Cliff Stearns: “yesterday the Venezuelan president invoked Fidel Castro as the premier socialist model which, in his theory, is the…”

“yesterday the Venezuelan president invoked Fidel Castro as the premier socialist model which, in his theory, is the economic model for not only Venezuela but the entire world. Mr. Speaker, my observation about his speech is that it represents a defining illustration of the dichotomous philosophies of ownership and freedom that free markets versus state-owned markets present. For example, Chavez demonstrates this with his continued move to nationalize electrical and telecommunications companies. Here in Congress with the new majority, they are starting to hammer with this heavy hand of the Federal Government down on small businesses, pharmaceutical companies, energy companies, health insurance and telecommunications industries. I hope that we will carefully examine the consequences of these decisions before repeating the mistakes of socialism. State-owned enterprises are never the solution”