Ken Dragotta, the owner of Systems Engineering and Automation Corporation, has been attacking President Obama here in Wisconsin on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and in his attacks Dragotta has asserted that he and his family are responsible for his company’s success, while denying any role the government may have played in his company’s success.
However, as Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported, Dragotta’s small business has most definitely benefited from the government, or more specifically government contracts.
Dragotta was one of a handful of company men deployed in Wisconsin by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s team to attack President Barack Obama over his recent remark that “if you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Someone else made it happen.” Similar events were held in other battleground states.
“(Obama) was touting the government’s involvement in creating wealth for small-business people, which is 180 degrees opposed to the fact,” Dragotta said last week.
But in his remarks to reporters, Dragotta never mentioned that his small Milwaukee firm had cashed in on a pair of government deals just recently.
Last year, records show, Systems Engineering – a north side firm that makes precision-machined parts – won two U.S. Department of Defense contracts worth more than $175,000.
Both contracts were to provide crankshafts for the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, which is responsible for repairing the country’s naval ships and submarines. The first contract was signed in January 2011 for $91,860, and the second a month later for $85,110.
That’s more than pocket change for a firm that employs just four workers.
Clearly government had nothing to do with the success of Kan Dragotta’s business!
I would say the success of the owner and the employees belongs to them for making a quality product the government wants to purchase, the government had nothing to do with that, this is the employees talents that make them successful.
He’s a Galtian Superman who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps and he’s just getting his money back!
Hypocrisy is a Republican hallmark.
Understatement of the century.
Romney should be called Mr. Cut and Splice. He has a knack of cherry picking quotes out of context and running ads with the lies. Watch the complete video on what Obama said about government and business. People need to wake up to the GOP lies.The MSM and Progressives need to call them out on these lies repeatedly…everyday…all day…until the dumbed down get it.
It’s funny what these people will come out and say publicly to dis Obama, knowing full well that their own businesses depend on government money to operate. Systems Engineering has taken $175,000 to speak of, money from the Pentagon. Scott Walker’s WEDC largely operates on giving away government money based on future promises. Walker’s campaign manager Michael Grebe, head of the Bradley Foundation, is a director of Oshkosh (Truck) Corporation, ranked #10 among federal Defense contractors, with 2009 contracts amounting to $6.39 billion. No wonder Cheney wanted perpetual war!