for being the most successful minority business in the United States. In 2004, President Bush made it possible for our company to manufacture signs for all federal agencies."
According to a website that tracks government contracts, P&M Signs has received $18,252 in federal contracts from 2000 to 2011.
The problem, according to Archuletta, isn't that he's getting money from Uncle Sam -- it's that he isn't getting more.
"When President Obama came on board and pushed the stimulus, I believed my business was going to explode with work," he told the Tampa crowd. "Unfortunately, it never happened. The Democratic Congress and the Obama administration created a new procurement process that harmed existing small-business contracts, which devastated my business."
Huh-what? Um. Seriously, what?!