Story Of Obama

Obama’s Elizabeth Warren Moment
by Aaron Ross Powell

Our president’s channeling Elizabeth Warren. Speaking in Roanoke, Obama hit all her government’s-the-reason-we-have-nice things notes. “I’m going to reduce the deficit in a balanced way,” he said. “We’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts. We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more.”

Why should the wealthy–who already pay quite a lot, mind you–pay a little bit more?

Because [the wealthy] want to give something back. They know they didn’t–look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. … I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something–there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

About this, Obama’s right. Lots of very smart people aren’t rich. (I’ll assume that’s what the president means by “successful” and roll with it, while remaining totally aware that there are myriad ways to define “success” that don’t involve accumulated wealth.) Lots of hardworking people aren’t rich, either. Which means getting rich, while often involving both smarts and hard work, depends on other things, too. Such as background, family, networks, opportunities, and just plain luck.

Back to Obama:

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.

Again, true. Every successful person in this county benefited from the help of someone. None of us are capable of getting far at all entirely on our own.

The confusion for Obama and his fellow progressives comes in locating that “someone.” Because for Obama, “someone” isn’t friends, family, colleagues. It’s government.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

At some fundamental level, Obama simply doesn’t understand that “we” are not the state. For him, acting together simply is the same thing as legislating, regulating, and taxing. That’s why he can say with a straight face such inanities as his fire service line above. He appears unable to comprehend voluntary, cooperative, non-governmental coordination. The government doesn’t run bookstores, but we don’t each have our own Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com.

And while he’s right that there are some things we probably can’t do without government (or, at least, can’t do as efficiently without government), that class of activities is vanishingly small when compared to all the things Obama wants government to do–and wants you and me to pay for.

The argument against paying more taxes or creating more federal programs is not that we all should keep our money even if it means accomplishing nothing and having no nice things. Rather it’s that if we kept our money and had fewer federal programs, we’d accomplish more and have more nice things. Without the state stifling innovation, hindering entrepreneurs, wasting resources, and crowding out private action, we would get even more done together.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we haven’t each gained something from Obama’s welfare/warfare state. But the fact that we have doesn’t do much to support the president’s call for higher taxes. After all, even an abusive parent can give birthday presents.

There’s a certain class of argument that sounds utterly convincing to those already convinced–and entirely preposterous to those not. Obama’s remarks exemplify it. In order for his argument to get off the ground, Obama has to assume the truth of his conclusions. He asks us to believe that it is only through government that good things happen. He asks to us accept that we’d be helpless without Washington’s officiousness.

Obama wants us to think that we, as free citizens striving to better our own lives and our world, are incapable of the task.

The president hasn’t made an argument so much as he’s demonstrated a failure of the imagination–and a lack of faith in the American people.

 

I can't disagree with any of this. I won't be fast or easy to turn public education around, nor do I blame you for putting your children in a private school. I do strongly believe that with a sea change in educational philosophy it would be possible over a decade or so to correct the problems in or public schools. For practical reasons that would require accepting some mediocre teachers and administrators as overhead, with the idea of gradually reducing this to a small percent overall. You will never get rid of this kind of overhead completely in any large organization. The idea should be to keep it to a minimum. Can't blame you at all for not wanting to sacrifice your own children's education in the meantime. I'd do the same as you.

 

Oh, I think it is very much, indeed, what you said. Maybe you should re-read what you wrote, and think about the consequences of what you're recommending very, very carefully.

 

Business Community Fumes Over Obama ‘You Didn’t Build That’ Insult
by Patrick Hobin

President Barack Obama’s remarks in a Roanoke speech last week in which he tied the infrastructure of government to individual business success is drawing fire from business groups, who have joined Mitt Romney and conservatives in outrage over the remarks, Fox News reported.

In a speech to supporters in Roanoke, Va., on Friday, Obama said, “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.”

Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said the remarks "reflect just how unqualified he is to lead us to a real economic recovery.”

"They are also insulting to the hardworking entrepreneurs, small-business owners, and job creators who are the backbone of our economy," she said in an e-mail, Fox News reported.

The Heritage Foundation posted on its blog that the remarks were a “slap in the face to hard-working Americans and conveyed Obama’s belief that it takes a village — a heavily subsidized village — to create that venture you’re profiting from.”

David Chavern, chief operating officer of the Chamber of Commerce, said the business owners should not be denigrated but applauded.

"We should applaud the risk-takers and the dreamers who are willing to stand out from the crowd," Chavern said in a Chamber blog. "Rather than denigrate what these people have done, we need to encourage more people to be like them."

The National Federation of Independent Business said the president's "unfortunate remarks over the weekend show an utter lack of understanding and appreciation for the people who take a huge personal risk and work endless hours to start a business and create jobs," Fox News reported.

"I'm sure every small-business owner who took a second mortgage on their home, maxed out their credit cards or borrowed money from their own retirement savings to start their business disagrees strongly with President Obama's claim. They know that hard work does matter," the group said.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt defended the comment.

"As President Obama said, those who start businesses succeed because of their individual initiative — their drive, hard work, and creativity," LaBolt said in a statement, reported by Fox News. "But there are critical actions we must take to support businesses and encourage new ones — that means we need the best infrastructure, a good education system, and affordable, domestic sources of clean energy. Those are investments we make not as individuals, but as Americans, and our nation as a whole benefits from them."

 

Actually, that is true.

 

It depends on whether his "that" refers to the business you have or to the roads you use to get to your business. One can read it both ways. The more correct way is to connect the "that" to the last noun he used, and that was "business". And that's a terrible insult to those, like myself, who created businesses and worked tirelessly to make them successful.

Even more to the point, Obama's tone is wrong here: the man just doesn't show respect for the private sector and/or the successful businesspeople who are the economic engine of this country. That's because he doesn't like them, not nearly as much as he likes bureaucrats and academicians. Worse, he's plain clueless about business and the economy in general. The results have been dismal. Too bad.

 

It depends on whether one see the edited tape on Fox News or the whole thing.

 

Maybe reread what you yourself posted. He referred explicitly to infrastructure. That's the part I quoted.

 

It depends on whether his "that" refers to the business you have or to the roads you use to get to your business. One can read it both ways. The more correct way is to connect the "that" to the last noun he used, and that was "business". And that's a terrible insult to those, like myself, who created businesses and worked tirelessly to make them successful.

Even more to the point, Obama's tone is wrong here: the man just doesn't show respect for the private sector and/or the successful businesspeople who are the economic engine of this country. That's because he doesn't like them, not nearly as much as he likes bureaucrats and academicians. Worse, he's plain clueless about business and the economy in general. The results have been dismal. Too bad.

 

Let's look at some other sources. For example, here's the relevant text as posted on the liberal rag "Think Progress"

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012...to-claim-he-hates-small-businesses/?mobile=nc

"...conservatives have seized on new fodder for the narrative that Obama is secretly out to destroy small businesses. Fox and Friends on Monday morning aired a clip from an Obama campaign speech in Roanoke, Virginia, in which he says, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else did that...”"

The same key sentence discussed on Fox News:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ver-remarks-about-government-role-in-success/

"..."If you've got a business, you didn't build that," Obama said. "Somebody else made that happen."

It's pretty clear to me and millions of others that the man is saying that if you have built a business you are not its real creator but someone else is (presumably the government or whatever else a hard core liberal would say...)

We can argue till the cows come home that he didn't mean this or that or the other thing, that he's being misunderstood, he hesitated, there was a pause... Yeah, right. We know this guy by now, he's a clueless, incompetent, government-is-the-answer-to- everything socialist or worse, who's out to change/reconfigure the country to his liking a la "spread the wealth around..." with Joe the plumber, etc etc