NPR Visits Rand Paul's Hometown and Finds Big Gov't Irony
"Lake Jackson, Texas, sprang from the shotgun wedding of industry and big government"
NPR has released an encore presentation of "Journey Home," a series on the hometowns of presidential contenders.
Click here to listen (it's about seven minutes long).
Interesting stuff, though heavy on the supposed irony that the libertarian-leaning senator and son of former Rep. Ron Paul grew up in a place that enforces tight land-use regs and was created by the government to help supply the war effort during World War II.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Rand Paul's hometown of Lake Jackson, Texas, sprang from the shotgun wedding of industry and big government that Paul and his family have long railed against. The city's curving streets, carefully laid out to preserve the live oak trees, are a stark contrast to the unregulated sprawl of Houston, 50 miles to the north.
ROBERT RULE: The city has kept a master plan. It is unusual city for that. It has been master-planned since the beginning. They're very strict about new properties.
HORSLEY: Robert Rule who runs the local historical association says Lake Jackson was hastily built near the Texas Gulf Coast to house workers at a Dow Chemical plant so they could produce the magnesium the military needed in World War II.
RULE: The U.S. government stepped in, and they made it happen….