Mitt Romney said Henry Ford didn't need the government to build roads !?

[JDPriestly]

22. Sorry Mitt.

It's worse than that.

During the period from 1936 to 1950, National City Lines and Pacific City Lines—with investment from GM, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Trucks, and the Federal Engineering Corporation—bought over 100 electric surface-traction systems in 45 cities including Baltimore, Newark, Los Angeles, New York City, Oakland and San Diego and converted them into bus operation.

In 1946, Edwin J. Quinby, a retired naval lieutenant commander, alerted transportation officials across the country to what he called "a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilities—your Electric Railway System". GM and other companies were subsequently convicted in 1949 of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products via a complex network of linked holding companies including National City Lines and Pacific City Lines. They were also indicted, but acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies.

By the time of the 1973 oil crisis, controversial new testimony was presented to a United States Senate inquiry into the causes of the decline of streetcar systems in the U.S. This alleged that there was a wider conspiracy—by GM in particular—to destroy effective public transport systems in order to increase sales of automobiles and that this was implemented with great effect to the detriment of many cities.

Only a small handful of U.S. cities have surviving effective rail-based urban transport systems based on streetcar or trams, including Newark, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Boston. There is now general agreement that GM and other companies were indeed actively involved in a largely unpublicized program to purchase many streetcar systems and convert them to buses, which they supplied. There is also acknowledgment that the Great Depression, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, labor unrest, market forces, rapidly increasing traffic congestion, taxation policies that favored private vehicle ownership, urban sprawl, and general enthusiasm for the automobile played a role. One author recently summed the situation up stating "Clearly, GM waged a war on electric traction. It was indeed an all out assault, but by no means the single reason for the failure of rapid transit. Also, it is just as clear that actions and inactions by government contributed significantly to the elimination of electric traction."[n 1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

Historic areas of LA still have the steps built into the hillsides that were built for streetcar riders so that they could get from their houses in the hills to the trolley tracks on the streets below. As a fan of public transportation, I am so envious of earlier generations that could enjoy the hustle and bustle of the streetcars. No noisier than the nearby freeway, I am sure.

Actually, it was a combined effort by the government and the auto companies that destroyed our transportation infrastructure and led to dependency on foreign oil and excessive damage to our environment. The government, especially under the Eisenhower administration, was an ally of big business in all of this.

Remember the slogan, "What's good for General Motors is good for the USA." We heard that a lot when I was a child. So Romney is very wrong, very wrong on this point. Way off on his history.