Last week, President "out-of-touch" Obama made a campaign stop in Roanoke, VA, and promptly smacked down over 230 years of America's entrepreneurial spirit. He told the crowd that anyone that had a business hadn’t built it, that someone else had.
No really. He said that.
Here’s an excerpt from his speech:
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
I think I understand what he’s trying to get at -- that without infrastructure or a marketplace, business doesn’t happen. At the same time, CalTrans didn’t build any stores in California where products are shipped using public roadways. I sure as heck didn’t build Apple by buying an iPhone. These analogies don’t make any sense.
Yuval Levin at National Review Online points out, “The president clearly thinks that some people do disagree with his more general point that everyone depends on society.”
Business, like anything else, can’t exist in a vacuum. Of course it depends on society, because society is people, and corporations are made up of people, to serve people. Business brings people together that might not have anything to do with each other otherwise.
Stores sell products that they purchase from suppliers. The suppliers didn’t build the store, the storeowner did. Perhaps investors backed him -- they didn’t build the store either. They saw a man with an idea and a plan and decided to take a chance on him. The store would fail without customers to purchase the wares, but the customers didn’t build the store.
A person that took a risk, worked his hiney off, made difficult decisions every day, and hopefully started to turn a profit after pouring his life savings into a dream built the store. Not somebody else. Not the government.
Barack Obama seems to not only have no clue how business works, but no clue what his opponents even believe. His lack of perception to how Republicans view society, government, and the free market is astounding and not a little bit scary. No wonder the economy still sucks -- our chief executive is clueless.
Image via Muhammad/Flickr
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Comments 25
Obama is absolutely correct. This is like it takes a village to build a child. Business is a cooperative effort. Take that loan from the bank to get started; roads to access the business; railroads to ship goods; the list is endless. Cooperation is what America is all about. This concept has been around almost forever. Without the bank, the state roads system; the railroads; the newspaper to give free advertising; etc. etc. etc. the business would not exist. America and Americans are the best and we need to continue helping each other; practicing cooperation to make more businesses successful.
My dad runs a small business and Obama's comment pisses me off. When I was a child, my dad worked 80 hours a week, busting his butt to be successful. No one else built that business for him. He worked the hours. He made the sacrifices. He sacrificed time with his family to get his business off the ground.
I think the language he used was wrong. Think about who "builds" a house...is it the construction workers( business owners) working hard, laying concrete and building walls, or the contractor (government) that designed the house? Or the bank (economy) that gave the homeowners the loan to buy the equipment to build the house? Or the owners (consumers) who needs the home for their use? Building a business does have many people involved...but the person who goes through the work, heartache, headaches and triumphs of starting their own businesses is the one who built it-- Mr. President is trying to give credit where credit IS NOT due. I shopped at Target yesterday, but they were a well-established store before I walked in there. I didn't help build a thing. I support their profits now. I agree, this man is out of touch and is trying to plant the seed of socialism.
How effing dare you, Brenda.Babjak or 0bama, tell us that the family business we built is the result of other people? That the sacrifrices, the risks taken by my family are the products of others'?
That is evil. You like that sh!t, move to N Korea, dumb @ss.
If many more people catch wind of this, he is going to kiss his re-election goodbye.
Hey, works for me! But dumbass move Mr. Obama.
@Brenda Babjak-You made it very obvious your aren't qualified to comment on this when you wrote:the newspaper to give free advertising. Newspaper's don't give free advertising, that's how they make their money. My boyfriend and I own our own business, my father owns his own business, my brother owns his own business, and one of my closest friends owns their own business. Only one of these people I listed owes the government thanks for their success since their business depends on money coming directly from the government. The rest of us are still in business despite what the government does not because of it. Small business owner's put a lot of money back into the community, and what Obama said was wrong. It shows how little he understands about American small business. Are there business's that depend on the government to stay in business? Yes, but they are in the minority.